3 Oliver Twist - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in the 19th Century, tells the story of an orphan boy and his adventures in London's slums. Oliver is captured by, and forced to work among, pickpockets and thieves until redeemed by a gentleman who has taken an interest in him.

In this episode, Oliver's punishment in the workhouse is indistinguishable from the punishment he would receive in prison. This lays bare the truth of the workhouse: that it is, essentially, a jail for the poor, who are treated, by the state, like criminals, simply for being poor.

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

But before we begin,

Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

That's it.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 2 continued.

Blessing,

Interposed Mrs.

Mann,

Inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron.

And notwithstanding an offered reward of £10,

Which was afterwards increased to £20,

Notwithstanding the most superlative and may I say supernatural exertions on the part of this parish,

Said Bumble,

We have never been able to discover who is his father or what was his mother's settlement,

Name or condition.

Mrs.

Mann raised her hands in astonishment,

But added after a moment's reflection,

How come's he to have any name at all then?

The beadle drew himself up with great pride and said,

I invented it.

You,

Mr.

Bumble?

I,

Mrs.

Mann.

We name our fondlings in alphabetical order.

The last was an S,

Swabble,

I named him.

This was a T,

Twist,

I named him.

The next one that comes will be Unwin and the next Vilkins.

I got names ready made to the end of the alphabet and all the way through it again when we come to Z.

Why,

You're quite a literary character,

Sir,

Said Mrs.

Mann.

Well,

Well,

Said the beadle,

Evidently gratified with a compliment.

Perhaps I may be,

Perhaps I may be,

Mrs.

Mann.

He finished the gin and water and added,

Oliver being now too old to remain here,

The board have determined to have him back into the house.

I have come out myself to take him there,

So let me see him at once.

I'll fetch him directly,

Said Mrs.

Mann,

Leaving the room for that purpose.

Oliver,

Having had by this time as much of the outer coat of dirt,

Which encrusted his face and hands,

Removed,

As could be scrubbed off in one washing,

Was led into the room.

Make a bow to the gentleman,

Oliver,

Said Mrs.

Mann.

Oliver made a bow,

Which was divided between the beadle on the chair and the cocked hat on the table.

Will you go along with me,

Oliver,

Said Mr.

Bumble in a majestic voice.

Oliver was about to say he would go along with me,

He was about to say he would go along with anybody with great readiness,

When glancing upward he caught sight of Mrs.

Mann,

Who'd gone behind the beadle's chair and was shaking her fist at him with a furious countenance.

He took the hint at once,

For the fist had been too often impressed upon his body,

Not to be deeply impressed upon his recollection.

Will she go with me,

Inquired poor Oliver.

No,

She can't,

Replied Mr.

Bumble,

But she'll come and see you sometimes.

This was no very great consolation to the child.

Young as he was,

However,

He had sense enough to make a fainter feeling great regret at going away.

It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears to his eyes.

Hunger and recent ill usage are great assistance if you want to cry,

And Oliver cried very naturally indeed.

Mrs.

Mann gave him a thousand embraces,

And what Oliver wanted a great deal more,

A piece of bread and butter,

Lest he should seem too hungry when he got to the workhouse.

With a slice of bread in his hand and the little brown cloth parish cap on his head,

Oliver was then led away by Mr.

Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never lighted the gloom of his infant years,

And yet burst into an agony of childish grief as the cottage gate closed after him.

Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind,

They were the only friends he'd ever known,

And a sense of his loneliness in the great white world sank into the child's heart for the first time.

Mr.

Bumble walked on with long strides,

Little Oliver firmly grasping his gold-laced cuff trotted beside him,

Inquiring at the end of every quarter of a mile whether they were nearly there.

To these interrogations Mr.

Bumble returned very brief and snappish replies for the temporary blandness which gin and water awakes in some bosoms had by this time evaporated and he was once again a beadle.

Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an hour and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread when Mr.

Bumble who'd handed him over to the care of an old woman returned and telling him it was a board night informed him the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith.

Not having a very clear defined notion of what a live board was Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry.

He had no time to think about the matter however for Mr.

Bumble gave him a tap on the head with his cane to wake him up and another on the back to make him lively and bidding him to follow conducted him into a large whitewashed room where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table.

At the top of the table seated in an armchair rather higher than the rest was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round red face.

Bow to the board said Bumble.

Oliver brushed away two or three tears lingering in his eyes and seeing no board but the table fortunately bowed to that.

What's your name boy?

Said the gentleman in the high chair.

Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen which made him tremble and the beadle gave him another tap behind which made him cry.

These two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool which was a capital way of raising his spirits and putting him quite at his ease.

Boy said the gentleman in the high chair.

Listen to me.

You know you're an orphan I suppose.

What's that sir?

