Henry Mayhew

“I shall consider the whole of the metropolitan poor in three separate phases, according as they will work, they can't work, and they won't work.”

“Of the thousand millions of human beings that are said to constitute the population of the entire globe, there are—socially, morally, and perhaps even physically considered—but two distinct and broadly marked races, viz., the wanderers and the settlers.”

“The curse of the poor is their poverty.”

“I am one of those who think that the knowledge of the condition of a people is the first step to their improvement.”

“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.”

“The street-folk are a distinct race—a nomadic race—in the midst of a civilized community.”

“The nomadic races have all a peculiar and instinctive dread of the tax-collector.”

“The public have but to read the following plain, unvarnished statements, to be convinced of the sterling honesty of the man.”

“In passing from the skilled operative of the West-end to the unskilled workman of the East-end, we cross the line that separates the artisan from the labourer.”

“The narratives of the people have a grandeur and a simple truthfulness about them that may be looked for in vain in more polished and artistic compositions.”

“A vagabond is a nomad in a civilized country.”

“The sewer-hunters are a peculiar class of men; they are the rag-gatherers of the sewers.”

“The artisans are almost to a man red-hot politicians.”

“The costermongers, it is said, are the most ignorant and the most unprincipled of all the London street-folk.”

“The title of London Labour and the London Poor is a large one, and the subject is one of which the comprehension is perhaps as difficult as the treatment is important.”