How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
[Richard] was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the floor. He was only half dressed--in plain clothes, I observed, not in uniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his room. (45.33)
This is what poverty looks like when the person has kind of slowly become broke rather than being born destitute. Richard still has the trappings of the middle class – lots of unpawned stuff still lying around, potentially brushable hair, a choice of clothes. We don't see any of that for the born-poor characters.
Quote #8
Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning [the bums of Tom-all-Alone's], and much wrathful disputation how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. (46.2-3)
Ooh, packed passage – lots of good stuff going on here. First of all, check out the personification of poverty! Personification is giving an inanimate object human-like qualities. So here we've got the whole problem of Tom-all-Alone's – the people, the slum, the dirt, the whole shebang – lumped into one pretend guy, "Tom." But what does it mean that the politicians think of all the poor as one big horrible mass of grossness? They don't really seem all that committed to seeing the humanity and individuality of these people.
OK, second, here's a nice list of all the options for dealing with the poor back in the day. "Constables or beadles" can be used to force them the heck out of Dodge. We can try to get them into mainstream society through "bell-ringing" (forcibly converting them), through "figures" (political economy... and for some info about how Dickens felt about this, check out Shmoop's Hard Times Learning Guide), or through "taste" (touchy-feely liberal programs that try to develop the aesthetic senses). Another option is to make them "split trusses" (a.k.a. work on the ever-expanding railroads) or do "stone-breaking" (what it sounds like – making gravel out of big rocks...always a popular pastime for prison chain gangs as well).
Quote #9
"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. "They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact."
"You saw it?" I exclaimed.
"Just as good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk about his 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as that. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think she gave it him. (57.96-98)
This is how we know that Bucket is awesome at his job. He knows these brickmakers are poor, so when he hears them refer offhandedly to a precise time, he immediately realizes they must have gotten hold of a watch. That's some Sherlock Holmes stuff right there, 35 years before that detective's debut.