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Oliver Twist

By CHARLES DICKENS Condensation by REV. HOWARD LAFIELD OLIVER TWIST was born about seventy-five miles from London, in the lying-in room of the almshouse. His mother, worn and exhausted from a long and painful journey on foot, had been found unconscious in the road, and had been carried to the only place of refuge for such as she seemed to be. His name he owed to the inventive genius of the parish beadle, who remarked, "The last one was a s'--Swubble I named him, the next one as comes will be Unwin, and I've got names ready made to the end of the alphabet, and all the way through it again, when we come to z'."

The wronged and unhappy mother died without revealing her name, and the only proofs of the boy's identity, a locket and ring, kept even at the price of starvation, were stolen from the corpse before it was cold by the old crone who had been in attendance.

The orphan's childhood, passed in cruel neglect and semi-starvation, was brought to an abrupt close by his own unparalleled act. Desperate through hunger, he and his companions determine that some of them shall secure for all an extra helping of the thin and watery gruel which is their principal diet. The lot falls upon Oliver. Nine-year-old child though he was, he was "reckless with misery." He rose from the table, and, advancing to the workhouse-master, basin and spoon in hand, he said, "Please, sir, I want some more!" Such unheard-of daring receives speedy treatment. The next morning a bill, posted upon the gate, offers five pounds to any one who will take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish.

Then there follows a brief stay as the apprentice of a coffin-maker and undertaker, who, with an eye to the effect, promptly makes of the sad-faced little waif a chief mourner at the funerals of children, and "many were the processions which little Oliver headed, in a hatband reaching down to his knees, to the admiration of all the mothers in the town." His master is, on the whole, well disposed toward him, but a fight with a bullying older apprentice brings him into unmerited disgrace and punishment and he runs away.