Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born——on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events——an item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
Under the workhouse system,, sevenpence-halfpennys worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got from sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable.
It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop. Oliver Twists ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference.