ion or broaching novel ideas
on the most out-of-the-way subjects. He would scheme and ponder all
the day long, but he abominated the labour of putting his ideas
into tangible shape. He would talk like a book on any subject for
hours together if he could only find listeners, but could with
difficulty be brought to put pen to paper. Most of his books were
written from his ideas by his younger brother Augustus, or were
dictated directly to his wife, who acted as his amanuensis.
Although he made considerable sums by his writings, he never seemed
to have a shilling; and most of the letters he received were from
dunning creditors. These missives, however, never troubled him, for
he never broke the envelopes of one of them, but handed all his
correspondence over to his wife to do as she pleased with and
answer such letters as she thought necessary. He was very
temperate. Whether he smoked as a young man, I am not aware; but
he never smoked at the periodical evening gatherings at his house,
when the guests could hardly see each other for the clouds of
tobacco-smoke. On these occasions the most abstruse subjects were
often discussed, and all we young wiseacres present contributed our
modicum of knowledge towards the elucidation of problems that
sorely perplexed the thinkers of the epoch. Although Mayhew would
sit up till any hour as long as anyone would stay and listen to
him, he never allowed this to interfere with his early-rising
habits."

The impression made by Mayhew upon his contemporaries was invariably
such as to command respect for his intellectual capacity. Considering
his deep, philosophic mind, says one critic, if his lines had been cast
in more serious places, he might have been a sociologist, the equal of
John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. There is proof enough of this in
that wonderful encyclopaedic work of "London Labour and London Poor,"
which displayed his original mind and his power of research, as much as
other books displayed his marvellous invention, fancy, and initiative,
and it is the only one of his undertakings which he had perseverance
enough to carry through to a triumphant conclusion--so far as it can
claim finality. It was while he was engaged on this work that Landells
(according to a private letter) visited him and found him, in company
with his brother Augustus and William Jerrold