# Please help me understand this bit from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 11, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777 "2009-01-11T07:26:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/1 "2009-01-11T07:26:58Z")
Scrooge is walking with the Ghost of Christmas Present. > [@](#): > > “Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge. > > “There is. My own.” > > “Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge. > > “To any kindly given. To a poor one most.” > > “Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge. > > “Because it needs it most.” > > “Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.” > > “I!” cried the Spirit. > > “You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge. “Wouldn’t you?” > > “I!” cried the Spirit. > > “You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?” said Scrooge. “And it comes to the same thing.” > > “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit. > > “Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge. > > “There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.” What’s that all about? I know England used to have very strict things-closing-on-Sunday blue laws, but would that really deprive the lower classes of the chance to dine? ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/2 "2009-01-11T09:13:06Z")
I may be way off base here, but I have read somewhere that many poor households had their meals, or at least the main one, cooked in commercial establishments and then took them home. I’m thinking maybe a bakery or something like that? It was cheaper than doing it at home. So if the place had to be closed on Sundays and that was the only day they had off work, so it was the only day they could even hope to relax and enjoy a meal, they never got a real chance to have anything decent at dinner. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/3 "2009-01-11T09:38:48Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > I may be way off base here, but I have read somewhere that many poor households had their meals, or at least the main one, cooked in commercial establishments and then took them home. I’m thinking maybe a bakery or something like that? It was cheaper than doing it at home. So if the place had to be closed on Sundays and that was the only day they had off work, so it was the only day they could even hope to relax and enjoy a meal, they never got a real chance to have anything decent at dinner. That’s it exactly – I would have thought the passage immediately before **BrainGlutton’s** quote would have made it clear: > [@](#): > > But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was. > > In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. Domestic ovens were a rarity at the time – most cooking was done over an open fire, or on the hob beside it, and those in the homes of the poor were too small to allow the roasting of meat on a spit. If they had a joint of meat, or a large bird, for a Sunday or Christmas dinner, they would take them to the local bakery, where they’d be put in the ovens after the days bread was done. This also partially explains the popularity of puddings in British cooking – even the poorest family, like the Cratchits, had a copper to boil the water for laundry day, and they could cook quite a large pudding in that. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/4 "2009-01-11T09:56:35Z")
This kind of thing was common in Greece until quite recently (I saw people doing it about 10 years ago), and might even still go on in more remote villages. The common word for ‘bakery’ is ‘fourno’, which just means ‘oven’. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/5 "2009-01-11T09:58:48Z")
Strike out the part about bread - it was illegal to bake on Sunday, according to my annotated _Carol_; it wasn’t illegal to fire up the ovens and roast people’s meat for them though. Some lawmakers wanted to lose this “loophole”, as they saw it. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/6 "2009-01-11T10:22:53Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Strike out the part about bread - it was illegal to bake on Sunday, according to my annotated _Carol_; it wasn’t illegal to fire up the ovens and roast people’s meat for them though. Some lawmakers wanted to lose this “loophole”, as they saw it. And those efforts were contemporaneous with the publication of “A Christmas Carol”? Fascinating. Does your annotated _Carol_ tell us what a bowl of smoking bishop is? Scrooge and Bob Cratchit shared one, evidently, on Boxing Day, while they discussed Bob’s expected future with the firm. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/7 "2009-01-11T10:46:04Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > And those efforts were contemporaneous with the publication of “A Christmas Carol”? > > Fascinating. > > Does your annotated _Carol_ tell us what a bowl of smoking bishop is? Scrooge and Bob Cratchit shared one, evidently, on Boxing Day, while they discussed Bob’s expected future with the firm. Yes, it was highly topical at the time of writing. Of course, rich meanwells who could dine in comfort six days out of seven could well afford to keep the Lord’s Day holy, and some were out of touch enough not to understand why everyone wouldn’t. “Bishop” is hot wine with orange and spices - much what we call “mulled wine” these days. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/8 "2009-01-11T10:59:34Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Yes, it was highly topical at the time of writing. Of course, rich meanwells who could dine in comfort six days out of seven could well afford to keep the Lord’s Day holy, and some were out of touch enough not to understand why everyone wouldn’t. Yes, but the purpose of this conversation is for the spirit to distinguish himself from those pushing for such laws. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/9 "2009-01-11T11:42:06Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Yes, but the purpose of this conversation is for the spirit to distinguish himself from those pushing for such laws. Absolutely right. Dickens, from this and other snippets I’ve read, was fully on the “Sabbath was made for Man” side of the argument. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/10 "2009-01-11T13:27:12Z")
