No discussion of public attitudes towards anti-poverty legislation can be complete without an examination of peoples attitudes towards poverty itself. Chadwick countered that most poor shopkeepers were poor because of their own mismanagement, not because of bad luck. George Scrope s 1834 Quarterly Review article took a slightly different approach to the poverty question. He then began to extol the virtues of Canada. In other words, rather than providing for the poor at home, Scrope proposed shipping them off to a colony, where they would be conveniently out of the way.
Persons receiving often live extravagantly.
Given to labourers for getting work. The Poor Man s Guardian, by sharp contrast, offered reports that were very sympathetic even to the violent actions taken by some of England s poor. These widely divergent attitudes toward poverty itself extended into a division in opinion over what to do about the Poor Laws. The staunchly Whig London Quarterly Review took the hardest line in pushing for immediate change in the poor laws and in criticizing the government for not acting sooner. The Edinburgh Review, a paper which held itself up as a voice of reason, simultaneously deplored the state of the Elizabethan Poor Laws while cautioning against rushing into any solution.