Hmm. The implied sexual abuse of the latest TV version is purely modern. My take is that the elder Scrooge simply didn't want the boy about, for whatever reason.

Another point to note is that Bob Cratchit was paid 15s per week, which was in fact at the high end of a clerks' salary at that time, especially in a small business like Scrooge & Marley. The fact that he and Mrs Cratchit had no access to birth control, that they would have to pay for Marthas' apprenticeship, that there would be doctors bills for Tiny Tim and that they were apparetnly the sole occupants of the house, not even a lodger,, is enough to explain the hard life they led.

It's clear that despite his pasion for socila justice, Dickens didn't really understand how the poor lived in his day.