A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens

Full Name: Charles John Huffam Dickens Date of Birth: Friday, February 7, 1812 Place of Birth: No. 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport, Portsmouth England Date of Death: Thursday, June 9, 1870 (stroke)

It is essential to know and understand the episode in Dickens' childhood when his father was imprisoned for debt and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory to help support the family. This shaped his life and inspired much of his writing.

Men, women, children, the infirm, and the able-bodied were housed separately. very basic food such as watery porridge called gruel, or bread and cheese. had to wear the rough workhouse uniform and sleep in dormitories. Supervised baths were given once a week. hard work such as stone-breaking or picking apart old ropes called oakum. The elderly and infirm sat around in the day-rooms or sick-wards with little opportunity for visitors. Parents were only allowed to see their children for an hour or so a week on Sunday afternoon.

treadmill – Invented in 1818, this nasty device consisted of a metal cylinder with steps built on it so far apart that one had to step way up to catch the next one before the cylinder revolved around under one's feet, rather like a wheel in a hamster cage. Convicts were required to walk on the treadmill six hours at a time.

Money – farthings, ha'penny, sixpence, shilling, half-a crown, pound sterling, sovereign, guinea The miserly Scrooge paid his clerk, Bob Cratchit, a weekly salary of fifteen shillings (cockney slang for shilling was "bob"). Cratchit would have spent a week's wages to buy the ingredients for the Christmas feast: seven shillings for the goose, five for the pudding, and three for the onions, sage and oranges.

Half-a-crown – 12.5 cents Shilling – 5 cents Sixpence – 2.5 cents Penny – Approximately half a cent Farthing – Approximately one-tenth of a cent