>Was it James O'conner or Jim O'conner who talked about the "surplus
>population," or those people irrelevant to the political/economic
>system?
Businessman, collecting for charity: "...and many [destitute people] would rather die than go there [to the workhouse]."
E. Scrooge: "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!"
-- Dickens, C. (1843) _A Christmas Carol_