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On the Fiddle: Part-Time Crime on and Beyond the ‘Worst’ Streets of London in Twentieth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies

On the Fiddle: Part-Time Crime on and Beyond the ‘Worst’ Streets of London in Twentieth-Century... Writers of working-class memoirs in the twentieth century recalled the psychological ways that respectable individuals managed their relation to London’s most disreputable streets. The Victorian social cartographer Charles Booth had colour-coded these streets as black on his poverty maps, ascribing not only penury but also criminality to them. Into the twentieth century, locals continued to internalise a mythology of rough versus respectable areas. Yet daily they experienced the untenability of these constructed social divides. Some children living on the blackest streets were successfully sheltered from the corruption around them. Others perceived a porousness between infamous and more decent streets. Over on respectable streets, some children observed their parents’ complicity in ‘fiddles’ – illicit ways of earning cash through small illegal ventures. Here, fathers insisted on their honour, even accusing others of immorality. Such an ethics relied upon an internal management of criminal and respectable codes that were complexly interwoven and shaped by family and community ties. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The London Journal Taylor & Francis

On the Fiddle: Part-Time Crime on and Beyond the ‘Worst’ Streets of London in Twentieth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies

The London Journal , Volume 48 (3): 18 – Sep 2, 2023
18 pages

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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© The London Journal Trust 2022
ISSN
0305-8034
eISSN
1749-6322
DOI
10.1080/03058034.2022.2119347
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Writers of working-class memoirs in the twentieth century recalled the psychological ways that respectable individuals managed their relation to London’s most disreputable streets. The Victorian social cartographer Charles Booth had colour-coded these streets as black on his poverty maps, ascribing not only penury but also criminality to them. Into the twentieth century, locals continued to internalise a mythology of rough versus respectable areas. Yet daily they experienced the untenability of these constructed social divides. Some children living on the blackest streets were successfully sheltered from the corruption around them. Others perceived a porousness between infamous and more decent streets. Over on respectable streets, some children observed their parents’ complicity in ‘fiddles’ – illicit ways of earning cash through small illegal ventures. Here, fathers insisted on their honour, even accusing others of immorality. Such an ethics relied upon an internal management of criminal and respectable codes that were complexly interwoven and shaped by family and community ties.

Journal

The London JournalTaylor & Francis

Published: Sep 2, 2023

Keywords: autobiography; memoir; Charles Booth; poverty maps; working class; childhood; community

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