MAYHEW, HENRY, 1812-76, b. London; sou of a solicitor in good practice. Was sent to 1Vestininster school, but twice ran away, and made a voyage to Calcutta on a ship-of-war. On his return to London he passed three years in his father's law office as an articled clerk, traveled for a period in Wales, and finally adopted the literary profes sion and settled in London. ,His first venture was theatrical. In company with Mr. Gilbert A, Beckett he took the Queen's theater. where he produced the clever farce of The Wandering Minstrel. About the same time he started a comic paper called Figaro in London, which was the precursor of Punch, of which Mr. Mayhew was also one of the founders. Between the years 1846-51, in conjunction with his brothers, Horace and Augustus, he brought out a number of fairy tales and farces. and a series of humorous sketches, including The 'Greatest Plague of Life; Worn to Mar7v, and Bow to Get Mar vied; The Image of his Father; etc. He also published individually Young Benjamin Franklin; Boyhood of Martin Luther; The 1Vonders of Science; and other books for children. In 1851 he produced his most iinportant work, London Labor and the LO7WOU Poor, a C,yclopcedia of the Condition and Earnings of those that will Work, those that can not Work, and those that will not Work. Of this book Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman wrote as follows: " Mayhew has given us the diagnosis of London street life with an analytical precision quite scientific A body of the most curious information is brought together, which reveals a world of facts appalling to the sensibilities, and wonderfully suggestive to the political economist." Mr. Mayhew also commenced the publication
in numbers of a similar work entitled The Great World of London, which was not com pleted. The first of these works was begun in the London Morning Chronkle; it was published in 3 vols., 1861, and reprinted 1868. The versatility of Mr. Mayhew's talent is shown by the widely differing nature of his various works. The London Athenaum said of him: "We have long been in want of a 'young people's author,' and we seem to have the right rnan in the right place in the person of .31r. Mayhew." Another Lon don journal, referring to one of his biographical stories for boys, said that it was "told with the grae,c and feeling of Goldsmith, and by one who has that knowledge of science: which Goldsmith lacked." MAYHEVir, IRA, b. NOW York, 1814; received an education and went west in e,arly youth, and settling in Michigan became a successful teacher. He was for some years super intendent of schools for the state of Michigan. In 1849 the legislature of Michigan passed a resolve in favor of the publication of a Treati,se Olt Popular Education for the use of parents aud teachers, which was written by lihn, considered satisfactory, and is now the sixth volume of A. S. Barnes & Co.'s school-teachers' library, New York. He has published Practical System of Book-ke,eping, and Universal Book-keeping. His work is characterized as an efficient help to the cause of popular education which has received merited recognition.