London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics)

by Henry Mayhew

The picture of Mayhew as an actor in one of Dickens’s amateur productions may suggest a closer relationship between the two men than has hitherto been suspected. Certainly Dickens was influenced by Mayhew’s work. See F. R. and Q. D. Leavis, Dickens the Novelist (Chatto & Windus, 1970; Penguin, 1977). See also H. S. Nelson, ‘Dickens’ “Our Mutual Friend” and Henry Mayhew’s “London Labour and the London Poor”’, in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, XX (1965), pp. 207–22.

  About Mayhew

  There is an admirable listing of articles in Anne Humpherys’s biography. One of them, however, seems indispensable, being the first, so far as I know, to submit Mayhew’s work to the scrutiny of a socio-economic historian: E. P. Thompson, ‘The Political Education of Henry Mayhew’, Victorian Studies, Vol. XI, no. 1 (1967), pp. 41–62.

  Working People: Their Life and Experience

  In the course of his work Mayhew reproduces the life stories of many of the people he met. They are prime examples of working-class autobiography, and since historians have only recently turned their attention to this theme, the following book may be useful in assessing the validity and value of such material:

  David Vincent, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth Century Working Class Autobiography (Europa, 1981; Methuen, 1982).

  Two recent books emphasize the importance of Mayhew as a social investigator:

  James Bennett, Oral History and Delinquency: The Rhetoric of Criminology (Chicago University Press, 1981). Chapters 1 and 2 deal with Mayhew’s Investigations.

  Raymond A. Kent, A History of British Empirical Sociology (Gower Publishing Company, 1981).

  Mayhew’s London

  Three books are of especial value in tracing locations in Mayhew’s work:

  Anon., The Pictorial Handbook of London (H. G. Bohn, 1858). Now somewhat scarce, but a definitive view, with a folding map of the London that Mayhew knew so well.

  Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London Past and Present, 2nd edn (1850; reprinted by EP Publishing, 1978).

  H. A. Harben, A Dictionary of London (Herbert Jenkins, 1918).

  ‘Mayhewiana’

  Two books are worth recording of Mayhew’s association with them.

  Anon., London Characters (Chatto & Windus, 1870). In 1874 there appeared a second edition, whose title page announced: ‘By Henry Mayhew and Other Writers’. This edition was bigger than the first and contained new material by Mayhew. A third, identical edition appeared in 1881. Since Henry Mayhew was a well-known journalist, it seems unlikely that his name would have been omitted from the first edition if he had contributed to it. What probably happened was that the publishers used his name and incorporated material by him to promote sales of the book.

  Augustus Mayhew, Paved with Gold, or The Romance and Reality of the London Streets (Chapman & Hall, 1858; reprinted by Frank Cass, 1971). Henry Mayhew was involved in the writing of the first few chapters of this novel. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne (‘Phiz’), it is an interesting work, with some of its best episodes set in the kind of milieu that Mayhew described in London Labour and the London Poor. Parts of it convey a strong sense of the reality of street life, which perhaps demonstrates the closeness of collaboration and discussion between the brothers Mayhew.

  MAYHEW’S COLLABORATORS

  Vol. IV of London Labour and the London Poor was partly written by Henry Mayhew. The following writers also had a share in this volume:

  THE REV. WILLIAM TUCKNISS, B.A. (1833–64): Graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A. 1858); Chaplain to the Society for the Rescue of Young Women and Children.

  BRACEBRIDGE HEMYNG (1841–1901): Barrister and author of popular novels; the creator of Jack Harkaway, whose adventures were first published in 1871. He spent some time in America.

  JOHN BINNY: I have been able to discover nothing about Binny.

  ANDREW HALLIDAY (1830–77): Writer of popular fiction; contributor to Cornhill Magazine and All the Year Round.

  In the Preface to the first volume of bound parts of London Labour and the London Poor Henry Mayhew acknowledges the help of two collaborators. One is RICHARD KNIGHT (‘late of the City Mission’) and the other HENRY WOOD (‘who may be considered as one of its authors’).

  NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Mayhew’s text presents no difficulties. I have used the 1865 four-volume impression published by Charles Griffin & Co., Stationers’ Hall Court, from which illustrations used here are also taken. The extracts are grouped according to volume, and the page reference to the 1865 edition is given for each. A few new headings have been introduced and a few of Mayhew’s headings re-positioned in order to lend coherence to the selections presented here.

  Money

  I have not attempted to ‘translate’ the old-style cash values in Mayhew’s text. The following is a guide to their conversion into modern terms.

