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[Illustration: HENRY MAYHEW.

[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]




  LONDON LABOUR
  AND THE LONDON POOR

  A Cyclopædia of the Condition and Earnings

  OF

  THOSE THAT _WILL_ WORK
  THOSE THAT _CANNOT_ WORK, AND
  THOSE THAT _WILL NOT_ WORK


  BY
  HENRY MAYHEW


  THE LONDON STREET-FOLK

  COMPRISING

  STREET SELLERS · STREET BUYERS · STREET FINDERS
  STREET PERFORMERS · STREET ARTIZANS · STREET LABOURERS

  WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS


  VOLUME ONE




  First edition                                             1851
  (_Volume One only and parts of Volumes Two and Three_)
  Enlarged edition (Four volumes)                        1861-62
  New impression                                            1865




CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME I.


THE STREET-FOLK.
                                                                        PAGE
  WANDERING TRIBES IN GENERAL                                              1
  WANDERING TRIBES IN THE COUNTRY                                          2
  THE LONDON STREET-FOLK                                                   3
  COSTERMONGERS                                                            4
  STREET SELLERS OF FISH                                                  61
  STREET SELLERS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES                                  79
  STATIONARY STREET SELLERS OF FISH, FRUIT, AND VEGETABLES                97
  THE STREET IRISH                                                       104
  STREET SELLERS OF GAME, POULTRY, RABBITS, BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS     120
  STREET SELLERS OF TREES, SHRUBS, FLOWERS, ROOTS, SEEDS, AND BRANCHES   131
  STREET SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF                                          145
  STREET SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES                              158
  STREET SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE, AND THE FINE ARTS            213
  STREET SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES                                323
  THE WOMEN STREET SELLERS                                               457
  THE CHILDREN STREET SELLERS                                            468




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


  LONDON COSTERMONGER                                Page      13
  THE COSTER GIRL                                     „        37
  THE OYSTER STALL                                    „        49
  THE ORANGE MART (DUKE’S PLACE)                      „        73
  THE IRISH STREET-SELLER                             „        97
  THE WALL-FLOWER GIRL                                „       127
  THE GROUNDSELL MAN                                  „       147
  THE BAKED POTATO MAN                                „       167
  THE COFFEE STALL                            To face page    184
  COSTER BOY AND GIRL “TOSSING THE PIEMAN”            „       196
  DOCTOR BOKANKY, THE STREET-HERBALIST                „       206
  THE LONG SONG SELLER                                „       222
  ILLUSTRATIONS OF STREET ART, NO. I.                 „       224
       „              „        NO. II.                „       238
  THE HINDOO TRACT SELLER                             „       242
  THE “KITCHEN,” FOX COURT                            „       251
  ILLUSTRATIONS OF STREET ART, NO. III.               „       278
  THE BOOK AUCTIONEER                                 „       296
  THE STREET-SELLER OF NUTMEG-GRATERS                 „       330
  THE STREET-SELLER OF DOG-COLLARS                    „       360
  THE STREET-SELLER OF CROCKERYWARE                   „       366
  THE BLIND BOOT-LACE SELLER                          „       406
  THE STREET-SELLER OF GREASE-REMOVING COMPOSITION    „       428
  THE LUCIFER-MATCH GIRL                              „       432
  THE STREET-SELLER OF WALKING-STICKS                 „       438
  THE STREET-SELLER OF RHUBARB AND SPICE              „       452
  THE STREET-SELLER OF COMBS                          „       458
  PORTRAIT OF MR. MAYHEW                   To face the Title Page




PREFACE.


The present volume is the first of an intended series, which it is
hoped will form, when complete, a cyclopædia of the industry, the want,
and the vice of the great Metropolis.

It is believed that the book is curious for many reasons:

It surely may be considered curious as being the first attempt
to publish the history of a people, from the lips of the people
themselves--giving a literal description of their labour, their
earnings, their trials, and their sufferings, in their own
“unvarnished” language; and to pourtray the condition of their homes
and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct
communion with the individuals.

It may be considered curious also as being the first commission
of inquiry into the state of the people, undertaken by a private
individual, and the first “blue book” ever published in twopenny
numbers.

It is curious, moreover, as supplying information concerning a large
body of persons, of whom the public had less knowledge than of the most
distant tribes of the earth--the government population returns not even
numbering them among the inhabitants of the kingdom; and as adducing
facts so extraordinary, that the traveller in the undiscovered country
of the poor must, like Bruce, until his stories are corroborated by
after investigators, be content to lie under the imputation of telling
such tales, as travellers are generally supposed to delight in.

