The London Poor

This book profiles the lives of the poor workers and vagrants of London. Most of the book deals with the characteristics of groups of people by occupation, rather than in-depth profiles of any one person. This technique, of using a little evidence to arrive at sweeping generalizations and draw broad conclusions, was much more common in Mayhew's time than it is today. Where a journalist of today would present a compelling word portrait of a specific individual to illustrate the problem, Mayhew relied on generalities. For this reason, there are few specific individuals to reference. Even when a brief profile of a specific individual is given, he or she is unnamed.

As a group, the London Poor were hungry, dirty and poorly dressed. Most worked from before sunrise to long after sunset simply trying to earn enough money to buy some food, and many failed at...