
From Disinfectors to Mush-Fakers, Photos of Real Life in Victorian London (2016) - prismatic
http://www.oldlondon.net/from-disinfectors-to-mush-fakers-photographs-of-real-life-on-the-streets-of-victorian-london/
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wimagguc
I might be wrong, but this looks very much like penny lick ice cream glasses:
[https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/...](https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/thompson_london_13.jpg)

(If you haven't heard of them: in the 1800s London, one happy customer would
get their ice cream, lick the glass clean and return it to the vendor, who
would refill it and give it to the next customer. Perhaps the best way to
spread tuberculosis, which the Penny lick did very well on until it was banned
in 1899.)

~~~
gambiting
In communist Poland, street vendors frequently offered carbonated water as a
refreshing drink in the summer - but they only had a glass or two, so you
would buy a glass of water, drink it, and return the glass for the next
customer to use - in the best case, it was quickly rinsed before re-use. The
last one was in use until 1995.

Sadly wiki only has an article on this in Polish, but google translate does a
decent job:

[https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturator](https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturator)

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gwern
For tremendously more detailed writeups of the Victorian London street trades,
with interviews and statistics, check out
[https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092592751](https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092592751)
_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_. All sorts of odd obsolete trades.

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zoul
As a photography geek I must say those are incredibly good photographs! Is
there some kind of trick in play or was the art of photography really _that_
good back then?

~~~
DougWebb
Besides the large plates, I think you're reacting to the focus as well. We've
gotten very used to our small lenses and their infinite depth of field that
keeps everything focused. We're so used to it that now it's a _feature_ to
have a smartphone camera that can blur the background. But those old cameras
did that automatically, because they were only capable of a narrow depth of
field and the photographer had to be really careful about where the focus was
when he composed the shot.

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cs702
Judging by those photos, I have to say Dickens[1] was spot-on in his criticism
of the quality of life for ordinary citizens in Victorian London.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens)

~~~
yourapostasy
It struck me to realize the similarities of hardships to common US citizens
(and developed world citizens to a lesser extent) today.

Medical episodes cause a cascade of ill-circumstance tumbling once-stable
positions into the streets: "...who is now in difficulties through ill-
health..."

Retirement a binary condition ill-suiting putting purpose to people's lives:
"I’m lost, I’ve been put off my perch"

Substance abuse inures the senses of those who have given up, and thereby
tragically reinforcing cycles of abuse into future generations: "...early
acclimatizes her infant to the fumes of tobacco and alcohol"

Poor squeezed by land prices into living in the flood plains, with predictable
disastrous consequences if their unlucky number comes up: "The sufferings of
the poor in Lambeth, and in other quarters of the Metropolis, caused by the
annual tidal overflow of the Thames"

"Improvements" displacing common people to the benefit of rentiers, and
destroying the micro-culture of a neighborhood: "As a matter of fact, the
inhabitants of Church Lane were nearly all what I may term “street folks” –
living, buying, selling, transacting all their business in the open
street...condemned as an unwholesome over-crowded, throughfare, and the houses
on either side are now almost entirely destroyed, and the inhabitants have
been compelled to migrate to other more distant and less convenient parts of
the metropolis"

Industrial disruption comes at a steep cost to those whose lives are disrupted
and swept under the inconvenient rug of the disruptive effects to individuals,
even military veterans, to the benefit of the overall economy: "...two
boardmen who seemed worthy of a better position..."

There are some, but too few, bright points, considering the progress we
trumpet ourselves possessing. Some parts of the human condition remain quite
thoroughly embedded within our civilization's mien for the time being.

View some Photochroms to give yourself sense of the color of that era [1].

[1] [http://fiveminutehistory.com/photochrom-victorian-era-
color-...](http://fiveminutehistory.com/photochrom-victorian-era-color-
photography/)

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nonbel
Look at this guy's huge shoe:

[https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/...](https://i2.wp.com/www.oldlondon.net/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/thompson_london_01.jpg?w=620)

~~~
ljf
Likely a polio shoe:
[http://members.upnaway.com/~poliowa/Polio%20Feet%20Problems....](http://members.upnaway.com/~poliowa/Polio%20Feet%20Problems.html)

~~~
gerdesj
Almost certainly. One of my rugby and maths teachers (!) had a similar one for
that reason.

Now the 2 1 7 and 6 for the peppermints is an odd thing. I presume it is the
price but my first effort is: 2 for 1, 7/6 ie 2 for the price of one for 7
shillings and 6 pence but that was quite a lot of money. Another photo show a
bowl of _ahem_ beef leg soup for 2d.

Pre decimalisation British currency was: £1 = 20 shillings, 1 shilling = 12
pence, penny was written as d (denarius, the s for shilling is really
sestertius and the £ is L for libra - all loosely Latin).

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Reason077
Despite all the dirt and horse poop, it's amazing how much more open and un-
congested all the streets looked back then.

Now days, of course, London's streets are all choked with parked cars,
creating a less than welcoming environment for cyclists and pedestrians. And
horses.

~~~
Nomentatus
In very early photos only horses and people who stood very still, such as a
fellow getting his shoes shined, are visible since the exposure times were so
long.

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Reason077
In a lot of ways, Victorian London doesn't sound all that much different to
modern London.

Alhough these days, the Police generally don't bother trying to crack down on
illegal street traders and other minor crimes.

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coldcode
Never would have imagined a mush-faker was an umbrella repairman.

~~~
gumby
"Mush" for "mushroom" (slang for umbrella) and "fake" I assume from make
(fecit pronounced "fake-it"in Latin which had more weird vestigial remnants
than today).

~~~
ljf
Quote:

"Mushfake" is a very interesting word. It seems to have first appeared in
underworld slang back in the early 19th century in England. "Mush" by itself
was, in that period, slang for an umbrella, from its similarity in shape to a
mushroom. The verb "to fake" during the same period was criminal slang for
"putting something in shape to sell by covering its defects." So a "mushroom
faker" or "mushfake" was a con artist who repaired discarded umbrellas just
enough to make them briefly functional and then sold them on the street,
preferably during a downpour. [http://www.word-
detective.com/111703.html#mushfake](http://www.word-
detective.com/111703.html#mushfake)

------
irrational
One thing that strikes me is how many people wore hats back then. I could only
find a few people not wearing a hat in the photos.

~~~
ashark
One was not presentable without a hat!

Now we commonly sport sailors' underwear (t-shirts) as outerwear in public,
and even in places of business! And low-class rugged laborers' trousers (denim
jeans) are worn about by merchants and businesspersons, and can be expensive,
high fashion.

Clothes are weird.

~~~
ljf
Always blows me away how smart the original beat poets and lsd-heads dressed -
Jack Kerouac for example: [http://www.cmgww.com/historic/kerouac/wp-
content/uploads/201...](http://www.cmgww.com/historic/kerouac/wp-
content/uploads/2017/04/183292_max.jpg)

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sverige
Neckbeards were a thing then, too.