  £1

  Then, as now, the standard unit of coinage; known also as a sovereign or a quid

  20 shillings

  Made £1 (now 100 pence)

  10 shillings

  Half a quid (now 50 pence)

  1 shilling

  Known also as a bob (now 5 pence); abbreviated to 1s. This was made up of: 12 pence abbreviated to 12d.; or 24 half-pence; or 48 farthings (no modern equivalents for these old pence, half-pence or farthings)

  £1 and 1 shilling (£1 1s.) made 1 guinea.

  10 shillings and 6 pence (10s. 6d.) made half a guinea.

  The following coins were also in use:

  Crown

  5 shillings (now 25 pence)

  Half crown

  2 shillings and 6 pence (now 12½ pence)

  Florin

  2 shillings (now the standard 10 penny piece)

  Sixpence

  6d.

  Threepenny bit

  3d.

  He went along the Strand, over the crossing under the statue of Charles on horseback, and up Pall Mall East till he came to the opening into the park under the Duke of York’s column. The London night world was alive as he made his way. From the Opera Colonnade shrill voices shrieked at him as he passed, and drunken men coming down from the night supper-houses in the Haymarket saluted him with affectionate cordiality. The hoarse waterman from the cabstand, whose voice had perished in the night air, croaked out at him the offer of a vehicle; and one of the night beggar-women who cling like burrs to those who roam the street at these unhallowed hours still stuck to him, as she had done ever since he had entered the Strand.

  Anthony Trollope, The Three Clerks (1858)

  Three o’clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London Bridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and misery. They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in nooks. They had run from drunkards. They had started from slinking men, whistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at full speed. Though everywhere the leader and the guide Little Dorrit, happy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely upon Maggy. And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling or prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to ‘let the woman and the child go by!’

  Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)

  LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR

  VOLUME ONE

  OF THE LONDON STREET-FOLK

  [pp. 5–6] Those who obtain their living in the streets of the metropolis are a very large and varied class; indeed, the means resorted to in order ‘to pick up a crust’, as the people call it, in the public thoroughfares (and such in many instances it literally is), are so multifarious that the mind is long baffled in its attempts to reduce them to scientific order or classification.

  It would appear, however, that the street-people may be all arranged under six distinct genera or kinds.

  These are severally:

&nb
sp; I. Street-sellers

  II. Street-buyers

  III. Street-finders

  IV. Street-performers, artists, and showmen

  V. Street-artizans, or working pedlars

  VI. Street-labourers

  The first of these divisions – the STREET-SELLERS – includes many varieties; viz. –

  1. The street-sellers of fish, &c. – ‘wet’, ‘dry’, and shell-fish – and poultry, game, and cheese.

  2. The street-sellers of vegetables, fruit (both ‘green’ and ‘dry’), flowers, trees, shrubs, seeds, and roots, and ‘green stuff’ (as watercresses, chickweed and grun’sel, and turf).

  3. The street-sellers of eatables and drinkables, – including the vendors of fried fish, hot eels, pickled whelks, sheep’s trotters, ham sandwiches, peas’-soup, hot green peas, penny pies, plum ‘duff’, meat-puddings, baked potatoes, spice-cakes, muffins and crumpets, Chelsea buns, sweetmeats, brandy-balls, cough drops, and cat and dog’s meat – such constituting the principal eatables sold in the street; while under the head of street-drinkables may be specified tea and coffee, ginger-beer, lemonade, hot wine, new milk from the cow, asses milk, curds and whey, and occasionally water.

  4. The street-sellers of stationery, literature, and the fine arts – among whom are comprised the flying stationers, or standing and running patterers; the long-song-sellers; the wall-song-sellers (or ‘pinners-up’, as they are technically termed); the ballad sellers; the vendors of playbills, second editions of newspapers, back numbers of periodicals and old books, almanacks, pocket books, memorandum books, note paper, sealing-wax, pens, pencils, stenographic cards, valentines, engravings, manuscript music, images, and gelatine poetry cards.

