oduced, was a complete and serious voyage,
which few undertook. The boatmen used to run their boats at one time on
the beach opposite the end of Water-street and ply for hire. After the
piers were ran out they hooked on at the steps calling aloud, "Woodside,
ahoy!" "Seacombe, ahoy!" and so on. It is a fact that thousands of
Liverpool people at that time never were in Cheshire in their lives. We
used to cross in open or half-decked boats, and sometimes we have been
almost as many hours in crossing as we are now minutes. I recollect once
wanting to go to Woodside on a stormy day, to see a man who lived in a
small house between the Ferry-house and Wallasey Pool, and which, by the
way, was the only house then standing thereabout. The tide was running
very strong and the wind blowing hard, and, after nearly four hours hard
work, we managed to land near the Rock Perch, thankful for our lives
being spared. The Rock Perch was a pole with a sort of beacon or basket
at the top of it, implanted in the rocks on which the lighthouse now
stands. There were no houses then anywhere about what is now called New
Brighton. The country was sandy and barren, and the only trees that
existed grew close to the mouth of the river near the shore. There was
scarcely a house between the Rock and Wallasey. Wirrall at that time and
the middle of the last century was a desperate region. The inhabitants
were nearly all wreckers or smugglers--they ostensibly carried on the
trade and calling of fishermen, farm-labourers, and small farmers; but
they were deeply saturated with the sin of covetousness, and many a
fierce fire has been lighted on the Wirrall shore on stormy nights to
lure the good ship on the Burbo or Hoyle Banks, there to beat, and
strain, and throb, until her timbers parted, and her planks were floating
in confusion on the stormy waves. Fine times, then, for the Cheshire
men. On stormy days and nights, crowds might have been seen hurrying to
the shore with carts, barrows, horses, asses, and oxen even, which were
made to draw timber, bales, boxes, or anything that the raging waters
might have cast up. Many a half-drowned sailor has had a knock on the
sconce whilst trying to obtain a footing, that has sent him reeling back
into the seething water, and many a house has been suddenly replenished
with eatables and drinkables, and furniture and garniture, where
previously bare walls and wretched accommodation only were visible. Then