The Victorian Underworld

Beneath the respectable surface of Victorian society lay a criminal world as diverse, as turbulent, and at times as vicious as any that has existed. Policemen could only stand in awe of the occupations and illegal practices which grew up. Kellow Chesney begins his book by taking a general look at the society and its penal methods. Then, ranging over the whole spectrum of underworld life from travelling showmen and religious fakes to cracksmen, garrotters, and incorrigible pickpockets, he recreates in detail the squalid lives and the 'lays' of those who thronged the rookeries and alleys of Victorian cities. Curious stories emerge from this world of crime and penury, and, throughout, the study highlights the vast substratum of vice feeding on that 'most enlightened age'.