196 



KENNIE'S DOCKS AND HARBOURS. 



PART VII. 



accommodation was found very inadequate in extent as 

 well as difficult of access. There was also a regular 

 system of plunder carried on in the conveyance of the 

 merchandise from the ship's side to the warehouses, the 

 account of which, given in Mr. Colquhoun's work on 

 the ' Commerce and Police of the Thames,' affords a 

 curious contrast to the security and regularity with 

 which the shipping operations of the port are carried on 

 at the present day. Lightermen, watermen, labourers, 

 sailors, mates and captains occasionally, and even the 

 officers of the revenue, were leagued together in a 

 system of pilfering valuables from the ..open barges. 

 The lightermen claimed as their right the perquisites 

 of " wastage " and " leakage," and they took care that 

 these two items should include as much as possible. 

 There were regular establishments on shore for receiving 

 and disposing of the stolen merchandise. 1 The Thames 

 Police was established, in 1798, for the purpose of 

 checking this system of wholesale depredation ; but, so 

 long as the goods were conveyed from the ship's side in 

 open lighters, and the open quays formed the principal 

 shore accommodation sugar hogsheads, barrels, tubs, 

 baskets, boxes, bales, and other packages, being piled 

 up in confusion on every available foot of space it was 

 clear that mere police regulations would be unequal to 

 meet the difficulty. It was also found that the confused 

 manner in which the imports were brought ashore led 



1 Mr. Colquhoun, the excellent 

 Police Magistrate, estimated that, in 

 1798, the depredations on the foreign 

 and coasting trade amounted to the 

 almost incredible sum of 506,000^., 

 and on the West India trade to 

 232,0002. together 738,0002. ! He 

 stated the number of depredators in- 

 cluding mates, inferior officers, crews, 

 revenue-officers, watermen, lighter- 

 men, watchmen, &c. to be 10,850 ; 

 and the number of opulent and in- 

 ferior receivers, dealers in old iron, 

 small chandlers, publicans, &c., in- 



terested in the plunder, to be 550 ! 

 Colquhoun's book, and its descrip- 

 tions of the lumpers, scuffle-hunters, 

 long-apron men, bumboat men and 

 women, river-pirates, light-horsemen, 

 and other characters who worked at 

 the water-side, with their skilful ap- 

 pendages of jiggers, bladders with 

 nozzles, pouches, bags, sacks, pockets, 

 &c., form a picture of life on the Thames 

 sixty years since worthy to rank with 

 Mayhew's * London Labour and Lon- 

 don Poor ' of the present day. 



