Rivers of Great Britain. The Thames, from Source to Sea. / Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial

by Various

MILLWALL.

Compared to those at Millwall, the East and West India Docks, stretching right across the neck of the peninsula, and making an island of it in fact as well as in name, are of really gigantic dimensions. A few years ago it was possible to declare, with a fair amount of truth, that the West India Docks were the largest in the world. From the land side they are approached by Commercial Road, the smaller of the two great highways which are the main arteries of East London. At the first glance the unsuspecting stranger might easily be led into supposing that he had come suddenly upon an important series of fortifications. The stone archway, crowned by a stumpy tower, which forms the entrance, is impressively massive, and even forbidding; the surrounding walls are very high, and seem to frown down a not unnatural curiosity to penetrate their secret; there is also a ditch which suggests a moat, and which looks as if the constructors had contemplated the possibility of having some day to cut off all communication with the docks otherwise than by water. Altogether, the West India Docks convey the impression that they are carefully guarded and somewhat mysterious, so that the nervous stranger within their gates traverses them not without fear and trembling, and is apt to become alarmed lest he should inadvertently trespass beyond his scanty privileges.

And from the Thames, also, the West India Docks look important and imposing, the tall warehouses rising as high as the masts of the vessels which break the regularity of their fronts, thus forming one of the most striking objects of the north shore. Of all the docks on the river, none is so likely to convey a concrete idea of the vastness of our trade, of the manner in which British intelligence and enterprise draw to the heart of London the spoils of the whole world. “I would say to the intelligent foreigner,” exclaims one lively writer on the subject, “look around and see the glory of England! Not in huge armies bristling with bayonets, and followed by monstrous guns; not in granite forts, grinning from the waters like ghouls from graves; not in lines of circumvallation, miles and miles in extent; not in earthworks, counterscarps, bastions, ravelins, mamelons, casemates, and gunpowder magazines, lies our pride and our strength. Behold them in yonder forests of masts, in the flags of every nation that fly from those tapering spars on the ships, in the great argosies of commerce that from every port in the world have congregated to do honour to the monarch of marts, London, and pour out the riches of the universe at her proud feet.”

It is impossible in any brief description to give more than a general idea of the extent of accommodation for commerce provided by the warehouses, sheds, and cellars of the West India Docks. The rum shed alone, with cellars corresponding in size, covers a space of 200,000 square feet. In one building vast quantities of tea are stored, in another, innumerable bags of fragrant coffee; here are sheds full of solid blocks of mahogany, yonder are bags of indigo, boxes of fruit, bales of cotton, bundles of hides, and sacks of tallow. The average number of vessels lying at one time in the East and West India Docks is 215, all ships of large tonnage. The Dock Company keeps 2,500 persons in regular employment for the loading and unloading of ships, and employs as casual labourers nearly 3,000 men besides.

The London dock labourer, to whom of late much public sympathy has been extended, is of two classes. The regular labourer, since the great strike, has been fairly well paid for an unskilled artisan, and is assured of constant employment. The casual labourer, with whom in many cases hard work is a new experience, is in a very different case. The starving and the outcast of all classes, to whom the whole of London holds out no other prospect of employment, stream down as a last resort to the Isle of Dogs, a sort of “going to the dogs” which is very grimly real. In some cases, when additional labourers are wanted, handfuls of tickets are thrown out among the eager and struggling crowd, and he who is fortunate enough in the scramble to secure one of these is provided with half a day’s labour; in others, a foreman stationed at the gates secures the men he desires by scanning the throng and pointing to one and to another who seems most capable of hard labour, or in most need. It is a sad, a distressingly pathetic sight, this almost fiendish struggle for a few hours’ work; and amongst those who engage in it are men of fair birth, of good education, of proved ability, but of irretrievably fallen fortunes, and with characters irrecoverably lost.

When the India merchants created the West India Docks they had a capital of half a million pounds sterling. Enormous is the capital that has now been sunk on the estate. At one time, when the owners had made a larger profit than they were permitted by Act of Parliament to divide, they bought a quantity of copper and roofed their warehouses with that expensive material. The wharves, warehouses, and quays have now a storage capacity of over 170,000 tons; in the cellars 14,000 sheep can be stored; the weekly wages paid at the West India Docks alone amount to £5,000; the revenue of the company owning them is close on £400,000 a year. Then there are the East India Docks beside—the docks that are sung about in fo’castle songs, that are haunted by the wives and sweethearts of sailors on the look-out for the good ship that is homeward bound, that are dreamed of by Jack Tar when he is thousands of miles away on the sea.

“Why?” asked Mr. W. Clark Russell, “are the East India Docks the most popular of all docks among sailors?” “There are two reasons,” was the reply. “Until the Victoria Dock was opened these docks were the lowest down the river. They were consequently the first at which a ship arrived on her return home. The East India Dock was always so popular, owing to its convenience, compactness, and management, that, whenever there was room, and arrangements would admit, ships entered it. The advantage was great to the sailor. Once on shore, he had nothing to do but jump into the train on the pier-head and be off. Another reason was, the East India Dock was the home of the emigrant ship; and as it was the first place where Jack met his Polly, so it was the last place in which he bade her farewell and took his glass of grog.”

Along the bank of the Thames, opposite to the Isle of Dogs, lie, making a long semicircle of streets, the twin towns of Deptford and Greenwich. Behind them rise the Kentish hills, dark with trees, among which the shadows seem continually to sleep. Deptford is redolent of historic memories. Its old church, with embattled tower, easily perceived from the river, contains the bones of Captain Edward Fenton, one of Frobisher’s companions; Drake was knighted here, on board his own ship, by that unmarried queen who so appropriately ruled our country in the most adventurous period of English history. Here, Peter the Great came to learn ship-building, residing at Sayes Court, the house of the precise John Evelyn, who complains grievously of the semi-barbarian monarch who broke down his hedges, and filled his house with “people right nasty.” Master Samuel Pepys, Clerk of the Acts of the Navy, was necessarily a more frequent visitor to Deptford, and he records, very early in his famous Diary, how he repaired to Deptford after sermon, “where,” he says, “at the Commissioner’s and the Globe we staid long; but no sooner in bed but we had an alarm, and so we rose; and the Comptroller comes into the Yard to us; and seamen of all the present ships repair to us, and there we armed with every one a handspike, with which they were as fierce as could be. At last we hear that it was five or six men who did ride through the guard in the towne, without stopping to the guard that was there, and, some say, shot at them; but all being quiet there, we caused the seamen to go on board again.”

Up to quite recent years Deptford was famous for its dockyard, established by Henry VIII., and employed in the construction of vessels of war through the greater part of three centuries. The site is occupied by a dockyard no longer; convicts are no more brought to labour in gangs on the construction of men-of-war; there is no sound of hammers, nor any shouting of overseers; the keel of no mighty ship is being laid; the greatness of Deptford has departed with the era of our wooden walls.