The first and possibly the greatest sociological study of poverty in nineteenth-century London, this survey by a journalist invented the genre of oral history a century before the term was even 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".
Together 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 humblest residents. Their stories revealed aspects of city life virtually unknown to literate society.
A sprawling, four-volume history resulted from Mayhew's investigation. 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.
Contents:
Prostitutes
- Prostitution in London
- The Dependants of Prostitutes
- Clandestine Prostitutes
- Cohabitant Prostitutes
- Criminal Returns
- Traffic in Foreign Women
Thieves and Swindlers
- Introduction
- Sneaks, or Common Thieves
- Pickpockets and Shoplifters
- Horse and Dog Stealers
- Highway Robbers
- Housebreakers and Burglars
- Prostitute Thieves
- Felonies on the River Thames
- Receivers of Stolen Property
- Coining
- Cheats
Beggars and Cheats
- Introduction
- Origin and History of the Poor Laws
- Street Beggars in 1816
- Mendicant Pensioners
- Begging-Letter Writers in 1816
- Mendicity Society
- Begging-Letter Writers
- Advertising Begging-Letter Writers
- Ashamed Beggars
- The Swell Beggar
- Clean Family Beggars
- Naval and Military Beggars
- Foreign Beggars
- Disaster Beggars
- Petty Trading Beggars
- Dependants of Beggars
- Distressed Operative Beggars
