Voices of Victorian London

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] almost 50 years before the mechanical recording of the human voice the English journalist Henry Mayhew began to compile a natural history of London's laboring poor he roamed the streets of mid 19th century London armed with nothing more than patience shorthand and what seems to have been a remarkable year for the peculiarities of idiomatic English he recorded the witness of several thousand men and women who plied their meager and uncertain trades in the Victorian metropolis Mayhew hoped to extract some large-scale scientific generalization from the inquiry but in the event he was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and richness of his material so by his own standards the enterprise was a failure but Mayhew's failure turns out to have been our good fortune because of the unprecedented archive of personal experience which he bequeathed without the benefit of a tape recorder we can virtually hear the anonymous inhabitants of a world that we have now lost there was something refreshingly haphazard about Mayhew's sampling techniques for example he seems to have encountered one of only two false I'm a KERS in London at the time this one made dolls eyes as a sideline and Mayhew was no doubt surprised to hear that there were seasonal variations in the trade there's a brisk and a slack season to our business as well as in most others after the Christmas holidays up to March we have generally little to do but from that time eyes begin to look up a bit and business remains pretty good until the end of October where we make one pair of eyes for home consumption we make ten for exportation a great many eyes go abroad yes I suppose we shall soon be overpopulated with goals of a great number were not to emigrate every year the annual increase of dolls goes on at alarming rate the yearly rate of mortality must be very high to be sure but it's nothing to the rates of which they brought into the world I also make human eyes these are two cases in the one I have back and hazel and in the other blue and gray here Mayhew reports the man took the lids off a couple of boxes about as big as binnacle that stood upon the table they each contained a hundred and ninety different eyes and so like nature Mayhew says that the effect produced upon a person unaccustomed to the sight was most peculiar and far from Pleasant here you see are the ladies eyes you see they've got more sparkle and brilliance about them the gentleman's here doctor different ladies eyes they belong to fine-looking young women both of them when a lady or a gentleman comes to us for an eye we're obliged to have a sitting just like a portrait painter we take no sketch but we study the tints of the perfect eye there are a number of eyes come over from France but these are generally what we call misfits they sold cheap and they sell vormax the other eye and again by not fitting tight over the ball like those made expressly for the person they sell them ooh concent Aeneas Lee as it is termed with the natural eye and have therefore a very unpleasant and fix they're worse almost than the defective eye itself now the eyes that we make have such a natural appearance and move so freely that I can assure you that one gentleman had got one of his from me past nine doctors without the deception being detected there is a lady customer of mine who has been married for three years to a husband and I believe he does not know she has a false eye to this day the generality of persons whom we serve take out their eyes when they go to bed and they either put them under the pillow or else in a tumbler of water or on the toilet tapered at their side most married women however never take their eyes out at all some people we're out of faults on half the time of others this does not arise from the greater use of them or from rolling them about but from the increased secretion of the tears which act on the false I like acid on a metal and corrodes and Buffon's the surface this roughness produces inflammation and so a new eye becomes necessary the Scotch lose a great many eyes why I cannot say and the men in this country lose more eyes nearly two to one we generally only make one eye but I did once make two eyes for a widowed lady she lost one first and we repaired the loss so well that's our losing the other wise who got us to maker a second false eyes are a great charity to servants if they lose an eye no one will engage them in Paris there's a charitable institution for the supply of false eyes to the poor and I'll really think if we had a similar establishment in this country for the furnishing of artificial eyes for those whose bread depends upon their looks it was there a great deal of good we always supply eyes to such people at half price my normal price for and I is two pounds and two shillings this I for example a couple of guineas and as fine and I as who would wish to see in any young woman's head least appealing occupations was the gathering of dog dung called pure because it was used to purify leather may you wrote a lot about the armies of people who scavenged the streets for reusable waste anything from cigar ends to nails and of course rags and bones this pure finder to Mayhew's astonishment could read and write and as he said appeared to have been a person of natural good sense she'd once been more prosperous when she was married to a Waterman on the river we did very well together for a number of and till he lost his health then we parted with everything we had in the world and at last when we no other means of living left we were advised to take to gathering pure I couldn't endure the business I couldn't bear to eat I couldn't bear to eat a morsel and I was obliged to discontinue it a long time my husband kept at it though if you do that well enough and he couldn't he couldn't walk fast enough and he couldn't lift his hands as high as his head but he