Dickens from the Lake District - day 4

Well, well, well....SNOW!  Yep, I am glad I packed for the "Lake District Weather" - from strappy tops, to fleeces and anoraks, I brought the lot! 
My passage for today shows the contradictions that were rife in society in Dicken's time, so without further ado, here it is...

"I never," said Mr Bumble, "see anything like the pitch it's got to.  The day afore yesterday, a man - youhave been a married woman, ma'am, and I may mention it to you - a man, with hardly a rag upon his back (here Mrs. Corney looked at the floor), goes to our overseer's door when he has got company coming to dinner; and says, he must be relieved, Mrs. Corney.  As he wouldn't go away, and shocked the company very much, our overseer sent him out a pound of potatoes and half a pint of oatmeal. "My heart!" says the ungrateful villain, "what's the use of this to me?  You might as well give me a pair of iron spectacles!"  "Very good, " says our overseer, taking 'em away again "you won't get anything else here." "Then I'll die in the streets!" says the vagrant.  "Oh no, you won't," says our overseer."
"Ha, ha!  That was very good!  So like Mr. Grannett, wasn't it?" interposed the matron.  "Well, Mr. Bumble?"
"Well, ma'am," rejoined the beadle "he went away; and did die in the streets.  There's an obstinate pauper for you!"
"It beats anything I could have believed," observed the matron emphatically, "But, don't you think out-of-door relief a very bad thing, any way, Mr. Bumble?  You're a gentleman of experience, you ought to know.  Come."
"Mrs. Corney," said the beadle, smiling as men smile, who are conscious of superior information, "out-of-door relief, properly managed; properly managed, ma'am; is the porochial safeguard.  The great principle of out-of-door relief is, to give the paupers exactly what they don't want; and then they get tired of coming."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Corney. "Well that is a good one, too!"
"Yes.  Betwixt you and me, ma'am," returned Mr. Bumble, "that's the great principle; and that's the reason why, if you look at any cases that get into them owdacious newspapers, you'll always observe that sick families have been relieved with sliecs of cheese.  That's the rule now, Mrs. Corney, all over the country.
But, however," said the beadle, stopping to unpack his bundle, "these are official secrets, ma'am; not to be spoken of; except, as I may say, among the parochial officers, such as ourselves.
This is the port wine, ma'am, that the board ordered for the infirmary; real, fresh, genuine port wine; only out of the cask this forenoon; clear as a bell and no sediment!""

When I read this passage it makes me think that this sort of contradiction is very real in society today - some people believing that less-well-off people bring their misery upon themselves.   I think that Dicken's writing is riddled with comparisons with our society today: although settings and actual situations are changed, the basic premis runs through.

OK - I am looking out of the window now and the sun is shining again - time to wander off and find somewhere with internet so I can upload this to the blog!  Wish me luck!