Roofless: 1872

An illustration of homeless people from 'London: a Pilgrimage' by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré, 1872. In Chapter XV 'Humble Industries', Jerrold writes of the disparity between the wealth of the City and the "hosts of shiftless, hopeless victims of the fierce competition and the overcrowded labour market: the slop-workers, needlewomen, street vendors, mountebanks, sharpers, beggars, and thieves, who disgrace our civilisation by their sufferings or their misdeeds".