managed to work under him and so put the pure in the basket when I saw that he he couldn't make enough to keep us both I took heart my went out again and I used to gather more than he did that was 15 years ago and times was good then we used to do very well we only go as a pailful in the day we could live very well but he used to do much more than that we could do much more than that so when near so many people are the business and pure was easier to be heard from my part I can't tell where all the poor creatures have come from of late years well it seems growing worse and worse every day you pulled down the price of pure that certain things I've got to do something they can't stop well is something to be got but not later than six or seven years ago it was three and six or four shillings are powerful and a ready sale for as much as you go debt now it's only a shilling some places one and techniques are powerful and as I said before there's so many attit have some party there for a rural creature like me to find and the men that are smart and strong they didn't post of course and well they do very well and they managed to live six years ago my husband's he complained he was ill and in the evening and he lay down in the bed we was in Whitechapel then and he took a fit of coughing and he was smothered in it in his own blood dear troubles I've gone through I had eight children at one time it's not one of them left to live now my daughter lived to 30 years of age but she died in childbirth and since then I've had no beginning the quiet world to care for me numbered myself all alone as I am almost everyone I've ever known engaged in pure fun think was better off once I knew a man who went by the name of brown he was picking up pure for years before I went to it he was a very quiet man used to dodging the Blue Anchor yard and he seldom spoke to anybody but we choose to speak sometimes but never months and then one morning he was found dead in his bed it was of a Tuesday morning and he was buried at 12 o'clock that Friday following and that afternoon at 6 o'clock surreal four gentleman came looking all through this place they were searching for a man named brown and offering a reward for any who would find him out there was a whole crowd round then when I come up and one gentleman said that the man they were looking for Hyde Ross the first finger of his right hand and then I knew that was the man but they don't he buried that morning would you believe it mr. pram was a real gentleman all the time and largest day so I don't know how many thousands pounds just left him the lawyers they advertised and searched everywhere for him and never found him as you may say and till he was dead we discovered his name wasn't mr. Brown he took that name so hard his real one which of course he did not want anybody to know I've often thought of in poor man misery he might have been spared if flat corners had only come a year or two sooner may you calculated that there were 30,000 custom angles in London sellers of fruit vegetables and fish from whom for a penny you could buy two bloaters a bunch of turnips a half pint of nuts or a plate of sprats Mayhew was wide-ranging in his questions to the people he met but usually started his conversations by seeking everyday details of trade Tom's is bad sir it's a dead each time I don't do so well at present as he Middle East top something when I served the Prince of Naples no far from me or our dipper and times was better that was five years ago but I can't say the way you would him he was a good customer and where we fund the peaches I used to send him to him at twelve shillings to Plaskett when I was new the Plaskett elder dozen and cost me six shillings it covered garden smaller sometimes bar didn't charge him more when I did his footman was a black man and then he can remain quiet and he's asking but she was an English woman he was a prince and Naples was mark customer no no I know what he was like four never saw him I heard he was the brother at the King of Naples may you asked him if he knew the whereabouts of Naples I can't sign when I was he's but if you ask at Euston Square they're telling their fair they're in the time to go in might be in France for anything on I'm an Ibis or Island when you ask at the square I went to Cruden once Parral and slipped the whole wide without stirring and saw your mind enables for anything or no and did he know that the Pope was a neighbor of the King of Naples what do you mean living next door to him but I know nothing about the king of my boobs only the prince I don't know what the Pope he's is he any trade he's coming to me when he's no customer of mine ain't got nothin to say about nobody that ain't no customer may you asked him where he bought his merchandise well these crabs he's calling the seeing calls I'll get some a billionth guy I'll never saw this scene but it's so water are now Kansai where about it lies it's only in the ends of the billions gate salesman all of it I've heard a ship breaks at sea of course by drowning in course I never heard of the Prince of Naples was ever at sea I'm not to talk about him such a customer when he live near where we von der pages not know I ever saw him II understand that black footmen of easy will take that Plaskett bring me down money did I tell you how much 12 she needs for peaches what go sweet six have you ever been in France I was never in flower so now sir never I've done other way what ours didn't he work oh I won't be streets and coops at all times I've worked in by moonlight not that you could see the moon lot where it was busy how far after do you think the moon was I couldn't say fr the memories officer it's nothing to me a I've seen it I could be higher than some poles and the Sun but some what you ask it must be nearer than the moon for it's over and if they bug father chosen it's like the taproom great nap it a Gaslight to compare the two E's and did he know what sort