 Chapter 1 of Our Parish, from Sketches by Boz. 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 navery 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 a rear, quarter-day passes, another quarter-day arrives. He can procure no more quarter for himself, and is summoned by the Parish. His goods are restrained, 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 Church wardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry clerk. Neither 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 boardroom passage on business nights, and to hear what he said to the senior Church warden, and what the senior Church warden said to him, and what we, the beadle and the other gentleman, 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 three, little King Williams 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, has died in hospital. Well, well, interrupts the overseer, taking a note of the address. I'll send Simmons the beadle tomorrow morning, to ascertain whether your story is correct, and if so, I suppose you must have an order into the house. Simmons, go to this woman's the first thing tomorrow morning, will you? Simmons bows ascent, and ushers the woman out. Her previous admiration of the board, who all sit behind great books and with their hats on, fades into nothing before her respect for her lace-trimmed conductor, and her account of what has passed inside increases, if that be possible, the marks of respect shown by the assembled crowd to that solemn functionry. As to taking out a summons, it's quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it, on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of the Lord Mayor by heart, states the case without a single stammer, and it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to make a joke which the Lord Mayor's head footman, who happened to be present, afterwards told an intimate friend, confidentially, was almost equal to one of Mr. Hobbler's. See him again on Sunday, in his statecoat and cocked hat, with a large-headed staff for show in his left hand, and a small cane for use in his right, how pompously he marshalls the children into their places, and how demurely the little urchins look at him as scants as he surveys them when they're all seated, with a glare of the eye peculiar to beadles. The church wardens and overseers, being duly installed in their curtain-pues, he seats himself on a mahogany bracket erected expressly for him at the top of the aisle, and divides his attention between his prayer-book and the boys. Suddenly, just at the commencement of the communion service, when the whole congregation is hushed into a profound silence, broken only by the voice of the officiating clergyman, a penny is heard to ring on the stone floor of the aisle with astounding clearness. Of the generalship of the beadle, his involuntary look of horror is instantly changed into one of perfect indifference, as if he were the only person present who had not heard the noise. The artifice succeeds. After putting forth his right leg now and then as a feeler, the victim who dropped the money ventures to make one or two distinct dives after it, and the beadle, gliding softly round, salutes his little round head when it again appears above the seat, with diverse double knocks administered with the cane before noticed, to the intense delight of three young men in an adjacent pew who cough violently at intervals until the conclusion of the sermon. Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish beadle, a gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that has come under our observation, except when the services of that particularly useful machine, a parish fire engine, are required. Then indeed all is bustle. Two little boys run to the beadle as fast as their legs will carry them and report from their own personal observation that some neighbouring chimney is on fire. The engine is hastily got out, and a plentiful supply of boys being obtained and harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle over the pavement, the beadle running, we do not exaggerate, running at the side, until they arrive at some house smelling strongly of soot, at the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable gravity for half an hour. No attention being paid to these manual applications, and the turncock having turned on the water, the engine turns off amidst the shouts of the boys. It pulls up once more at the work-house, and the beadle pulls up the unfortunate household the next day for the amount of his legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire but once. It came up in gallant style, three miles and a half an hour at least. There was a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot. Bang went the pumps, the people cheered, the beadle perspired profusely, but it was unfortunately discovered, just as they were going to put the fire out, that nobody understood the process by which the engine was filled with water, and that eighteen boys and a man had exhausted themselves in pumping for twenty minutes without producing the slightest effect. The personages next in importance to the beadle are the master of the work-house and the parish schoolmaster. The vestry clerk, as everybody knows, is a short, podgy little man in black, with a thick gold watch-chain of considerable length, terminating in two large seals and a key. He is an attorney and generally in a bossel, at no time more so than when he is hurrying to some parochial meeting with his gloves crumpled up in one hand and a large red book under the other arm. As to the church wardens and overseers, we exclude them altogether because all we know of them is that they are usually respectable tradesmen who wear hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testify in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of the church, to the important fact of a gallery having been enlarged and beautified, or an organ rebuilt. The master of the work-house is not in our parish, nor is he usually in any other, one of that class of men the better part of whose existence has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in some inferior situation with just enough thought of the past to feel degraded by and discontented with the present. We are unable to guess precisely, to our own satisfaction, what station the man can have occupied before. We should think he had been an inferior sort of attorney's clerk, or else the master of a national school. Whatever he was, it is clear his present position is a change for the better. His income is small, certainly, as the rusty black coats and threadbare velvet collar demonstrate, but then he lives free of house-rent, has a limited allowance of coals and candles, and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man, always wears shoes and black cotton stockings with his sertu, and eyes you as you pass his parlour-window as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant, morose, brutish, and ill-tempered, bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle. Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. He has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune seems to have set her mark. Nothing he ever did or was concerned in appears to have prospered. A rich old relation, who had brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him ten thousand pounds in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil. Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks below him died off, as if there were a plague among them. But the old fellows over his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting, lived on and on, as if they were immortal. He speculated, and lost. He speculated again, and won, but never got his money. His talents were great, his disposition easy, generous, and liberal, his friends profited by the one, and abused the other. Loss succeeded loss, misfortune crowded on misfortune. Each successive day brought him nearer the verge of hopeless penury, and the quandam friends who had been warmest in their professions grew strangely cold and indifferent. He had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former turned their backs on him. The latter died broken-hearted. He went with the stream. It had ever been his failing, and he had not courage sufficient to bear up against so many shocks. He had never cared for himself, and the only being who had cared for him in his poverty and distress was spared to him no longer. It was at this period that he applied for parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man who had known him in happier times, to be churchwardened that year, and through his interest he was appointed to his present situation. He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded round him in all the hollow friendship of boon companionship, some have died, some have fallen like himself, some have prospered, all have forgotten him. Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to impair his memory, and use has habituated him to his present condition. Meek, uncomplaining, and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he has been allowed to hold his situation long beyond the usual period, and he will no doubt continue to hold it, until infirmity renders him incapable, or death releases him. As the gray-headed old man feebly paces up and down the sunny side of the little courtyard between school-hours, it would be difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to recognize their once-gay and happy associate, in the person of the pauper schoolmaster. End of Chapter 1 of Our Parish from Sketches by Boz. Chapter 2 of Our Parish from Sketches by Boz. