open during working hours to the passing stranger, the vigilance of the gate-keepers, and of the dock-constables or watchmen, being considered sufficient for the protec tion of the varied and valuable property within.

The

Although the different docks have each their characteristics, they may be de scribed generally as basins for the reception of shipping, surrounded by warehouses and enclosed by walls. The St. Katherine's docks lie immediately below the tower of London. The appearance of this establishment differs in many respects from that of the other docks. Beauty has been sacrificed to utility. Here are no spacious quays, nor long ranges of warehouses; and though the area enclosed is twenty-four acres, the place has a look of being crowded and confined. But the warehouses make up in height and depth what they want in length. They are six stories high, and are massive and capacious; the vaults below are extensive depositories. ground-floors of the warehouses toward the docks are eighteen feet high, open, and supported by pillars; a contrivance by which labor and space are saved, for vessels in the docks can come close to the warehouses, and discharge their cargoes into them, without the necessity of the goods being laid down on a quay in their transit. The docks, of which there are two, with an entrance basin, are capable of containing from 150 to 160 ships, besides craft. The lock leading from the river is 195 feet long and 45 feet broad, and is crossed by a swing bridge 23 feet wide. The depth of water at spring tides is 28 feet in the lock, and thus ships of six hundred and eight hundred tons can come up the river with a certainty of admission into the docks. Altogether, though the St. Katherine's docks are deficient in extent or spaciousness, as compared with the others, the solidity of the buildings, the completeness and ingenuity of the mechanical apparatus and arrangements, and the bustle and activity within, are calculated to make a strong impression on the visiter's mind.

From the St. Katherine's we can enter, crossing Nightingale lane, the London docks. This is a magnificent establishment; it covers upward of one hundred acres of ground, and cost in its construction about three millions of pounds sterling. There is cellerage here for nearly sixty thousand pipes of wines, and the tobacco warehouses can hold twenty-four thousand hogsheads. The two docks, the larger and the smaller, can accommodate eight hundred ships. From the extent of the place, and the capacity of its warehouses (which are inferior in height and massive ponderousness to those of the St. Katherine's, though imposing from their range), there is less of bustle and seeming confusion than in the docks which we had previously inspected.

From the London to the West-India docks there is a walk of about a mile and a half. If the extent of the London docks surprised us, that of the West-India docks will astonish still more. The entire ground occupied by them is about two hundred and ninety-five acres! This includes the canal across the isle of Dogs, made by the corporation of the city of London at the same time that the West-India docks were constructing; the object of it was to enable vessels to avoid the circuit of the river, those availing themselves of it being required to pay a toll. But the speculation proved unsuccessful, and the canal was sold to the West-India dock company, who have turned it into a dock for wood-laden vessels. There have been at one time in these docks, on the quays, under the sheds, and in the warehouses, as much as twenty millions of pounds worth of colonial produce-sugar, coffee, rum and wine, mahogany, dyewoods, &c., &c. The West-India docks have been an exceedingly successful speculation-the shareholders receiving for many years an annual dividend of ten per cent., while, at the same time, a large sum was accumulating as a reserve fund. Competition has lowered the rate of profit.

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The East-India docks, at Blackwall, though inferior in extent to the London and the West-India, are yet sufficiently capacious. They are surrounded by lofty walls. Both the West-India and the East-India docks have two basins, termed import and export docks-their names denote their uses. Nothing," says Baron Dupin, "appears more simple than the idea of forming separate docks for the loading and unloading of importations and exportations; yet, infinite as the advantages which it affords are, in preventing confusion and the frauds which it naturally produces, the English constructed docks for more than a century before this idea struck them." The East-India import dock has a superfices of nineteen acres, the export ten, and the basin three: having to receive large vessels, they were constructed so as to have never less than twenty-three feet of water.

1

The number of individuals who pour out of the docks when the hours of closing them have arrived is not a little remarkable. Revenue officers, clerks, warehousekeepers, engineers, coopers, and laborers, of every grade, seem actually to block up the way. There may be about, on an average, five thousand employed in the St. Katherine's, London, and the West and East India docks.

CHAPTER XXXII.

TRADE.-LUDGATE STREET, AND THE SHOPS OF THE "CITY.”—REGENT STREET, AND THE SHOPS OF THE "WEST END."

If we take the number of "establishments"—that is, of counting-houses, warehouses, chambers, shops, workshops, and other places in London, where individuals or companies carry on business-at sixty thousand, we can hardly calculate the number of the working population employed in them at less than one million. Very few persons can carry on business in a counting-house or shop without the assistance of an adult or a youth: the humblest milliner or straw-hat-maker has in general one or two apprentices; some single shops give out work to twenty, forty, or eighty individuals-in many workshops there are hundreds employed. Fifteen persons to each establishment would make nine hundred thousand; we are surely, therefore, not over the mark in assuming the number of the working population of London at one million, including old and young, male and female, but excluding domestic servants. If the earnings and spendings of this million are, on an average, twenty shillings each weekly, it will amount to a greater sum annually than the present annual revenue of Great Britain.

If one half of the entire number of establishments consists of shops-which allows about three shops to each street in London-and each shop, in its retail business, draws on an average eight pounds daily (some small shops can get on by drawing from one to two pounds a day, others must draw twenty, thirty, or forty pounds), we have about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, or about seventy-two millions of pounds yearly, circulating in the retail trade of London: two hundred and fifty thousand pounds employed daily in the retail trade of London, is two shillings and sixpence to each of the two millions of population.

About one half of the entire number of London establishments range under the three general heads of food, clothing, and habitation. There are about eight thousand five hundred engaged in the supply of food, five thousand in liquors, eight thousand in clothing, from eight hundred to one thousand in coal, three thousand in the building, sale, and letting of houses, and four thousand five hundred in the supply of household furniture and decorations of every kind. By classing food and liquor establishments together, we have nearly fourteen thousand under the head of food, and only eight thousand under clothing; but the subdivisions of employment under clothing, as might naturally be expected, are greater than those under food. The other half of the total number of London establishments comprehends those engaged in the general departments of commerce, the dealers in the materials of intelligence and education, and of science and art, the workers in the finer metals, the practisers in law and medicine, and the gratifiers of wants and wishes connected with recreation and amusement.

The old habit or custom, which is probably coeval with the existence of cities, of particular trades or professions settling down in particular streets or districts, and which thenceforward become, by positive or tacit consent, appropriated to them, is in a great degree disappearing from London. The fishmonger and the silk mercer, the confectioner and the butcher, the tallow-chandler and the tailor, the chinaman and the cheesemonger, occupy alternate shops. Some relics still remain of the old habit. Paternoster Row is still much occupied by booksellers (see engraving p. 400), and Lombard street by bankers; Long Acre by coachmakers, and Cranbourne alley by straw-hat-makers; Holywell street and Monmouth street uphold their old repu

tation of being mainly occupied by those who sell old clothes for new; and Brokers' alley is crowded by dealers in second-hand furniture. Other streets and places have distinct characteristics, though occupied by shops of various kinds. There are several spots which have become, by a kind of prescription, markets for the working population; and there provisions can be bought much cheaper, though it may be a little coarser, than in other places. Two of these spots are more especially worthy of notice-a particular part of Tottenham Court road, at the west end, and a street called, rather singularly, the New Cut (it is a cut of some years' existence), on the Surrey side of the water, in Lambeth. The latter is worth a visit on a Saturday evening, during the fall of the year particularly. The street is occupied by butchers, ba