Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Well-Behaved Orphans


When, many years ago, I invented the Bonkers' Home for Well-Behaved Orphans, I thought it was satire.

Satire, in particular, of my own rather Dickensian take - favourable to philanthropy and suspicious of institutions - on social welfare. As I shall explain one day, many of my political views flow from reading Oliver Twist at too young an age.

But I should have known better.

Study this Catholic Encyclopedia and you will find:
An interesting asylum in New York City is the Leake and Watts Asylum founded in 1831 to provide "a free home for well-behaved full orphans of respectable parentage in destitute circumstances, physically and mentally sound, between the ages of three and twelve years, who are entrusted to the care of the trustees until fifteen years of age. Disorderly and ungovernable children are not admitted."
It makes Lord Bonkers look like a Liberal. Which, indeed, he is.

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