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please contact LibriVox.org, recording by Peter Yersley, Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens, illustrations by George Crookshank, Chapter 2 of Our Parish, The Curate, The Old Lady, The Half-Pay Captain. We commenced our last chapter with the beetle of our parish, because we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office. We will begin the present with the clergyman. Our Curate is a young gentleman of such pre-possessing appearance and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the young lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish church on Sunday before, and never had the little round angels' faces on Mr. Tomkin's monument in the side aisle beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five and twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners. He parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand, which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers, and had a deep, sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mamars on our new curate, and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which, to do him justice, he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading desk rose in value. Sittings in the centre aisle were at a premium. An inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money, and some people even went so far as to assert that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the church wardens, were detected one Sunday in the free seats by the communion table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry. He began to preach extemporary sermons, and even grave papars caught the infection. He got out of bed at half past twelve o'clock, one winter's night, to half baptise a washerwoman's child in a slop basin, and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds. The very church wardens grew generous and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children all at once. The parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her. The woman's fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat and Boots. The enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for presenting the curate with a piece of plate as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time. The contest was not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver ink-stand was made and engraved with an appropriate inscription. The curate was invited to a public breakfast at the before mentioned Goat and Boots. The ink-stand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-church warden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present. The very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that by this time the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity, no such thing. The curate began to cough, four fits of coughing one morning between the litany and the epistle, and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery. The curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate, such a dear, such a perfect love to be consumptive. It was too much. Anonymous presence of black currant jam, and lozenges, elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter clothing as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole. Verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half a dozen times a day, and the curate was in the very zenith of his popularity. About this period a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very quiet, respectable, dozing old gentleman who had officiated in our chapel of ease for twelve years previously died one fine morning without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first, and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man with large black eyes and long, straggling black hair. His dress was slovenly in the extreme. His manner ungainly, his doctrines startling. In short he was in every respect the antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him at first because he was so odd-looking then because his face was so expressive, then because he preached so well, and at last because they really thought that after all there was something about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, he was all very well, but certainly after all there was no denying that in short the curate wasn't a novelty and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial. The congregation migrated one by one. The curate coughed till he was black in the face. It was in vain. He respired with difficulty. It was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church and the chapel of the ease is going to be enlarged as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday. The best known and most respected among our parishioners is an old lady who resided in our parish long before our name was registered in the list of baptisms. Our parish is a suburban one and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house is her own, and it and everything about it except the old lady herself who looks a little older than she did ten years ago is in just the same state as when the old gentleman was living. The little front parlor, which is the old lady's ordinary sitting room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness. The carpet is covered with brown holland. The glass and picture frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin. The table covers are never taken off except when the leaves are turpentine and beeswaxed. An operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half past nine o'clock, and the little knickknacks are always arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row, but some of them, such as the two old fashioned watches, which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow and the other a quarter of an hour too fast. The little picture of the princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, as they appeared in the royal box at Drury Lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady's position for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needlework near the window in summertime, and if she sees you coming up the steps and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call in the evening, you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table before her, of which Sarah, who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlor, aloud. The old lady sees scarcely any company except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side, and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first and knocks a double knock to prevent the possibility of her missus is catching cold by having to wait at the door. She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so to meet Mr. and Mrs. somebody else, Sarah and she dust the urn and the best china tea service and the Pope John Board and the visitors are received in the drawing-room in great state. She has but few relations and they are scattered about in different parts of the country and she seldom sees them. She has a son in India whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow, so like the profile of his poor dear father over the sideboard, but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head, that he has always been one of her greatest trials and that indeed he once almost broke her heart but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it and she would prefer you're never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners and on Saturday after she comes back from market there is a regular levy of old men and women in the passage waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions and hers are always the most liberal donations to the winter coal and soup distribution society. She subscribes twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle occasioned by a general rise among the poor people who bow and curtsy until the pew opener as ushered the old lady into her accustomed seat dropped a respectful curtsy and shut the door and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church when she walks home with the family next door but one and talks about the sermon all the way invariably opening the conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was. Thus with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the seacoast passes the old lady's life. It has rolled on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for many years now and must at no distant period be brought to its final close. She looks forward to its termination with calmness and without apprehension. She has everything to hope and nothing to fear. A very different personage but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish is one of the old lady's next door neighbors. He is an old naval officer on half pay and his bluff and unceremonious behavior disturbs the old lady's domestic economy not a little. In the first place he will smoke cigars in the front court and when he wants something to drink with them which is by no means an uncommon circumstance he lifts up the old lady's knocker with his walking stick and demands to have a glass of table ale handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding he is a bit of a jack of all trades or to use his own words a regular Robinson Crusoe and nothing delights him better than to experimentalize on the old lady's property. One morning he got up early and planted three or four roots of full grown marigolds in every bed of her front garden to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing under pretence of cleaning the works which he put together again by some undiscovered process in so wonderful a manner that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breeding silkworms which he would bring in two or three times a day in little paper boxes to show the old lady generally dropping a worm or two at every visit. The consequence was that one morning a very stout silkworm was discovered in the act of walking upstairs probably with the view of inquiring after his friends for on further inspection it appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house. The old lady went to the seaside in despair and during her absence he completely effaced the name from her brass door plate in his attempt to polish it with aqua fortis. But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. He attends every vestry meeting that is held always opposes the constituted authorities of the parish denounces the profligacy of the church wardens contests legal points against the vestry clerk will make the tax-gatherer a call for his money till he won't call any longer and then he sends it