The construction of the great docks has completely changed this
quarter. The Precinct of St. Katherine's by the Tower has almost
entirely disappeared, being covered by St. Katherine's Dock; the
London Dock has reduced Wapping to a strip covered with warehouses.
But the church remains, so frankly proclaiming itself of the
eighteenth century, with its great churchyard. The new Dock Basin,
Limehouse Basin, and the West India Docks, have sliced huge cantles
out of Shadwell, Limehouse, and Poplar; the little private docks and
boat-building yards have disappeared; here and there the dock remains,
with its river gates gone, an ancient barge reposing in its black mud;
here and there may be found a great building which was formerly a
warehouse when ship-building was still carried on. That branch of
industry was abandoned after 1868, when the shipwrights struck. Their
action transferred the ship-building of the country to the Clyde, and
threw out of work thousands of men who had been earning large wages in
the yards. Before this unlucky event Riverside London had been rough
and squalid, but there were in it plenty of people earning good
wages--skilled artisans, good craftsmen. Since then it has been next
door to starving.
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