The larger statistics, such as those of the quantities of fish and fruit, &c., sold in London, have been collected from tradesmen connected with the several markets, or from the wholesale merchants belonging to the trade specified--gentlemen to whose courtesy and co-operation I am indebted for much valuable information, and whose names, were I at liberty to publish them, would be an indisputable guarantee for the facts advanced. The other statistics have been obtained in the same manner--the best authorities having been invariably consulted on the subject treated of.
It is right that I should make special mention of the assistance I have received in the compilation of the present volume from Mr. HENRY WOOD and Mr. RICHARD KNIGHT (late of the City Mission), gentlemen who have been engaged with me from nearly the commencement of my inquiries, and to whose hearty co-operation both myself and the public are indebted for a large increase of knowledge. Mr. Wood, indeed, has contributed so large a proportion of the contents of the present volume that he may fairly be considered as one of its authors.
The subject of the Street-Folk will still require another volume, in order to complete it in that comprehensive manner in which I am desirous of executing the modern history of this and every other portion of the people. There still remain--the _Street-Buyers_, the _Street-Finders_, the _Street-Performers_, the _Street-Artizans_, and the _Street-Labourers_, to be done, among the several classes of street-people; and the _Street Jews_, the _Street Italians and Foreigners_, and the _Street Mechanics_, to be treated of as varieties of the order. The present volume refers more particularly to the _Street-Sellers_, and includes special accounts of the _Costermongers_ and the _Patterers_ (the two broadly-marked varieties of street tradesmen), the _Street Irish_, the _Female Street-Sellers_, and the _Children Street-Sellers_ of the metropolis.
My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor--that it may teach those who are beyond temptation to look with charity on the frailties of their less fortunate brethren--and cause those who are in “high places,” and those of whom much is expected, to bestir themselves to improve the condition of a class of people whose misery, ignorance, and vice, amidst all the immense wealth and great knowledge of “the first city in the world,” is, to say the very least, a national disgrace to us.
