HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) AND

was orally and rituall y-based
(4) Carnivrrksque Str#t Literatun in Mayhew's London
Carnivalesque sum literature was a powdid ccmkosx of a world tumd upside
down. It m a t e d certain critical values, guaranteeing its opposition towards the
political a&. interestingly and -y.
Mayhew classified "all the street-sold
Literature which due to the hanging of malefactas" " as "gallows" street Literature. As a
specific kind of low literary genre, "gallows" street literature was very impatant in
maintaining a carnival sense of tk panerer's world
Natalie Davis has ranhki us that rather than being a mere comic 'safety valve',
carnival everyday life d d decipha "king and states*. "Gallows" street literature farmed
a "very extensive portion of the reading of the pmx" supplied by the "Sarowfirl
Lammatiom" a d "Last Dying SpePrh Confession, and Exaxtion of crimirrals." An
old man recounted Rush's execution. He tdd Ma*
that not loag "after Rush was
hung, he saw, one evening after dark, through the uncurtained canage window, eleven
persons, young aai dd gathaed round a scanty fire," gs and tkre around the fire, he saw
"an old man was reading to an aneative audieace, a broad-sheet of Rush's execution,
which my informant had sold to him." % The patteers told Mayhew that they had
developd - over the last twenty to thirty years - a publishing a d distribution program
--
93 hid. I: 280. A strolling aaa told Mayhew that while he was in jail far playing without a
license: ". . . a little penny wak came out entitled the 'Groans of the Gallows' . . . a The
Hangman's Career, illustrated with pictures" (Maybew, III: 143).
9J Ibid.. 281.
95 Ibid.. 280.
96 Ibid.. 280-281.