The volume offers a detailed, encyclopedic survey of urban street occupations and the lives of the poor, documenting vendors, performers, animal exhibitors, rat‑catchers, artisans, coal‑heavers, dockworkers, drivers, carmen, vagrants and lodging‑house residents. Through interviews, descriptive sketches and illustrations it records typical earnings, work routines, living arrangements and coping strategies, and charts the spectrum from skilled labour to casual, seasonal and itinerant jobs. Social conditions, health risks, and the informal economies of street life are described with attention to both individual voices and broader patterns of urban labour.
