British country sports such as fox hunting were rituals that reinforced class distinctions at a time when a distinctive working-class consciousness was beginning to be formed. George Morland often represented the encounter between country gentry and the rural poor in his paintings, which were typically reproduced as moralizing mezzotints. In this scene, an elegant lady stops before going riding to dispense alms to a beggar girl who has come to her door. Morland represents her charity as an act of benevolence, reinforcing the social hierarchy by showing the gentry as good and the poor as submissive and dependent. Here the realities of country life are ignored, and the little girl is shown as healthy and cherubic despite her poverty, a testament to the ongoing benevolence of the squire’s daughter.
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