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The Illustarted Mayhew's London
The classic account o London street life and charactes in the time of Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria
edited by J. Canning, introduced by Asa Briggs
London 1986
Stron 264, format: 19x25 cm
100 czarno-białych i 8 kolorowych ilustracji
Książka jest używana, stan dobry plus, bez defektów.
Henry Mayhew's brilliantly observed record of London's poor in the middle of the nineteenth century has deservedly become a classic. He was the first writer to reveal to the comfortable and secure citizens of his own generation another London of which they were unaware. Disraeli's 'two nations' were never in starker contrast than in the capital itself.
His work has lost none of its relevance and importance for the present day. It reminds us of what life was like for thousands in the greatest city of the world, and remains a vital document for historical understanding or any kind of social perspective.
London Labour and the London Poor was based on a series of letters which Mayhew wrote for the Morning Chronicle in 1849-50. During the course of his investigations he discerned the numerous sub-cultures that existed among the poor, and described often in minute detail the occupations and preoccupations of the multifarious tribes who lived in the rookeries and tenements of the east end, and worked in the streets and the sweat-shops of Whitechapel, Limehouse and Wapping, of Shadwell, Rotherhithe and the Ratcliff Highway. Here to the life are many of Dickens' seamier characters.
His story is one which tells of a deadly struggle for existence, always enlightened by compassion and often with humour. There was no welfare state, no safety net for the unemployed, the unfit or the disabled; life confronted one with the starkest choice — either survival, or the workhouse to which many preferred death.
But all was not doom and gloom; London, even Mayhew's half of it, was in many ways a more vital and colourful city than it is today.
The editor has selected a cross-section from Mayhew's immense work, and presents it here accompanied for the first time by many contemporary black-and-white illustrations and eight pages of colour.
'Do you read the Morning Chronicle? Do you devour those marvellous revelations of the inferno of misery, of wretchedness, that is smouldering under our feet? We live in a mockery of Christianity that, with the thought of its hypocrisy, makes me sick. We know nothing of this terrible life that is about us — us, in our smug respectability. To read of the sufferings of one class, and the avarice, the tyranny, the pocket cannibalism of the other, makes one almost wonder that the world should go on...
'I send you the Chronicle of yesterday. You will read therein what I think you will agree to be one of the most beautiful records of the nobility of the poor; of those whom our jaunty legislators know nothing... For comprehensiveness of purpose and minuteness of detail they [Mayhew's letters] have never been approached. He will cut his name deep.'
DouglasJerrold, writing to a friend in February, 1850, about Mayhew's ChroniclehttcTS.
Contents
Editor's Note 7
Introduction by Asa Briggs 8
The Varieties of Street Folk in General, and Costermongers in Particular Costermongering Mechanics 14
The London Street Markets on a Saturday Night 15
Habits and Amusements of Costermongers 19
'Vic Gallery' 29
The Uneducated State of Costermongers 33
The Education of the 'Coster-Lads' 35
The Dress of the Costermongers 41
The 'Penny Gaff' 44
The Street Sellers of Fish: Billingsgate 48
The Street Sellers of Fruit and Vegetables: Co vent Garden Market 55
The London Flower Girls 59
Two Orphan Flower Girls 61
Watercress-selling in Farringdon Market 64
The History of some Irish Street Sellers 68
The Street Sellers of Eatables and Drinkables 72
The Street Sellers of Pea Soup and Hot Eels 76
The Street Sellers of Pickled Whelks 78
The Street Sellers, and the Preparation of Fried Fish 79
Statements of Sheep's Trotter Women 80
The Street Trade in Baked Potatoes 83
'Trotting' or 'Hawking' Butchers 86
The Experience of a Ham Sandwich Seller 87
Coffee Stall Keepers 88
The Street Sale of Peppermint Water 90
Milk Selling in St. James's Park 90
The Street Sale of Milk 91
Street Piemen 92
The Street Sellers of Boiled Puddings 95
The Street Sellers of Plum 'Duff' or Dough 96
Running Patterers 96
Experience of a Running Patterer 97
The Filth, Dishonesty, and Immorality of Low Lodging Houses • 100
Statement of a Prostitute 107
The Crippled Street Seller of Nutmeg Graters 111
The Character of Books of the Street Sale 113
The Swag Shops of the Metropolis 116
Statement of a Packman 119
The Street Sellers of Secondhand Musical Instruments 120
The Music 'Duffers' 122
The Old Clothes Exchange 124
The Street Sellers of Petticoat and Rosemary Lanes 127
Rosemary Lane 139
The Secondhand Sellers of Smithfield Market 143
The Street Sellers of Live Animals 146
A Dog 'Finder' - A 'Lurker's' Career 148
The Tricks of the Bird Duffers 151
The Street Sellers of Birds' Nests 154
The River Beer Sellers, or Purl Men 158
The Street Buyers of Rags, Broken Metal, Bottles, Glass, and Bones 168
The 'Rag-and-Bottle', and the 'Marine-Store' Shops 172
The Buyers of Kitchen Stuff, Grease, and Dripping 177
The Street Jews 179
The Trades and Localities of the Street Jews 181
The Street Finders or Collectors 188
The 'Pure' Finders 191
The Sewer Hunters 199
The Mud Larks 206
The Dustmen of London 214
The General Characteristics of the Working Chimney Sweepers 225
The Rats in the Sewers 229
A Night at Rat-Killing 233
The Fantoccini Man 242
Street Clown 247
'Old Sarah' 252
Omnibus Conductors 256
Appendix i Costermonger Slang: Some Terms and Phrases 261
Appendix ii Sunday Morning Markets 262
Appendix hi Money 263
Appendix iv 'Coster Districts' 264
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