The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-22

the thief and the blaekguard were por- trayed in their true, degraded, filthy and wretched surroundings.
 The absence of glamour shocked people accustomed to having their highwaymen and housebreakers served up in ruffes and lace. Critics denounced the writer for the evil truths which he told. Horri- fled by what was revealed, the world cen sared the hand that threw the light into the dark places.
 V A charge made with more justice was, and is still, is that Dickens has made the plot in "Oliver Twist" consist of the con- sventional melo-dramatic stage tricks-a stolen will, concealed identities and be- wildering coincidences. This is true. The plot in "Oliver Twist Is not at all good but, then, Dickens never did concern him self seriously with plot, and in "Oliver Twist he plainly used 1t only as mat ter of necessary machinery.
 N LIVER TWIST was born in that
 eloquent monument to civilized N charity and race love. a work house. The authorities had picked up his young mother, dying on the streets of the town to which she had wandered with fainting feet They had turned her over to the tender nursing of one Of the wretched hags who had found their final haven in the institution; and the old wo- man had tenderly robbed her of her gold ring and her gold 1ocket, which she had kept through all her sufferings and pri- vations that they might serve to identify her child.
 Thus the boy that was born just befoHe the weary young creature closed her eyes forever was nameless so far as the paro- ehial officials knew. MT. Rumble drew on his inspiration so successfully that he produced the high-sounding and poetic name of Oliver Twist
 MT. Rumble was that magnificent and overlapping functionary, a paroohial beadle. In his capacity as high officer of government he loathed the sight Of pauper. and when he acted as the instru- ment of extending paroohial relief he did fl with a proper hatred of the objects of it.
 This laudable spirit. though so effee- tive that it reduced the pauper popuia- tion by the simple method of changing it to a graveyard population, had its little drawbacks. In the case of Oliver Twist, for instance, little more Kind ness and care bestowed on his mother would have relieved MT. Bumbles parish of the onerous responsibility of tcaring for her infant, for while she was dying her father was seeking her. at.i A retired naval officer, he had been living with his two motherless daugh- l ters. one almost 20 and the other bare S9iy more than an infant. near London, when chance gave him the acquaintance of Edward Leeford
 SN Handsome, distinguished, clever and Tich. he won the affection of his hosts daughter Agnes. With no guilty inten- tion, but with bitter folly. none the less. he concealed the fact that in his early youth his family had forced him into a marriage with a woman whom he hated and who repaid the hatred with interest. They had been long separated. For 10 years he had not seen her or their son, who had in- herited his mothers bitterness of pas sion, her malignant disposition and her cruel selfishness.
 Carried away by his ardent love for Agnes, he delayed his confession until it was too late. Then, awaking to the enormity of his sin, he determined to convert all his property into cash at whatever loss, settle part of the money on his wife and son, and flee with Ag- nes to some distant land.
 Before he could carry out his in Mention he was forced to make a nasty visit to Rome. On the way he stopped to visit his best and eldest friend, to whom he made partial confession and told his intentions.
 He never returned alive A fever carried him off, and his wife and son, who had hurried to his side, succeeded to his property.
 At the news of his death Agnes, overwhelmed with grief and ashamed to face her father, fled from the house. His search for her was unavailing. Shortly after she died in the work house he was overtaken by mortal ill., ness in village that he had reached during his frantic efforts to find her. He died without being able to tell his QdIleS duu HIS lllllc uduShlSit NhOAl he had carried with him, was adopted by charitable strangers.
 So Oliver Twist grew up with 30 or 40 other juvenile offenders against the poor laws, who were ''farmed' to a branch woTkhouse where they rolled about on the floor, without the inconveni- ence of too much food or clothing under the parental superintendence of an an- cient female, who received sevenpence halfpenny a week for the support of each small culprit.
 The elder female knew that it was i'll Ito overload child's stomach with food. She appropriated a good part of the week. < ly stipend to her own use and succeeded in keeping the rising generation on the rest, thus finding in the lowest depth one that was deeper still. 1 Despite this efre. the perverse Oliver and his playmates insisted on remaining puny and miserable. a condition which eau. ed MT. Rumble to shake his solid head sadly and lament the ingratitude of the poor. MT. Bumbles indignation, how ever, remained general until Oliver Twist reach his ninth year, when an unfor- tunate circumstances made him the con- centrated example of pauper selhshness and wickedness.
 He was removed to the main workhouse to earn his board by picking oakum in company with other pale, diminutive mon |. 1<t., naA fo1