Children's Mugshots from the 1870s

LOL! I just had to see what 'migshots' were!

I think childrens mugshots are just wrong even though they were from so long ago. These are older children, but still juveniles. Odd how the mugshots are 'posed'!

Thanks, shadowraiths!

Seems most of the charges were from stealing food or clothing. Sad.

LaLaw2000 said:

LOL! I just had to see what 'migshots' were!

I think childrens mugshots are just wrong even though they were from so long ago. These are older children, but still juveniles. Odd how the mugshots are 'posed'!

Thanks, shadowraiths!

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Yah they look more like portraits. They even get a chair to sit on and pose.


7 days of hard labour for stealing an iron! Love it!

Ada said:

Seems most of the charges were from stealing food or clothing. Sad.

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Yes, and there was one little girl that had stolen bed linen. That is sad also.

I don't think it's sad at all. I bet those kids never stole again! We need some of the same punishments for the kids today. 7 days of hard labour is a good lesson.

The life of a child in Victorian era England that wasn't born to privilege was one of hunger, destitution and IMHO abject misery.

I feel very sorry for these children and I wonder how they fared in life. I wonder what their life expectancy was and if it was shortened by their life in poverty. I would be willing to bet these children had to live in squalor. A wretched exsistence with no avenue or hope for rising in life.

Kids in the victorian era went to work (adult jobs) as early as 7 yrs old. No education opportunites, no social programs to feed them or to help provide medical care. If their parents were unable to care for the needs they had to do what they had to do in order to survive. IMHO it's difficult to compare the children of today that commit petty crimes to these children.

Such sad photos. JMHO

Kat said:

The life of a child in Victorian era England that wasn't born to privilege was one of hunger, destitution and IMHO abject misery.

I feel very sorry for these children and I wonder how they fared in life. I wonder what their life expectancy was and if it was shortened by their life in poverty. I would be willing to bet these children had to live in squalor. A wretched exsistence with no avenue or hope for rising in life.

Kids in the victorian era went to work (adult jobs) as early as 7 yrs old. No education opportunites, no social programs to feed them or to help provide medical care. If their parents were unable to care for the needs they had to do what they had to do in order to survive. IMHO it's difficult to compare the children of today that commit petty crimes to these children.

Such sad photos. JMHO

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Yes but that was the norm back then and I'm sure the same happened in World War II. Families having to live in poverty and misery. My parents did but they never once stole from anyone because they knew what the consequences were. Kids today don't have those same morals. Heck, nowadays some do it for fun and "just because" they can.

:moo:

We are going to have to agree to disagree NT I'm cool with that I hope you are too!

~n/t~ said:

I don't think it's sad at all. I bet those kids never stole again! We need some of the same punishments for the kids today. 7 days of hard labour is a good lesson.

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I don't think you know what you are talking about. Nobody steals an iron or bed linen for fun.

Until the 1860s, the British transported starving people to Australia for stealing bread. (And Australia wasn't quite the vacation destination it is today.)

Kat said:

The life of a child in Victorian era England that wasn't born to privilege was one of hunger, destitution and IMHO abject misery.

I feel very sorry for these children and I wonder how they fared in life. I wonder what their life expectancy was and if it was shortened by their life in poverty. I would be willing to bet these children had to live in squalor. A wretched exsistence with no avenue or hope for rising in life.

Kids in the victorian era went to work (adult jobs) as early as 7 yrs old. No education opportunites, no social programs to feed them or to help provide medical care. If their parents were unable to care for the needs they had to do what they had to do in order to survive. IMHO it's difficult to compare the children of today that commit petty crimes to these children.

Such sad photos. JMHO

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I can't find any figures calculated according to social class, but the life expectancy of the very poor was probably less than 40.

~n/t~ said:

Yes but that was the norm back then and I'm sure the same happened in World War II. Families having to live in poverty and misery. My parents did but they never once stole from anyone because they knew what the consequences were. Kids today don't have those same morals. Heck, nowadays some do it for fun and "just because" they can.

