CHAPTER XI
TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A
SLIGHT
SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE
The offence had been committed within the district, and indeed in the immediate
neighborhood of, a very notorious metropolitan police office. The crowd had only the
satisfaction of accompanying Oliver through two or three streets, and down a place
called Mutton Hill, when he was led beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, into
this dispensary of summary justice, by the back way. It was a small paved yard into
which they turned; and here they encountered a stout man with a bunch of whiskers on
his face, and a bunch of keys in his hand.
'What's the matter now?' said the man carelessly.
'A young fogle-hunter,' replied the man who had Oliver in charge.
'Are you the party that's been robbed, sir?' inquired the man with the keys.
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'Yes, I am,' replied the old gentleman; 'but I am not sure that this boy actually took the
handkerchief. I--I would rather not press the case.'
'Must go before the magistrate now, sir,' replied the man. 'His worship will be
disengaged in half a minute. Now, young gallows!'
This was an invitation for Oliver to enter through a door which he unlocked as he spoke,
and which led into a stone cell. Here he was searched; and nothing being found upon
him, locked up.
This cell was in shape and size something like an area cellar, only not so light. It was
most intolably dirty; for it was Monday morning; and it had been tenanted by six
drunken people, who had been locked up, elsewhere, since Saturday night. But this is
little. In our station-houses, men and women are every night confined on the most
trivial charges--the word is worth noting--in dungeons, compared with which, those in
Newgate, occupied by the most atrocious felons, tried, found guilty, and under sentence
of death, are palaces. Let any one who doubts this, compare the two.
The old gentleman looked almost as rueful as Oliver when the key grated in the lock.
He turned with a sigh to the book, which had been the innocent cause of all this
disturbance.
'There is something in that boy's face,' said the old gentleman to himself as he walked
slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of the book, in a thoughtful manner;
'something that touches and interests me. CAN he be innocent? He looked like--Bye
the bye,' exclaimed the old gentleman, halting very abruptly, and staring up into the sky,
'Bless my soul!--where have I seen something like that look before?'
After musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same meditative
face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there, retiring into a corner,
called up before his mind's eye a vast amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain
had hung for many years. 'No,' said the old gentleman, shaking his head; 'it must be
imagination.
He wandered over them again. He had called them into view, and it was not easy to
replace the shroud that had so long concealed them. There were the faces of friends,
and foes, and of many that had been almost strangers peering intrusively from the
crowd; there were the faces of young and blooming girls that were now old women;
there were faces that the grave had changed and closed upon, but which the mind,
superior to its power, still dressed in their old freshness and beauty, calling back the
lustre of the eyes, the brightness of the smile, the beaming of the soul through its mask
of clay, and whispering of beauty beyond the tomb, changed but to be heightened, and
taken from earth only to be set up as a light, to shed a soft and gentle glow upon the
path to Heaven.
But the old gentleman could recall no one countenance of which Oliver's features bore a
trace. So, he heaved a sigh over the recollections he awakened; and being, happily for
himself, an absent old gentleman, buried them again in the pages of the musty book.
He was roused by a touch on the shoulder, and a request from the man with the keys to
follow him into the office. He closed his book hastily; and was at once ushered into the
imposing presence of the renowned Mr. Fang.
The office was a front parlour, with a panelled wall. Mr. Fang sat behind a bar, at the
upper end; and on one side the door was a sort of wooden pen in which poor little
Oliver was already deposited; trembling very much at the awfulness of the scene.
Mr. Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no great
quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his head. His face
was stern, and much flushed. If he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more
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than was exactly good for him, he might have brought action against his countenance
for libel, and have recovered heavy damages.
The old gentleman bowed respectfully; and advancing to the magistrate's desk, said
suiting the action to the word, 'That is my name and address, sir.' He then withdrew a
pace or two; and, with another polite and gentlemanly inclination of the head, waited to
be questioned.
Now, it so happened that Mr. Fang was at that moment perusing a leading article in a
newspaper of the morning, adverting to some recent decision of his, and commending
him, for the three hundred and fiftieth time, to the special and particular notice of the
Secretary of State for the Home Department. He was out of temper; and he looked up
with an angry scowl.
