Talk:London Labour and the London Poor

Extracts
Whilst I am not against short extracts that illuminated the nature of the interviews, or illustrate the range of the interviews undertaken by Mayhew, his brother and the other interviewers and researchers he used in preparation for publication in the Morning Chronicle

I think we aught to establish some criteria for the extracts. We all have our own favourites but I don't think that is an adequate criteria. Because I happen to be interested in railways is not in itself a reason for putting up extracts from the newspaper sellers or of the trousers makers where reference in made to railways. What do others think should be the rules for having extracts? DonBarton 15:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Belated comment: the current extracts look well over what's reasonable in relation to the Don't include copies of primary sources guideline. They certainly should be chosen to be generally interesting and representative of the books. The texts about tea-selling and the Vic theatre look neither. What about the account of the rat catcher Jack Black, at Wikisource ? Tearlach 14:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved from main article
Not sure what to do with this; it seems to be drifting away from pertinence. Tearlach 15:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

''For the traders in the wholesale markets these street vendors were often their best customers, as they always dealt in ready cash. In contrast, other customers frequently required goods to be supplied on credit, and were slow to pay if their own revenues dried up. Then, as later, many in the chain of trade suffered from high prices charged by their suppliers and low prices paid by their customers''.

''Thus one man, lured into the tea trade by promises of rich returns, found that his customers paid him a mere six to nine pence more than his supplier charged for a pound of tea, when he was paid at all. With the 80 to 100 customers that he could reasonably expect to support, his income was meager even by the standards of the day. Many in his trade resorted to adulteration, especially using used tea leaves collected from the servants in rich houses for a few pennies. These were dried and mixed with "new" tea. Other methods of adulteration made use of herbs and even copper salts. Tea trading was subject to licensing, which added expenses of fees, payable not to the municipality but to the supplier, with all the possibilities for abuse implied by that''.

And also:

''In this the articles are almost scholarly, especially compared to the journalism of the 20th century and later. It should be noted, however, that the readership of the newspaper were probably well-educated with an appetite for facts, unlike the average mass-market reader a century later''.

This is authorial opinion, unless a published source can be found expressing this view. Tearlach 00:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

New Mayhew
Although these articles were humorous, their purpose was still to document and describe the lives of working people in London.

Not so sure on this. What snippets and book descriptions I can find suggest them to be highly satirical, presenting the affluent clases of London in Mayhew-style as if they were poverty-stricken. I might be able to find a copy. Tearlach 01:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Availability of copies
There are a number of electronic versions of each of the four volumes, some in PDF format which may be downloaded. They are easy to find. Perhaps after reading one or more, someone might decide to revise or expand the article. JH49S (talk) 18:34, 4 June 2022 (UTC)