finds fault with the sermon every Sunday says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together male and female and in short conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner the worst of it is that having a high regard for the old lady he wants to make her a convert to his views and therefore walks into her little parlor with his newspaper in his hand and talks violent politics by the hour he is a charitable open-hearted old fellow at bottom after all so although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally they agree very well in the main and she laughs as much at each feet of his handiwork when it is all over as anybody else end of chapter two of our parish from sketches by boz chapter three of our parish from sketches by boz this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please contact LibriVox.org recording by Peter Yersley sketches by boz by Charles Dickens illustrations by George Crooklank chapter three of our parish the four sisters the row of houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neighbor reside comprises beyond all doubt a greater number of characters within its circumscribed limits than all the rest of the parish put together as we cannot consistently with our present plan however extend the number of our parochial sketches beyond six it will be better perhaps to select the most peculiar and to introduce them at once without further preface the four miss willises then settled in our parish thirteen years ago it is a melancholy reflection that the old adage time and tide wait for no man applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation and willingly would we conceal the fact that even thirteen years ago the miss willises were far from juvenile our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers however is paramount to every other consideration and we are bound to state that thirteen years since the authorities in matrimonial cases considered the youngest miss willis in a very precarious state while the eldest sister was positively given over as being far beyond all human hope the miss willis's took a lease of the house it was fresh painted and papered from top to bottom the paint inside was all wainscoted the marble all cleaned the old grates taken down register stoves you could see to dress by put up four trees were planted in the back garden several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one vans of elegant furniture arrived spring blinds were fitted to the windows carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations alterations and repairs made confidential statements to the different maid servants in the row relative to the magnificent scale on which the miss willis's were commencing the maid servants told their missus's the missus's told their friends and vague rumors were circulated throughout the parish that number twenty five in gordon place had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property at last the miss willis's moved in and then the calling began the house was the perfection of neatness so were the four miss willis's everything was formal stiff and cold so were the four miss willis's not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place not a single miss willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers there they always sat in the same places doing precisely the same things at the same hour the eldest miss willis used to knit second to draw the others to play duets on the piano they seemed to have no separate existence but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together they were three long graces in drapery with the addition, like a school dinner, of another long grace afterwards the three fates with another sister the sihamese twins multiplied by two the eldest miss willis grew bilious the four miss willis's grew bilious immediately the eldest miss willis grew ill-tempered and religious the four miss willis's were ill-tempered and religious directly whatever the eldest did, the others did and whatever anybody else did they all disapproved of and thus they vegetated living in polar harmony among themselves and as they sometimes went out or saw company in a quiet way at home occasionally icing the neighbours three years passed over in this way when an unlooked for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred the miss willis's showed symptoms of summer the frost gradually broke up a complete thaw took place was it possible? one of the four miss willis's was going to be married now where on earth the husband came from by what feelings the poor man could have been activated or by what process of reasoning the four miss willis's succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them without marrying them all are questions too profound for us to resolve certain it is however that the visits of Mr. Robinson a gentleman in a public office with a good salary and a little property of his own besides were received that the four miss willis's were courted in due form by the said Mr. Robinson that the neighbors were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to discover which of the four miss willis's was the fortunate fair and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of the eldest miss willis we are going to marry Mr. Robinson it was very extraordinary they were so completely identified the one with the other that the curiosity of the whole row even of the old lady herself was roused almost beyond endurance the subject was discussed at every little card table and tea drinking the old gentleman of silkworm notoriety did not hesitate to express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of the eastern descent and contemplated marrying the whole family at once and the row generally shook their heads with considerable gravity and declared the business to be very mysterious they hoped it might all end well it certainly had a very singular appearance still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds to go on and certainly the miss willis's were quite old enough to judge for themselves and to be sure people ought to know their own business best and so forth at last one fine morning at a quarter before eight o'clock a m two glass coaches drove up to the miss willis's door at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before dressed in a light blue coat and double milled cursey pantaloons white neckerchief pumps and dress gloves his manner denoting as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at number twenty three who was sweeping the door steps at the time a considerable degree of nervous excitement it was also hastily reported on the same testimony that the cook who opened the door wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions in a much smarter headdress than the regulation cap to which the miss willis's invariably restricted the somewhat excursive tastes of female servants in general the intelligence spread rapidly from house to house it was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived the whole row stations themselves behind their first and second floor blinds and waited the result in breathless expectation at last the miss willis's door opened the door of the first glass coach did the same two gentlemen and a pair of ladies to correspond friends of the family no doubt up went the steps bang went the door off went the first class coach and up came the second the street's door opened again the excitement of the whole row increased mr. Robinson and the eldest miss willis i thought so said the lady at number nineteen i always said it was miss willis well i never ejaculated the young lady at number eighteen to the young lady at number seventeen did you ever dear? responded the young lady at number seventeen to the young lady at number eighteen it's too ridiculous exclaimed a spinster of an uncertain age at number sixteen joining in the conversation but who shall portray the astonishment of gordon place when mr. Robinson handed in all the miss willis's one after the other and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of the glass coach which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace after the other glass coach which other glass coach had itself proceeded at a brisk pace in the direction of the parish church who shall depict the perplexity of the clergyman when all the miss willis's knelt down at the communion table and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed when even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted all the miss willis's went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings as the four sisters and mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this memorable occasion and as the marriage sister whoever she was never appeared in public without the other three we are not quite clear that the neighbours ever would have discovered the real mrs. Robinson but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description which will happen occasionally in the best regulated families three-quarter days elapsed and the row on whom a new light appeared to have been bursting for some time began to speak with a sort of implied confidence on the subject and to wonder how mrs. Robinson the youngest miss willis that was got on and servants might be seen running up the steps about nine or ten o'clock every morning with mrs.'s compliments and wishes to know how mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning and the answer always was mrs. Robinson's compliments and she's in very good spirits and doesn't find herself any worse the piano was heard no longer the knitting needles were laid aside drawing was neglected and mentua making and millinery on the smallest scale imaginable appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family the parlor wasn't quite as tidy as it used to be and if you called in the morning you would see lying on a table with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them two or three particularly small caps rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate sized doll with a small piece of lace in the shape of a horseshoe let in behind or perhaps a white robe not