Poverty and Wealth in Mayhew’s “Watercress Girl” and Reynolds’s “Mysteries of London”

Henry Mayhew’s “Watercress Girl” and G.M.W. Reynolds’s Mysteries of London depict the two differing sides of defeating one’s poverty and accumulating wealth which becomes hard work versus theft. Each text makes its own statement in terms of how people choose to create their wealth in a time when poverty is common throughout the area. While Mayhew’s “Watercress Girl” presents an image of working how one can in order to make money, Reynold’s first few chapters of Mysteries of Londonpresent the narrative of taking another’s wealth and claiming it as your own.

Mayhew’s “Watercress Girl” presents a conversation with an eight-year-old little girl about her life in the city of London. The girl tells of the little money that she is able to make by buying cresses and selling them to the people who walk through the streets. She tells of the sharing of spaces with her parents and three siblings and how she must work in order to help out her family. While she describes some days as making a good amount of money, she also recounts how some days she is treated rudely as people want to only pay her what she herself paid to get them. In the tale, Mayhew notes how the girl though so young has the mentality of a woman. “Watercress Girl” shows the effects that poverty in nineteenth century London impacted the family dynamics and the lives of each child. While most children have little more to concern themselves with than what to play, this girl is forced by poverty to stand out on the streets and work attempting to make enough money to help out her family. Through the girl, Mayhew presents poverty in London as a problem that ages those effected forcing them to become a part of the work force that they should not have to experience until a much later age. The tale acts as a commentary towards wealth as it shows that wealth is to be accomplished through hard work and takes time to achieve for all those involved.

Reynolds’sMysteries of London presents a conversation between two men in an uninhabited house where they are hiding the wealth that they accumulate within the walls. These men a seen to be burglars who have only been coming into the wealth through theft against homes and people that they see to be easy targets for one reason or another. Through these men, Reynolds is showing a way in which some individuals chose to fight poverty and develop wealth in nineteenth century London. These men thieve on the vulnerable as a way of making money for themselves that instead of sharing or putting to good use as buying their own house, they choose to hide it away from the rest of the world. This thieving could lead to the potential poverty of those being stolen from and if not used leave the men with nothing as well. Reynolds shows how some chose to steal their wealth instead of working for themselves and finding their way out of poverty.

Mayhew’s “Watercress Girl” and Reynolds’s Mysteries of London present opposing images of the character of individuals within poverty as one side chooses work and the other chooses theft. The age difference between Mayhew’s girl and Reynolds’s two men is substantial yet the mentalities towards wealth could not be more different. While Mayhew depicts the pursuit of wealth and reaching out of poverty as a means to help one’s family, Reynolds shows the pursuit of wealth as purely selfish. Mayhew shows that hard work in the face of poverty creates more value in the wealth that comes out of it while Reynolds’s shows that theft in pursuit of wealth leads to a lack of value in the wealth one possesses as they will always want more. These two tests depict images of poverty and wealth in nineteenth century London through the means in which individuals would choose to live their lives.