

Transcribed from the 1903 Chapman and Hall edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





                             SKETCHES BY BOZ


                      Illustrative of Every-Day Life
                           and Every-Day People

                                * * * * *

                            By CHARLES DICKENS

                                * * * * *

           _With Illustrations by George Cruickshank and Phiz_

                                * * * * *

                       LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.
                    NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
                                   1903




PREFACE


The whole of these Sketches were written and published, one by one, when
I was a very young man.  They were collected and republished while I was
still a very young man; and sent into the world with all their
imperfections (a good many) on their heads.

They comprise my first attempts at authorship--with the exception of
certain tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten, and
represented with great applause to overflowing nurseries.  I am conscious
of their often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing
obvious marks of haste and inexperience; particularly in that section of
the present volume which is comprised under the general head of Tales.

But as this collection is not originated now, and was very leniently and
favourably received when it was first made, I have not felt it right
either to remodel or expunge, beyond a few words and phrases here and
there.




OUR PARISH


CHAPTER I--THE BEADLE.  THE PARISH ENGINE.  THE SCHOOLMASTER


How much is conveyed in those two short words--'The Parish!'  And with
how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined
hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are
they associated!  A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family,
just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day
to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of
nature, and can take no heed of the future.  His taxes are in arrear,
quarter-day passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can procure no
more quarter for himself, and is summoned by--the parish.  His goods are
distrained, his children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very
bed on which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her.  What
can he do?  To whom is he to apply for relief?  To private charity?  To
benevolent individuals?  Certainly not--there is his parish.  There are
the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish
officers, the parish beadle.  Excellent institutions, and gentle,
kind-hearted men.  The woman dies--she is buried by the parish.  The
children have no protector--they are taken care of by the parish.  The
man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work--he is relieved by
the parish; and when distress and drunkenness have done their work upon
him, he is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.

The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps _the_ most, important
member of the local administration.  He is not so well off as the
churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk, nor
does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them.  But
his power is very great, notwithstanding; and the dignity of his office
is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it.
The beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow.  It is quite delightful to
hear him, as he explains the state of the existing poor laws to the deaf
old women in the board-room passage on business nights; and to hear what
he said to the senior churchwarden, and what the senior churchwarden said
to him; and what 'we' (the beadle and the other gentlemen) came to the
determination of doing.  A miserable-looking woman is called into the
boardroom, and represents a case of extreme destitution, affecting
herself--a widow, with six small children.  'Where do you live?' inquires
one of the overseers.  'I rents a two-pair back, gentlemen, at Mrs.
Brown's, Number 3, Little King William's-alley, which has lived there
this fifteen year, and knows me to be very hard-working and industrious,
and when my poor husband was alive, gentlemen, as died in the
hospital'--'Well, well,' interrupts the overseer, taking a note of the
address, 'I'll send Simmons, the beadle, to-morrow morning, to ascertain
whether your story is correct; and if so, I suppose you must have an
order into the House--Simmons