Victorian Social Reform

My history professor was right when she told me she has noticed a theme amongst my research papers.  I do admit that I enjoy researching events that launched social reforms, including Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the sinking of the Titanic.  It should come to no surprise then that I was inspired to write a blog entry about Charles Dickens’ short work, “Gin Shops.”  In this piece, Dickens describes the gin shops in the slums of St. Giles frequented by the London poor.  It was originally published in The Evening Chronicle on February 19, 1835.  Dickens was angry at the people who condemned the symptoms of poverty without addressing its cause.  This is supported in the following quotation from the story:

“Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendor.”

Dickens’ argument is that in order to end the drinking problem, society needs to stop the source of the misery.  With cleaner streets and better housing conditions, people living in the “slums” would not spread sicknesses as often, young children would not die, and fathers or mothers would not consider drinking away their problems when they have families to take care of.  Essentially, these “peasants” go to the gin shops in order to escape reality, which oftentimes is too horrible for them to face.  They do not have anything to look forward to when they go home, except for filth and misery.  Something as eye-opening as this short sketch published in a newspaper would probably have elicited some sort of reform or at least an investigation into the truths of Dickens' descriptions.