“Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net, – to be prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow…Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the heap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this power.”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 51. Using a hypothetical story with no names, Jaggers explains to Pip how Estella came to be adopted by Miss Havisham who was looking for a child at the time. Estella’s mother was Molly who was on trial for murder and represented by Jaggers – she later became his housekeeper. With Estella’s father thinking that she was dead, Jaggers believed that he was saving the child. He tells how he saw children treated harshly by the legal system, ending up in prison, transported or sometimes hanged. In a metaphor Jaggers refers to those children he encountered in his legal work as “so much spawn.” He argued that he was doing good by rescuing young Estella from a rough life and facilitating her adoption to Miss Havisham. The brutality of the legal system in Victorian England is highlighted here.
