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Picketpockets, Beggars and Ratcatchers: Life in the Victorian Underworld
Picketpockets Beggars and Ratcatchers Life in the Victorian Underworld Author:Kellow Chesney Most Americans have never seen a slum, and have trouble imagining what one might look like... let alone its inhabitants... let alone what creatures might prowl a slum of the past. — It is a highly detailed and interesting study of the urban and often criminal underclass in Victorian England. Vivid descriptions of the roles and culture of differen... more »t varieties of urban poor people bring their plight and their fate to life in a very interesting way.
The workhouses and poor laws that drove the rural poor from place to place and finally into urban areas helped to establish a slum community that featured unimaginable filth and overcrowding, but which also led to the development of a surprisingly complex social structure. Chesney explores the evolution, heirarchy and even the slang terms used by those members of the urban underclass - both those engaged in legitimate activities as well as criminals. In this book, you will meet mudlarks, guttersnipes, night-soil colelctors, sweepers, climbing-boys and many others.
The exquisite detail of this book combined with the readability of the text make for a fascinating tome of real life on the streets. The filth and oppressive poverty of the world described in this book is a million miles away from the experience of most of us. Living in the bright, clean, sanitary world of today (in which most children go to school rather than to work) it is hard to imagine a world as oppressively filthy and dismal as that which hosted such personalities as the pickpocket, beggar and ratcatcher.« less