Oliver Twist

This story shows in vivid colors the miseries ofthe pauper''s home where the inmates are robbed and starved, while the dead are hurried into unhonored graves; the haunts of villains and thieves, where the wretchedpoor are purposely made criminals by those who have sinned past hope; and one wrong-doing is used to force the victim deeper in vice. With such lives are interwoven those of a better sort, showing how men and women in all grades have power on others for good or ill. Oliver Twist — so called because the workhouse master had just then reached the letter "T" in naming the waifs — was born in the poorhouse, where his mother''s wanderings ceased forever. When the hungry lad asked for more ofthe too thin gruel he was whipped. Bound out to work, he runs away from this slavery and goes to London. The Artful Dodger takes the starving lad to the den of Fagin the Jew, the pickpocket''s school. But he will not steal. He finds a home. He is kidnapped,