HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) AND

stated that his voution was '20 collect facts ami to register cpiniolls." "6 Mayhew's facts
were "so extraordinary," he argued in his Preface, 'that the traveler in the undiscovered
country of the pax must, liLe Bruce, until his staies are corrobaated by afier
investigators, be content to lie uoda the imputation of telling such tales, as travelers are
generally s u m to delight in" FuRhermcxe, he argued, that "in every instance the
author and his adjutas have sought to undastate, and mast assuredly never to exceed
the tnrth" In fact, Mayhew claimed that 'Umgh checks have usually been adopted the
people have been mostly found to be astoaishiagly cars in theif s m ,- so
much so in&&, that the attempts at deception are certainly the exceptions rather than the
rule." 'I7
Mayhew's fact-finding mission was fiaught with danga. After the closing of the
docks. one of Maw's guides took him to "orre of the largest lodging-houses in the
neighbouthad," "' wkre Mayhew told the propridar that "he wished to publish the
state of the dock-labouras in the newspapers, on which the man burst into an ironical
laugh." "Inrlppn_ tk young man who had brought me to this house had warned me of its
dangerous character before I went," documented Mayhew. "At last the landlad flung the
door wide open and shouted from his clenched teeth, 'By G-!
if you ain't soon muzzled,
I'll crack your b-y
slcull opea fa you!' And so saying, he prepared to make a rush at
116
Morning Chronicle, Letter II, Thmpsaa and Ym, 1971, 105. In Amrs to Correspondenfs,
Mayhew wrofe that he endeavoured "to discover the several phenomena of labour with a view of
arriving at the laws and circumstances affecting and cartrdling the operations and rewards of the
labourerf* (Answers, no. 10, 15, February* 1851, quoted in KWis, 1973,240). Also in London
Labour, Mayhew examined a mass of maps and mbles, fa example, relating different variables
with crime (Mayhew, IV: 45 l-5W, 503).
'I7
Mayhew. I, Preface, xv.