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in his mistress. Of the latter objection I will merely say that I fear there are in the world some insensible and callous natures that do become, at last, utterly and irredeemably bad. But whether this be so or not, of one thing I am certain: that there are such men as Sikes, who, being closely followed through the same space of time and through the same current of circumstances, would not give, by one look or action of a moment, the faintest indication of a better nature. Whether every gentler human feeling is dead within such bosoms, or the proper chord to strike has rusted and is hard to find, I do not know; but that the fact is so, I am sure.

It is useless to discuss whether the conduct and character of the girl seems natural or unnatural, probable or improbable, right or wrong. It is true. Every man who has watched these melancholy shades of life knows it to be so. Suggested to my mind long ago—long before I dealt in fiction—by what I often saw and read of in actual life around me, I have for years tracked it through many profligate and noisome ways, and found it still the same. From the first introduction of that poor wretch to her laying her bloody head upon the robber’s breast, there is not one word exaggerated or overwrought. It is emphatically God’s truth, for it is the truth. He leaves in such depraved and miserable breasts, the hope yet lingering behind, the last fair drop of water at the bottom of the dried-up weed-choked well. It involves the best and worst shades of our common nature, much of its ugliest hues and something of its most beautiful ; it is a contradiction, an anomaly, an apparent impossibility, but it is a truth. I am glad to have had it doubted, for in that circumstance I find a sufficient assurance that it needed to be told.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE

April, 1841

PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION

At page 267 of this present edition of Oliver Twist there is a de scription of “the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordi nary of the many localities that are hidden in London.” And the name of this place is Jacob’s Island.

Eleven or twelve years have elapsed since the description was first published. I was as well convinced then as I am now, that nothing effectual can be done for the elevation of the poor in England until their dwelling-places are made decent and wholesome. I have always been convinced that this reform must precede all other Social Reforms; that it must prepare the way for Education, even for Religion; and that, without it, those classes of the people which increase the fastest must become so desperate, and be made so miserable, as to bear within themselves the certain seeds of ruin to the whole community.

The metropolis (of all places under heaven) being excluded from the provisions of the Public Health Act passed last year, a society has been formed called the Metropolitan Sanitary Association, with the view of remedying this grievous mistake. The association held its first public meeting at Freemason’s Hall on Wednesday the sixth of February last, the Bishop of London presiding. It happened that this very place, Jacob’s Island, had lately attracted the attention of the Board of Health, in consequence of its having been ravaged by cholera; and that the Bishop of London had in his hands the result of an inquiry under the Metropolitan Sewers Commission, showing, by way of proof of the cheapness of sanitary improvements, an estimate of the probable cost at which the houses in Jacob’s Island could be rendered fit for human habitation—which cost, as stated, was about a penny three farthings per week per house. The Bishop referred to this paper with the moderation and forbearance which pervaded all his observations, and did me the honour to mention that I had described Jacob’s Island. When I subsequently made a few observations myself, I confessed that soft impeachment.

Now the vestry of Marylebone parish, meeting on the following Saturday, had the honour to be addressed by Sir Peter Laurie, a gentleman of infallible authority, of great innate modesty, and of a most sweet humanity.