  5. The street-sellers of manufactured articles, which class comprises a large number of individuals, as (a) the vendors of chemical articles of manufacture – viz., blacking, lucifers, corn-salves, grease-removing compositions, plating-balls, poison for rats, crackers, detonating-balls, and cigar-lights, (b) The vendors of metal articles of manufacture – razors and pen-knives, tea-trays, dog-collars, and key-rings, hardware, bird-cages, small coins, medals, jewellery, tin-ware, tools, card-counters, red-herring-toasters, trivets, gridirons, and Dutch ovens, (c) The vendors of china and stone articles of manufacture – as cups and saucers, jugs, vases, chimney ornaments, and stone fruit, (d) The vendors of linen, cotton, and silken articles of manufacture – as sheeting, table-covers, cotton, tapes and thread, boot and stay-laces, haberdashery, pretended smuggled goods, shirt-buttons, etc., etc.; and (e) the vendors of miscellaneous articles of manufacture – as cigars, pipes, and snuff-boxes, spectacles, combs, ‘lots’, rhubarb, sponges, wash-leather, paper-hangings, dolls, Bristol toys, sawdust, and pin-cushions.

  6. The street-sellers of second-hand articles – of whom there are again four separate classes; as (a) those who sell old metal articles – viz. old knives and forks, keys, tin-ware, tools, and marine stores generally; (b) those who sell old linen articles – as old sheeting for towels; (c) those who sell old glass and crockery-including bottles, old pans and pitchers, old looking glasses, &c.; and (d) those who sell old miscellaneous articles – as old shoes, old clothes, old saucepan lids, &c., &c.

  7. The street-sellers of live animals – including the dealers in dogs, squirrels, birds, gold and silver fish, and tortoises.

  8. The street-sellers of mineral productions and curiosities – as red and white sand, silver sand, coals, coke, salt, spar ornaments, and shells.

  These, so far as my experience goes, exhaust the whole class of street-sellers, and they appear to constitute nearly three-fourths of the entire number of individuals obtaining a subsistence in the streets of London.

  The next class are the STREET-BUYERS, under which denomination come the purchasers of hare-skins, old clothes, old umbrellas, bottles, glass, broken metal, rags, waste paper, and dripping.

  After these we have the STREET-FINDERS, or those who, as I said before, literally ‘pick up’ their living in the public thoroughfares. They are the ‘pure’ pickers, or those who live by gathering dogs’-dung; the cigar-end finders, or ‘hard-ups’, as they are called, who collect the refuse pieces of smoked cigars from the gutters, and having dried them, sell them as tobacco to the very poor; the dredgermen or coal-finders; the mud-larks, the bone-grubbers; and the sewer-hunters.

  Under the fourth division, or that of the STREET-PERFORMERS, ARTISTS, AND SHOWMEN, are likewise many distinct callings.

  1. The street-performers, who admit of being classified into (a) mountebanks – or those who enact puppet-shows, as Punch and Judy, the fantoccini, and the Chinese shades. (b) The street-performers of feats of strength and dexterity – as ‘acrobats’ or posturers, ‘equilibrists’ or balancers, stiff and bending tumblers, jugglers, conjurors, sword-swallowers, ‘salamanders’ or fire-eaters, swordsmen, etc. (c) The street-performers with trained animals – as dancing dogs, performing monkeys, trained birds and mice, cats and hares, sapient pigs, dancing bears, and tame camels, (d) The street-actors – as clowns, ‘Billy Barlows’, ‘Jim Crows’, and others.

  2. The street showmen, including shows of (a) extraordinary persons – as giants, dwarfs, Albinoes, spotted boys, and pig-faced ladies, (b) Extraordinary animals – as alligators, calves, horses and pigs with six legs or two heads, industrious fleas, and happy families, (c) Philosophic instruments – as the microscope, telescope, thaumascope. (d) Measuring-machines – as weighing, lifting, measuring, and striking machines; and (e) miscellaneous shows – such as peep-shows, glass ships, mechanical figures, wax-work shows, pugilistic shows, and fortune-telling apparatus.

  3. The street-artists – as black profile-cutters, blind paper-cutters, ‘screevers’ or draughtsmen in coloured chalks on the pavement, writers without hands, and readers without eyes.

  4. The street dancers – as street Scotch girls, sailors, slack and tight rope dancers, dancers on stilts, and comic dancers.

  5. The street musicians – as the street bands (English and German), players of the guitar, harp, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, dulcimer, musical bells, cornet, tom-tom, &c.

  6. The street singers, as the singers of glees, ballads, comic songs, nigger melodies, psalms, serenades, reciters, and improvisatori.

  7. The proprietors of street games, as swings, highflyers, roundabouts, puff-and-darts, rifle shooting, down the dolly, spin-’em-rounds, prick the garter, thimble-rig, etc.

  Then comes the Fifth Division of the Street-folk, viz., the STREET-ARTIZANS, or WORKING PEDLARS;

  These may be severally arranged into three distinct groups – (1) Those who make things in the streets; (2) Those who mend things in the streets; and (3) Those who make things at home and sell them in the streets.

