Chapter 2 No.2

Docks, Sailors, and Emigrants.

UR rambles have now brought us to the Docks; but, before describing them, we must glance backward at the scenes which in former years met the eye on the very spots which these vast basins now occupy, for we shall include them all in this chapter.

There are people still living who can remember when Blackwall-Reach had for its landmarks grim gibbet-posts, on which the bodies of pirates bleached and blackened in the storm and sunshine, "making night hideous;" when the whole neighbourhood beyond the Tower, instead of being the home of mighty ships-that seem to sleep after their perilous voyages in the Docks-was a nest of ill-famed streets and dangerous alleys, unsafe even in the open noon of day, and at night trodden with dread by the peaceful passenger; when the Tower Hamlets disgorged their lawless inhabitants to witness an execution on Tower-hill, attack a press-gang, or rescue some sailor from the claws of justice, to be borne in triumph to the nearest tavern, and amid flip, fiddling, and dancing, bid defiance to every 'Charley' that for a mile around drawled out the passing hours. In those days it was not uncommon for the drum to beat an alarm, and a troop or two of soldiers to turn out of the Tower, to quell the brawls which arose between the land-lubbers and the sons of the salt sea; nor were the military always successful in putting down these midnight riots; for whether Jack hunted a Jew or unroofed a crimping house, he would not give in (unless overpowered) until he had chased down the one and demolished the other.

Ned Ward, in his London Spy, describes the sailors he met with in his day in this neighbourhood, and says, "Sometimes we met in the street with a boat's crew just come on shore, in search of those land debaucheries which the sea denies them; looking like such wild, staring, gamesome, uncouth animals, that a litter of squab rhinoceroses drest up in human apparel could not have made a more ungainly appearance.... Every post they came near was in danger of having its head broken; for every one as he passed by gave the senseless block a bang with his cudgel, as if they wished every post they met to be either the boatswain or the purser. The very dogs in the street shunned them with as much fear as a loitering vagrant would a gang of press-masters, being so cautioned against their ill usage by the stripes they had formerly received, that, as soon as ever they saw a seaman, away ran the poor curs, with their tails between their legs, to avoid the danger of the approaching evil. I could not forbear reflecting on the 'prudence' (?) of those persons who send their unlucky children to sea to tame and reform them."

Even now, after all the alterations and improvements which have been made, there are places in the neighbourhood of St. Katherine and the London Docks which present almost the same features as they did a century or two ago, and such may be found within five minutes' walk of the Docks we are describing. No contrast can be greater than that between the west and the east end of London; the very houses, dresses, and language of the inhabitants are different; for in the latter their talk is "all of ships." Here, at the shop-doors dangle oil-case nor'-westers, with long fantails behind, telling that, unlike the hats in Bond-street, these are made to keep a billow that breaks over the head out of the nape of the neck; while the rough pilot-coats that hang like skins about the tent of a Russian bear-hunter, proclaim that they were never made to be worn in "a lady's chamber," but to be donned where the winds whistle, and the sea-gulls scream, and the big waves come roaring after each other like a thousand unchained hungry lions. There you see the gaudy handkerchief which Jack loves to leave a little out, that it may be seen from his blue jacket-pocket; those slops, in the whiteness of which he prides himself; and the checked shirt that he delights to throw open about his sun-browned throat, while he leaves the fringed corners of his black neckerchief to flutter like a pennon in the breeze. There is a forecastle-smell about the streets, a minglement of junk and rum, tar and biscuit, casks, ropes, and tobacco, not unpleasant to one who is proud of the wave-washed island on which he was born.

But the grandeur of this locality is its magnificent Docks-watery-squares surrounded with high-piled warehouses, and filled with gigantic shipping, the tall masts of which tower proudly above the loftiest houses. Here you see keels that have ploughed up the stormy Atlantic-sails hanging idly in the breeze that have been filled with the spicy gales of India-figures ahead that have looked down into icy seas, or bent listlessly where the waves of the warm Mediterranean roll, and the arch-backed dolphins tumble. It makes the heart of a true-born Englishman, although he is not worth a groat, beat high when he enters the gates that open upon such a scene of naval grandeur; and we forgive those old sea-kings, while we gaze around, who all but conquered our country, and blended their Danish with our Saxon blood. Warriors of old, who guided their snorting seahorses along the road of the swans, and swept the stormy Baltic to stand face to face with Alfred the Great, and to be at last scattered like the ocean spray by the arm of the Island King. Peace to their manes! they were the first who taught our grey forefathers that England's wooden walls are its safest bulwarks.

