A Review By Keith Smith

A unique insight into the great unwashed of Victorian London by Mayhew, a social commentator and journalist. London comes alive as it would in the pages of Dickens, only this is all for real. Mayhew categorises the poor into street-sellers of fruit and vegetables, mudlarks, destroyers of vermin and so on, gives us as much background and as many facts and figures as he can assemble, and then sets out to find out by direct interview what their lives involve. Every page is an utter revelation……….We learn that conmen regularly sold greenfinches they painted to resemble more exotic species. The popularity of oysters in London meant that ‘in round numbers’ there were 500 million shells to be disposed of each year. An old travelling showman ’sometimes had trouble to get lodgings for the bear’, even though ‘bears is well-behaved enough if they ain’t aggravated’. Wonderful stuff, frightening, illuminating and a must for anyone at all interested in Victorian England!