Inquired poor Oliver.

The boy is a fool.

I thought he was said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

Hush said the gentleman who had spoken first.

You know you've got no father or mother and you were brought up by the parish don't you?

Yes sir replied Oliver weeping bitterly.

What are you crying for?

Inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat and to be sure it was very extraordinary.

What could the boy be crying for?

I hope you say your prayers every night said another gentleman in a gruff voice and pray for the people who feed you and take care of you like a good Christian.

Yes sir stammered the boy.

The gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right.

It would have been very like a Christian and a marvelously good Christian too if Oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of him but he hadn't because nobody had taught him.

Well you've come here to be educated and taught a useful trade said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.

You'll begin to pick oakum tomorrow morning at six o'clock added the surly one in the white waistcoat.

For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process of picking oakum Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle and was then hurried away to a large ward where on a rough hard bed he sobbed himself to sleep.

What a novel illustration of the tender laws of England.

They let the paupers go to sleep.

Poor Oliver.

He little thought as he lay sleeping in happy unconsciousness of all around him that the board had that very day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence over all his future fortunes.

But they had and this was it.

The members of this board were very sage deep philosophical men and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse they found out at once what ordinary folks would never have discovered.

The poor people liked it.

It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes.

A tavern where there was nothing to pay.

A public breakfast.

Dinner,

Tea and supper all year round.

A brick and mortar Elysium where all play and no work continued.

A home said the board looking very knowing.

We are the fellows who set this to rights.

We'll stop it all in no time.

So they established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative of being starved by a gradual process in the house or by a quick one out of it.

With this view they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water and with a corn factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal and issued three meals of thin gruel a day within an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays.

They made a great many other wise and humane regulations having reference to the ladies which it is not necessary to repeat.

They kindly undertook to divorce poor married people in consequence of the greatest expense of a suit in doctor's commons.

And instead of compelling a man to support his family as they had done before they took his family away from him and made him a pal.

They took his family away from him and made him a bachelor.

There is no saying how many applicants for relief under these last two heads might have started up in all classes of society if it had not been coupled with a workhouse.

But the board were long-headed men and had provided for this difficulty.

The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel and that frightened people.

For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed the system was in full operation.

It was rather expensive at first in consequence of the increase of the undertaker's bill and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers which fluttered loosely on their waisted shrunken forms after a week or two's gruel.

But the number of workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers and the board were in ecstasies.

The room in which the boys were fed was a large stone hall with a copper at one end out of which the master dressed in an apron for the purpose and assisted by one or two women ladled the gruel at mealtimes.

Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer and no more except on occasions of great public rejoicing when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.

The bowls never wanted washing.

The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again and when they had performed this operation which never took very long the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls they would sit staring at the copper with such eager eyes as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed employing themselves meanwhile in sucking their fingers most assiduously with a view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereof.

Boys have generally excellent appetites.

Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of low starvation for three months.

At last they got so voracious and wild with hunger that one boy who was tall for his age and hadn't been used to that sort of thing for his father had kept a small cookshop hinted darkly to his companions that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age.

He had a wild hungry eye and they implicitly believed him.

The council was held lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening and ask for more and it fell to Oliver Twist.

The evening arrived the boys took their places the master in his cook's uniform stationed himself at the copper his poor persistence ranged themselves behind him the gruel was served out and a long grace was said over the short commons.

The gruel disappeared the boys whispered each other and weeped at Oliver while his next neighbours nudged him.

Child as he was he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery he rose from the table and advancing to the master basin and spoon in hand said somewhat alarmed at his own temerity please sir I want some more.

The master was a fat healthy man but he turned very pale he gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds then clung for support to the copper.

The assistants were paralysed with wonder the boys with fear.

What?

Said the master at length in a faint voice.

Please sir replied Oliver I want some more.

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with a ladle pinioned him in his arm and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

The board were sitting in solemn conclave when Mr Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement and addressing the gentleman in the high chair said Mr Limpkins I beg your pardon sir Oliver Twister's asked for more.

There was a general start horror was depicted on every countenance.

For more?

Said Mr Limpkins.

Compose yourself Bumble and answer me distinctly do I understand he asked for more after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?

He did sir replied Bumble.

That boy will be hung said the gentleman in the white waistcoat I know that boy will be hung.

Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion an animated discussion took place.

Oliver was ordered into instant confinement and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish.

In other words five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade business or calling.

I never was more convinced of anything in my life said the gentleman in the white waistcoat as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning.

I never was convinced of anything in my life that then I am that that boy will come to be hung.

As I purpose to show in a sequel whether the white waisted gentleman was right or not I should perhaps mark the scene perhaps mar the interest of this narrative supposing it to possess any at all if I venture to hint just yet whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination or no.