Many a house had to be levelled with the earth, and many an old graveyard to be dug up, before these mighty Docks could be made; even the ancient hospital founded by Queen Matilda seven centuries ago was demolished; and where oft the Sabbath-bell had tolled, and the old Londoners paused to glance at the "narrow beds" where their fathers slept, or wore the stones hollow with their passing feet-all were doomed to be swept away, to make room for the "guardian giants that prowl around our coasts." From this, good came; living London had not room enough for her dead, and the green hills that look down upon her glory were then turned into sepulchres; rural cemeteries sprang up, and thither her departed sons and daughters were borne; instead of pent-up city churchyards, our metropolis became surrounded with great gardens of graves, which look like true resting-places. Over such, a poet might fancy their peaceful spirits would linger, and look beyond to where the vast city gradually grows in length and breadth from year to year, until, as is not improbable, it may at last extend its foot to the edge of the open ocean.

St. Katherine's, and the two adjoining London Docks-which alone cover a space of more than a hundred acres-will contain six hundred ships, and near half a million tons of goods. In the West India Docks, which lie nearer Blackwall, merchandise valued at twenty millions of money has at one time been deposited on the wharfs, in the warehouses, and in the vaults below. The wealth of London lies not in her gaudy shops: beyond the Tower stand her great storehouses. A stranger who passes on the river on his way to Greenwich or Gravesend sees but little of these enormous treasuries-the

MAST-HOUSE, BLACKWALL.

tops of the tall masts alone point out their "whereabouts." These Docks are surrounded by high strong-built walls, so lofty, that it would be a puzzle to a most expert thief to scale them, on account of the finish of the coping; and if even this were accomplished, a greater difficulty would remain in getting over the bulky goods which are stored within. The walls which encircle the two London Docks were erected at a cost of sixty-five thousand pounds; and no less a sum than four millions was expended in completing this vast establishment. The East India Docks are at Blackwall, and our engraving is a view of the old Mast-House in the Export-Dock-one of the most prominent objects in the landscape, when the eye is turned in that direction, either from the summit of One-tree-hill in Greenwich Park, or as seen from the right of the Observatory.

It will be readily imagined that such improvements as these were not made without meeting with much opposition, for it is on record that the cargo of a large vessel often took up five or six weeks before it was delivered: for before the Docks were made, goods were put into lighters at Blackwall, and carried to the old-fashioned quays near London Bridge, and after a long delay, occasioned even by the Custom House authorities themselves, they were finally removed to the different warehouses in the City. In these good old times river robbery was a thriving trade; and we have more than rumour for asserting that many a fortune was made by this systematic plunder. No marvel that when the first inroad was made on these old vested rights, a clamour was raised by carmen, porters, lightermen, and all the shoal of waterside labourers, who benefited more or less by the very difficulties which attended the removal of merchandise, and that from Wapping to Westminster the whole aquatic populace raised their voices against the dock crusades. Even the Trinity House itself murmured about an invasion of interests, and contended that the Royal Dock at Deptford would be ruined. City limits and city privileges were all in all to these sticklers for old rights; nor have matters altered much even up to the present day, when a proposed improvement in the sewerage of the City seems to create as much alarm as if all its charters and privileges were about to be undermined and swallowed up. All these claims and demands had to be bought up, and thousands were expended in silencing their clamours before the Docks were commenced; for there were legal quays beside the river, and moorages within, and landing-places, that time out of mind had their little perquisites. And when all the Joneses, Smiths, and Tomkinses were satisfied, the mighty work began to proceed; and thus in time spread out and rose up these broad city basins and high-piled warehouses, which are the pride of England and the envy of so many surrounding nations.

