[COMPLETE] London Labour Volume III -ans

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 9th, 2021, 6:22 am

Section 78 PL okay.
Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 9th, 2021, 6:31 am

Great!
Sections 80 (34:04)
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/londonlabour3_80_mayhew_128kb.mp3
Statements of Vagrants, pages 378 -383

and Section 81 (34:40)
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/londonlabour3_81_mayhew_128kb.mp3

continuing from "A cotton-spinner (who had subsequently been a soldier)" on p383 - p388

SORRY - got carried away doing something else, there. Link now posted above.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 11th, 2021, 1:52 pm

Section 79 PL okay.

It's difficult to see what the numbers in those two tables of working skills of the vagrants mean. ... but we're drowning in numbers by this time!

Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 12th, 2021, 12:23 am

Thanks, Peter.

I think it's just to show how likely it was that someone of a particular trade would
a) spend time in the Asylums for the Houseless Poor - factory workers being most likely, presumably with the industrial revolution replacing people with machines (1 in every 3 admitted is massive!)
b) turn to crime - presumably Mayhew meaning 'of necessity' to survive rather than tarring them as mendacious.

I didn't repeat the "1 in ..." before each figure because Mayhew didn't put ditto marks in his text.

He doesn't make it clear whether the first list is calculated as per the second list, i.e. 1 in every 3 factory workers spent time in the asylum, or whether he means 1 in every 3 'inmates' of the asylum was a factory worker. After doing my sums, it has to be the former.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 16th, 2021, 11:49 am

I went back and checked a scan of the book, too, when I wondered about the numbers.

Section 80 PL okay.

Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 16th, 2021, 4:13 pm

Peter Why wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 11:49 am I went back and checked a scan of the book, too, when I wondered about the numbers.

Peter

Do you think it needs "1 in ..." ?
or a Reader's Note, so as not to interfere with the original text?

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 17th, 2021, 12:24 am

I'm not sure; I've PM'd you.

Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 17th, 2021, 1:44 am

Edited Section 79 (49:29)

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/londonlabour3_79_mayhew_128kb.mp3

The insert is at 26:58 - 27:15.

Thanks a lot!

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 17th, 2021, 2:54 am

It was no trouble; edited Section 79 PL ok.

Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 17th, 2021, 8:41 am

Great. Thank you. And sorry that one was so long (although I know it's not the longest I've done!).

Section 82 (29:32)
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/londonlabour3_82_mayhew_128kb.mp3

London Vagrants Part 5: Lives of the Boy Inmates of the Casual Wards of the London Workhouses, pages 388 - 392.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 18th, 2021, 2:15 pm

Section 81 PL okay.

Horrific, that flogging!

Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 19th, 2021, 12:37 am

14 years' transportation for a crime you had nothing to do with, too!

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » April 19th, 2021, 2:29 am

I solo'd a book on crime and punishment a while ago. The author thought that the tendency towards crime might be genetic (and apparently that's a modern view, too). It's obvious that beating someone doesn't change their behaviour for the better; there must be *some* way to break that pattern of thieving and destruction.

From my experience as a child, at that time punishment just led to resentment and distrust of people in authority, and a willingness to lie to avoid being punished.

Section 82 is word perfect, but at 0534 there's an odd thump at the end of "... and I begged my way as well as I could."

Peter

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 19th, 2021, 6:14 am

Section 83 (41:52)

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/londonlabour3_83_mayhew_128kb.mp3

London Vagrants Part 6: Increase and Decrease of Number of Applicants to Casual Wards of London Workhouses (pp 393 -5)

Loooooong table, I'm afraid. Lots of repetitions of headings, because the point is to show the changes from 1848 to 1849. (If I were to do it again, I'd go down the table for each quarter instead, but by the time I'd thought about that, it was already recorded....) Sorry!

GillH · Post by **GillH** » April 19th, 2021, 6:37 am

Edited Section 82 (29:32 still)
https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/londonlabour3_82_mayhew_128kb.mp3

That's funny: it was my cat's jingly jangly collar. She must have jumped up beside me or started scratching or something.

I think rehabilitation is the way to go. There's not a lot of point in just locking people up unless (and, in fact, even if) they are truly considered a danger to society at large. They have to be given a better alternative way to live. In the case of people locked up for vagrancy (or theft as a 'result' of being destitute through no real fault of their own) there's no benefit to anyone if they're not given some means to get them started in legitimate work.

The terrible policeman spoken of (in I can't remember which section - perhaps in the Ticket-of-Leave Men part) who seems to delight in telling everyone who might give the ex-con a job about his (the ex-con's) criminal past is not letting him get a second chance. If the punishment has been served, there needs to be a clean slate. We have to consider the question: What does society require/want from a criminal upon his/her release? Surely it's to be (re-)integrated into that society and to become a valued member of it?