of buildings and poles was Church says Southard I was never in a church but he'd heard of God presumably okay I've heard it good he might have known the earth and the sea or never does he might to say that's another thing you best learn about that Billingsgate good God Almighty might the world and the poor bricklayers libraries built yes he's out with that's my opinion Park aren't cipher always never in no school how many ways out at work and know nothing about it but he knew about Jesus Christ our Redeemer Jesus Christ the Alfred him Fatima highly we got the Redeemers underdog from me angle an intelligent and trustworthy man Mayhew reports computed that not to intend costermongers had ever been in the interior of a church but when Mayhew pursued his inquiries with this cost a girl he found a surprising amount of scriptural knowledge most of it garbled when he asked her about religion he last night a father was talking about religion we often talks about religion father has told me that God made the world and I've heard him talk about the first man and woman as was made and lived must be more than undred years ago now but I don't like to speak on what I don't know father too has told me about our Savior what was now done across to suffer for such poor people as we as father is told us to about is given a great many poor people a penny loaf and a bit of fish each which proves him to be a very kind gentleman I think Mama's was made by Emma veered say and he performed him to among other miracles yeah this is part of what our Savior tells us we are to forgive everybody and do nobody no injury don't think I could forgive an enemy have she injured me very much sure I don't know why I couldn unless it is unless it is that I'm poor and never learn to do it if the girl stole my show and didn't back will give me the value on it I couldn't forgive her but if she told me she lost off her back I shouldn't be so hard enough we poor girls ain't very religious but we are better than the main we all of us face God for everything even for a fine day as for sprats we always say they're God's blessing for the poor and think it's harder the Lord men not to let them come in at 4 the 9th of November just cause he wants to diner them which he always do yeah we knows for certain a plenty of sprats at the Lord Mayor's blanket may you asked her about the creation they say in the Bible that the world was created in six days the beasts the birds the fish a'l with sprats was among them in course there was only one out at that time as was made and that was the ark for Adam and Eve and their family seems very wonderful indeed all this world was done so quick should have thought England alone would have took double the time she knew sir but then it says in the Bible God Almighty's a just and true God and of course time will be nothing to him what did she think about death what a good person he says the Lord is called upon him and he must go carefully think what it means though unless it's an angel comes like when we were dreaming and tells the party he's wanted in heaven and where was heaven then we know where every news about the clouds and they're placed there to prevent it seen into it but I'm afeard there's very few cost is among the angel especially those as these poor girls now you then asked her about the phrase world without end what did she make of that no now don't think this world could well go on forever there's a great deal of ground unit certainly and it seems very strong at present but they say this to be a flood on earth and earthquakes and now destroy it earthquake or - it took place some time ago as people tells me never road no more about it if we chase them the streets on our shot go to heaven but it's very hard upon us for if we didn't cheat we couldn't live prophet is so bad it's the same with the shops suppose the young in there won't go ever neither but if people won't give the money both kostas and tradesmen must cheat and that's very hard why look at apples customers won't lympha listen may cost us so we're forced to show up in bad ones as well as the good ones and if we're to suffer for that well that seemed to me dreadful crow must Mayhew wrote in the struggle to live I and to live merely mind heart and soul are all absorbed in the belly and yet as he himself showed the higher functions were also catered for by people like this man who toted his microscope around the streets and charged a penny a time for a peep I began my street life with exhibiting a telescope I dive up the telescope for this reason my brother-in-law was going to America and was anxious to call in all his money the telescope was sold and my sister the professed cook fearing that I should be without a means of living bought for me a microscope out of her own earnings which cost her 5 pounds she said the microscope is better than the telescope for the nights are so uncertain she was quite right for when the telescopes have been idle for three months at a time I can exhibit my microscope day and night she gave it to me as a mark of a respect that instrument has enabled me to support an afflicted and aged mother and two barrier comfortably when she died my microscope contains six objects which are placed on a wheel at the back which I turn around in succession the objects are in cell boxes of glass the objects are all of them familiar to the public and are as follows one the flee to the human hair or the hair of the head 3 a section of the old oak tree for the an amount you lie in water five cheese mites and six the transverse section of cane used by school masters for the correction of boys the first exhibit is the flea and our commence a short lecture as follows gentle man the first object I have to present to your notice is that of a flea I wish to direct your attention especially to the head of this object here you may distinctly perceive its proboscis or adopt it is that which perforates the cuticle or human skin after