But it is not the removal and storing of merchandise, in which as many as five thousand men are sometimes employed, that alone engrosses the eye of the observant stranger when he visits the Docks. There are other scenes of painful or pleasurable interest, which fall upon the eye and heart according to the humour of the man. One of those it is our province to portray. About a year ago we dined on board a large vessel in St. Katherine's Docks which had been chartered to carry out emigrants to America; it was a few days before the ship was announced to sail. The owner was a worthy gentleman; the party who had hired the ship, needy adventurers, whose references had blinded all inquiries, and who were only found out when interference was of no legal avail. For days "hired vagabonds" had been "touting" at every wharf and public-house in the neighbourhood; and the call, although not so openly made as that of an omnibus conductor, only varied inasmuch as "America" was substituted for "Charing-cross" or "Paddington." They took passengers for almost whatever they could get, paying no regard as to whether or not they had stores to last the voyage, or would starve before they were half over the Atlantic. "It was a sorry sight," and the law had no power beyond that of making a few arrangements that would contribute to the comforts of the poor passengers.

We went down the hold, which was fitted up with berths-if such a name may be given to the tiers of unplaned deal boards, which resembled large hen-coops piled one above another; and stretched on mattresses upon these wooden gridirons we saw many of the emigrants waiting wearily for the appointed hour that was fixed for sailing. It made the heart sicken to picture that hold, when out at sea with the hatches battened down, and the vessel driving through a storm. There were then little children running about, and playing at hide and seek among the bales and casks-fair-haired, red-cheeked, blue-eyed beauties, whose sun-burnt arms and necks told that they had had the run of the open village-green; and such we found had been the case when we inquired. Both father and mother were fine specimens of English peasantry: the grandfather and grandmother were also there. They had fixed up the very clock in the hold, which had for years ticked in the old familiar cottage, and brought a few choice flowers in pots, which they hoped to plant about their new home in a foreign land. An antique oak table, that had been in the family for many generations, was also doomed to bear them company in their long voyage. The old grandfather, whose countenance would have enraptured an artist, sat in a deep Rembrandt-like shadow at one corner of the hold, with the family Bible upon his knee. They appeared to be well provided for the voyage, and were full of "heart and hope."

Another corner was occupied by a wretched-looking Irish family. All excepting the old countryman and his family seemed to regard this miserable group with an eye of suspicion more than of pity; for it was whispered that a few biscuits and a little oatmeal were all the provisions they had made for the voyage. The captain, however, who had had some experience, considered that they were amply provided, and he made the strictest inquiry. A bag of coarse bread, which had been cut into slices and then browned in the oven, had that morning, he said, been sent on board to assist them-it was the gift of a few poor Irish people who lived in the borough of Southwark. This bread, he said, with a little suet, would make excellent puddings; and he promised that Pat should not lack the latter ingredient. It appeared that there were many little things which a willing hand might do on board a ship, and, as he said, "We never yet allowed one to starve; but this is a queer lot." If we remember rightly, the number of passengers was not sufficient to call for the interference of the Emigration Commissioners. The ship had been chartered to carry a cargo, a part of which, from some cause or other, was withheld; so the speculators endeavoured to make up the loss by passengers. Our attention was too much engrossed in conversation with those who were about to quit their native country, it might be for ever, to enter fully into these legal matters, although we believe the number at last became sufficient to call for this interference.

To our feelings there was something very revolting in married and single, young and old, being thus placed together in the hold of a ship, which was never intended for the accommodation of passengers; and we think that government might be worse employed than in applying a remedy to these evils. We fear that many who leave our shores with refined and delicate feelings, who, however humble may be their station in life, are gifted with that innate love of modesty which in no country has a more natural growth than in our own,-that many such are doomed to quit England, and through circumstances over which they have no control, land great losers in this never-to-be-recovered gift.

A voyage to America in the hold of a vessel fitted up temporarily as we have described, is a scene not likely to fall under the eye of a popular author: it can only be sketched by getting the information from some unfortunate fellow who has been bumped and thumped against those huge beams which run inside the berths, and rolled about like a barrel, and has been lucky enough to outlive all such pitching and tossing. A state-cabin, in the roughest gale, must be a palace compared with such a place in a moderate calm; and a common steerage, rendered as comfortable as circumstances will permit, a perfect elysium. Picture those who have never in all their lives encountered a stronger gale than needed a safe hand to keep on the hat, turning all sorts of imaginable somersaults, and who never heard any noise louder over their heads than when some relative fell down drunk upon the chamber-floor at a feast-time, first listening to the tramp, and thunder, and hurly-burly on deck, when the ship is struck by a heavy sea, and every timber groans again in its deep agony. No regular steward to assist-no servant to attend-berth moaning to berth-child squealing against child-one praying here, another cursing there-the hold all but dark, and where a glimmering of light is seen, the sea rushing in like a cataract-and over all, the wind howling like a raging demon, and every wave knocking at the ship's side, and demanding admittance; and if such is not a picture of a certain nameless place under the earth, it would convey no bad idea of one upon the sea.

