3-043-773 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Leaving the Port of London, 1872. 'The traveller by sea from the port of London...is frequently exposed to discomforts which he might avoid by taking the railway...when the vessel lies in mid-river, just below the Tower, and can only be approached by hiring a boat at the Irongate Stairs, the trouble, annoyance, and extortion which one has to endure cannot be lightly esteemed. It is not, we believe, the licensed watermen themselves who are so much in fault, as the disorderly mob of rude fellows who seize upon the traveller's luggage when taken from his cab, and volunteer their services to place it in the boat. They will abuse you and curse you if you decline to employ them, or they will carry off your property without your consent; and their demands are monstrous, amounting sometimes to more than the cab and the boatman's regular charge put together. Neither the cab-driver nor the waterman has authority to interfere with the lawless "roughs" who pretend to transfer the luggage from its vehicle on land to its vehicle on the water. There is no policeman to check their violence: and for the unprotected female or the inexperienced male traveller - for such victims of extortion as these we are not aware that any remedy is yet provided'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.