Mazy Courts and Dark Abodes

Mazy Courts and Dark Abodes a crucial factor encouraging the retention of customary cultural practices was the spatial configuration of London's central neighbourhoods. It encompasses as well the ways in which governments, institutions and forms of knowledge attempt to shape people's behaviour: it was an 'ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics, that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power'. 1780-1870 recognizes the much of plebeian life was lived in public spaces - or at least, was lived in spaces that were not private in the sense of being beyond the awareness and surveillance of others. This difference indicates, on the one hand, that contemporary comment needs to be handled carefully, and on the other, that the London poor were not a homogenous group sharing the same priorities and preferences in making ends meet.