And those dear children nestled together, with their little arms encircling one another in their cheerless berths, their mother incapable of comforting them! It gave one the heart-ache to think of what they were destined to endure. We pictured them in their restless slumber, murmuring like bees-dreaming of their cottage, then far away-or dizzy with the rocking of the ship, recalling the swing which hung between the apple-trees in the garden, and unconscious of the danger with which they were surrounded. Then we remembered Him who "tempereth the wind to the shorn lamb"-

"Who moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

Who plants his footsteps on the sea,

And rides upon the storm."

Wearily over the wilderness of waters would they journey onwards. Like birds with ruffled plumage, that feel themselves strangers when they have alighted upon a new land, the wild waste beside the ocean-shore where they landed would at first be trod with an aching heart; there would not be one old familiar object to comfort them. The Indian who carries the bones of his relatives to the far forest which he is driven into, and there erects a new hut, leaves scarcely an object of regret behind, for his hopes are anchored upon his great hunting-ground beyond the grave. One who soars into higher and purer realms in the dreams of an hereafter, is chained to earth by greater regrets. The very tree in the centre of the village-green wears a new charm when seen through the "mind's eye" from a far distance, and the humblest objects become more endeared to us when they are no longer within our grasp. Brighter and broader landscapes may burst upon the view in a new world beyond the ocean; but never shall we again find those familiar features in the scene which we have left behind: oft

" ... in the stilly night,

When slumber's chain hath bound us,

Fond memory brings the light

Of other days around us."

A far different scene met our eyes not long ago in the East India Docks, when the Canterbury Association sent out their emigrants to New Zealand. What we then witnessed compelled us to take another view of emigration, and to regret that many of our poor needlewomen were not numbered among the comfortable-looking Canterbury colonists.

The scene seemed to carry us back to bygone years, when the Pilgrim Fathers went forth over perilous seas (linked together by one faith) to establish colonies in far-off lands, and build cities in wild wooded wastes which had before borne no imprint but that of beasts of the chase, or the footmark the Indian hunter left behind while pursuing them. Stern men, such as Cromwell selected his Ironsides from, and staid matrons who, during the civil war, laid aside their psalters to load arquebusses, were the unflinching elements out of which our colonies were formed in those stormy old times. Neither gaols nor workhouses were emptied to people these early settlements, but firm, high-souled men and women went out, accompanied by their ministers and grave elders-such as in more ancient days assembled in our Saxon witenagemotes-full of moral resolves, and gave them laws, and established another England, in which they could worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. They weeded not the garden to transplant its sickly and seedy roots, but (so to speak) took out the very seed and the purest mould, and formed for themselves strong and healthy beds, that produced such fruit as tempted and attracted others to sally forth and cultivate their newly-discovered fields.

Of similar materials to these is the Canterbury Settlement, in New Zealand, to be formed, and more than a million acres to be peopled, by those who are of one faith-members of the English Church-and who are to begin by building schools and erecting places of worship, and thus providing for the intellectual and spiritual wants of the community. Food and raiment and shelter are not all they undertake to supply, but ample provision is to be made for much higher and holier purposes.

None who are really poor and wretched accompany them; such as go out, as servants and labourers, are men and women of good character, and members of the English Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury is at the head of the association, which numbers amongst its members noblemen and gentlemen, and those connected with the Church; in short, we shall not err by calling it a religious community. Hunger, and crime, and sin, and sorrow, and nakedness, and wretchedness they leave behind. Except the working emigrants who accompany them, we believe that nearly the whole of the settlers are large purchasers of land: some few of those who have speculated remaining here. They are also at liberty to establish their own form of government-to be, in fact, free and independent of England. It will be seen that they set out with such wealth, respectability, and numbers, as surpass all that our former colonists ever possessed, but that they take away none of our unemployed and needy poor.