very large in circumference but very much out of proportion in point of length with a little tucker round the top and a frill round the bottom and once when we called we saw a long white roller with a kind of blue margin down each side the probable use of which we were at a loss to conjecture then we fancied that dr. Dawson the surgeon etc who displays a large lamp with a different color in every pane of glass at the corner of the row began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used to be and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney coach stop at mrs. robinson's door at half past two in the morning out of which there emerged a fat old woman in a cloak and nightcap with a bundle in one hand and a pair of patterns in the other who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for some very special purpose when we got up in the morning we saw that the knocker was tied up in an old kid glove and we in our innocence we were in a state of bachelorship then wondered what on earth it all meant until we heard the eldest miss willis in appropriate persona say with great dignity in answer to the next inquiry my compliments and mrs. robinson's doing as well as can be expected and the little girl thrives wonderfully and then in common with the rest of the row our curiosity was satisfied and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was before end of chapter three of our parish from sketches by boz chapter four of our parish from sketches by boz this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Martin Geeson sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens illustrations by George Crookshank chapter four of our parish the election for Beedle a great event has recently occurred in our parish a contest of paramount interest has just terminated a parochial convulsion has taken place it has been succeeded by a glorious triumph which the country or at least the parish it is all the same we'll long remember we have had an election an election for Beedle the supporters of the old Beedle system have been defeated in their stronghold and the advocates of the great new Beedle principles have achieved a proud victory our parish which like all other parishes is a little world of its own has long been divided into two parties whose contentions slumbering for a while have never failed to burst forth with unabated vigor on any occasion on which they could by possibility be renewed watching rates lighting rates paving rates sewers rates church rates poor rates all sorts of rates have been in their turns the subjects of a grand struggle and as to questions of patronage the asperity and determination with which they have been contested is scarcely credible the leader of the official party the steady advocate of the church wardens and the unflinching supporter of the overseers is an old gentleman who lives in our row he owns some half a dozen houses in it and always walks on the opposite side of the way so that he may be able to take in a view of the whole of his property at once he is a tall, thin, bony man with an interrogative nose and little restless perking eyes which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into other people's affairs with he is deeply impressed with the importance of our parish business and prides himself not a little on his style of addressing the parishioners in vestry assembled his views are rather confined than extensive his principles more narrow than liberal he has been heard to reclaim very loudly in favour of the liberty of the press and advocates the repeal of the stamp duty on newspapers because the daily journals who now have a monopoly of the public never give verbatim reports of vestry meetings he would not appear egotistical for the world but at the same time he must say that there are speeches that celebrated speech of his own on the emoluments of the sexton and the duties of the office, for instance which might be communicated to the public greatly to their improvement and advantage his great opponent in public life is captain per day the old naval officer on half pay to whom we have already introduced our readers the captain being a determined opponent of the constituted authorities whoever they may chance to be and our other friend being their steady supporter with an equal disregard of their individual merits it will readily be supposed that occasions for their coming into direct collision are neither few nor far between they divided the vestry fourteen times on a motion for heating the church with warm water instead of coals and made speeches about liberty and expenditure and prodigality and hot water which threw the whole parish into a state of excitement then the captain when he was on the visiting committee and his opponent overseer brought forward certain distinct and specific charges relative to the management of the workhouse boldly expressed his total want of confidence in the existing authorities and moved for a copy of the recipe by which the pauper's soup was prepared together with any documents relating there too this the overseer steadily resisted he fortified himself by precedent appealed to the established usage and declined to produce the papers on the ground of the injury that would be done to the public service if documents of a strictly private nature passing between the master of the workhouse and the cook were to be thus dragged to light on the motion of any individual member of the vestry the motion was lost by a majority of two and then the captain who never allows himself to be defeated moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole subject the affair grew serious the question was discussed at meeting after meeting and vestry after vestry speeches were made attacks repudiated personal defiances exchanged explanations received and the greatest excitement prevailed until at last just as the question was going to be finally decided the vestry found that somehow or other they had become entangled in a point of form from which it was impossible to escape with propriety so the motion was dropped and everybody looked extremely important and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of the whole proceeding this was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since when Simmons the beetle suddenly died the lamented deceased had overexerted himself a day or two previously in conveying an aged female highly intoxicated to the strong room of the workhouse the excitement thus occasioned added to a severe cold which this indefatigable officer had caught in his capacity of director of the parish engine by inadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire proved too much for a constitution already enfeebled by age and the intelligence was conveyed to the board one evening that Simmons had died and left his respects the breath was scarcely out of the body of the deceased functionary when the field was filled with competitors for the vacant office each of whom rested his claims to public support entirely on the number and extent of his family as if the office of beetle were originally instituted as an encouragement for the propagation of the human species bound for beetle five small children Hopkins for beetle seven small children Timkins for beetle nine small children such where the placards in large black letters on a white ground which were plentifully pasted on the walls and posted in the windows of the principal shops Timkins's success was considered certain several mothers of families half promised their votes and the nine small children would have run over the course but for the production of another placard announcing the appearance of a still more meritorious candidate spruggins for beetle ten small children two of them twins and a wife there was no resisting this ten small children would have been almost irresistible in themselves without the twins but the touching parenthesis about that interesting production of nature and the still more touching allusion to mrs spruggins must ensure success spruggins was the favorite at once and the appearance of his lady as she went about to solicit votes which encouraged confident hopes of a still further addition to the house of spruggins at no remote period increased the general prepossession in his favor the other candidates bung alone accepted resigned in despair the day of election was fixed and the canvas proceeded with briskness and perseverance on both sides the members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the contagious excitement inseparable from the occasion the majority of the lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for spruggins and the quantum overseer took the same side on the ground that men with large families always had been elected to the office and that although he must admit that in other respects spruggins was the least qualified candidate of the two still it was an old practice and he saw no reason why an old practice should be departed from this was enough for the captain he immediately sided with bung canvassed for him personally in all directions wrote squibs on spruggins and got his butcher to skewer them up on conspicuous joints in his shopfront frightened his neighbor the old lady into a palpitation of the heart by his awful denunciations of spruggins his party and bounced in and out and up and down and backwards and forwards until all the sober inhabitants of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die of a brain fever long before the election began the day of election arrived it was no longer an individual struggle but a party contest between the ins and outs the question was whether the withering influence of the overseers the domination of the church wardens and the blighting despotism of the vestry clerk should be allowed to render the election of beedle a form a nullity whether they should impose a vestry elected beedle on the parish to do their bidding and forward their views or whether the parishioners fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights should elect an independent beedle of their own the nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry but so great was