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.
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