The lower stories of the houses in this district, which smell of
tar, resin, and other merchantable commodities, are let out as
offices, and the upper as warehouse floors; the pavement is narrow
and the roads are as bad as broken staves and long neglect can
make them; dirty boys in sailor’s jackets play at leap frog over the
street posts; legions of wheelbarrows encumber the broader part
of these thoroughfares; packing cases stand at the doors of
houses, and iron cranes and levers peep out from the upper
stories.
Under the London Docks are the finest vaults in the world, vast
catacombs of the precious vintages garnered from every famous
vineyard in the globe. The vaults in the London docks cover an
area of eighteen acres, and afford accommodation for eighty
thousand pipes of wine. One of the vaults alone is seven acres in
extent, and the tea warehouses will hold one hundred and twenty
thousand chests of that fragrant herb.
To go into these vast wine vaults is indeed a treat. It is like
entering a City of the dead, only that instead of the skeletons of
human beings piled on top of each other, you find an Aceldama
of casks, pipes, barrels, hogsheads, and butts, bonded and stored
tier upon tier, until the eye becomes wearied, and a man wonders
how all those costly vintages can ever be consumed.
There is no difference between night and day in these dim deep
recesses under the London streets. The vaults are only separated
from the bed of the Thames by a thick wall, and at noonday, gas
has to be turned on to light the way to the enormous storehouses
of wine and brandy. Passes are granted by the companies and the
owners of the liquors on bond, called “tasting permits,” which
gives the privilege to the visitor to ask an attendant for a sample
of any wine, or wines and liquors that he may choose to taste.
Armed with one of these permits I visited the London docks
one day with a friend, one of those wandering Americans you are
always sure to light upon abroad, and we penetrated the gloomy
cavern’s entrance, and finally found our way to a part of the
vaults where were stored thousands of pipes of. the delicious
golden brown vintage of Xeres de la Frontera.
A grimy looking cellar man who smelled like an old claret
bottle that has long remained uncorked, came to us and said,
politely, on presentation of our orders:
“The horders are werry correct, sir. Would you like to try a
little old Sherry, sir, fine as a sovrin and sparkling as the sun?”
“Well, I don’t care if I do take a little sherry — I don’t think
it will hurt me — do you think it will?” said my friend.
He then took about half a pint of fine golden sherry, and after
taking it he seemed all at once to discover a new beauty in the
architecture of the vaults, although he had condemned the place
when he entered it, as a “chilly, stinking hole, not fit for a dog,
by Gad, sir.”
While he was delivering himself most eloquently on the merits
of the sherry, I had an opportunity to look about me and examine
the place.
Different parties were going from cask to cask, from hogshead
to hogshead, like my friend, trying each vintage, and tasting
brandies, and gins, and wines to their heart’s content.
I thought to myself, what a splendid boon these vaults would
be to a New York corner loafer, without restriction and with full
liberty to drink till he died like a soldier, contending to the last
against the enemy which deprives a man of his brains. The attend-
ants here never object to the amount called for, and a tasting
permit admits to all the privileges.
We were now standing in an arched alcove devoted exclusively
to the wines of Madeira, Teneriffe, and the Canary Islands. Some
of these huge casks held as many as seven hundred gallons, and
the rich, old, musty and fruity odors that came from them were
truly revivifying to my friend, who was loquacious under the in-
fluence of the sherry.
“This ere sexshin is for the Madeery,” said the bung starter.
“Will you try a little Madeery, sir?” said he.
“Well I don’t care if I do take a little Madeira — I don’t think
it will hurt me. Now I put it to you this way — I don’t think it
will hurt me if I am moderate?”
He seemed to relish this heavy and frnity wine very much, and
before he left the alcove he had “tasted” a good deal of the
Canary also smacking his lips lusciously.
Having made a lengthened inspection of the London Docks
I turned to leave and could not find my friend. After some
difficulty I discovered him afar off at the other end of the vaults
discussing with the cellarman what liquor he was next to taste.
“Yer honor might just taste a little of the Hennesey Brandy
of 1832 — it is very fine and runs down like hile.”
“By Gad, sir, the very thing — now that you mention it I will
try a little, just a leetle Hennesey brandy. I’ll put it to you in this
way — I don’t think it can hurt me — and the cellarman says it’s
just like oil. Now I recollect that oil never intoxicates. I will take
just the faintest tint.”
He did take the “faintest tint,” perhaps a good sized glassfull,
and he became so jolly, and affectionate, and good-natured,
embracing me and also the cellarman, that the latter personage
had at last to call a cab into which my friend was carried, and
after being propped up he was driven to his hotel.
Thirty thousand men find employment, daily, as laborers, in the
London Docks. Men who have been reduced by want, misfortune,
or by drunkeness, find in these vast commercial reservoirs, a
precarious means of subsistence, earning from eighteen pence
to two shillings a day, half of which generally goes for beer, or
potations of a heavier and more spirituous kind. This kind of
labor is unskilled and has for its propulsion mere manual strength,
so that, when a man fails in everything else, he may possibly
succeed as a dock laborer. The public houses frequented by the
laborers are situated in the dark alleys and crowded courts near
the river, and all of them partake of the brutal, low appearance
which distinguishes the London coal heaver and dock lifter.
