Oliver Twist

Anonymous

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beadle
a minor parish official who serves smaller church functions

But these impertinences were speedily checked by the evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle; the former of whom had always opened the body and found nothing inside (which was very probable indeed), and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever the parish wanted; which was very self-devotional.
gruel
a thin porridge

Give it a little gruel if it is.'
pauper
a person who is very poor

There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought out the point between them.
halfpenny
an English coin worth half a penny

Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-hal...
stipendiary
receiving or eligible for compensation

Are you aweer, Mrs. Mann, that you are, as I may say, a porochial delegate, and a stipendiary?'

Created on 二月 12, 2010