the throng of anxious spectators that it was found necessary to adjourn to the church where the ceremony commenced with due solemnity the appearance of the church wardens and overseers and the ex church wardens and ex overseers with spruggins in the rear excited general attention spruggins was a little thin man in rusty black with a long pale face and a countenance expressive of care and fatigue which might either be attributed to the extent of his family or the anxiety of his feelings his opponent appeared in a cast-off coat of the captains a blue coat with bright buttons white trousers and that description of shoes familiarly known by the appellation of high lows there was a serenity in the open countenance of bung a kind of moral dignity in his confident air and i wish you may get it sort of expression in his eye which infused animation into his supporters and evidently dispirited his opponents the ex church warden rose to propose thomas spruggins for beadle he had known him long he had had his eye upon him closely for years he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months a parishioner here suggested that this might be termed taking a double sight but the observation was drowned in loud cries of order he would repeat that he had had his eye upon him for years and this he would say that a more well conducted a more well behaved a more sober a more quiet man with a more well regulated mind he had never met with a man with a larger family he had never known cheers the parish required a man who could be depended on yeah from the sprugging side answered by ironical cheers from the bung party such a man he now proposed no yes he would not allude to individuals the ex church warden continued in the celebrated negative style adopted by great speakers he would not advert to a gentleman who had once held a high rank in the service of his majesty he would not say that that gentleman was no gentleman he would not assert that that man was no man he would not say that he was a turbulent parishioner he would not say that he had grossly misbehaved himself not only on this but on all former occasions he would not say that he was one of those discontented and treasonable spirits who carried confusion and disorder wherever they went he would not say that he harbored in his heart envy and hatred and malice and all uncharitableness no he wished to have everything comfortable and pleasant and therefore he would say nothing about him cheers the captain replied in a similar parliamentary style he would not say he was astonished at the speech they had just heard he would not say he was disgusted cheers he would not retort the epithets which had been hurled against him renewed cheering he would not allude to men once in office but now happily out of it who had mismanaged the workhouse ground the paupers diluted the beer slack baked the bread boned the meat heightened the work and lowered the soup tremendous cheers he would not ask what such men deserved a voice nothing a day and find themselves he would not say that one burst of general indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted with their presence give it him he would not allude to the unfortunate man who had been proposed he would not say as the vestry's tool but as a beetle he would not advert to that individual's family he would not say that nine children twins and a wife were very bad examples for pauper imitation loud cheers he would not advert in detail to the qualifications of bung the man stood before him and he would not say in his presence what he might be disposed to say of him if he were absent here mr bung telegraphed to a friend near him and a cover of his hat by contracting his left eye and applying his right thumb to the tip of his nose it had been objected to bung that he had only five children from the opposition well he had yet to learn that the legislature had affixed any precise amount of infantine qualification to the office of beetle but taking it for granted that an extensive family were a great requisite he entreated them to look to facts and compare data about which there could be no mistake bung was 35 years of age spruggins of whom he wished to speak with all possible respect was 50 was it not more than possible was it not very probable that by the time bung attained the latter age he might see around him a family even exceeding in number and extent that to which spruggins at present laid claim deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs the captain concluded amidst loud applause by calling upon the parishioners to sound the toxin rush to the pole free themselves from dictation or be slaves for ever on the following day the polling began and we never have had such a bustle in our parish since we got up our famous anti-slavery petition which was such an important one that the house of commons ordered it to be printed on the motion of the member for the district the captain engaged two hackney coaches and a cab for bung's people the cab for the drunken voters and the two coaches for the old ladies the greater portion of whom owing to the captain's impetuosity were driven up to the pole and home again before they recovered from their flooding sufficiently to know with any degree of clearness what they had been doing the opposite party wholly neglected these precautions and the consequence was that a great many ladies who were walking leisurely up to the church for it was a very hot day to vote for spruggins where artfully decoyed into the coaches and voted for bung the captain's arguments too had produced considerable effect the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater a threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established against the vestry clerk a case of heartless and profligate atrocity it appeared that the delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six penneth of muffins weekly from an old woman who rents a small house in the parish and resides among the original settlers on her last weekly visit a message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook couched in mysterious terms but indicating with sufficient clearness that the vestry clerk's appetite for muffins in future depended entirely on her vote on the beadleship this was sufficient the stream had been turning previously and the impulse thus administered directed its final course the bung party ordered one shilling's worth of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman's natural life the parishioners went out in their exclamations and the fate of spruggins was sealed it was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same pattern and nightcaps to match at the church door the boy in mrs spruggins's right arm and the girl in her left even mrs spruggins herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer the majority attained by bung on the gross pole was four hundred and twenty eight and the cause of the parishioners triumphed end of chapter four of our parish from sketches by bars recording by martin geeson in hazel near surrey chapter five of our parish from sketches by bows this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by elis christoff sketches by bows by charles dickens illustrations by george crook shank chapter five of our parish the broker's man the excitement of the late election has subsided and our parish being once again restored to a state of comparative tranquility we are enabled to devote our attention to those parishioners who take little share in our party contests or in the turmoil and bustle of public life and we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here that in collecting materials for this task we have been greatly assisted by mr bung himself who has imposed on us a debt of obligation which we fear we can never repay the life of this gentleman has been one of a very checkered description he has undergone transitions not from grave to gay for he never was grave not from lively to severe for severity forms no part of his disposition his fluctuations have been between poverty in the extreme and poverty modified or to use his own emphatic language between nothing to eat and just half enough he is not as he forcibly remarks one of those fortunate men who if they were to dive under one side of a barge stark naked would come up on the other with the new suit of clothes on and a ticket for soup in the waistcoat pocket neither is he one of those whose spirit has been broken beyond redemption by misfortune and want he's just one of the careless good-for-nothing happy fellows who float cork like on the surface for the world to play at hockey with knocked here and there and everywhere now to the right then to the left again up in the air and anon to the bottom but always reappearing and bounding with the stream buoyantly and merrily along some few months before he was prevailed upon to stand a contested election for the office of beadle necessity attached him to the service of a broker and on the opportunities he here acquired of us attaining the condition of most of the poorer inhabitants of the parish his patron the captain first grounded his claims to public support chance through the man in our way a short time since we were in the first instance attracted by his prepossessing impudence at the election we were not surprised on further acquaintance to find him a shrewd annoying fellow with no inconsiderable power of observation and after conversing with him a little was somewhat struck as we dare say our readers have frequently been in other cases with the power some men seem to have not only of sympathizing with but to all appearance of understanding feelings to which they themselves are entire strangers we had been expressing to the new functionary our surprise that he should ever have served in the capacity to which we have just adverted when we gradually led him into one or two professional anecdotes as we are induced to think on reflection that they will tell better in nearly his own words than with any attempted embellishments of ours we will at once entitle them mr bun's narrative it's very true as you say sir mr bun commenced that a broker's man's is not