Answer:
A. Workhouse authorities were extremely careless in their duties
This is because the passage doesn't say anything about children being weak due to poor nourishment nor parishioners wrongly criticizing their own officials, and if the legal system carefully monitored parish affairs then children wouldn't be getting scalded to death or overlooked.
To be reticent is to not reveal one's thoughts readily. In this case, it is the reticence of the author. The author does not reveal their thoughts readily. If the narrator or author refuses to do something, it is made known that he is doing something. The something here is him refusing. If he acts as if the situation is normal, I'd assume he is acting in such a way that would be nonreactionary of the actions from the provoker. I would safely choose the last option as sorrentino's exercising of authorial reticence.
Is this a book because if it is what book or poem etc.