'Who are you?' said Mr. Fang.
The old gentleman pointed, with some surprise, to his card.
'Officer!' said Mr. Fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with the newspaper.
'Who is this fellow?'
'My name, sir,' said the old gentleman, speaking LIKE a gentleman, 'my name, sir, is
Brownlow. Permit me to inquire the name of the magistrate who offers a gratuitous and
unprovoked insult to a respectable person, under the protection of the bench.' Saying
this, Mr. Brownlow looked around the office as if in search of some person who would
afford him the required information.
'Officer!' said Mr. Fang, throwing the paper on one side, 'what's this fellow charged
with?'
'He's not charged at all, your worship,' replied the officer. 'He appears against this boy,
your worship.'
His worshp knew this perfectly well; but it was a good annoyance, and a safe one.
'Appears against the boy, does he?' said Mr. Fang, surveying Mr.
Brownlow contemptuously from head to foot. 'Swear him!'
'Before I am sworn, I must beg to say one word,' said Mr.
Brownlow; 'and that is, that I really never, without actual
experience, could have believed--'
'Hold your tongue, sir!' said Mr. Fang, peremptorily.
'I will not, sir!' replied the old gentleman.
'Hold your tongue this instant, or I'll have you turned out of the office!' said Mr. Fang.
'You're an insolent impertinent fellow. How dare you bully a magistrate!'
'What!' exclaimed the old gentleman, reddening.
'Swear this person!' said Fang to the clerk. 'I'll not hear another word. Swear him.'
Mr. Brownlow's indignaton was greatly roused; but reflecting perhaps, that he might
only injure the boy by giving vent to it, he suppressed his feelings and submitted to be
sworn at once.
'Now,' said Fang, 'what's the charge against this boy? What have you got to say, sir?'
'I was standing at a bookstall--' Mr. Brownlow began.
'Hold your tongue, sir,' said Mr. Fang. 'Policeman! Where's the policeman? Here,
swear this policeman. Now, policeman, what is this?'
The policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the charge; how he
had searched Oliver, and found nothing on his person; and how that was all he knew
about it.
'Are there any witnesses?' inquired Mr. Fang.
'None, your worship,' replied the policeman.
Mr. Fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to the prosecutor, said in a
towering passion.
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'Do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is,
man, or do you not? You have been sworn. Now, if you stand
there, refusing to give evidence, I'll punish you for disrespect
to the bench; I will, by--'
By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed very loud, just at
the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy book upon the floor, thus preventing
the word from being heard--accidently, of course.
With many interruptions, and repeated insults, Mr. Brownlow contrived to state his
case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he had run after the boy because he
had saw him running away; and expressing his hope that, if the magistrate should
believe him, although not actually the thief, to be connected with the thieves, he would
deal as leniently with him as justice would allow.
'He has been hurt already,' said the old gentleman in conclusion.
'And I fear,' he added, with great energy, looking towards the bar, 'I really fear that he is
ill.'
'Oh! yes, I dare say!' said Mr. Fang, with a sneer. 'Come, none of your tricks here, you
young vagabond; they won't do. What's your name?'
Oliver tried to reply but his tongue failed him. He was deadly pale; and the whole place
seemed turning round and round.
'What's your name, you hardened scoundrel?' demanded Mr. Fang.
'Officer, what's his name?'
This was addressed to a bluff old fellow, in a striped waistcoat, who was standing by the
bar. He bent over Oliver, and repeated the inquiry; but finding him really incapable of
understanding the question; and knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the
magistrate the more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he hazarded a guess.
'He says his name's Tom White, your worship,' said the kind-hearted thief-taker.
'Oh, he won't speak out, won't he?' said Fang. 'Very well, very well. Where does he
live?'
'Where he can, your worship,' replied the officer; again pretending to receive Oliver's
answer.
'Has he any parents?' inquired Mr. Fang.