  1. Of those who make things in the streets there are the following varieties: (a) the metal workers – such as toasting-fork makers, pin makers, engravers, tobacco-stopper makers, (b) The textile-workers-stocking-weavers, cabbage-net makers, night-cap knitters, doll-dress knitters, (c) The miscellaneous workers, – the wooden spoon makers, the leather brace and garter makers, the printers, and the glass-blowers.

  2. Those who mend things in the streets, consist of broken china and glass menders, clock menders, umbrella menders, kettle menders, chair menders, grease removers, hat cleaners, razor and knife grinders, glaziers, traveling bell hangers, and knife cleaners.

  3. Those who make things at home and sell them in the streets, are (a) the wood workers – as the makers of clothes-pegs, clothes-props, skewers, needle-cases, foot-stools and clothes-horses, chairs and tables, tea-caddies, writing-desks, drawers, work-boxes, dressing-cases, pails and tubs, (b) The trunk, hat, and bonnet-box makers, and the cane and rush basket makers, (c) The toy makers – such as Chinese roarers, children’s windmills, flying birds and fishes, feathered cocks, black velvet cats and sweeps, paper houses, cardboard carriages, little copper pans and kettles, tiny tin fire-places, children’s watches, Dutch dolls, buy-a-brooms, and gutta-percha heads, (d) The apparel makers – viz., the mak
ers of women’s caps, boys’ and men’s cloth caps, night-caps, straw bonnets, children’s dresses, watch-pockets, bonnet shapes, silk bonnets, and gaiters, (e) The metal workers, – as the makers of fire-guards, bird-cages, the wire workers. (f) The miscellaneous workers – or makers of ornaments for stoves, chimney ornaments, artificial flowers in pots and in nosegays, plaster-of-Paris night-shades, brooms, brushes, mats, rugs, hearthstones, firewood, rush matting, and hassocks.

  Of the last division, or STREET-LABOURERS, there are four classes:

  1. The cleansers – such as scavengers, nightmen, flushermen, chimneysweeps, dustmen, crossing-sweepers, ‘street-orderlies’, labourers to sweeping-machines and to watering-carts.

  2. The lighters and waterers – or the turn-cocks and the lamplighters.

  3. The street-advertisers – viz., the bill-stickers, bill-deliverers, boardmen, men to advertising vans, and wall and pavement stencillers.

  4. The street-servants – as horse holders, linkmen, coach-hirers, street-porters, shoe-blacks.

  OF THE VARIETIES OF STREET-FOLK IN GENERAL, AND COSTERMONGERS IN PARTICULAR

  [pp. 8–9] Among the street-folk there are many distinct characters of people – people differing as widely from each in tastes, habits, thoughts and creed, as one nation from another. Of these the costermongers form by far the largest and certainly the mostly broadly marked class. They appear to be a distinct race – perhaps, originally, of Irish extraction – seldom associating with any other of the street-folks, and being all known to each other. The ‘patterers’, or the men who cry the last dying-speeches, &c. in the street, and those who help off their wares by long harangues in the public thoroughfares, are again a separate class. These, to use their own term, are ‘the aristocracy of the street-sellers’, despising the costers for their ignorance, and boasting that they live by their intellect. The public, they say, do not expect to receive from them an equivalent for their money – they pay to hear them talk. Compared with the costermongers, the patterers are generally an educated class, and among them are some classical scholars, one clergyman, and many sons of gentlemen. They appear to be the counterparts of the old mountebanks or street-doctors. As a body they seem far less improvable than the costers, being more ‘knowing’ and less impulsive. The street-performers differ again from those; these appear to possess many of the characteristics of the lower class of actors, viz., a strong desire to excite admiration, a love of the tap-room, though more for the society and display than for the drink connected with it, a great fondness for finery and predilection for the performance of dexterous or dangerous feats. Then there are the street mechanics, or artizans – quiet, melancholy, struggling men, who, unable to find any regular employment at their own trade, have made up a few things, and taken to hawk them in the streets, as the last shift of independence. Another distinct class of street-folk are the blind people (mostly musicians in a rude way), who, after the loss of their eyesight, have sought to keep themselves from the workhouse by some little excuse for alms-seeking. These, so far as my experience goes, appear to be a far more deserving class than is usually supposed – their affliction, in most cases, seems to have chastened them and to have given a peculiar religious cast to their thoughts.