London labour and the London poor : a cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work. / by Henry Mayhew.

  • Henry Mayhew
Date:
1861-1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: London labour and the London poor : a cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work. / by Henry Mayhew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    genuine benevolence, believing that it is a principle innate in tbe buman breast, and requiring only to be developed and consecrated by religious influence to become one of the most powerful levers for the evangelization of the world. Unhappily there are too many who have schooled themselves to the practice of inhumanity, and closed up the springs of spontaneous sympathy, thus depriving the heart of its rightful heritage, and restricting the sphere of its operations to self. Those who thus sever themselves from all external influences are left at length in undisturbed possession of a little world of their own creation. No longer linked to their fellow-men in the bonds of true fellowship, their orbit of activity becomes narrower, until at length every avenue to the heart is hermetically sealed, except such as minister to self-gratification and indulgence. The man who has thus estranged himself from the rest of creation, and become isolated from all the ties of a common humanity, is indeed an object of unqualified pity, because he has destroyed one of the purest springs of happiness. He who, on the other hand, is most fully alive to the claims of universal brotherhood, and whose heart is most At leisiire from itself. To sootlie and sympathize, is the highest type of man, and the best representative of Jhis] race. This spirit of brotherhood if recognised by the world, would hush the thunder of battle, and wipe away the tears of nations. It would sweep earth's wildernesses of moral blight, causing them to blossom as the rose. Those persons who accustom themselves to speak of London as a mere seething caldron of crime, or as a very charnel-house of impurity, without any redeeming character or hopeful element, are surely as wide of the mark as they v/ho under-rate its vast resources for crime, or take a superficial view of its predo- minant vices. It would, perhaps, be a curious and not unprofitable subject of inquiry how far the metropolis contributes its influence for good or evil upon the provinces, and to what extent the country is capable of reciprocating this influence. Probably, allowance being made for the difference of population, the law of giving and receiving is pretty evenly adjusted. Those forms of vice which seem to be more indigenous to our great cities are steadily imported into the country, while on the other hand, the hamlet and the village transmit to the town those particular vices in which they appear to be constitutionally most prolific. It is in the crowded city, however, that the seeds of good or evil are brought to the highest state of maturity, and virtue and vice most rapidly developed, under the forcing influences that everywhere abound. Great cities, says Dr. Guthrie, many have found to be great cui'ses. It had been well for many an honest lad and unsuspecting country girl, that hopes of higher wages and opportunities of fortune—that the gay attire and polished tongue, and gilded story of some old acquaintance—had never turned their steps cityward, nor turned them from the rude simplicity, but safety of their rustic home. Many a foot that once lightly pressed the heather or brushed the dewy grass, has wearily trodden in darkness, and guilt, and remorse, on these city pave- ments. Happy had it been for many that they had never exchanged the starry skies for the lamps of the town, nor had left their lonely glens, or quiet hamlets, or solitary shores, for the throng and roar of our streets. Well for them that they had heard no roar but the rivers, whose winter flood it had been safer to breast; no roar but oceans, whose stormiest waves it had been safer to ride, than encounter the flood of city temptations, which has wrecked their virtue'and swept them into ruin. Yet I bless God for cities, The world had not been v/hat it is without them.