which the blood rises by suction from our body into that of the flea thousands of persons in London have seen a flea have felt a flea but have never yet been able by the humanoid to discover that instrument which made them sensible off the flea about their person although they could not catch the old gentleman having shown you the head and shoulders will it start I shall now proceed to show you the posterior view of this object in which you may clearly discover every artery vein muscle and nerve exact like a lobster in shape and quite as large as one at two shillings and six months that pleases them you know and sometimes I add to amuse them an object of that size would make an excellent supper for half a dozen persons that pleases them one Irishwoman after seeing the flee through upper arms and screamed out oh Jesus and I've had hundreds of them in me bed at once she got me a great many customers from her exclamations you see my lecture entices those listening to our look many listeners say ain't that true and philosophical and correct and I've had some give me six months and say never mind the change your lecture is alone worth the money now proceed to number two the next object I'm to present to your notice gentlemen is that of the hair of the human head you perceive that it is nearly as large as yonder scaffolding poles of the House of Lords I say that when I'm on Westminster Bridge because it refers to the locality and is a striking figure and excites the listeners now comes number three this gentleman is the brave old oak a section of it not larger than the head of a pit looking at it through this powerful instrument you may plainly perceive millions of perforations or pores through which the moisture of the earth rises in order to aid its growth of all the trees of the forest none is so splendid as the brave odor this is the tree that braved a battle and the breeze and is said to be in its perfection at one hundred years who that looks at it would not exclaim in the language of the song Woodman spare that tree and cut it not down number four is the animal to lie in water gentlemen the object now before you is a drop of water that may be suspended on the needles point teeming with millions of living objects this one drop of water contains more inhabitants than the globe on which I stand they are all moving with perfect ease like the mighty monsters of the vast deep the next stop ditch is the cheese might number five I always begin in this way just look at them notice for instance behaved how it represents the foam of an Hedgehog they have eight legs and eight joints are said to be moving with the velocity of 500 steps in one minute a cheesemonger in Whitechapel brought me a few of these objects for me to place in my microscope he invited his friends which were taking supper with him to come out and take a glance at the same objects he gave me six months for exhibiting them to him it was a highly gratified at the sight of them I asked him how he could add the implements to sell them for a ladies supper attendance a pound the answer he gave me was what the eye cannot see the art never grieves then I go on whilst this lady is extending her hand to the poor she is slaying more living creatures with her jawbone than ever Samson did with ease if it's a boy looking through I say now jack we're not eating bread and cheese don't let it be said that you slay the mites with the jawbone of an ass cultivate the intellectual and moral powers superior to the passions and you will rise superior to that animal in intellect God says a gentleman God knows sixpence boy and another says there's tuppence for you and I'm blest if I want to see anything after hearing your lecture next comes the cave number 6 the object before you gentlemen is a transverse section of cane commentate such mark you as he's used by school masters for the collection of boys who neglect their tasks or play the rag and make it comic you know this I call the tree of knowledge for it has done more for to learn us the rules of arithmetic than all the vegetable kingdom come by even the fashionable parts of London had their quota of street people some of whom gave Mayhew a perceptive if jaundiced account of their contacts with the upper classes this old woman sold milk fresh from the cow in San James's Park it's not at all a lively source of life selling milk from the cows some things it's a gay time in the park I'm often dull enough could find nothing to interest one sitting alongside a cow when people drink new milk for their health and I've served a good many such mostly young women I think this delicate makes the most of it there's 20 women or more to one man as drinks no milk if they were set to some good hard worker to do a more good than new milk on asses milk either I think let him go on a milk walk to cure themselves that's what I say some children come pretty readily with their nurses to drink new milk some brings our own China mugs to drink it out of nothing less is good enough for them I've seen the nurse girls frightened to death about their monks fathered one young child say to another I should tell my mother Caroline said hello to a mechanic who come and shook hands with her girls is regice fire said it was their brother oh yeah as the dealer brothers come to look for their sisters in the park the biggest fools are sold milk to his servant girls out for the day some estimate over day or are in the month mister she should keep him at home I say not let him out to spend their money and get in a nobody knows what company fidelity mistresses is too easy that way such girls as make fools of themselves in larkin a soldier to run after him I seen one of them well some are call her pretty and the prettiest is the silliest and easiest tricked out of their money yes my opinion any air well I seen one of them a more than one what with a soldier and then they'd stop a minute and she gave him something out of her glove and then