Be the faults of the present volume what they may, assuredly they
are rather short-comings than exaggerations, for in every instance
the author and his coadjutors have sought to understate, and most
assuredly never to exceed the truth. For the omissions, the author
would merely remind the reader of the entire novelty of the task--there
being no other similar work in the language by which to guide or
check his inquiries. When the following leaves are turned over, and
the two or three pages of information derived from books contrasted
with the hundreds of pages of facts obtained by positive observation
and investigation, surely some allowance will be made for the details
which may still be left for others to supply. Within the last two years
some thousands of the humbler classes of society must have been seen
and visited with the especial view of noticing their condition and
learning their histories; and it is but right that the truthfulness of
the poor generally should be made known; for though checks have been
usually adopted, the people have been mostly found to be astonishingly
correct in their statements,--so much so indeed, that the attempts at
deception are certainly the exceptions rather than the rule. Those
persons who, from an ignorance of the simplicity of the honest poor,
might be inclined to think otherwise, have, in order to be convinced
of the justice of the above remarks, only to consult the details given
in the present volume, and to perceive the extraordinary agreement in
the statements of all the vast number of individuals who have been seen
at different times, and who cannot possibly have been supposed to have
been acting in concert.

The larger statistics, such as those of the quantities of fish and
fruit, &c., sold in London, have been collected from tradesmen
connected with the several markets, or from the wholesale merchants
belonging to the trade specified--gentlemen to whose courtesy and
co-operation I am indebted for much valuable information, and whose
names, were I at liberty to publish them, would be an indisputable
guarantee for the facts advanced. The other statistics have been
obtained in the same manner--the best authorities having been
invariably consulted on the subject treated of.

It is right that I should make special mention of the assistance I have
received in the compilation of the present volume from Mr. HENRY WOOD
and Mr. RICHARD KNIGHT (late of the City Mission), gentlemen who have
been engaged with me from nearly the commencement of my inquiries, and
to whose hearty co-operation both myself and the public are indebted
for a large increase of knowledge. Mr. Wood, indeed, has contributed so
large a proportion of the contents of the present volume that he may
fairly be considered as one of its authors.

The subject of the Street-Folk will still require another volume,
in order to complete it in that comprehensive manner in which I am
desirous of executing the modern history of this and every other
portion of the people. There still remain--the _Street-Buyers_, the
_Street-Finders_, the _Street-Performers_, the _Street-Artizans_,
and the _Street-Labourers_, to be done, among the several classes
of street-people; and the _Street Jews_, the _Street Italians and
Foreigners_, and the _Street Mechanics_, to be treated of as varieties
of the order. The present volume refers more particularly to the
_Street-Sellers_, and includes special accounts of the _Costermongers_
and the _Patterers_ (the two broadly-marked varieties of street
tradesmen), the _Street Irish_, the _Female Street-Sellers_, and the
_Children Street-Sellers_ of the metropolis.

My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more
intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under
those sufferings, of the poor--that it may teach those who are beyond
temptation to look with charity on the frailties of their less
fortunate brethren--and cause those who are in “high places,” and those
of whom much is expected, to bestir themselves to improve the condition
of a class of people whose misery, ignorance, and vice, amidst all the
immense wealth and great knowledge of “the first city in the world,”
is, to say the very least, a national disgrace to us.




LONDON LABOUR

AND

THE LONDON POOR.




THE STREET-FOLK.




OF WANDERING TRIBES IN GENERAL.


Of the thousand millions of human beings that are said to constitute
the population of the entire globe, there are--socially, morally,
and perhaps even physically considered--but two distinct and broadly
marked races, viz., the wanderers and the settlers--the vagabond and
the citizen--the nomadic and the civilized tribes. Between these two
extremes, however, ethnologists recognize a mediate variety, partaking
of the attributes of both. There is not only the race of hunters and
manufacturers--those who live by shooting and fishing, and those who
live by producing--but, say they, there are also the herdsmen, or those
who live by tending and feeding, what they consume.

Each of these classes has its peculiar and distinctive physical as
well as moral characteristics. “There are in mankind,” says Dr.
Pritchard, “three principal varieties in the form of the head and other
physical characters. Among the rudest tribes of men--the hunters and
savage inhabitants of forests, dependent for their supply of food on
the accidental produce of the soil and the chase--a form of head is
prevalent which is mostly distinguished by the term “_prognathous_,”
indicating a prolongation or extension forward of the jaws. A second
shape of the head belongs principally to such races as wander with
their herds and flocks over vast plains; these nations have broad
lozenge-shaped faces (owing to the great development of the cheek
bones), and pyramidal skulls. The most civilized races, on the other
hand--those who live by the arts of cultivated life,--have a shape
of the head which differs from both of those above mentioned. The
characteristic form of the skull among these nations may be termed oval
or elliptical.”

These three forms of head, however, clearly admit of being reduced
to two broadly-marked varieties, according as the bones of the face
or those of the skull are more highly developed. A greater relative
development of the jaws and cheek bones, says the author of the
“Natural History of Man,” indicates a more ample extension of the
organs subservient to sensation and the animal faculties. Such a
configuration is adapted to the wandering tribes; whereas, the greater
relative development of the bones of the skull--indicating as it does
a greater expansion of the brain, and consequently of the intellectual
faculties--is especially adapted to the civilized races or settlers,
who depend mainly on their knowledge of the powers and properties of
things for the necessaries and comforts of life.

