's Precinct beyond the Tower. Next to St.
Katherine's lay the fields called by Stow 'Wappin in the Wose,' or
Wash, where there were broken places in the wall, and the water poured
in so that it was as much a marsh as when there was no dyke at all.
Then the Commissioners of Sewers thought it would be a good plan to
encourage people to build along the wall, so that they would be
personally interested in its preservation. Thus arose the Hamlet of
Wapping, which, till far into the eighteenth century, consisted of
little more than a single long street, with a few cross lanes,
inhabited by sailor-folk. At this time--toward the end of the
sixteenth century--began that great and wonderful development of
London trade which has continued without any cessation of growth.
Gresham began it. He taught the citizens how to unite for the common
weal; he gave them a Bourse; he transferred the foreign trade of
Antwerp to the Thames. Then the service of the river grew apace; where
one lighter had sufficed there were now wanted ten; 'Wappin in the
Wose' became crowded Wapping; the long street stretched farther and
farther along the river beyond Shad's Well; beyond Ratcliff Cross,
where the 'red cliff' came down nearly to the river bank; beyond the
'Lime-house'; beyond the 'Poplar' Grove. The whole of that great city
of a million souls, now called East London, consisted, until the end
of the last century, of Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, still
preserving something of the old rusticity; of Mile End, Stepney and
Bow, and West Ham, hamlets set among fields, and market-gardens, and
of that long fringe of riverside streets and houses. In these rural
hamlets great merchants had their country-houses; the place was
fertile; the air was wholesome; nowhere could one see finer flowers or
finer plants; the merchant-captains--both those at sea and those
retired--had houses with garden-bowers and masts at Mile End Old Town.
Captain Cook left his wife and children there when he went sailing
round the world; here, because ground was cheap and plentiful, were
long rope-walks and tenter-grounds; here were roadside taverns and
gardens for the thirsty Londoner on a summer evening, here were placed
many almshouses, dotted about among the gardens, where the poor old
folks lengthened their days in peace and fresh air.

But Riverside London was a far different place, here lived none but
sailors, watermen, lightermen, and all those who had to do with ships
and shi