My Newest Essay On A Christmas Carol.

I have a new essay on a Christmas Carol for this year. It's really just an edited and modified one from years past. I mainly used Google to get my historical facts in it straight. Then I quoted some of the words and phrases from the book, to show where I was referring to it and for irony. And I also shaved off some of the unnecessary words or information. (I preferred the phrase "some meat and drink, and means of warmth" from the original novel, which I shortened to some meat and drink, and warmth in my essay. But I thought that was too long so I just shortened it to furnish Christian cheer, which is also from the book.)

In Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol two portly gentlemen come to the office of Scrooge & Marley. And when they ask Scrooge for a holiday donation Scrooge asks them, Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

In Dickens' time, prisons and workhouses dealt with the poor in a number of ways, including debtors prisons were often innocent tradespeople who were kept in prison until they paid their debts. Conditions were often appalling, with families crammed into cold, damp cells. Or workhouses where the poor were forced to live and work in order to receive public assistance. Workhouses were made to be miserable to deter the poor from relying on public assistance. Scrooge is expressing his callous belief that the poor should simply rely on these notorious institutions instead of expecting charity from him.

And so he asks the gentlemen if something had occurred to stop these institutions in their useful course. But no, they tell Scrooge. Because although places that furnish Christian cheer for those in need are few and are between, there is never a shortage of those other places.