alive to be envied and in cause you know as well as i do though you don't say it that people hate and scout him because they are the ministers of wretchedness like to poor people but what could i do sir the thing was no worse because i did it instead of somebody else and if putting me in possession of a house would put me in possession of three and six months a day and levying a distress on another man's goods would relieve my distress and that of my family it can't be expected but what i'd take the job and go through with it i never liked it god knows i always looked out for something else and the moment i got other work to do i left it if there is anything wrong in being the agent in such matters not the principal mind you i'm sure the business to a beginner like i was at all events carries its own punishment along with it i wished again and again that the people would only blow me up or pitch into me that i wouldn't have minded it's all in my way but it's the being shut up by yourself in one room for five days without so much as an old newspaper to look at or anything to see out of the window but the roofs and chimneys at the back of the house or anything to listen to but the ticking perhaps of an old dutch clock the sobbing of the missus now and then the low talking of friends in the next room who speak in whispers lest the man should overhear them or perhaps the occasional opening of the door as a child beeps in to look at you and then runs half right in the way it's all this that makes you feel sneaking somehow and ashamed of yourself and then if it's winter time they just give you fire enough to make you think you'd like more and bring in your grub makes you feel sneaking somehow and ashamed of yourself and then if it's winter time they just give you fire enough to make you think you'd like more and bring in your grub as if they wish to choke you as i dare say they do for the matter of that most heartily if they're very civil they make you up a bed in the room at night and if they don't your master sends one in for you but there you are without being washed or shaved all the time shunned by everybody and spoken to by no one unless someone comes in a dinner time and asks you whether you want anymore in a tone as much as to say i hope you don't or in the evening to inquire whether you wouldn't rather have a candle after you've been sitting in the dark half the night when i was left in this way i used to sit think think thinking till i felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash house copper with the lid on but i believe the old brokers men who are regularly trained to it never think at all i have heard some of them say indeed that they don't know how i put in a good many distresses in my time continued mr bung and in course i wasn't long in finding that some people are not as much to be pitied as others are and that people with good incomes who get into difficulties which they keep matching up day after day and week after week get so used to these sort of things in time that at last they come scarcely to feel them at all i remember the very first place i was put in possession of was a gentleman's house in this parish here that everybody would suppose couldn't help having money if you tried i went with old fixum my old master about half after eight in the morning rang the area bell served in livery opened the door governor at home yes he says the man but he's breakfasting just now nevermind says fixum just to tell him there's a gentleman here as wants to speak in particular so the servant he opens his eyes and stares about him always looking for the gentleman as it struck me for i don't think anybody but a man as was stone blind would mistake fixum for one and as for me i was a seedy as a cheap cucumber house error he turns around and goes to the breakfast parlor which was a little snack sort of room at the end of the passage and fixum as we always did in that profession without waiting to be announced walks in after him and before the servant could get out please sir here's a man as wants to speak to you looks in at the door as familiar and pleasant as may be who the devil are you and how dare you walk into a gentleman's house without leave says the master a sphere as a bull in fits my name says fixum winking to the master to send the servant away and putting the warrant into his hands folded up like a note my name smith says he and i called from johnson's about that business of thompsons oh says the other quite down on him directly how is thompson says he pray sit down mr smith john leave the room out when the servant and the gentleman at fixum looked at one another till they couldn't look any longer and then they varied the amusement by looking at me who had been standing on the mat all this time 150 pounds i see said the gentleman at last 150 pound said fixum besides cost of levy sheriff's bondage and all other incidental expenses um says the gentleman i shan't be able to settle this before tomorrow afternoon very sorry but i shall be obliged to leave my man here till then replies fixum pretending to look very miserable over it that's very unfortunate says the gentleman where i have got a large party here tonight and i'm ruined if these fellows of mine get an inkling of the matter just step here mr smith says he after a short pause so fixum walks with him up to the window and after a good deal of whispering and a little chinking of sovereigns and looking at me he comes back and says bang you're a handy fellow and very honest i know this gentleman wants an assistant to clean the plate and wait at table today and if you're not particularly engaged says old fixum grinning like mad and shoving a couple of sovereigns into my hand he'll be very glad to avail himself of your services well i laughed and the gentleman laughed and we all laughed and i went home and cleaned myself leaving fixum there and when i went back fixum went away and i polished up the plate and waited at table and gammoned the servants and nobody had the least idea i was in possession though it very nearly came out after all one of the last gentleman who remained came downstairs into the hall where i was sitting pretty late at night and putting half a crown into my hand says here my man says he run and get me a coach will you i thought it was a do to get me out of the house and was just going to say so sulkily enough when the gentleman was up to everything came running downstairs as if he was in great anxiety bang says keep pretending to be in a consuming passion sir says i why the devil aren't you looking after that plate i was just going to send him for a coach for me says the other gentleman and i was just going to say says i anybody else my dear fellow interrupts the master of the house pushing me down the passage to get out of the way anybody else but i have put this man in possession of all the plate and valuables and i cannot allow him on any consideration whatever to leave the house bang used counterl go and count those forks in the breakfast parlor instantly you may be sure i went laughing pretty heartily when i found it was all right the money was paid next day with the addition of something else for myself and that was the best job that i and i suspect all fix them to ever got in that line but this is the bright side of the picture sir after all resumed mr bong laying aside the knowing look and flash air with which he had repeated the previous anecdote and i'm sorry to say it's the side one sees very very seldom in comparison with the dark one the civility which money will purchase is rarely extended to those who have none and there's a consolation even in being able to patch up one difficulty to make way for another to which very poor people are strangers i was once put into a house down george yard that little dirty court at the back of the gas works and i never shall forget the misery of them people dare me it was a distress for half a year's rent to pound ten i think there was only two rooms in the house and as there was no passage the lodgers upstairs always went through the room of the people of the house as they passed in and out and every time they did so which on the average was about four times every quarter of an hour they blowed up quite frightful but their things had been seized to and included in the inventory there was a little piece of enclosed dust in front of the house with the cinder path leading up to the door and an open rainwater but on one side a dirty striped curtain on a very slack string hung in the window and a little triangular bit of broken looking glass rested on the ceiling side i suppose it was meant for the people's use but their appearance was so wretched and so miserable that i'm certain they never could have blacked up courage to look themselves in the face a second time if they survived the fright of doing so once there was two or three chairs that might have been worth in their best days from eight buns to a shilling apiece a small deal table an old corner cupboard with nothing in it and one of those bedsteads which turn up halfway and leave the bottom legs sticking out for you to knock your head against or hang out head upon no bed no bedding there was an old sack by way of rug before the fireplace and four or five children were groveling about among the sand on the floor the execution was only put in to get them out of the house but there was nothing to take to pay the expenses and here i stopped for three days though that was a mere form too for in cause i knew and we all knew they could never pay the money in one of the chairs by the side of the place where the fire rod to have been was an old woman the ugliest and dirtiest i ever see who sat rocking herself backwards and forwards backwards and forwards without one stopping except for an instant now and then to clasp together the withered hands which with these exceptions she kept constantly rubbing upon her knees just raising and depressing her fingers convulsively in time to the rocking of the chair on the other side sat the mother with an infant in her arms which cried till it cried itself to sleep and when it woke cried till it cried itself off