mudlarks scavenge Industrial Revolutionmuddy mud dirt dirty play playing children boy girl naught pig animal farm cow cattle pig


Mudlark is someone who scavenges in river mud for items of value, especially in London during the Industrial Revolution. Mudlarks would scavenge in the River Thames during low tide, searching for anything of value. During the Industrial Revolution, mudlarks were usually young children or widowed women. Becoming a mudlark was a cry of desperation as it is considered one of the worst "jobs" in history. At the time of the Industrial Revolution, excrement and waste would wash onto the shores from the raw sewage which wasn't treated. The corpses of humans, cats and dogs would also wash up. Mudlarks would be lucky if they made a penny a day selling what they had found during low tide, which was the only time people could scavenge along the shores of the rivers. The word was used in the late 18th century as a slang expression both for a pig, and for one of the scavengers on the Thames. Frederick Marryat in his 1840 novel Poor Jack, describes the fictional rise of a mudlark, Thomas Saunders, to the position of river pilot. Saunders, a sailor's son, having been abused and neglected by his mother, turns at an early age to life on the waterfront: “ Indeed, I was now what is termed a regular Mud-larker, picking up halfpence by running into the water, offering my ragged arm to people getting out of wherries, always saluting them with "You haven't got never a halfpenny for poor Jack, your honour?" and sometimes I did get a halfpenny, sometimes a shove, according to the temper of those whom I addressed.” The same source describes mudlarks trying to scrounge pennies off parties visiting inns and taverns on the waterfront to enjoy the whitebait: “ Sometimes they would throw a sixpence into the river, where the water was about two feet deep, to make us wet ourselves through in groping for it. Indeed, they were very generous when they wished to be amused; and every kind of offer was made to them which we thought suited to their tastes, or likely to extract money


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