Social policy sounds rather boring. Helping people to help themselves makes sense unless it is helping them to rob other people. That is very much part of current policy; it has degenerated into a system of robbing honest working men to help people who will not help themselves except by voting for the politicians who extort tax from the honest working man. Robin Hood robbed the rich to pay the poor. Now they rob the poor to pay the idle.
In the Victorian era there was concern about excessive breeding among the lower classes. It was one reason for Penal Transportation. There were also too many children born into the aristocracy. Having a son to inherit the title and the estate made sense. Putting others into law, the army and the church made some too. The rest were sent off to make their own way in the world which, roughly speaking is how the British Empire came into being.
Helping the poor started with Christian objectives, with Altruism at a time when England really could be called a Christian country. Here are some sources. Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Decide for yourself.
Victorian Underworld by Kellow Chesney
Tells us in detail that life for the lower orders was hard, that starvation was possible or even likely, that sanitation was disgracefully bad while lice and disease were about. This was in the 19th Century as the title implies.
Outdoor Relief 1601 - ?
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After the passing of the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), outdoor relief was assistance, in the form of money, food, clothing or goods, given to alleviate poverty without the requirement that the recipient enter an institution. In contrast, recipients of indoor relief were required to enter a workhouse or poorhouse. Outdoor relief was also a feature of the Scottish and Irish Poor Law systems.
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They would have distinguished between the idle poor and the deserving poor. Nowadays the dole is a system of bribing people to vote Labour. Honest working men are fully at liberty to go to the Devil because the Labour Party will do nothing for them.
Indoor Relief - 1601 - ?
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After the passing of the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law, indoor relief was poor relief that took place within a workhouse or almshouse. This relief was in contrast to outdoor relief which took place within a pauper's own home. Indoor relief was more expensive, but thought to give fewer incentives to employers to pay poverty wages and a greater incentive to individuals to seek properly paid work.
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It was not a fun option.
Book of Murder - 183?
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The Book of Murder was a piece of anti-Poor Law propaganda presented as the work of one pseudonymous "Marcus", originally published in Britain during the 1830s by Joshua Hobson. It aimed to incite opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, claiming that Poor Law commissioners were intent on using infanticide to control the explosion in the population of the poor, which had been a fear of the working class since the adoption of the 1834 legislation.The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was an Act of Parliament which altered the nature of poor relief in England and Wales – workhouses were built for paupers to receive indoor relief. The anti-Poor Law campaign alleged these pamphlets were the work of Poor Law Commissioners who were known to hold views on population similar to Thomas Malthus, the anti-Poor Law movement also alleged that copies of the original pamphlet had been suppressed.......
The book came from two pamphlets by "Marcus" – An Essay of Populousness and On the Possibility of Limiting Populousness, which discussed possible infanticide used to tackle a population explosion and killing by gas. As these pamphlets were published under the name Marcus, the publication of this book is sometimes also referred to as The Marcus Affair.
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It sounds rather like A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal - 1729
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A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy in Ireland in general.
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Some people would have seen the funny side of it. Others did not.
Penal Transportation
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Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between 1788 and 1868.
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King Charles stopped hanging at the Bloody Assizes [ 1685 ] so that he could sell Englishmen into slavery. They were transported to the West Indies. It did not make Charles popular; helping to bring about the Glorious Revolution in 1688
Bloody Assizes
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The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials started at Winchester on 25 August 1685 in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which ended the Monmouth Rebellion in England......Over 1,000 rebels were in prison awaiting the trials, which started in Winchester on 26 August. The first notable trial was that of an elderly gentlewoman called Dame Alice Lyle. The jury reluctantly found her guilty, and, the law recognizing no distinction between principals and accessories in treason, she was sentenced to be burned. This was commuted to beheading, with the sentence being carried out in Winchester market-place on 2 September 1685.
From Winchester the court proceeded through the West Country to Salisbury, Dorchester and on to Taunton, before finishing up at Wells on 23 September. More than 1,400 prisoners were dealt with and although most were sentenced to death about 300 only were hanged or hanged, drawn and quartered. The Taunton Assize took place in the Great Hall of Taunton Castle (now the home of the Somerset County Museum). Of more than 500 prisoners brought before the court on the 18/19 September, 144 were hanged and their remains displayed around the county to ensure people understood the fate of those who rebelled against the king.
Some 800–850 men were transported to the West Indies where they were worth more alive than dead as a source of cheap labour. (The novel Captain Blood, and the later movies based on it, graphically portray this punishment.) Others were imprisoned to await further trial, although many did not live long enough, succumbing to 'Gaol Fever' (Typhus) which was rife in the unsanitary conditions common to most English gaols at that time. A woman called Elisabeth Gaunt had the grisly distinction of being the last woman to be burnt in England for political crimes.
Jeffreys returned to London after the Assizes to report to King James. He rewarded him by making him Lord Chancellor (at age of only 40), 'For the many eminent and faithful services to the Crown'. Jeffreys became known as "the hanging judge".
After the Glorious Revolution Jeffreys was incarcerated in the Tower of London where he died in 1689, the cause of death probably due to his chronic medical history of kidney and bladder stones leading to an acute infection, kidney failure and possibly toxaemia.
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It was one bit of nastiness which had consequences for the perpetrators. Charles was beheaded for his pains.
Elizabethan Poor Law (1601)
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The 1601 system was for a pre-industrial society and the massive population increases after the Industrial Revolution strained the existing system. Mechanisation meant that unemployment was increasing, therefore poor relief costs could not be met........Unrest
One reason for changing the system was to prevent unrest or even revolution. Habeas Corpus was suspended and the Six Acts passed to prevent possible riots. The Swing Riots [ of 1830 ] highlighted the possibility of agricultural unrest..
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British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-quarter of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 13 million square miles, almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its political, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.
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It sounds about right. The Wiki does tell the truth from time to time.