Page from notebook from Charles Booth’s Inquiry into Life and Labour in London (1886-1903). LSE Library, BOOTH/B/351 p131
Transcript
Little Pearl Street, late Vine Court, 3 stories, black as map old houses with long, smaller paned weavers windows to top stories. Some boarded up in the middle. A few Jews. On the west side lives F. Gehringer ‘Barrows to let’ the owner of all these houses. On the west side is Vine Court. Broad cement court. Well done up. WCs at west end away from houses. Perhaps a little better than the rest and dark blue rather than black on the east side of the street is crown court. 2 stories. Men packing up sacks of parsley. Owner lives in one house, dark blue in map ‘but it should be as black as you can make it’ Out into commercial street. Brothels on south east side of little Pearl Street. Black as map. A thoroughly vicious quarter. The presence of the Cambridge Music Hall in Commercial Street makes it a focussing point for prostitutes.