pping, with the wants and the pleasures of the sailors. Boat
builders had their yards along the bank; mastmakers, sail-makers,
rope-makers, block-makers; there were repairing docks dotted about all
down the river, each able to hold one ship at a time, like one or two
still remaining at Rotherhithe, there were ship-building yards of
considerable importance; all these places employed a vast number of
workmen--carpenters, caulkers, painters, riggers, carvers of
figure-heads, block-makers, stevedores, lightermen, watermen,
victuallers, tavern-keepers, and all the roguery and _ribauderie_ that
always gather round mercantile Jack ashore. A crowded suburb indeed it
was, and for the most part with no gentlefolk to give the people an
example of conduct, temperance, and religion--at best the
master-mariners, a decorous people, and the better class of tradesmen,
to lead the way to church. And as time went on the better class
vanished, until the riverside parishes became abandoned entirely to
mercantile Jack, and to those who live by loading and unloading,
repairing and building the ships, and by showing Jack ashore how
fastest and best to spend his money. There were churches--Wapping, St.
George in the East, Shadwell, and Lime-house--they are there to this
day; but Jack and his friends enter not their portals. Moreover, when
they were built the function of the clergyman was to perform with
dignity and reverence the services of the church; if people chose not
to come, and the law of attendance could not be enforced, so much the
worse for them. Though Jack kept out of church, there was some
religious life in the place, as is shown not only by the presence of
the church, but also by that of the chapel. Now, wherever there is a
chapel it indicates thought, independence, and a sensible elevation
above the reckless, senseless rabble. Some kinds of Nonconformity also
indicate a first step toward education and culture.

He who now stands on London Bridge and looks down the river, will see
a large number of steamers lying off the quays; there are barges,
river steamers, and boats, there are great ocean steamers working up
or down the river; but there is little to give the stranger even a
suspicion of the enormous trade that is carried on at the Port of
London. That port is now hidden behind the dock gates; the trade is
invisible unless one enters the docks and reckons up the ships and
their tonnage, the warehouses and their contents. But a