Moreover it would appear, that not only are all races divisible into
wanderers and settlers, but that each civilized or settled tribe has
generally some wandering horde intermingled with, and in a measure
preying upon, it.

According to Dr. Andrew Smith, who has recently made extensive
observations in South Africa, almost every tribe of people who have
submitted themselves to social laws, recognizing the rights of
property and reciprocal social duties, and thus acquiring wealth
and forming themselves into a respectable caste, are surrounded by
hordes of vagabonds and outcasts from their own community. Such are
the Bushmen and _Sonquas_ of the Hottentot race--the term “_sonqua_”
meaning literally _pauper_. But a similar condition in society produces
similar results in regard to other races; and the <DW5>s have their
Bushmen as well as the Hottentots--these are called _Fingoes_--a word
signifying wanderers, beggars, or outcasts. The Lappes seem to have
borne a somewhat similar relation to the Finns; that is to say, they
appear to have been a wild and predatory tribe who sought the desert
like the Arabian Bedouins, while the Finns cultivated the soil like the
industrious Fellahs.

But a phenomenon still more deserving of notice, is the difference
of speech between the Bushmen and the Hottentots. The people of some
hordes, Dr. Andrew Smith assures us, vary their speech designedly,
and adopt new words, with the intent of rendering their ideas
unintelligible to all but the members of their own community. For this
last custom a peculiar name exists, which is called “_cuze-cat_.” This
is considered as greatly advantageous in assisting concealment of their
designs.

Here, then, we have a series of facts of the utmost social importance.
(1) There are two distinct races of men, viz.:--the wandering and
the civilized tribes; (2) to each of these tribes a different form
of head is peculiar, the wandering races being remarkable for the
development of the bones of the face, as the jaws, cheek-bones, &c.,
and the civilized for the development of those of the head; (3) to each
civilized tribe there is generally a wandering horde attached; (4) such
wandering hordes have frequently a different language from the more
civilized portion of the community, and that adopted with the intent of
concealing their designs and exploits from them.

It is curious that no one has as yet applied the above facts to the
explanation of certain anomalies in the present state of society
among ourselves. That we, like the <DW5>s, Fellahs, and Finns, are
surrounded by wandering hordes--the “Sonquas” and the “Fingoes” of
this country--paupers, beggars, and outcasts, possessing nothing but
what they acquire by depredation from the industrious, provident, and
civilized portion of the community;--that the heads of these nomades
are remarkable for the greater development of the jaws and cheekbones
rather than those of the head;--and that they have a secret language
of their own--an English “_cuze-cat_” or “slang” as it is called--for
the concealment of their designs: these are points of coincidence so
striking that, when placed before the mind, make us marvel that the
analogy should have remained thus long unnoticed.

The resemblance once discovered, however, becomes of great service in
enabling us to use the moral characteristics of the nomade races of
other countries, as a means of comprehending the more readily those
of the vagabonds and outcasts of our own. Let us therefore, before
entering upon the subject in hand, briefly run over the distinctive,
moral, and intellectual features of the wandering tribes in general.

The nomad then is distinguished from the civilized man by his
repugnance to regular and continuous labour--by his want of providence
in laying up a store for the future--by his inability to perceive
consequences ever so slightly removed from immediate apprehension--by
his passion for stupefying herbs and roots, and, when possible, for
intoxicating fermented liquors--by his extraordinary powers of enduring
privation--by his comparative insensibility to pain--by an immoderate
love of gaming, frequently risking his own personal liberty upon a
single cast--by his love of libidinous dances--by the pleasure he
experiences in witnessing the suffering of sentient creatures--by
his delight in warfare and all perilous sports--by his desire for
vengeance--by the looseness of his notions as to property--by the
absence of chastity among his women, and his disregard of female
honour--and lastly, by his vague sense of religion--his rude idea of
a Creator, and utter absence of all appreciation of the mercy of the
Divine Spirit.

Strange to say, despite its privations, its dangers, and its hardships,
those who have once adopted the savage and wandering mode of life,
rarely abandon it. There are countless examples of white men adopting
all the usages of the Indian hunter, but there is scarcely one example
of the Indian hunter or trapper adopting the steady and regular habits
of civilized life; indeed, the various missionaries who have visited
nomade races have found their labours utterly unavailing, so long as a
wandering life continued, and have succeeded in bestowing the elements
of civilization, only on those compelled by circumstances to adopt a
settled habitation.


OF THE WANDERING TRIBES OF THIS COUNTRY.

The nomadic races of England are of many distinct kinds--from the
habitual vagrant--half-beggar, half-thief--sleeping in barns, tents,
and casual wards--to the mechanic on tramp, obtaining his bed and
supper from the trade societies in the different towns, on his way
to seek work. Between these two extremes there are several mediate
varieties--consisting of pedlars, showmen, harvest-men, and all that
large class who live by either selling, showing, or doing something
through the country. These are, so to speak, the rural nomads