Editor’s note:

The first and possibly the greatest sociological study of poverty in 19th-century London, this survey by a journalist invented the genre of oral history a century before the term was coined. Henry Mayhew vowed "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." With his collaborators, Mayhew explored hundreds of miles of London streets in the 1840s and 1850s, gathering thousands of pages of testimony from the city’s humbler residents. Their stories revealed aspects of city life virtually unknown to literate society.

A sprawling, four-volume history resulted from Mayhew’s investigations. This extract focuses on the criminal class—pickpockets, prostitutes, rag pickers, and vagrants, whose true stories of degradation, horror, and desperation rival Dickensian fiction. A classic reference source for sociologists, historians, and criminologists, Mayhew’s work is immensely readable. As Thackeray wrote, these urban vignettes conjure up "a picture of human life so wonderful, so awful, so piteous and pathetic, so exciting and terrible, that readers of romances own they never read anything like to it."

Unabridged reprint of the sections entitled "Prostitutes," "Thieves and Swindlers," and "Beggars" from Volume IV of London Labour and the London Poor, 1861.

Table of Contents:

PROSTITUTES
By Bracebridge Hemyng

  Prostitution in London.

• Seclusives, or those that Live in Private Houses and Apartments
• Board Lodgers
• Those who live in Low Lodging Houses
• Sailors’ Women
• Soldiers’ Women
• Thieves’ Women
• Park Women

  The Dependants of Prostitutes

• Bawds
• Followers of Dress Lodgers
• Keepers of Accommodation Houses
• Procuresses, Pimps, and Panders
• Fancy-men
• Bullies

  Clandestine Prostitutes

• Female Operatives
• Maid-Servants
• Ladies of Intrigue and Houses of Assignation

  Cohabitant Prostitutes

• Narrative of a Gay Woman

  Criminal Returns
  Traffic in Foreign Women

THIEVES AND SWINDLERS
By John Binny

  Introduction

  Sneaks, or Common Thieves

• Stealing from Street-Stalls
• Stealing from the Tills
• Stealing from the Doors and Windows of Shops
• Stealing from Children
• Child Stripping
• Stealing from Drunken Persons
• Stealing Linen, &c.
• Robberies from Carts
• Stealing Lead from House-tops, Copper from Kitchens, &c.
• Robberies by False Keys
• Robberies by Lodgers
• Robberies by Servants
• Area and Lobby Sneaks
• Stealing by Lifting Windows, &c.
• Attic or Garret Thieves
• A Visit to the Rookery of St. Giles
• Narrative of a London Sneak

  Pickpockets and Shoplifters

• Omnibus Pickpockets
• Railway Pickpockets
• Shoplifters
• A Visit to the Thieves’ Dens in Spitalfields
• Narrative of a Pickpocket

  Horse and Dog Stealers

• Horse Stealing
• Dog Stealing

  Highway Robbers

• A Ramble among the Thieves’ Dens in the Borough

  Housebreakers and Burglars

• Narrative of a Burglar
• Narrative of another Burglar

  Prostitute Thieves

• The Prostitutes of the Haymarket
• Hired Prostitutes
• Park Women
• Soldiers’ Women
• Sailors’ Women

  Felonies on the River Thames

• The Mudlarks
• Sweeping Boys
• Sellers of Small Wares
• Labourers on Board Ship, &c.
• Dredgemen or Fishermen
• Smuggling
• Felonies by Lightermen
• The River Pirates
• Narrative of a Mudlark

  Receivers of Stolen Property

• Dolly Shops
• Pawnbrokers, &c.
• Narrative of a Returned Convict

  Coining

• Forgers
  • Bank Notes
  • Cheques
  • Forged Acceptance
  • Forged Wills

  Cheats

• Embezzlers
• Magsmen, or Sharpers
  • The Card Tricks
  • Skittles
  • Thimble and Pea
  • The Lock
• Swindlers

BEGGARS AND CHEATS
By Andrew Halliday

  Introduction

  Origin and History of the Poor Laws

• Statistics of the Poor Laws
• Report of the Poor Law Board (1860)

  Street Beggars in 1816

  Mendicant Pensioners

  Begging-Letter Writers in 1816

  Mendicity Society

• A Deserving Case
• Another
• An Imposter
• Another Imposter
• A Well-Educated Beggar

  Begging-Letter Writers

• Decayed Gentlemen
• Broken-down Trademen
• Distressed Scholar
• The Kaggs Family

  Advertising Begging-Letter Writers

  Ashamed Beggars

  The Swell Beggar

  Clean Family Beggars

  Naval and Military Beggars

• Turnpike Sailor
• Street Campaigners

  Foreign Beggars

• The French Beggar
• Destitute Poles
• Hindoo Beggars
• Negro Beggars

  Disaster Beggars

• A Shipwrecked Mariner
• Blown-up Miners
• Burnt-out Tradesmen
• Lucifer Droppers
• Bodily Afflicted Beggars
• Seventy years a Beggar
• Having swollen Legs
• Cripples
• A Blind Beggar
• Beggars subject to Fits
• Being in a Decline
• "Shallow Coves"
• Famished Beggars
• The Choking Dodge
• The Offal-Eater

  Petty Trading Beggars

• An Author’s Wife

  Dependants of Beggars

• Referees

  Distressed Operative Beggars

• Starved-out Manufacturers
• Unemployed Agriculturists and Frozen-out Gardeners
• Hand-loom Weavers, &c.

Dover Publications, publication date: 1861 (first) 2005 (his edition) and 2012 (electronic version)

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-44006-4

416 pages / 13,6 x 21,5 cm / 17.95 $

Many thanks to «JAM» for this contribution to Smolny’s documentary fund.