[http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/carol.html](http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/carol.html) Scroll to Sabbatarianism. Also from [Wikipedia.org](http://Wikipedia.org) > **[A Christmas Carol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol#cite_note-12)** > > A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. > D... This is a reference to the repeated attempts during the 1830s of Sir Andrew Agnew, MP for Wigtownshire, to introduce a Sunday Observance Bill in Parliament which would have closed the bakeries and restricted many other Sunday pleasures of the poorer classes.[13] Dickens was vociferously opposed to Agnew’s plans and had attacked them in a pamphlet published under a pseudonym.[14] I was perusing a few “A Christmas Carol” websites three weeks ago & was reading about this. ---
**Author:** ![PharmBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/74df32/32.png) [@PharmBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PharmBoy)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/11 "2009-01-11T14:29:57Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > That’s it exactly – I would have thought the passage immediately before **BrainGlutton’s** quote would have made it clear: > Domestic ovens were a rarity at the time – most cooking was done over an open fire, or on the hob beside it, and those in the homes of the poor were too small to allow the roasting of meat on a spit. If they had a joint of meat, or a large bird, for a Sunday or Christmas dinner, they would take them to the local bakery, where they’d be put in the ovens after the days bread was done. > > This also partially explains the popularity of puddings in British cooking – even the poorest family, like the Cratchits, had a copper to boil the water for laundry day, and they could cook quite a large pudding in that. This is correct, according to my copy of the Annotated Christmas Carol. Most people did not have ovens, so the bakers allowed the use of their ovens (for a fee I would guess) since they were forbidden by law to bake bread on Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/12 "2009-01-11T14:31:17Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > [A Christmas Carol - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol#cite_note-12) > > This is a reference to the repeated attempts during the 1830s of Sir Andrew Agnew, MP for Wigtownshire, to introduce a Sunday Observance Bill in Parliament which would have closed the bakeries and restricted many other Sunday pleasures of the poorer classes.[13] Dickens was vociferously opposed to Agnew’s plans and had attacked them in a pamphlet published under a pseudonym.[14] > > I was perusing a few “A Christmas Carol” websites three weeks ago & was reading about this. Interesting. So, I guess, for all that he (Scrooge) was such a grasping miserly old soul, he did have a sense of social justice. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/13 "2009-01-11T14:48:06Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Interesting. So, I guess, for all that he (Scrooge) was such a grasping miserly old soul, he did have a sense of social justice. Or was sharp enough to think he’d caught the Spirit in an inconsistency, at any rate. Scrooge’s idea of social justice began and ended with the thought that his taxes went to fund prisons and workhouses, and anyone who was in need ought to go there, and if too proud, were welcome to starve instead. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/14 "2009-01-11T16:34:43Z")
> [@](#): > > So, I guess, for all that he (Scrooge) was such a grasping miserly old soul, he did have a sense of social justice. My guess is that the unenlightened Scrooge was more concerned for the possibility of making money by selling hot food on Sundays than the benefit people derived from having that hot food. He wasn’t opposed to blue laws as a matter of principle but as a matter of profit. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/15 "2009-01-11T16:47:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My guess is that the unenlightened Scrooge was more concerned for the possibility of making money by selling hot food on Sundays than the benefit people derived from having that hot food. He wasn’t opposed to blue laws as a matter of principle but as a matter of profit. That doesn’t fit in with what he said, though. Bear in mind that by this time he has already learned some lessons from Christmas Past - he has to an extent repented of his harshness towards both his nephew and Cratchit - and it seems as though his conscience is now beginning to prick him a little. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/16 "2009-01-11T20:48:44Z")
Actually, a smoking bishop is a Rastafarian prelate. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-understand-this-bit-from-dickens-a-christmas-carol/480777/17 "2009-01-11T21:14:48Z")
It’s my understanding that most of the poorest families did not have so much as a fireplace to cook upon–they simply lived in rooms, with privies outside, water pumps every few blocks, and no heat or cooking at all. Which was why it was so hard to keep clean; there was no hot water to be had, just whatever cold water you could carry in. And you would have to either buy your meals on the street, or pay to have them cooked. In the colder winters, people would sometimes set fires in their rooms anyway, to keep from freezing. Since the tenements were firetraps, it was quite a dangerous thing to do.