'He says they died in his infancy, your worship,' replied the officer: hazarding the usual
reply.
At this point of the inquiry, Oliver raised his head; and, looking round with imploring
eyes, murmured a feeble prayer for a draught of water.
'Stuff and nonsense!' said Mr. Fang: 'don't try to make a fool of me.'
'I think he really is ill, your worship,' remonstrated the officer.
'I know better,' said Mr. Fang.
'Take care of him, officer,' said the old gentleman, raising his hands instinctively; 'he'll
fall down.'
'Stand away, officer,' cried Fang; 'let him, if he likes.'
Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in a fainting fit. The
men in the office looked at each other, but no one dared to stir.
'I knew he was shamming,' said Fang, as if this were incontestable proof of the fact.
'Let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that.'
'How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?' inquired the clerk in a low voice.
'Summarily,' replied Mr. Fang. 'He stands committed for three months--hard labour of
course. Clear the office.'
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The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were preparing to carry the
insensible boy to his cell; when an elderly man of decent but poor appearance, clad in
an old suit of black, rushed hastily into the office, and advanced towards the bench.
'Stop, stop! don't take him away! For Heaven's sake stop a moment!' cried the new
comer, breathless with haste.
Although the presiding Genii in such an office as this, exercise a summary and arbitrary
power over the liberties, the good name, the character, almost the lives, of Her Majesty's
subjects, expecially of the poorer class; and although, within such walls, enough
fantastic tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping; they are closed
to the public, save through the medium of the daily press.(Footnote: Or were virtually,
then.) Mr. Fang was consequently not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest enter in
such irreverent disorder.
'What is this? Who is this? Turn this man out. Clear the office!' cried Mr. Fang.
'I WILL speak,' cried the man; 'I will not be turned out. I saw it all. I keep the bookstall.
I demand to be sworn. I will not be put down. Mr. Fang, you must hear me. You
must not refuse, sir.'
The man was right. His manner was determined; and the matter was growing rather too
serious to be hushed up.
'Swear the man,' growled Mr. Fang. with a very ill grace. 'Now, man, what have you got
to say?'
'This,' said the man: 'I saw three boys: two others and the prisoner here: loitering on
the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman was reading. The robbery was
committed by another boy. I saw it done; and I saw that this boy was perfectly amazed
and stupified by it.' Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall
keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner the exact circumstances of the
robbery.
'Why didn't you come here before?' said Fang, after a pause.
'I hadn't a soul to mind the shop,' replied the man. 'Everybody who could have helped
me, had joined in the pursuit. I could get nobody till five minutes ago; and I've run here
all the way.'
'The prosecutor was reading, was he?' inquired Fang, after another pause.
'Yes,' replied the man. 'The very book he has in his hand.'
'Oh, that book, eh?' said Fang. 'Is it paid for?'
'No, it is not,' replied the man, with a smile.
'Dear me, I forgot all about it!' exclaimed the absent old gentleman, innocently.
'A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!' said Fang, with a comical effort to
look humane. 'I consider, sir, that you have obtained possession of that book, under
very suspicious and disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very
fortunate that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. Let this be a lesson to
you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. The boy is discharged. Clear the
office!'
'D--n me!' cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he
had kept down so long, 'd--n me! I'll--'
'Clear the office!' said the magistrate. 'Officers, do you hear?
Clear the office!'
The mandate was obeyed; and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed out, with the
book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a perfect phrenzy of rage and
defiance. He reached the yard; and his passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver
Twist lay on his back on the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples
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bathed with water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole
frame.
'Poor boy, poor boy!' said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him. 'Call a coach, somebody,
pray. Directly!'
A coach was obtained, and Oliver having been carefully laid on the seat, the old
gentleman got in and sat himself on the other.
'May I accompany you?' said the book-stall keeper, looking in.
'Bless me, yes, my dear sir,' said Mr. Brownlow quickly. 'I forgot you. Dear, dear! I
have this unhappy book still! Jump in. Poor fellow! There's no time to lose.'
The book-stall keeper got into the coach; and away they drove.
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