again the old woman's voice i never heard she seemed completely stupefied and as to the mother's it would have been better if she had been so too for misery had changed her to a devil if you had heard how she cursed the little naked children as was rolling on the floor and see how savagely she struck the infant when it cried with hunger you would have shuddered as much as i did there they remained all the time the children had a morsel of bread once or twice and i gave them best part of the dinners my mrs brought me but the woman at nothing they never even laid on the bedstead nor was the room swept or cleaned all the time the neighbors were all too poor themselves to take any notice of them but from what i could make out from the abuse of the woman upstairs it seemed the husband had been transported a few weeks before when the time was up the landlord and olfixem too got rather frightened about the family and so they made a stir about it and had him taken to the workhouse they sent the sick couch for the old woman and Simmons took the children away at night the old woman went into the infirmary and very soon died the children are all in the house to this day and very comfortable they are in comparison as to the mother there was no taming her at all she had been a quiet hardworking woman i believe but her misery had actually drove her wild so after she had been sent to the house of correction half a dozen times the throwing ink stands at the overseers blaspheming the church wardens and smashing everybody has come near her she burst a blood vessel one morning and died too and a happy release it was both for herself and the old paupers male and female which she used to tip over in all directions as if there were so many skittles and she the ball now this was bad enough resumed mr bung taking half step towards the door as if to intimate that he had nearly concluded this was bad enough but there was a sort of quiet misery if you understand what i mean by that sir about her lady at one house i was put into and touched me a good deal more it doesn't matter where it was exactly indeed i'd rather not say but it was the same sort of job i went with fixum in the usual way there was a ear's rent in a rear a very small servant girl open the door and three or four fine-looking little children was in the front parlor we were shown into which was very clean but very scantily furnished much like the children themselves bong says fixum to me in a low voice when we were left alone for a minute i know something about this scare family and my opinion is it's no go do you think they can't settle says i quite anxiously but i like the looks of them children fixum shook his head and was just about reply when the door opened and in came a lady as white as ever i see anyone in my days except about the eyes which were red with crying she walked in as firm as i could have done shut the door carefully after her and sat herself down with the faces composed as if it was made of stone what is the matter gentlemen says she in a surprising steady voice is this an execution it is mom says fixum the lady looked at him as steady as ever she didn't seem to have understood him it is mom says fixum again this is my warrant of distress mom says he handing it over as polite as if it was a newspaper which had been bespoke harder the next gentleman the lady's lip trembled as she took the printed paper she cast her eye over it and old fixum began to explain the form but i saw she wasn't reading it plain enough poor thing oh my god says she suddenly a bursting out crying letting the warrant fall and hiding her face in her hands oh my god what will become of us the noise she made brought in a young lady of about 19 or 20 who i suppose had been listening at the door and who had got a little boy in her arms she sat him down in the lady's lap without speaking and she hugged the poor little fellow to her bosom and cried over him till even old fixum put on his blue spectacles to hide the two tears that was a trickling down one on each side of his dirty face now dear ma says the young lady you know how much you have borne for all our sakes for past sake says she don't give way to this no no i won't says the lady gathering herself up hastily and drying her eyes i am very foolish but i'm better now much better and then she roused herself up went with us into every room while we took the inventory opened all the drawers of her own accord sorted the children's little clothes to make the work easier and except doing everything in a strange sort of hurry seemed as calm and composed as if nothing had happened when we came downstairs again she hesitated a minute or two and at last says gentlemen says she i am afraid i have done wrong and perhaps it may bring you into trouble i secreted just now she says the only trinket i have left in the world here it is so she lays down on the table a little miniature mounted in gold it's a miniature she says of my poor dear father i little thought once that i should ever thank god for depriving me of the original but i do and have done for years back most fervently take it away sir she says it's a face that never turned from mean sickness or distress and i can hardly bear to turn from it now when god knows i suffer both in no ordinary degree i couldn't say nothing but i raised my head from the inventory which i was filling up and looked at fixum the old fellow nodded to me significantly so i ran my pen through the mini i had just written and left the miniature on the table well sir to make sure of a long story i was left in possession and in possession i remained and though i was an ignorant man and a master of the house a clever one i saw what he never did but what he would give worlds now if he had him to have seen in time i saw sir that his wife was wasting away beneath cares of which she never complained and griefs she never told i saw that she was dying before his eyes i knew that one exertion from him might have saved her but he never made it i don't blame him i don't think he could rouse himself she had so long anticipated all his wishes and acted for him that he was a lost man when left to himself i used to think when i caught sight of her in the clothes she used to wear which looked shabby even upon her and would have been scarcely decent on anyone else that if i was a gentleman it would ring my very heart to see the woman that was a smart and merry girl when i caught it her so altered through her love for me bitter cold and damp whether it was yet though her dress was thin and her shoes none of the best during the whole three days from morning to night she was out of doors running about to try and raise the money the money was raised and the execution was paid out the whole family crowded into the room where i was when the money arrived the father was quite happy as the inconvenience was removed i dare say he didn't know how the children looked merry and cheerful again the eldest girl was bustling about making preparations for the first comfortable meal they had had since the distressed was put in and the mother looked pleased to see them also but if ever i saw death in a woman's face i saw it in hers that night i was right sir continued mr bung hurriedly passing his goat's sleeve over his face the family grew more prosperous and good fortune arrived but it was too late those children are motherless now and their father would give up all he has seen scant house home goods money all that he has or ever can have to restore the wife he has lost end of chapter five of our parish from sketches by boz chapter six of our parish from sketches by boz this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by pete yearsley sketches by boz by charles dickens illustrations by george crookshank chapter six of our parish the ladies societies our parish is very prolific in ladies charitable institutions in winter when wet feet are common and colds not scarce we have the ladies soup distribution society the ladies coal distribution society and the ladies blanket distribution society in summer when stone fruits flourish and stomach aches prevail we have the ladies dispensary and the ladies sick visitation committee and all the year round we have the ladies child's examination society the ladies bible and prayer book circulation society and the ladies child bed linen monthly loan society the two latter are decidedly the most important whether they are productive of more benefit than the rest it is not for us to say but we can take upon ourselves to affirm with the utmost solemnity that they create a greater stir and more bustle than all the others put together we should be disposed to affirm on the first blush of the matter that the bible and prayer book society is not so popular as the child bed linen society the bible and prayer book society has however considerably increased in importance within the last year or two having derived some adventitious aid from the factious opposition of the child's examination society which factious opposition originated in manner following when the young curate was popular and all the unmarried ladies in the parish took a serious turn the charity children all at once became objects of peculiar and special interest the three miss browns enthusiastic admirers of the curate taught and exercised and examined and re-examined the unfortunate children until the boys grew pale and the girls consumptive with study and fatigue the three miss browns stood it out very well because they relieved each other but the children having no relief at all exhibited decided symptoms of weariness and care the unthinking part of the parishioners laughed at all this but the more reflective portion of the inhabitants abstained from expressing any opinion on the subject until that of the curate had been clearly ascertained the opportunity was not long wanting the curate preached a charity sermon on behalf of the charity school and in the charity sermon aforesaid expaciated in glowing terms on the praiseworthy and indefatigable exertions of certain estimable individuals sobs were heard to issue from the three miss browns pew the pew opener of the division was