Esoteric London

Drummond Road, London, SE16. Photo ©RogerDean 2014

Life in the London Streets, Or Struggles For Daily Bread – Richard Rowe, 1881:

Coming back from market with his basketful of oranges through Mitre Street, I met the little fellow whose history, according to my custom, I am about to give in his own words: a squalidly dressed, stunted touzled-headed urchin, with not much more prominence of nose than that on the monkey-faces at the end of the shaggy-shelled cocoa-nuts round about; with a mere slit of a mouth, but with white teeth in it, and a merry smile upon it, which, ugly though he was, made a sunshine in that shady place. He spoke with an Irish accent, hut with scarcely anything that was distinctively Irish in his phraseology; so I will make no attempt to reproduce his brogue by peculiarities of spelling.