Part 1

# London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1 ### By Mayhew, Henry

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Transcriber's Note

Italics are indicated by _underscores_, and bold text by =equals= signs.

[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 Kafirs 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 Kafirs, 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--not confining their wanderings to any one particular locality, but ranging often from one end of the land to the other. Besides these, there are the urban and suburban wanderers, or those who follow some itinerant occupation in and round about the large towns. Such are, in the metropolis more particularly, the pickpockets--the beggars--the prostitutes--the street-sellers--the street-performers--the cabmen--the coachmen--the watermen--the sailors and such like. In each of these classes--according as they partake more or less of the purely vagabond, doing nothing whatsoever for their living, but moving from place to place preying upon the earnings of the more industrious portion of the community, so will the attributes of the nomade tribes be found to be more or less marked in them. Whether it be that in the mere act of wandering, there is a greater determination of blood to the surface of the body, and consequently a less quantity sent to the brain, the muscles being thus nourished at the expense of the mind, I leave physiologists to say. But certainly be the physical cause what it may, we must all allow that in each of the classes above-mentioned, there is a greater development of the animal than of the intellectual or moral nature of man, and that they are all more or less distinguished for their high cheek-bones and protruding jaws--for their use of a slang language--for their lax ideas of property--for their general improvidence--their repugnance to continuous labour--their disregard of female honour--their love of cruelty--their pugnacity--and their utter want of religion.

OF THE LONDON STREET-FOLK.

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:

I. STREET-SELLERS. II. STREET-BUYERS. III. STREET-FINDERS. IV. STREET-PERFORMERS, ARTISTS, AND SHOWMEN. V. STREET-ARTIZANS, or WORKING PEDLARS; and 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 water-cresses, 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 play-bills, 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 hareskins, 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, serenaders, 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_.