:moo:

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You have your decades confused. Jobs were plentiful during WWII (for the USA, 1941-45). Those (male and female) who were not serving actively in the armed forces were needed to build planes, tanks, bombs, etc.

It was the early 1930s when the combination of a worldwide depression and the ecological disaster of the "Dust Bowl" reduced so many people to abject poverty. Even by the late 1930s, government programs insured that almost everyone had the necessities.

I'm nearly 60 and my parents were 9 when WWII started. Unless you are nearly 80, I doubt your parents had to support themselves during the worst of the Great Depression.

But how do you know your parents never stole out of need? Because they told you so? What would you expect them to say?

~n/t~ said:

Yah they look more like portraits. They even get a chair to sit on and pose.


7 days of hard labour for stealing an iron! Love it!

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BBM

I read that as "7 years of hard labour..." instead of 7 days. 7 years for stealing iron??? These people are hard-core!! LOL

Having done a degree in social history, I believe that stealing was a survival tool for a lot of these children. We cannot imagine the deprivation that they suffered and most of them had no hope, no future... To live beyond the age of 5 was an achievement

From this link

Life expectancy

1840 London’s Whitechapel District = (average rates)
Upper class =45 years
Tradesmen = 27 years
Laborers & servants = 22 years

Henry Mayhew's contemporaneous works are an eyeopener

justbeachy said:

BBM

I read that as "7 years of hard labour..." instead of 7 days. 7 years for stealing iron??? These people are hard-core!! LOL

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That was the relatively "liberal" 1870s. Hard labor or transportation to Australia for 7 or more years for stealing an iron would not surprise me for 1770.

A little of what Mayhew had to say;


Every Londoner must have seen numbers of
ragged, sickly, and ill-fed children, squatting
at the entrances of miserable courts, streets,
and alleys, engaged in no occupation that is
either creditable to themselves or useful to the
community. These are, in many cases, those
whose sole homes are in the low lodging-
houses; and I will now exhibit a few features
of the `juvenile performers' among the ` Lon-
don Poor.'

"In many cases these poor children have lost
one of their parents; in some, they are without
either father or mother; but even when both
parents are alive, the case is little mended, for
if the parents be of the vagrant or dishonest
class, their children are often neglected, and
left to provide for the cost of their food and
lodging as they best may. The following ex-
tract from the chaplain's report of one of our
provincial jails, gives a melancholy insight into
the training of many of the families. It is not,
I know, without exception; but, much as we
could wish it to be otherwise, it is so general
an occurrence, varied into its different forms,
that it may be safely accounted as the rule of
action.

" `J. G. was born of poor parents. At five
years old his father succeeded to a legacy of
500l. He was quiet, indolent, fond of drink, a
good scholar, and had twelve children. He
never sent any of them to school! "Telling
lies," said the child, "I learned from my
mother; she did things unknown to father,
and gave me a penny not to tell him!" The
father (on leaving home) left, by request of the
mother, some money to pay a man; she slipped
up stairs, and told the children to say she was
out.

" `From ten to twelve years of age I used to go
to the ale-house. I stole the money from my
father, and got very drunk. My father never
punished me for all this, as he ought to have
done. In course of time I was apprenticed to a
tanner; he ordered me to chapel, instead of
which I used to play in the fields. When out
of my time I got married, and still carried on the
same way, starving my wife and children. I used
to take my little boy, when only five years old, to
the public-house, and make him drunk with
whatever I drank myself. A younger one
could act well a drunken man on the floor. My
wife was a sober steady women; but, through
coming to fetch me home she learned to drink




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Column 1

too. One of our children used to say, "Mam,
you are drunk, like daddy." '
"It may be argued that this awful `family
portrait' is not the average character, but I have
witnessed too many similar scenes to doubt the
general application of the sad rule.

