We have provided accommodation now for several thousand of the most helplessly broken-down men in London, criminals many of them, mendicants, tramps, those who are among the filth and Offscouring of all things; but such is the influence that is established by the meeting and the moral ascendancy of our officers themselves, that we have never had a fight on the premises, and very seldom do we ever hear an oath or an obscene word.
"In-Darkest-England-and-the-Way-Out"
Booth, William
I am of opinion, that, if his Majesty had kept aloof from that wash and Offscouring of everything that is low and barbarous in the world, it might be well thought unworthy of his dignity to take notice of such scurrilities: they must be considered as much the natural expression of that kind of animal as it is the expression of the feelings of a dog to bark.
"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12)"
Edmund Burke
Yet one truth her experience confirmed-that no human being who in his time and way has been hunted as the Offscouring of the world-no, not the noblest-has ever had his martyrdom presented in a form that seemed to him majestic.
"The Mormon Prophet"
Lily Dougall