Illustrative of Every-Day Life
and Every-Day People
With Illustrations by George Cruickshank and Phiz
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, ld.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1903
The whole of these Sketches were written and published, one by one, when I wasa very young man. They were collected and republished while I was still a veryyoung 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 ofcertain tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten, and representedwith great applause to overflowing nurseries. I am conscious of their oftenbeing extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious marks of hasteand inexperience; particularly in that section of the present volume which iscomprised under the general head of Tales.
But as this collection is not originated now, and was very leniently andfavourably received when it was first made, I have not felt it right either toremodel or expunge, beyond a few words and phrases here and there.
How much is conveyed in those two short words—‘The Parish!’And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruinedhopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are theyassociated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just managesto live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to day; he hasbarely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature, and can take noheed of the future. His taxes are in arrear, quarter-day passes by, anotherquarter-day arrives: he can procure no more quarter for himself, and issummoned by—the parish. His goods are distrained, his children are cryingwith cold and hunger, and the very bed on which his sick wife is lying, isdragged from beneath her. What can he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? Toprivate charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not—there is hisparish. 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. Thechildren have no protector—they are taken care of by the parish. The manfirst neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work—he is relieved by theparish; and when distress and drunkenness have done their work upon him, he ismaintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.
The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps the most, important memberof 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 thingsquite 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 absenceof efforts on his part to maintain it. The beadle of our parish is a splendidfellow. It is quite delightful to hear him, as he explains the state of theexisting poor laws to the deaf old women in the board-room passage on businessnights; and to hear what he said to the senior churchwarden, and what thesenior churchwarden said to him; and what ‘we’ (the beadle and theother gentlemen) came to the determination of doing. A miserable-looking womanis called into the boardroom, and represents a case of extreme destitution,affecting herself—a widow, with six small children. ‘Where do youlive?’ inquires one of the overseers. ‘I rents a two-pair back,gentlemen, at Mrs. Brown’s, Number