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The most fashionable Christmas present this year is a goat. Not for oneself, of course, but for some poor family in Africa or India. The giving of a goat is advertised everywhere. As an alternative, one is encouraged to give a toilet. The true sound of Christmas is no longer a tinkling sleigh bell but a distant bleating or a resounding flush.
We hear a lot about charitable giving at Christmas and it is tempting to think we are generous people, forever digging into our pockets to help those less fortunate. Viewers of Strictly Come Dancing have had the satisfaction when voting for Darren Gough, Zoe Ball or Colin Jackson of knowing that some of the inflated cost of the phone call is going to Children In Need. The BBC annually tells us how generous and wonderful we are for supporting its favoured charity.
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| The true sound of Christmas is no longer a tinkling sleigh bell but a distant bleating |
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The truth is that we give a fraction of what the Victorians donated. According to a survey in 1895, middle-class people gave 10 per cent of their income to charity. And what do we give? Last year it was £8.2bn - well under one per cent of our income.
Among Victorians, giving was not confined to the better-off. A survey of working-class and artisan families showed that over half of them made weekly subscriptions to charity. Many of today's hospitals were founded by charitable donations. The King's Fund was established in the 19th century to subsidise hospitals all over the country. Schools were created by charity; the church school in Wales where David Lloyd George was educated was just one of thousands. There were many charities for the poor and homeless.
"What about Scrooge?" you may ask. Surely Dickens was showing through him what 
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