Inventing Scrooge: The Incredible True Story Behind Charles Dickens' Legendary A Christmas Carol

by Carlo DeVito

  * * *

  The Death of Tiny Tim

  “Yes, my dear,” returned Bob. “I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!” cried Bob. “My little child!”

  If Tiny Tim had died, as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come suggested he might if things did not change, it would have been most likely from tuberculosis. The symptoms included flushed cheeks, bright eyes, fever, loss of appetite, and most of all, a persistent cough.

  It was a very common ailment of the Victorian era, most commonly called “consumption” on both sides of the Atlantic. Victorian scholar Constance Manoli-Skocay wrote, “It was feared, but regarded with a peculiar resignation because it was so unavoidable. It was dreaded, but at the same time romanticized. It was a disease that reflected the culture of its time: the victim slowly, gracefully fading away, transcending their corporeal body, their immortal soul shining through. . . . It affected the poor more often than the wealthy, females more than males, and people of all ages. Anyone could be a victim, but it was especially prevalent among young adults, cruelly striking down those in the prime of their lives.” The end came slowly, and painfully, for the victim as well as for the survivors.

  In his lifetime, Charles Dickens had known the death of a child. His little sister Harriet had died in the year the family moved to Bayham Street. Harriet Dickens had been born in 1819 and died in 1824. It is not recorded whether she died in Chatham or on Bayham Street, but surely the memories must have been vivid as Charles was twelve years old at the time. One can almost see the stricken John and Elizabeth Dickens smote with grief, as were Bob and Martha Cratchit at the prospect of their son’s demise. So as the Cratchits were at Christmas, one may assume that this too was taken from Dickens family’s memories.

  * * *

  The Graveyard

  “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

  How ironic that the last scene with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come should occur where Dickens started so long ago. Possibly four or five weeks after he began, here we are back in the graveyard where Dickens had first found his main character not two or three years earlier.

  Certainly, in Victorian England, cemeteries had in some respects become the metropolis of the dead. And the hierarchy of society had imposed itself even on the world of the deceased. In some instances, the best cemeteries were like parks. Londoners were forced to deal with this problem of what to do with the dead in a growing city like London during the industrial age, when more folks from the farmlands were coming to the cities for jobs and to enjoy the spoils of a mechanized society. In 1832, Parliament passed a law that closed the innercity London churchyards to new internments. Following that law, new cemeteries were established between 1832 (Kensal Green) and 1841 (Tower Hamlets). The most famous of these was Highgate Cemetery in 1839.

  There is no question that Ebenezer Scroggie’s headstone—labeled “mean man” as far as Dickens was concerned (instead of what it actually said, “meal man”)—is where the story really began, and where it needs to end for the purposes of the main character’s personal journey.

  That Scroggie’s tombstone is now lost to history can be seen, at least ironically, as Scrooge’s fate had not the spirits showed him a better path. Since Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, innumerable stories have adapted similar endings, the most noteworthy being Frank Capra’s colorful retelling of A Christmas Carol (in a sense) as It’s A Wonderful Life, as film critic Roger Ebert noted, “a sort of Christmas Carol in reverse.” Capra’s climactic moment comes when Clarence, an angel, shows George Baily the grave of his brother rather than his own.

  As in the medieval tale Everyman, Scrooge, like all men (and women), must face his transition from this life, and must count what his or her life has meant. What has each of us left behind? Other than our own wants and desires, what have we done for the benefit of our fellow man? This concept of legacy and charity are two of the main themes that Dickens wrote about in his novella that have given many readers serious pause, which is what Dickens was hoping for in the first place.

  * * *

  Redemption

  “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

  The redemption of Scrooge has, without a doubt, pleased more people than almost any other character development Dickens had ever created. And it has been written about by scholars since its first publication. But what is it about Scrooge’s reclamation that draws us so?

  “Marley’s Ghost is the symbol of divine grace, and the three Christmas Spirits are the working of that grace through the agencies of memory, example, and fear. And Scrooge, although of course he is himself too, is himself not alone: he is the embodiment of all that concentration upon material power and callous indifference to the welfare of human beings that the economists had erected into a system, businessmen and industrialists pursued relentlessly, and society had taken for granted as inevitable and proper. The conversion of Scrooge is an image of the conversion for which Dickens hopes among mankind,” wrote Edgar Johnson.

