Sketches by Boz

Sketches by Boz

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches by Boz, by Charles Dickens
(#21 in our series by Charles Dickens)
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Title: Sketches by Boz
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #882] [This file was first posted on

April 10, 1997] [Most recently updated: May 7, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES
BY BOZ ***

Transcribed from the 1903 edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

SKETCHES BY BOZ

OUR PARISH

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

How much is conveyed in those two short words--'The Parish!' And
with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and
ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful
knavery, are they associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a
large family, just manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to
procure food from day to day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the
present cravings of nature, and can take no heed of the future. His taxes
are in arrear, quarter-day passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can
procure no more quarter for himself, and is summoned by--the parish.

His goods are distrained, his children are crying with cold and hunger,
and the very bed on which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from
beneath her. What can he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? To
private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not--there is his
parish. There are the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish
surgeon, the parish officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions,
and gentle, kind-hearted men. The woman dies--she is buried by the
parish. The children have no protector--they are taken care of by the
parish. The man first neglects, and afterwards cannot obtain, work--he
is relieved by the parish; and when distress and drunkenness have done
their work upon him, he is maintained, a harmless babbling idiot, in the
parish asylum.
The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps THE most, important
member of the local administration. He is not so well off as the
churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk, nor
does he order things quite so much his own way as either of them. But
his power is very great, notwithstanding; and the dignity of his office is
never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it. The
beadle of our parish is a splendid fellow. It is quite delightful to hear
him, as he explains the state of the existing poor laws to the deaf old
women in the board- room passage on business nights; and to hear what
he said to the senior churchwarden, and what the senior churchwarden
said to him; and what 'we' (the beadle and the other gentlemen) came to
the determination of doing. A miserable-looking woman is called into
the boardroom, and represents a case of extreme destitution, affecting
herself--a widow, with six small children. 'Where do you live?' inquires
one of the overseers. 'I rents a two-pair back, gentlemen, at Mrs.
Brown's, Number 3, Little King William's-alley, which has lived there
this fifteen year, and knows me to be very hard-working and
industrious, and when my poor husband was alive, gentlemen, as died
in the hospital'--'Well, well,' interrupts the overseer, taking a note of the
address, 'I'll send Simmons, the beadle, to-morrow morning, to
ascertain whether your story is correct; and if so, I suppose you must
have an order into the House--Simmons, go to this woman's the first
thing to-morrow morning, will you?' Simmons bows assent, 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,