Sinks of London Laid Open

Sinks of London Laid Open
A Pocket Companion for the Uninitiated, to Which is Added a Modern Flash Dictionary Containing all the Cant Words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases Now in Vogue, with a List of the Sixty Orders of Prime Coves
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(1 Review)
Sinks of London Laid Open by Unknown

Published:

1848

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Sinks of London Laid Open
A Pocket Companion for the Uninitiated, to Which is Added a Modern Flash Dictionary Containing all the Cant Words, Slang Terms, and Flash Phrases Now in Vogue, with a List of the Sixty Orders of Prime Coves
5
(1 Review)
The whole Forming a True Picture of London Life, Cadging Made Easy, the He-She Man, Doings of the Modern Greeks, Snoozing Kens Depicted, the Common Lodging-house Gallants, Lessons to Lovers of Dice, the Gaming Table, etc.

Book Excerpt

n, who live luxuriously on the tales of others, and the real claimant of charity, whose honest shame will hardly allow him to beg for sufficient to procure the hard comforts of a bed of straw; the match seller and ballad-singer, whose convenient profession unite the four lucrative callings of begging, selling, singing, and stealing; gangs of shipwrecked sailors, or rather, fellows whose iron constitutions enable them for the sake of sympathy, to endure the most inclement weather, in almost a state of nudity, and among them only one perhaps ever heard the roar of the ocean; jugglers, coiners, tramps (mechanics seeking work), strolling players, with all the hangers-on of fairs, races, assizes, stable-yards; besides the hosts of Irish who yearly migrate from sweet Erin to happy England, to beg, labour, and steal. Here then, is a wide field for speculation, a vast common in life, where a character may be almost picked up at every step--mines of vice and misery as yet unexplored. A road that has never yet been tro

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While many of the examinations of low life in London in the 19th century provide an overview of the criminal or indigent classes, and anecdotes of personalities or crimes, this focuses on a single evening in a "common lodging house," essentially a crash pad for beggars and bums. It describes the characters and events briefly and clearly, and gives a unique view of life in the lowest strata of society, with its riotous drunkenness, fisticuffs, celebration, and eventual collapse into intoxicated oblivion. A short, interesting and easy read.