Date: 12/11/2021 Shift: 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM Q. No: 193

‘What’s your name, boy?’ said the gentleman in the high chair.
Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him tremble and speak in a very low and hesitating voice.
‘Listen to me. You know you’re an orphan, I suppose? And that you were brought up by the parish, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.
‘I hope you say your prayers every night,’ said another gentleman in a gruff voice, ‘and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of you’.
‘Yes, sir,’ stammered the boy.
‘Well! You have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,’ said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.
Poor Oliver! He little thought, as he lay sleeping, happily unconscious of things around him, that the board had that very day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence over all his future fortunes.
But they had. They believed the workhouse was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar place, where it was all play and no work. ‘Oho!’ said the board, looking very knowing; ‘we are the fellows to set this to rights; we’ll stop it all, in no time.’
So, they established the rule, that all poor people should be starved by a gradual process in the house. The water-works were asked to lay on an unlimited supply of water; a corn-factory asked to supply small quantities of oatmeal; and it was decided to issue three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll of bread on Sundays.