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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did a lodging manager do when a child brought in a stolen item for rent?

2. What was a huckster who sold hardware at a fair called?

3. What kind of low lodging house segregated the renters by sex?

4. How were dustmen hired?

5. Where did a coster sleep if sales were bad?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did bolder boys do with coal barges, how was this viewed and what could happen to the boys? How did the boys feel about jail?

2. Describe the facilities that were opened between 1847 and 1849 that caused the chimney sweeps to wash more often.

3. What did mudlarks do and how did they bathe?

4. What were some of the circumstances in the better lodging houses for the street people?

5. What caused a class hierarchy in immigrants in London?

6. Who were generally managers of lodging houses and what happened to a child who did not have the money for lodging?

7. How much money did sifters make, what did they do and why did they do it?

8. Where did most costermongers and their families live

9. What were some of the positive aspects of being a costermonger?

10. How did patterers earn their living and what is an example of a story that demonstrated a patterer's skill?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Due to competition, the photographer had to offer portraits for a half-penny, an impossibly low price. To bolster earnings, he either lured people into buying a more expensive photo, or sold them bogus products like a "Patent American Air Preserver" that was actually just scrap paper.

1. After reading this photographer's story would you consider him to be of low moral character? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Explain why this photographer's actions demonstrates the validity of the cliche: buyer beware. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Do you believe it is the responsibility of the seller of a goods to make certain the goods are worth the selling price or it is the responsibility of the buyer to decide that? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Costermongers usually lived in a drab, dreary, dirty rented room. Often it was shared with other family members. A mother, father and four or more children might live in a single room.

1. Discuss how living conditions such as in the statement above might affect a family. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Refute or defend the following statement: Human beings have a right to food, shelter and safety. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Explore some of the similarities and differences between the living conditions of costermongers in London during the era of this book and the slums of modern cities. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Mayhew made sweeping generalizations about the different types of street people, and often relied on stereotypes. For example, he claimed that all blind musicians were highly religious while all "mechanics" or skilled laborers were melancholy, suffering from chronic depression.

1. Refute or defend the following statement: Stereotypes about people are generally true. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. How do you think stereotyping or generalization in research can affect the results of research? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. The only statement that can be true about a research population is if that population consist of only one person. Discuss this statement in view of Mayhew's tendency to stereotype groups of individuals.

(see the answer keys)

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