The board's rule about the alternative of starvation

The board's rule about the alternative of starvation was a policy enacted by the parish Board of Guardians, which forced the poor to choose between slow starvation within the workhouse or quick starvation outside it, serving as a central mechanism of institutional cruelty in Oliver Twist's early life.

Origins and Rationale

The members of the board were described as "very sage, deep, philosophical men" who, upon turning their attention to the workhouse, discovered what ordinary people would never have noticed: that the poor actually liked it. They saw the workhouse as "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 elysium, where it was all play and no work." Determined to correct this perceived abuse, the board established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative of being starved by a gradual process inside the house or by a quick one outside it. They claimed they would compel nobody, but the choice itself was a form of coercion.

Implementation and Consequences

To enforce this policy, the board contracted with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water and with a corn-factor to supply small quantities of oatmeal periodically. They issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays. The rule was coupled with the workhouse itself, which frightened people away from seeking relief. For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed from the farm, the system was in full operation. It proved rather expensive at first, due to an increase in the undertaker's bill and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which hung loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms after a week or two of gruel. However, the number of workhouse inmates grew thin as well, and the board was in ecstasies.

The Rule in Practice: Oliver's Experience

The rule directly shaped Oliver's daily existence. The room where the boys were fed was a large stone hall with a copper at one end, from which the master, dressed in an apron and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes. Each boy received one porringer of this "festive composition" and no more, except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. The bowls never needed washing, as the boys polished them with their spoons until they shone. After this operation, they would sit staring at the copper with eager eyes, as if they could devour the very bricks, while sucking their fingers to catch any stray splashes of gruel. Oliver and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months, eventually becoming so voracious and wild with hunger that one boy hinted he might eat the boy who slept next to him. This desperation led directly to the council where lots were cast, and Oliver was chosen to ask for more gruel—an act that the board treated as a capital offense, offering a reward of five pounds to anyone who would take him off the parish's hands.

The Principle Extended: Outdoor Relief

The same principle of giving paupers what they did not want was later articulated by Mr. Bumble in his conversation with Mrs. Corney. He explained that the great principle of outdoor relief was "to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming." He noted that sick families were always relieved with slices of cheese, a practice that ensured they would not return. This cynical application of the board's original rule demonstrated how the philosophy of starvation as a deterrent permeated the entire parish system.

Thematic Significance

The board's rule about the alternative of starvation stands as Dickens's most concentrated indictment of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and its principle of "less eligibility," which held that workhouse conditions must be worse than those of the lowest-paid independent laborer. By reducing the choice to a matter of where and how quickly one would starve, the board exposed the moral bankruptcy of a system that treated poverty as a crime and hunger as a policy tool. The rule's consequences—the emaciated bodies, the desperate plea for more food, the commodification of orphan children—reverberate throughout Oliver's journey, marking the workhouse as the origin of his suffering and the embodiment of institutional cruelty.