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VENICE IN THE EAST END. 



The great red bowsprit of an Australian clipper pro- 

 jects aslant the quay. Stem to the shore, the vessel 

 thrusts an outstretched arm high over the land, as 

 an oak in a glade pushes a bare branch athwart the 

 opening. This beam is larger than an entire tree 

 divested of its foliage, such trees, that is, as are seen 

 in English woods. The great oaks might be bigger at 

 the base where they swell and rest themselves on a 

 secure pedestal. Five hundred years old an oak might 

 measure more at six feet, at eight, or ten feet from the 

 ground; after ^yq hundred years, that is, of steady 

 growth. But if even such a monarch were taken, and 

 by some enormous mechanic power drawn out, and 

 its substance elongated into a tapering spar, it would 

 not be massive enough to form this single beam. 

 Where it starts from the stem of the vessel it is 

 already placed as high above the level of the quay as 

 it is from the sward to the first branch of an oak. At 

 its root it starts high overhead, high enough for a 

 trapeze to be slung to it upon which grown persons 

 could practise athletic exercises. From its roots, 

 from the forward end of the deck, the red beam rises 



