24 December
'At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.'
‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Scrooge.
‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
‘And the Union workhouses?’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’
‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman, ‘I wish I could say they were not.’
‘The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?’ said Scrooge.
‘Both very busy, sir.’
‘Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Red Pepper in print
Subscribe to get the latest issue of the magazine
#233: Democracy on the Wing ● Thelma Walker on regional autonomy ● An interview with Clive Lewis ● The World Transformed ● Gender, sexuality and witchcraft ● The globalisation of ‘Asian horror’ ● A tribute to Dawn Foster ● Latest book reviews ● And much more!
And you choose how much to pay for your subscription...
Red Pepper by email
Get the latest articles and updates in your inbox
The global spectres of ‘Asian horror’
Bliss Cua Lim looks at how the female ghost subgenre illuminates efforts to globalise ‘Asian horror’
Rudolf Rocker: an anarchist ‘rabbi’ in London
David J. Lobina rediscovers a forgotten but fascinating figure in London’s radical and Jewish history
Review – Falling Down: The Conservative Party and the Decline of Tory Britain by Phil Burton-Cartledge
Sabrina Huck argues that a generational shift away from the Conservative Party can’t be taken for granted
The driver of dispossession
Tina Ngata explains the social and legal legacies of a 15th-century Christian principle that paved the way for imperial violence in, and far beyond, New Zealand
Review – Just Us: An American Conversation
Claudia Rankine's collection perfectly illustrates the power of frank conversations with white people on race and racism, writes Kimberly McIntosh
Resisting India’s structural limits on suffrage
Voter suppression and systematic exclusion cast a pall over the world's biggest 'democracy', writes Kavita Krishnan
