How did audiences respond to 'A Christmas Carol?' What political issues were being discussed during the Victorian era?

Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol on December 19 1843 and all 6000 copies had sold out by Christmas Eve. On the whole, the book was warmly received, with many commentators drawn to its strong social and political message. The London magazine, Athenaeum, for example, said it was "a tale of make the reader laugh and cry - to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the charitable." Similarly, Dickens' fellow...

Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol on December 19 1843 and all 6000 copies had sold out by Christmas Eve. On the whole, the book was warmly received, with many commentators drawn to its strong social and political message. The London magazine, Athenaeum, for example, said it was "a tale of make the reader laugh and cry - to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the charitable." Similarly, Dickens' fellow writer, William Makepeace Thackeray, declared A Christmas Carol to be "a national benefit," while the critic, Theodore Martin, who was often cold towards Dickens, said it was "finely felt, and calculated to work much social good." 

Underneath its heart-warming Christmas message, A Christmas Carol had exposed the problem of urban poverty and, through the character of Scrooge, of ignoring the plight of those it affected. This message represented some of the most important political debates of the day, specifically the problem of child labour, an issue which Dickens felt strongly about it. In fact, A Christmas Carol was inspired by the publication of a government report into the shocking working condition of child labourers in the north of England. As the government debated the best course of action, Dickens appealed to the nation to act. In stave three, for example, Scrooge finds two children hiding under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present. They represent ignorance and are designed to appeal to the moral conscience of the British middle-class:  

"They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds."

Dickens' appeal worked: after the publication of A Christmas Carol, the nation was inspired to carry out random acts of charity. The Victorian government continued to debate the problem of child labour and introduced several pieces of legislation to improve the education of poor children, to make their working day safer and to reduce their working hours.