What we witnessed on board the vessel in the East India Docks awakened no painful feelings, for they were not people actually compelled to leave their country because they were unable to obtain a living in it, like the many thousands who covet but the common necessaries of life, and cannot obtain them. We turned from the well-spread tables then before us, and thought of the poverty and wretchedness of those who drag out a miserable existence in our over-crowded London streets; the thousands who stand

"Houseless near a thousand homes,

And near a thousand tables pine for want of food;"

who bring no old memories into the crowded city, in which many of them were born. Home, with all its green boughs rustling above the rippling stream-the murmur of the bee-the shout of the cuckoo, and the mellow song of the golden-billed blackbird, were never to them old familiar sounds; they have nothing to sigh over, to look back upon and regret. The word "Home" to many of them has no charm, has never been surrounded with comfort; it is but a shifting from attic to attic, or from cellar to cellar; it but conjures up unhealthy back-rooms and high dead-walls, and breathless courts, which, when the wind reaches, it only stirs the sleeping poison, and scatters wider the stench of a thousand stagnant sewers. There they sit, in such neighbourhoods as Whitechapel and Bethnal-green, and hear of holidays and merry seasons, in which they have no share. The Christmas bells but ring out to them telling that nights are long and coals dear; and they are compelled to sit and listen to those sounds in the darkness, or by the glimmering of a handful of fire, for they are too poor to purchase even a candle. Spring processions and Whitsun holidays but tell them that there are pleasant places somewhere, which people are rushing out of town to see, though for them the flowers grow not, nor have they ever rested under the cooling shadow of a green tree. All they know of time is by feeling hungry, and struggling against sleep, while "stitch, stiching" for such establishments as Mr. Mayhew has described in his London Labour and London Poor, keeping no other record of the hours but by the number of stitches they take, or how long it will be before they can afford to eat again, while hunger is gnawing within, though the insufficient meal is but just concluded. Their homes were places from which they were many a time turned out because they could not pay the rent, then left to stand shivering and starving in the street, until some one, who numbered as many miseries as they, all but the want of a wretched roof for a covering, invited them in-and they sat crouching beside the fireless grate, thankful that, in addition to hunger, they had not to endure

"The pitiless pelting of the outer storm."

They have nothing to offer one another but sympathy-nothing to give but sigh for sigh, as they mingle tears with tears. What have they to throw a charm over home? Where is the comfortable bed on which to repose when their labour is ended? Behold that heap of rags and straw in the dark corner of the room! Where are their pictures to enliven the walls? their flowers, to tell that spring or summer has come? The imagination must form a landscape where the mortar has broken away-the only white patch in that dirty dwelling; their flowers of summer are dying in that broken jug where the halfpenny nosegay is placed, purchased when hunger needed appeasing, because memory was pining for nourishment, and the heart and eye were weary of those black roofs and tall chimneys, and they wanted to look on something which God had made; for,

"Though man has power to build a town,

He cannot make the thistledown,

Which every wind doth shake."

Mighty England, with all her glory, has but left them heirs to misery. When such as these are borne away to another country, we can almost picture the guardian-angels that would accompany them hiding their faces with their hands as they speed along with their white wings expanded above the vessel, as if weeping for these poor outcast daughters. But Hope, with her "golden hair" streaming out, would herald the way, pointing to other homes beyond the rim of the horizon, far over the sea, and bidding them remember that God is also there; and that there are no crowded courts and starving populace in those lands, where Health would stand with roses in her hands to plant in their pale cheeks, while honest Labour waved his sickle to welcome them to the thatched hut, which, stored with plenty, would send its blue smoke under the green trees, and then in coiling shadows over the golden harvest-field. Alas! these go not out with the Canterbury colonists. We should consider the present emigrants as going before to prepare the way for their feebler or poorer brethren. Their intelligence, capital, and enterprise will, we trust, create such a demand for labour, that they will invite the misery and poverty left at home to join them in the happy land of Canterbury, where we hope plenty will be found for all. May their turn soon come, and may they speedily join those who are now on their way; and, when it does, may the sea on which they will sleep flow around them with a gentle murmur-may the breeze visit them as softly as a mother's breath when she bends over her slumbering infant, and so dream during their long voyage over the ocean! May they at last anchor in a foreign land, where they will find a home such as they have never known!

