 the other took his likeness; and, although Mr. Squeers
has but one eye, and he has two, and the published sketch does not resemble him
(whoever he may be) in any other respect, still he and all his friends and
neighbours know at once for whom it is meant, because - the character is so like
him.
    While the Author cannot but feel the full force of the compliment thus
conveyed to him, he ventures to suggest that these contentions may arise from
the fact, that Mr. Squeers is the representative of a class, and not of an
individual. Where imposture, ignorance, and brutal cupidity, are the stock in
trade of a small body of men, and one is described by these characteristics, all
his fellows will recognise something belonging to themselves, and each will have
a misgiving that the portrait is his own.
    The Author's object in calling public attention to the system would be very
imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own person, emphatically
and earnestly, that Mr. Squeers and his school are faint and feeble pictures of
an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed
impossible. That there are, upon record, trials at law in which damages have
been sought as a poor recompense for lasting agonies and disfigurements
inflicted upon children by the treatment of the master in these places,
involving such offensive and foul details of neglect, cruelty, and disease, as
no writer of fiction would have the boldness to imagine. And that, since he has
been engaged upon these Adventures, he has received, from private quarters far
beyond the reach of suspicion or distrust, accounts of atrocities, in the
perpetration of which upon neglected or repudiated children, these schools have
been the main instruments, very far exceeding any that appear in these pages.«
    This comprises all I need say on the subject; except that if I had seen
occasion, I had resolved to reprint a few of these details of legal proceedings,
from certain old newspapers.
    One other quotation from the same Preface, may serve to introduce a fact
that my readers may think curious.
    »To turn to a more pleasant subject, it may be right to say, that there are
two characters in this book which are drawn from life. It is remarkable that
what we call the world, which is so very credulous in what professes to be true,
is most incredulous in what professes to be imaginary; and that, while, every
day in real life, it will allow in one man no blemishes, and in another no
virtues