they come over to me and he'd say to her mayn't I treat you to a little new milk my dear and he changes shillings well of course a full of a girl and even in that their shilling Mayhew asked her if there were any older customers now and then there's some oldest gentleman and now they're idle men lounging about the store though there's no nonsense there I tell me - there's not so much lounging about as there was then that knows the trade longer me think so them children is a great check on the nurses and they can't be such fools as a servant lates very few elderly people drinks no milk it's mostly to be young I've been asked by strangers when the Duke of Wellington would pass on his way to the old scars of the Arsenal's is pretty regular about six months given me not about once or twice a year to tell strangers where was the best place to stand to see him as he passed I don't understand about this Great Exhibition but no doubt no more new mill could be sold when it's opened this hall our cares about one of Mayhew's longest and most detailed interviews was with Jack Black one of the few people to be identified by name black called himself the Queen's rat catcher for providing vivid sustained and often harrowing detail in a tone of total matter-of-factness he has no equal in the two million or so words of Mayhew's book Oh II think I'm being a rat you know most four five and thirty years indeed I may say from my childhood for I'll kept at it almost all my life I'll be dead near free times from bites and there's a touch up oh one said the teeth of a rat breaking my fingers which was dreadful bareness while putrefied I had after broken bits pulled out with tweezers and a were spinal ever had was that the manor house walls he kept on mr. Bernal I was there one day and he had some rats get loose and he asked me to catch him food I was wanted for a max it was on that afternoon well I picked up a lot indeed ride one in each hand and never again Mina came on a sheet for straw which I turned over near was a rat there but I couldn't lie out with him cause me answers for and as I stooped down and he ran up a sleeping white oak bit me on the muscle of the arm film numb innocent half an hour I was took supplier I was obliged to be sent home on to get someone to try my car off for me it was terrible to see the blood that came from me or blood or for Burnell see me so bad said hey Jack take some brandy and look so awful bad the arms soir when he must have weighed a ton also I can hardly lift in a so painful couldn't bear my wife to form any I was kept in bed for two months because of that buy of burnell's I was weak I couldn't stand jet full feet was a wolf-like and I knew I was gonna die cuz I remember the doctor commenting and opening my eyes to see if I was still alive the first rat saw I caught was when I was 9 years of age I'll catch him at mister strictness a large cow keeper a little Albany Street Regents Park in those days there was all fields and many's in them parts and I'll recollect there was a big orchard on one side of the meadow I was only doing for a game and there was lots of ladies and gents looking on a wondering it seemed me taking these rats from under a heap of old bricks and wood when I had collected themselves I had a little dog no running it was and I wanted the rats for the test my dog with I've been a label was fond of the sport when I was about 15 sir I turned a bird fancying I was very fond of the sombre Linux I was very successful in raising them and sold them for a dealer money I've got straining Ambani now on our is them from some are purchased in the from a person in the coal yard jury Lane I'll give him two pound for a periwinkle strain but then afterwards I heard of a person with his I thought a bear straight Lawson of Allah way and I went and gave him 30 shillings for a bird I've then RISM or used to go out and catch the nestlings off the common or is them under the old trying bird the Lynn it's a beautiful song sir there are four and 20 changes in a minute song I think toys as we call him that is they make sounds which we distinguish in the fanciest taluk Iko Iko quagle ooh it's eka eka single eka eka Quaker weeks or Quaker Charles eager Piper Chow laughs eager poi Shell's rattle pipe fear pew and poison I know this seems Greek to you sir but it's the terms were using a fancy the term we use for fear it's a sound like fear as if they was frightened laugh is a kind of shake nearly the same as a rattle what I found I was master of the birds or then turn to my rat business again I had a little rat dog a small black tent area by the name of Billy and he was a great stock dog in London or that day he is the father of the greatest portion of small black town terriers in London now which mr. Isaac the bird fancier in Princes Street purchase one of the strain for six or seven pounds which Jamie Massey afterwards purchased one of the strain for a monkey a bottle of wine and free pass and that was Aramis bargain harder than my whole one Anna strain of this little black tent oak would draw a badger 12 or 14 pairs to his six pounds which is done for a wager cuz it was thought the Badger had his teeth to embody a knee which is proved by his by mr. Barra Birmingham for he took a piece clean out of his trousers which was pretty good proof and astonished them all in a room it's 15 years since our first work for government I found that the Parkes has much infested with rats which are undermining the bridges and Nord the drains so our main application to mr. Wesley the super antenna of the park and he spoke of it and it was wrote to me and I was too fulfilled a city ocean and I was to have six pounds a year but after that it was altered when I was to have so much a head which is footprints after that Newton who was a warm it destroy to her majesty dying I wrote to the board of ordinance when they appointed me to each of the stations in London that was to the Regency Park barracks