Here, where there is not even room for their dead, but where the last silent tenant is removed to make room for the next comer, what have they to weep over? Nothing! No one, perhaps, would be by to close their dying eyes, or when they turned their faces to the cold wall, to bid "God bless them!" No friendly hand to lift them down those stairs up which they had so often gone with aching hearts, but be borne by pauper arms, in a pauper's coffin, to a nameless grave, the very hillock of which would be levelled within a month after they had been thrust beneath it, as if there was neither room for them living nor dead. Who would not pray to heaven to send them a prosperous voyage (as those were prayed for who have gone before) as they fly from a shore which brings to memory only misery, where the only hours of happiness they knew were those which went winged over their unconscious childhood, when hunger was scarcely felt while they played, and sorrow only forgotten when they slumbered-when the Angel of Sleep came and carried away the very memory of wretchedness until they awoke again. May the peaceful daisies soon blow about their home in a land where there is plenty and to spare, and human life is not made up of labour, hunger pangs, and short, fitful, moaning snatches of slumber, which is not sleep. May they, like those who are now preceding them, find a home around which to twine their affections, with a few trees and flowers that they can love and call their own, where the sun has room to get near them at morning, and can give them a parting smile before he sets at night, where he comes streaming free as when, first launched from God's almighty hand, he went thundering with a golden trail of glory behind, until the voice of the Omnipotent bade him stop in the immensity of space. May they find verdant valleys over which no board ever looked, threatening the wanderer with imprisonment for trespassing, but where the land is as free as it is to the foot of the bird, and where in time the tall churchspire may rise and the Sabbath-bell ring, and the hum of childish voices be heard coming from beneath the blossoming trees in the orchard where they are at play. When we turn to such a picture as this, and look at the haunts of wretchedness they now inhabit, we are compelled to acknowledge emigration a blessing.

If emigration is too expensive, let us not close our eyes to the fact that there are millions of acres of waste land in England and Ireland which might be brought into cultivation, and enable thousands to live thereon in comfort, or be made to bring in a good rental, so as to support those we cannot send out; and that this could be done at but little more cost than we should have to pay to get rid of them and their labour. Let us look at the quantity of fruit and cattle imported into England every week, and which might be grown and fed in our own country, if these wastes were brought into cultivation by the capital which we are sending abroad; buying in food on the one hand, and on the other, paying those to leave the country who might remain and produce it. A wise king, in a remote and barbarous age, found it cheaper to divide his kingdom with pirates and robbers than to be constantly at war with them, though they were aliens; surely England ought to do for her own children as much as Alfred did for the heathen Danes, if she will not send them to other countries. Labour is the only true wealth that Nature ordained when she provided us with the raw materials. The possessor of millions is compelled to buy labour; his gold will neither clothe nor feed him; with it he calls in hard-handed industry to his aid. These are old truisms which no arguments can overthrow. Have we exhausted all our resources of employment, that we are compelled to drive so many thousands who are willing to labour from the land? This is a question more important than any other, and of a thousand times more consequence than the money even now spent in sending out emigrants. How many little freeholds might be reared in our wastes, with our facilities, with what we are spending annually in emigration? and how much closer would these little spots bind the affections of the occupiers to the soil, and make them struggle proudly to bear their share of the burdens which are necessary to support the state! Let a large portion of these millions of acres be brought into cultivation at any cost; and then, if our busy hive is overstocked, send a swarm abroad. Women are needed in our colonies; let them go-at least, as many as we can safely spare-and spread sweet images of themselves over distant lands,-faces to look upon in after years, which will call up the England their mothers were compelled to leave; such as we see breaking the evening shadows with their smiles, as they play until bed-time on the village-green. Any thing to lessen the vice and wretchedness which is eating like a canker into the heart of our over-crowded cities. Such as these the Canterbury colonists will not take with them; and if we cannot afford to send them abroad, let us see what can be done for them with our waste lands at home, instead of leaving them to pine and die, unwept and uncared for, in our over-crowded cities. This matter forces itself on all thinking men who visit the London Docks during the present high fever of emigration.

LONDON DOCKS-OUTER BASIN.