Finally, the first three pages of Chapter XLV, "The Criminal Population is Disposed of," are given to a comparison of this novel's villain, Undecimus Scott, with Bill Sikes. Was Charles Dickens flattered that his villain of _Oliver Twist_ was so honored by his colleague Anthony Trollope, who apologized in the text that he could not give Undy Scott so "decent an end" as that given to Bill Sikes? It must be added that Trollope considered _The Three Clerks_ to be his best work yet, better than _The Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_. Contemporary critics agreed with him, including Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. What were they thinking? Perhaps Trollope overestimated his portrayal of Charley Tudor, who may well have been a self-portrait of the hobbledehoy who aspired to write novels but found female companionship in a social class beneath his own--indeed, having to withstand an attack in his office by the mother of a young woman who considered herself to be ill used. Today's reader may well wonder why _The Three Clerks_ was ever rated higher than _The Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_. Posterity has certainly not concurred. In the case of Trollope's novels, religion, like politics, has trumped bureaucracy. The book, however, primarily tells the story of six young people. I must confess that I found myself tiring of them before the author did. THE PROUD YOUNG LOVERS THE BERTRAMS "For the first fortnight she did not leave the house." This sentence, in Chapter XXXVII of _The Bertrams_ by Anthony Trollope, epitomizes the difficulty for the present day reader in understanding a Victorian novel. Things have changed a great deal since then, but surely the place of women is fundamental. Did not leave her house! Lady Harcourt was in great distress. She had left her husband (she had virtually fled), and he had the legal right to apprehend her and force her to return to his home. Divorce was not an option for her. The action of the book takes place in 1845-1848. Only in 1857 (a year before the book was written) did the Matrimonial Causes Act give women limited access to divorce. Under this act the husband only had to prove his wife's adultery to obtain a divorce, but a woman had not only to prove her husband's having committed adultery; she also had to prove incest, bigamy, cruelty, or desertion. And so she was legally and permanently bound to a husband who owned their home. The law regarded a married couple as one person; the husband had a legal obligation to protect his wife; she was bound to obey him. Personal property brought to the marriage by the wife then belonged to the husband, even after a divorce if one could be obtained. Her income belonged completely to her husband. A man's home was his castle, and the wife was part of the deal.