If the law supposes that, the law is a ass—a…

The scene is Mr Bumble’s downfall. Mr Brownlow has confronted the Bumbles with Monks and two old workhouse women, witnesses of the deathbed scene in which Mrs Bumble obtained a locket and ring stolen from Oliver’s mother. Mrs Bumble admits she sold them; Brownlow answers that neither will ever again be “employed in a situation of trust”. Once she has gone, Mr Bumble asks whether this will cost him his “porochial office” and, told it will, pleads that it was all Mrs Bumble’s doing. That is no excuse, says Brownlow, since in the eye of the law a wife acts under her husband’s direction. Squeezing his hat, the former beadle gives his verdict: if that is the eye of the law, “the law’s a bachelor”, whose eye he hopes may be opened “by experience”.

Oliver Twist appeared in Bentley’s Miscellany from 1837 to 1839. The presumption Bumble complains of was real, and the line has been quoted against absurd laws ever since. It falls in chapter 49 of the 1838 three-volume edition, chapter 51 in later editions.

Oliver Twist, chapter 51 (chapter 49 of the three-volume edition of 1838), Mr Bumble, 1838

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