to the Knightsbridge in Portland barracks and to all the other barracks in the metropolis I've got the lair bomb in there in which they says a is proud to appoint me 119 August the night of a very heavy store which maybe you may remember so I was sent for biomedical Gina's lived opposite the load of hay Hampstead whose two children have been attacked by rats while they were sleeping in their little cops I traced the blood which had left lines from their tails through the openings in the lathe and plaster which I followed to where my firts come out of I must have come up from the bottom of the earth to the attics the rats nor the hands and feet of the little children the lady hearing him cried got up out of her bedding pool to the sermon to know what the child was making such a noise for when I struck a light and then they see their rats running away to the homes a little nightgowns was Kivi with blood as if their throats had been cut I asked lady to give us one of the gowns to keep as a Carosa tea for I considered it a phenomenon and she give it a me but I was never so vexed in all my life as I was told the next day that I made her washed it I went down the next morning and Sturman are you them rats I found I was of the specie of a rat which we term the blood rat a dreadful spiteful fella ass naked in rat burning the dwellings the good humor and fortitude of many of the people in Mayhew's pages is continually surprising in view of what we know they suffered but there were occasionally characters who presented Mayhew with a rigmarole of pure misery one of these by an ironic twist was a street clown and he's a reminder at the end of this brief survey of Mayhew's Londoners of how wretched life could seem in the London of the 1850s more necessities forced me to a public line which aren't far from Larkin I'll pull trucks are watching in a day rather than get tour shillings a week at my business I've tried to get out of the line I've got a friend who advertised for me for any situations grew I've tried to gain for police I've tried other things but somehow it seems an impossibility you get quit of the street business many times I have to play the clown and indulge in all kinds of buffoonery with a terrible levy are our free children well now on the 8 weeks old you can't imagine sir what a curse for Street business could become with its insults and starvation's but they before my wife was confined I jumped and labored doing Jim Crow for 12 hours in the wet - I know one shilling in France with this I'll return to home about a bit of coal we've only alpha caught in lo fini I know it was once you learn in France why keep a sort of log of all my earnings and my expenses you'll see on it what I've earned is clown or a funny man we have a party of acrobats since the beginning of this year he showed me who his log as he called it which was kept in small figures on paper folded up as economically as possible not quite six shillings remained as the average weekly sum to be taken home to his wife and family what else I know persons took more of their dignity when such as ruin my way of life I'd rather starved and asked for parochial relief when you're Tom I've got them all labor without breaking my fast and a plague clown until I could rise dinner I'll have to make jokes as clown but full of volume with all our nose he told me several of his jests Mayhew rights they were all of the most venerable kind a us as ten legs his two forelegs and two iron legs two falls right into others a ten may who reports that the other jokes were equally pure I'll why is her City around he would have it Rome wise to sit here Rome like a candle wick because it's in the midst of Greece there's another one old and young above one age his son at 20 is young and you're also 20 years old so old and young of the same day there may you asked him if his neighbors knew his business never Street were all odds only very few know what I'll do for a living I'm my wife both strives to keep the business a secret from our neighbors my wife does a little washing when able and often works a house for six months I'll go I in the morning and return the dark my children are they know what I do I see more dresses lying about but that is all my oldest is a girl of 13 she has seen me dressed at Stepney fair where she brought me Marty she laughs when she sees me mark clowns dress wants to stay with me our driver co lay dead before me and I are two dead in my place at one time last whatsa Monday was a 12-month and she should ever belong to my profession Mayhew reports that tears started from the man's eyes as he said this frequently when I apply the fool in the streets I'll feel very sad art I can't help figuring of the bare cupboard to own what's that to the world I've often and often been at home all day when it's been wet I've no food it's all of it to give my children also take myself and I've gone that night to the public houses to sing a comic song or played a funny man for a meal you may imagine with what feelings for the part and when I've come home I've called my children up from their beds to share the loaf I brought back with me I know three or more clowns as miserable and bad off as myself the way of which our profession is ruined is bother stragglers or outsiders who were often many own good tradesmen if I take to the class business only holiday or fair time when was little money to be picked up it then after that I go back to around trade Soviet you see we were obliged to continue at it for year through but it drives of even a little bit of luck we should otherwise have stopped a quick roundup of what's coming up across the UK TV network so stay with us [Music] [Music] you

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Views: 77,870

Keywords: Timewatch, BBC, London, documentary, Henry Mayhew, docudrama, Victorian, 19th century

Id: p9E-3wwx8Ic

Length: 45min 44sec (2744 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2020