  “In A Christmas Carol Dickens imagines what he once was and what he might have become . . . he wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the fairy stories which he had read as a child; but one in which he was the real hero too,” wrote Peter Ackroyd.

  “An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?—Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?”

  “What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.

  “What a delightful boy!” said Scrooge. “It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!”

  “It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

  “Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”

  Surely, Dickens did not invent the Christmas goose or turkey. Washington Irving had written about it years before, in a book Dickens knew well, entitled, Old Christmas, which related time he had spent in an old English castle, Aston Hall, on holiday season in 1820.

  “Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of the table were in brisk circulation in the villages; the grocers’, butchers’, and fruiterers’ shops were thronged with customers. The housewives were stirring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order, and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright red berries, began to appear at the windows. The scene brought to mind an old writer’s account of Christmas preparation: ‘Now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton—must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little. Now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. Now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. The country maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards on Christmas Eve. Great is the contention of Holly and Ivy, whether master or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers,’ ” wrote Irving.

  But one question continued to vex some folks—was it a goose or a turkey that Scrooge should have bought?

  “In fact, as everyone surely knew, Turkey was a North American fowl. Scrooge buying a turkey instead of a goose in London Town would be as improbable as a London clubman ordering bourbon and ginger ale instead of Scotch and soda,” wrote popular columnist Russell Baker.

  However turkey was not unknown to Londo
ners by the mid-1800s. Turkey was most commonly referred to as “Indian chicken,” much like corn was called “Indian corn,” etc. Even the French referred to it as coq d’Inde. In Austria turkeys in common parlance were called simply “Indians.”

  Turkey had been in Europe for some time. Most modern domesticated turkey is descended from one of six subspecies of wild turkey found in present day Mexico. Domestic turkeys were taken to Europe by the Spanish, which evolved into current popular breeds as Spanish Black and the Royal Palm. It is widely credited that the sixteenth-century English navigator William Strickland introduced the bird to the British Isles. English farmer Thomas Tusser noted the turkey being among farmers’ fare at Christmas in 1573. Prior to the late nineteenth century, turkey was something of a luxury in the United Kingdom, with goose or beef a more common Christmas dinner among the working classes.

  There is no question, too, that Dickens had just returned from America, where turkey was a common meal, and was served especially on festive occasions. Dickens must surely have partaken of turkey during his stay, thus it found its way into the story.

  Popular cookbooks of the time also call for turkey and goose. Here is how Mrs. Beeton, the most popular English cookbook author of the mid-nineteenth century, writes about the Christmas turkey in Mrs. Beeton’s Every Day Cookery and Housekeeping Book:

  “A noble dish is a turkey, roast or boiled. A Christmas dinner, with the middle-class of this empire, would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey; and we can hardly imagine an object of greater envy than that presented by a respected portly paterfamilias carving, at the season devoted to good cheer and genial charity, his own fat turkey, and carving it well.”

  “So, the turkey that Scrooge purchased—the huge bird that could ‘never could have stood upon his legs’—was a prize bird that hung in the poulterer’s window to draw people in. It wasn’t the only prize bird—there were two prize birds in the window—a little one and a big one. The prize birds were everyone’s dream, but they couldn’t afford to eat these dreams—on Christmas Day these visions of unlimited bounty were still unsold. What people actually served at home for the Christmas dinner were smaller turkeys—very likely the eight to twelve pounds implied by Mrs. Beeton’s recipe,” wrote William Rubel, a food historian.

  * * *

  The Solicitor Redux

  “Mr. Scrooge?”

  “Yes,” said Scrooge. “That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness”—here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

  “Lord bless me!” cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. “My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?”

  “If you please,” said Scrooge. “Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?”

  As Scrooge made his way upon the streets of the Old City, he happened to bump into the portlier of the two gentlemen who had just visited him the previous morning asking for donations to the poor. Though we never know the amount, Scrooge is clearly incredibly generous, and his reclamation takes one more step forward.

  Of course, Dickens himself did much for charity in his life. He was often called upon to perform at benefits which would raise money for various and sundry causes. Dickens may not have had an overarching vision of how to reform society, but he was a philanthropist.

  He worked for more than a decade to establish a project to help destitute girls and young women in mid-nineteenth century London. Urania Cottage was a safe house for young women in Shepherd’s Bush, saving young women from lives of prostitution and crime. He supported his brother-in-law’s Health of Towns Association, pressing for reform of housing and sanitation of the poor. And he was adamant in helping the Children Hospital to insure proper medical care for the poorest children of London.

