Mayhew London Labour, vol I.
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
Begin Page xvi
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-gentle- men to whose courtesy and co-operation I am indebted for much valuable informa- tion, 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 com- plete 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 parti- cularly 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.