seen to hurry down the center aisle to the vestry door and to return immediately bearing a glass of water in her hand a low moaning ensued two more pew openers rushed to the spot and the three miss browns each supported by a pew opener were led out of the church and led in again after the lapse of five minutes with white pocket handkerchiefs to their eyes as if they had been attending a funeral in the churchyard adjoining if any doubt had for a moment existed as to whom the illusion was intended to apply it was at once removed the wish to enlighten the charity children became universal and the three miss browns were unanimously besought to divide the school into classes and to assign each class to the superintendents of two young ladies a little learning is a dangerous thing but a little patronage is more so the three miss browns appointed all the old maids and carefully excluded the young ones maiden aunts triumphed mamas were reduced to the lowest depths of despair and there is no telling in what act of violence the general indignation against the three miss browns might have vented itself had not a perfectly providential occurrence changed the tide of public feeling mrs johnson parker the mother of seven extremely fine girls all unmarried hastily reported to several other mamas of several other unmarried families that five old men six old women and children innumerable in the free seats near her pew were in the habit of coming to church every sunday without either bible or prayer book was this to be born in a civilized country could such things be tolerated in a christian land never a ladies bible and prayer book distribution society was instantly formed president mrs johnson parker treasurer's auditor and secretary the mrs johnson parker subscriptions were entered into books were bought all the free seat people provided there with and when the first lesson was given out on the first sunday succeeding these events there was such a dropping of books and rustling of leaves that it was morally impossible to hear one word of the service for five minutes afterwards the three miss browns and their party saw the approaching danger and endeavored to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm neither the old men nor the old women could read their books now they had got them said the three miss browns nevermind they could learn replied mrs johnson parker the children couldn't read either suggested the three miss browns no matter they could be taught retorted mrs johnson parker a balance of parties took place the miss browns publicly examined popular feeling inclined to the child's examination society the miss johnson parkers publicly distributed a reaction took place in favor of the prayer book distribution a feather would have turned the scale and a feather did turn it a missionary returned from the west indies he was to be presented to the dissenters missionary society on his marriage with a wealthy widow overtures were made to the dissenters by the johnson parkers their object was the same and why not have a joint meeting of the two societies the proposition was accepted the meeting was duly heralded by public announcement and the room was crowded to suffocation the missionary appeared on the platform he was hailed with enthusiasm he repeated a dialogue he had heard between two negroes behind a hedge on the subject of distribution societies the approbation was tumultuous he gave an imitation of the two negroes in broken english the roof was rent with applause from that period we date with one trifling exception a daily increase in the popularity of the distribution society and an increase of popularity which the feeble and impotent opposition of the examination party has only tended to augment now the great points about the child bed linen monthly loan society are that it is less dependent on the fluctuations of public opinion than either the distribution or the child's examination and that come what may there is never any lack of objects on which to exercise its benevolence our parish is a very popular one and if anything contributes we should be disposed to say rather more than its due share to the aggregate amount of births in the metropolis and its environs the consequence is that the monthly loan society flourishes and invests its members with a most enviable amount of bustling patronage the society whose only notion of dividing time would appear to be its allotment into months holds monthly tea drinkings at which the monthly report is received a secretary elected for the month in suing and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on loan for the month carefully examined we were never present at one of these meetings from all of which it is scarcely necessary to say gentlemen are carefully excluded but mr bung has been called before the board once or twice and we have his authority for stating that its proceedings are conducted with great order and regularity not more than four members being allowed to speak at one time on any pretense whatever the regular committee is composed exclusively of married ladies but a vast number of young unmarried ladies of from 18 to 25 years of age respectively are admitted as honorary members partly because they are very useful in replenishing the boxes and visiting the confined partly because it is highly desirable that they should be initiated at an early period into the more serious and matronly duties of afterlife and partly because prudent mamas have not unfrequently been known to turn this circumstance to wonderfully good account in matrimonial speculations in addition to the loan of the monthly boxes which are always painted blue with the name of the society in large white letters on the lid the society dispense occasional grants of beef tea and a composition of warm beer spice eggs and sugar commonly known by the name of candle to its patients and here again the services of the honorary members are called into requisition and most cheerfully conceded deputations of twos or threes are sent out to visit the patients and on these occasions there is such a tasting of candle and beef tea such a stirring about of little messes in tiny saucepans on the hob such a dressing and undressing of infants such a tying and folding and pinning such a nursing and warming of little legs and feet before the fire such a delightful confusion of talking and cooking bustle importance and officiousness as never can be enjoyed in its full extent but on similar occasions in rivalry of these two institutions and as a last expiring effort to acquire parochial popularity the child's examination people determined the other day on having a grand public examination of the pupils and the large schoolroom of the national seminary was by and with the consent of the parish authorities devoted to the purpose invitation circulars were forwarded to all the principal parishioners including of course the heads of the other two societies for whose special behoof and edification the display was intended and a large audience was confidently anticipated on the occasion the floor was carefully scrubbed the day before under the immediate superintendents of the three miss browns forms were placed across the room for the accommodation of the visitors specimens in writing were carefully selected and as carefully patched and touched up until they astonished the children who had written them rather more than the company who read them some's in compound addition were rehearsed and re-rehearsed until all the children had the totals by heart and the preparations altogether were on the most laborious and most comprehensive scale the morning arrived the children were yellow-soaked and flanneled and toweled till their faces shone again every pupil's hair was carefully combed into his or her eyes as the case might be the girls were adorned with snow white tippets and caps bound round the head by a single purple ribbon the necks of the elder boys were fixed into collars of startling dimensions the doors were thrown open and the mrs brown and co were discovered in plain white muslin dresses and caps of the same the child's examination uniform the room filled the greetings of the company were loud and cordial the distributionists trembled for their popularity was at stake the eldest boy fell forward and delivered a propitiatory address from behind his collar it was from the pen of mr Henry brown the applause was universal and the johnson parkers were aghast the examination proceeded with success and terminated in triumph the child's examination society gained a momentary victory and the johnson parkers retreated in despair a secret council of the distributionists was held that night with mrs johnson parker in the chair to consider of the best means of recovering the ground they had lost in the favor of the parish what could be done another meeting alas who was to attend it the missionary would not do twice and the slaves were emancipated a bold step must be taken the parish must be astonished in some way or but no one was able to suggest what the step should be at length a very old lady was heard to mumble in indistinct tones exeter hall a sudden light broken upon the meeting it was unanimously resolved that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon a celebrated orator imploring his assistance and the favor of a speech and the deputation should also wait on two or three other imbecile old women not resident in the parish and entreat their attendance the application was successful the meeting was held the orator an irishman came he talked of green aisles other shores vast atlantic bosom of the deep christian charity blood and extermination mercy in hearts arms in hands altars and homes household gods he wiped his eyes he blew his nose and he quoted latin the effect was tremendous the latin was a decided hit nobody knew exactly what it was about but everybody knew it must be affecting because even the orator was overcome the popularity of the distribution society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented and the child's examination is going fast to decay end of chapter six of our parish from sketches by boz