Public-domain ebook
by Henry Mayhew
Language: en4,021 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: History - British·History - Modern (1750+)·Sociology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #55998.
The work is a nineteenth‑century social survey that sets out to catalogue the myriad occupations and conditions of London’s street‑dwelling poor. In its opening pages the author, Henry Mayhew, explains that the material is drawn largely from direct observation and interviews, supplemented by statistics supplied by market traders and other “best authorities.” He acknowledges the inevitable gaps in a project of this scope, but stresses that the countless individual testimonies converge on a consistent picture of a class whose misery, occasional heroism, and pervasive vice stand in stark contrast to the wealth of the capital. The volume begins by defining the “street‑folk” and enumerating the various categories, sellers, buyers, finders, performers, artisans and labourers, before delving into detailed descriptions of costermongers, patters, Irish vendors, female and child street‑sellers, and the broader social implications of their existence.
Mayhew’s voice is that of a Victorian journalist‑anthropologist, earnest and methodical, mixing statistical tables with vivid, sometimes moralising narrative. The prose is dense, reflective of the era’s penchant for exhaustive detail, and the tone oscillates between compassionate description and a didactic urge to reform. Readers who relish social history, urban anthropology, or the gritty realism of Victorian London will find the book rewarding, while those preferring brisk storytelling may be challenged by its exhaustive cataloguing style.
The opening · free to read
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.
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.
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