A collaboration between photographer John Thomson and journalist Adolphe Smith, “Street Life in London” was pioneering in its sympathetic presentation of the city’s working classes, detailing the social, economic, and logistical challenges faced by bootblacks, beggars, fruit sellers, street musicians, photographers, and locksmiths, along with related history. Of the fishmonger with a barrel of 500 herrings to sell on the day he was photographed, Smith wrote, “Notwithstanding . . . the obnoxious smell and dirt created by a street fish-stall, this method of selling fish, if it ensures cheapness, and brings the fish to the doors of the poor, is undoubtedly useful.”