"Of those children of the poor, as has been
before observed, the most have either no parents,
or have been deserted by them, and have no
regular means of living, nor moral superintend-
ance on the part of relatives or neighbours;
consequently, they grow up in habits of idle-
ness, ignorance, vagrancy, or crime. In some
cases they are countenanced and employed.
Here and there may be seen a little urchin
holding a few onions in a saucer, or a diminutive
sickly girl standing with a few laces or a box or
two of lucifers. But even these go with the per-
sons who have `set them up' daily to the public-
house (and to the lodging-house at night); and
after they have satisfied the cravings of hunger,
frequently expend their remaining halfpence (if
any) in gingerbread, and as frequently in gin. I
have overheard a proposal for `half-a-quartern
and a two-out' (glass) between a couple of shoe-
less boys under nine years old. One little fellow
of eleven, on being remonstrated with, said that
it was the only pleasure in life that he had, and
he weren't a-going to give that up. Both sexes
of this juvenile class frequent, when they can
raise the means, the very cheap and `flash'
places of amusement, where the precocious de-
linquent acquires the most abandoned tastes, and
are often allured by elder accomplices to commit
petty frauds and thefts.

"Efforts have been made to redeem these
young recruits in crime from their sad career,
with its inevitable results. In some cases, I
rejoice to believe that success has crowned the
endeavour. There is that, however, in the cun-
ning hardihood of the majority of these immature
delinquents, which presents almost insuperable
barriers to benevolence, and of this I will adduce
an instance.

Much more here

OOOH 2000th post!

~n/t~ said:

I don't think it's sad at all. I bet those kids never stole again! We need some of the same punishments for the kids today. 7 days of hard labour is a good lesson.

Click to expand...

Seriously? These children stole out of desperation. They lived in such poverty none of us could ever imagine. I don't care if that poverty was the "norm". Suffering is suffering. If burning in hell was the norm does that mean those who will do anything to escape it, including committing petty crimes, deserve more torture?

7 days of hard labor was enough to kill some of these kids. Kids who were lucky to live past 20 years of age.

How anyone could view this picture and think this little girl deserved 10 days hard labor for stealing a pair of boots, or fail to have pity for her, is beyond me:

Hard Labour in the 19th Century

"The words ' Hard Labour' describes the punishment exactly. Prisoners were often used as the main work force in quarrying, building roads or labouring on the docks.
Criminals could be sentenced for just a few days, weeks or even years. Prisoners were also set to hard labour within the prisons themselves.

All longer term sentences usually carried a term of hard labour and it also formed a part of the transportation sentence. In the early 19th century, children were often sent to work alongside adults."

Breaking rocks was another form of hard labour

Here's an article from 2004 indicating that these kids were housed with adults and maniacs alike in horrifying conditions and often languished for months before they were actually sentenced. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-326545/Hard-times-child-convicts.html

Nova said:

You have your decades confused. Jobs were plentiful during WWII (for the USA, 1941-45). Those (male and female) who were not serving actively in the armed forces were needed to build planes, tanks, bombs, etc.

It was the early 1930s when the combination of a worldwide depression and the ecological disaster of the "Dust Bowl" reduced so many people to abject poverty. Even by the late 1930s, government programs insured that almost everyone had the necessities.

I'm nearly 60 and my parents were 9 when WWII started. Unless you are nearly 80, I doubt your parents had to support themselves during the worst of the Great Depression.

But how do you know your parents never stole out of need? Because they told you so? What would you expect them to say?

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I should have clarified. My grandparents and parents weren't born in the USA or Canada. They never stole. I can guarantee you. The war stories would make you cry. They would beg American soldiers for food. Thankfully, Americans is why they survived and lived to tell their story to me and my children. They will NEVER forget.

Effect of World War II on Each Country
Devastation of Europe, Change in Global Balance of Power

http://www.worldology.com/Europe/world_war_2_effect.htm