The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-05-07
FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN.

tBy Susie corneiia Connolly in Memphis Com
mercial Appeal.
How many times have you cried Owe
the death of Little Nell, or that OF Pau
Dombey? How often has your anger
risen at the wrongs done David Copper
feldY And haven't you rejoiced time
and again that the misfortunes of Oliver
Twist ended happily after all?
Often and often, we have no doubt,
Toward no other children can you ever
feel quite the same as toward the chill
dren of Dickens fancy. They are more
real to you than your own brothers and
sisters; you feel genuine affection for
them; and when once you have made
their acquaintance, your interest in them
never lessons.
The chief charm in all that Dickens
wrote is its simplicity and truth. He
pictured life and its people as they ex-
listed in his day-which is but life as it
exists to-day and as it will exist for all
time. Dickens knowledge of what he
wrote was gained first hand; the life of
the boy Copperfeld is, with but few
changes, Dickens own; all the tears
and sorrows and heartaches of little
Davy are those he himself had suffered.
Charles Dickens was born in sub
urb of Portsea, England, in 1872. His
father held small clerkship, of which
the salary paid was never enough to
support his family of ten.
From his mother young Dickens
learned to read and write and had bit
of Latin, too. When Charles was A the
fomily moved to Chatham, and here
he attended school as soon as he had
reached school-going age He was
sickly child, unable to take part in out
door play and fun, SO his attention was
attracted toward books. In his David
he speaks of these treas
ures: In a little room upstairs, to
which I had access, and which nobody
else in our house ever troubled, had
been left a small collection of books
and from that blessed room
Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle,
Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The
Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil
Bias and Robinson Crusoe' came out,
4 glorious host, to keep me company.
They kept alive my fancy and my hope
Of something beyond that place and
time-they had the Arabian Nights
and the Tales of the Genii.
I consoled myself under my small
troubles by impersonating my favorite
in them. For days
and daysI can remember to have gone
about my region of our house, armed
with the centerpiece out of an old set of
boot-trees - the perfect realization of
Captain Somebody of royal British
navy, in danger of being beset by saw
ages, and resolved to sell his life at a
great price -
When Charles was 9 the family went
back to London, leaving the woods and
trees and ancient ruins Whereabouts, SO
lear to the boy. His father could not
afford to send him to school; indeed the
family were in dire straits-two of the
children died-and everything of any
value was pawned-even the boys we'll
beloved books-in order to get food.
Imprisonment for debt was then>pos-
sible, and it was not long before the
elder Dickens was carried away to Mar
'halsea prison, together with his fam
ly, they having nowhere else to go.
Charles, then lad of -, was given
employment in backing warehouse
1t the princely salary of six shillings a
week. The boy felt the degradation of
Of the life keenly. 1t is wonderful to
me, he says, that even after my de-
scent into the poor little drudge / had
oeen since we came to London, no one
lad compassion enough on me
20 suggest that something might have
oeen spared, as certainly it might have
been, to place me at any common school.
Dur friends, 1 take it, were tired out,
No one made any sign. My father and
mother were quite satisfied. They could
hardly have been more so if l had been
20 years Of age, distinguished at gram
mar school and going to Cambridge.
The backing warehouse was