London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work, Volume 1G. Woodfall, 1851 - Charities "A seminal study of London street life in the middle of the [19th] century ... [with] details of Victorian lower-class life, such as what kinds of foods were sold on the streets, how financial transactions with street-sellers were conducted, and how vendors 'cried' their wares ... The study had its origin in a series of eighty-two articles, published from October 1849 through December 1850, entitled 'Labour and the poor', in the Morning Chronicle ..."--Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. |
Other editions - View all
London Labour and the London Poor; A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and ... Henry Mayhew,William Tuckniss,Richard Beeard No preview available - 2018 |
London Labour and the London Poor; A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and ... Henry Mayhew,William Tuckniss,Richard Beeard No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
average barrow baskets better Billingsgate blind bought boys bread called carried cheap clothes colour cost costermongers costers customers Daguerreotype dealers dozen dressed earnings father fish flowers four fruit gentleman girls give half halfpenny hands hawkers hawking heard heerd informant Irish itinerant Jews labour ladies living lodging lodging-houses London look morning mother nearly never night nuts paper patterers penny penny gaffs pepper-boxes perhaps persons poor pound profit public-houses purchase quantity rhubarb round Saturday screeving sell sellers shilling shops smock-frock sold sometimes songs sort Spitalfields sprats stall stand stock-money street street literature street-sellers street-trade Sunday swag swag-shops tell there's things tion told town trade vended vendors wares water-cresses week weekly whelks Whitechapel wife woman women workhouse young
Popular passages
Page 304 - Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlour splendours of that festive place: The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door: The chest contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; The pictures placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules...
Page 275 - Now ponder well, you parents dear, These words which I shall write ; A doleful story you shall hear, In time brought forth to light.
Page 21 - I'm satisfied that if the costers had to profess themselves of some religion to-morrow, they would all become Roman Catholics, every one of them. This is the reason : — London costers live very often in the same courts and streets as the poor Irish, and if the Irish are sick, be sure there comes to them the priest, the Sisters of Charity — they are good women — and some other ladies. Many a man that's not a Catholic, has rotted and died without any good person near him.
Page 322 - Although liable to an accusation of barbarism, I must confess that the very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of the far West; and I never recall but with pleasure the remembrance of my solitary camp in the Bayou Salado, with no friend near me more faithful than my rifle, and no companions more sociable than my good horse and mules, or the attendant coyote which nightly serenaded us.
Page 151 - ... was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. There was something cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her features had scarcely formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life, with the calm earnestness of one who had endured them all. I did not know how to talk with her. At first I treated her as a child, speaking on childish subjects; so that I might, by being familiar with her, remove all shyness, and get her to narrate her life freely. I asked her about her...
Page 19 - As the heat increased the faces grew bright red, every bonnet was taken off, and ladies could be seen wiping the perspiration from their cheeks with the play-bills. No delay between the pieces will be allowed, and should the interval appear too long, some one will shout out — referring to the curtain — " Pull up that there winder blind ! " or they will call to the orchestra, aaying, " Now then you catgut- scrapers ! Let's have a ha'purth of liveliness.
Page 108 - He called them all by their names, and asked after their families, and once or twice, the "father" was taken aside and held by the button while some point that required his advice was whispered in his ear. The religious fervour of the people whom I saw was intense. At one house that I entered the woman set me marvelling at the strength of her zeal, by showing me how she contrived to have in her sitting-room a sanctuary to pray before every night and morning, and even in the day, "when she felt weary...
Page 41 - comic singer," in a battered hat and the huge bow to his cravat, was received with deafening shouts. Several songs were named by the costers, but the " funny gentleman " merely requested them "to hold their jaws," and putting on a " knowing" look, sang a song, the whole point of which consisted in the mere utterance of some filthy word at the end of each stanza. Nothing, however, could have been more successful. The lads stamped their feet with delight; the girls screamed with enjoyment. Once or...
Page 2 - London Labor and London Poor," has remarked that " Among them, according as they partake more or less of the pure vagabond nature, doing nothing whatever for their living, but moving from place to place, preying on the earnings of the more industrious portion of the community, so will the attributes of the nomadic races be found more or less marked in them; and they are all more or less distinguished by their high cheek-bones and protruding jaws...