Dickens Quarterly

An Outline of the Sketch

“The Ladies’ Societies,” published in the Evening Chronicle on 20 August 1835, begins with an account of the many splendidly named² charitable organizations run with “[much] stir and […] bustle” by the ladies of the parish.³ Between two of these organizations, the bible and prayer-book distribution society⁴ and the child’s examination society, a “factious opposition” is said to exist (34). The conflict began, we are told, when three maiden sisters, anxious to attract the attention of the parish’s curate, assumed an enthusiasm for the education of its charity children: “The three Miss Browns […] taught, and exercised, and examined, and re-examined the unfortunate children, until the boys grew pale, and the girls consumptive with study and fatigue” (34). The Misses Brown are commended by the curate and asked to recruit young lady assistants. Instead, they choose “old [End Page 293] maids.” Reacting to this snub, the mother of “seven extremely fine girls – all unmarried” (35) initiates a rival organization which distributes bibles and prayer-books to the devout poor. The two groups vie for public support:

A balance of parties took place. The Miss Browns publicly examined – popular feeling inclined to the child’s examination society. The [opposing society] publicly distributed – a reaction took place in favour of the prayer-book distribution. A feather would have turned the scale.

(36)

The balance tips towards the distributionists when they join forces with the Dissenters’ Missionary Society. The narrator observes:

From that period we date (with one trifling exception) a daily increase in the popularity of the distribution society […] which the feeble and impotent opposition of the examination party has only tended to augment.

(36)

The narrative now shifts rather awkwardly into an account of a third organization, the ladies’ childbed-linen monthly loan society, in which Boz has fun describing its exclusively female activities to do with child-bearing and infant-rearing. Somewhat bumpily, the story of the two rival organizations then resumes, and we learn about the previously mentioned “trifling exception:” as “a last expiring effort to acquire parochial popularity, the child’s examination people determined, the other day, on having a grand public examination of the pupils” (37–8). The scheme proves successful, and the examination society gains a “momentary victory” (38). The distributionists then retaliate by recruiting the help of an Irish orator and a few other women “not resident in the parish” (39). The sketch ends with the narrator remarking that, thereafter: “The popularity of the distribution society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented; and the child’s examination is going fast to decay” (39).

An Initial Reading

Its opening words – “Our Parish is very prolific in ladies’ charitable institutions” – clearly define the setting for the narrative. Thereafter, Boz anchors the story firmly in the context of other pieces in the “Parish” series of sketches. We are told that the action begins “[when] the young curate was popular” (34), having learned in an earlier sketch of his appointment, idolization, and fall from favor (“Curate” 7–9). We have also encountered [End Page 294] the Misses Brown before, and heard of their infatuation with the curate (7). The parish beadle, Mr. Bung, prominent in earlier pieces (“Election”; “Broker’s Man”), plays a cameo role in this. When the Misses Brown swoon in church on hearing their charitable work commended, they reproduce the reaction, in an earlier sketch, of the parish’s “Old Lady” on witnessing the results of her benevolence (“Curate” 11).

Given this clarity of context, it is possible to read and enjoy “The Ladies’ Societies” as no more than a humorous account of the kind of petty rivalry which might be supposed to arise in the small, close community with which its inventor has made us familiar. Indeed, early Dickens has many examples of very funny narratives that turn, in part, on such conflicts, and they...