RATES OF FARES AND DOCK LABORERS.
From London to Cork the fare, first class, is about twenty-three English shillings, and to Dublin twelve shillings. From London to Edinburgh, first class, by sea, fifteen shillings. London to Calais, by rail and sea, twenty-five shillings, to Havre, eleven shillings. London to Ostend, Belgium, fifteen shillings; to Antwerp, twenty shillings; to Hamburg, two pounds; to Rotterdam one pound; to Belfast, forty-five shillings; to Dundee, twenty shillings. London to Malta twelve pounds; to Maderia sixteen pounds sixteen shillings; to Oporto, eight pounds eight shillings; to Marseilles, twelve pounds ten shillings; to Rio Janeiro, thirty pounds; to St. Petersburg, six pounds six shillings; to Glasgow, twelve shillings; to Liverpool, twenty shillings; to Stockholm, eighty-four shillings; to Brussels, forty-eight shillings; to Genoa, twelve pounds; Leghorn, fifteen pounds; Naples, eighteen pounds; Christiana, Norway, eighty shillings, and Copenhagen, sixty-three shillings.
I give these fares as I believe it may be of some use to Americans, who design to travel, to know the correct rates of Continental travel. It is much pleasanter to travel to the continent by sea from London than by rail, the accommodations are better, the views of the best. There is no hurry, you may get your meals regularly, it is more healthful and certainly much cheaper, as the above fares are all for first class passages, and it is easy to obtain second or third class accommodations for a very great deal less money.
In concluding this chapter on the Port of London, I may say that it is almost impossible to name a place for which passage cannot be obtained, by sea from London, and vessels are leaving daily and hourly for their various destinations, from the many wharves and docks that line the Thames between London and Westminster bridges, a distance of two miles, on the river.
Thirty thousand men find employment, daily, as laborers, in the London Docks. Men who have been reduced by want, misfortune, or by drunkeness, find in these vast commercial reservoirs, a precarious means of subsistence, earning from eighteen pence to two shillings a day, half of which generally goes for beer, or potations of a heavier and more spirituous kind. This kind of labor is unskilled, and has for its propulsion mere manual strength, so that, when a man fails in everything else, he may possibly succeed as a dock laborer. The public houses frequented by the laborers are situated in the dark alleys and crowded courts near the river, and all of them partake of the brutal, low appearance which distinguishes the London coal heaver and dock lifter.
PALACES OF LONDON.