  “The truth is that Dickens’s criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work,” wrote George Orwell. “For in reality his target is not so much society as ‘human nature.’ ”

  * * *

  Christmas with Fred

  “Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?”

  “It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?”

  What strikes the reader immediately is the familial bond which Scrooge calls upon (“Uncle”) to signal his contrition to Fred. After the previous day’s meeting, Fred immediately picks up on the reference and signals his willingness to entertain his uncle.

  Family was important to Dickens. And he knew it was just as important to his readers, and to the story. As Mamie Dickens later recalled, “On Christmas Day we all had our glasses filled, and then my father, raising his, would say: ‘Here’s to us all. God bless us!’ a toast which was rapidly and willingly drunk. His conversation, as may be imagined, was often extremely humorous, and I have seen the servants, who were waiting at table, convulsed often with laughter at his droll remarks and stories. Now, as I recall these gatherings, my sight grows blurred with the tears that rise to my eyes. But I love to remember them, and to see, if only in memory, my father at his own table, surrounded by his own family and friends— a beautiful Christmas spirit.”

  Frederick Dickens.

  Also, this scene, real or imagined, was a symbolic gesture then to his brother Fred, with whom he was slowly becoming estranged. This was symbolic of his own personal life, painful as it was, that he would not see his own brother at Christmas.

  * * *

  Bob Cratchit’s Raise

  “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!”

  The final act of Scrooge’s reclamation is to repair his relationship with Bob Cratchit. He waits for Cratchit, arriving at his office early the next day, and ambushes the clerk when he arrives late. But it’s all farce, as Scrooge offers Cratchit a raise and offers to help him with Tiny Tim as well.

  Even today, there are defenders of Scrooge’s pre-reclamation ways who cry “Ba! Humbug!” at Scrooge’s change of heart.

  Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, defended Scrooge’s miserly treatment of his beleaguered clerk. Brook said Cratchit was getting paid the market wage and that his boss had no moral obligation to help him out.

  “I assume if somebody else was willing to pay him more, that he would move jobs and no one would feel sorry for Scrooge if [Cratchit] just walked up and left because he got more money somewhere else,” Brook said. “If he’s making very little, it’s probably because he adds very little productive value to the economy, to business. That’s the reality of the market place and there’s nothing unjust about that.” To their insistence, those who still champion the unredeemed Scrooge point out that Cratchit was paid fifteen shillings a week, about average for a clerk and double what a general laborer earned.

  In fact, Scrooge’s decision at the end of the story to boost Cratchit’s salary would be a “disastrous course of action in real life,” Brook said, adding that Scrooge’s clients would suffer because he has less money to reinvest into lending them money.

  Jim Lacey, author and analyst at the Institute for Defense Analyses, bemoaned Scrooge’s turn to altruism, saying it was unfortunate for the “many thousands whose jobs Scrooge’s investments had underwritten” as his “transfer of funds to less productive causes undoubtedly cost them dearly.”

  Still, the working class understood the heroism it took for Scrooge to help out a fellow human being who was absolutely in need. And deep in the recesses of his mind, hadn’t he wished as a child that someone would have do
ne the same for his father? This must have been a deep-seated issue in the mind of the author, a reworking of his life into a fairytale ending.

  * * *

  Long Live Tiny Tim

  Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.

  If rickets and malnutrition were the only culprits, Scrooge’s intervention might not have been enough.

  The fact that tuberculosis (TB) might have been part of Tim’s diagnosis might have proved more problematic for Tim. The scientific community hadn’t really come to terms with TB’s being contagious. The sanatorium movement began in the late 1800s to segregate infected patients out of the main stream, as well as identifying it being a viral infection. The first successful cure was produced in 1906 in France. The current course of treatment requires a long series of strict drug programs which in modern times may take six to twelve months.

  Both rickets and TB can be improved and indeed cured through increased exposure to Vitamin D, which can be obtained through exposure to sunlight and a balanced diet.

  As the Ghost of Christmas Present showed Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim’s condition would be fatal without a different course for the boy. According to Dr. Chesney’s research, Scrooge could have ensured several areas were covered to help Tiny Tim simply through his improved generosity to Bob Cratchit and his family.