Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London . Strange stories have been told about these docks, and thethirsty souls who visit them with tasting-orders; how the brawnycoopers stride about with candles in cleft sticks, and, piercing caskswith gimlets, pour out the rich contents, upon the sawdust that coversthe floor, like water ; how cases of champagne are treated as of as littleaccount as though they were cases of small beer; how plates of cheese-crumbs are handed round to amateurs that they may chasten theirpalates and keep them in good tone of taste ; how the coopers
Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London . Strange stories have been told about these docks, and thethirsty souls who visit them with tasting-orders; how the brawnycoopers stride about with candles in cleft sticks, and, piercing caskswith gimlets, pour out the rich contents, upon the sawdust that coversthe floor, like water ; how cases of champagne are treated as of as littleaccount as though they were cases of small beer; how plates of cheese-crumbs are handed round to amateurs that they may chasten theirpalates and keep them in good tone of taste ; how the coopers are wellnigh infallible in detecting who are the tasters that visit these (i winevaults with a genuine intention of buying, and who the epicureans,whose only object in visiting the London Docks is to drink, gratuitouslyon the premises, as much good wine as they can conveniently , very strange stories, too, are told of the occasional inconve-nience into which the convenient carriage degenerates ; of respect- ONE —DOCK LONDON AND DINING LONDON. 137. 138 TWICE ROUND THE CLOCK. able fathers of families appearing in the open street, after they haverun the tether of the tasting-order, staggering and dishevelled, andwith bloodshot eyes, their cravats twisted round to the backs of theirnecks like bagwigs, and incoherently declaring that cheese alwaysdisagreed with them. I am candidly of opinion, however, that themajority of these legends are apocryphal, or, in the rare cases whenthey have a foundation in fact, belong to the history of the past, andthat commercial sobriety, in the highest order, is the rule in the winevaults of the London Docks. But the Ships ! Who shall describe those white-sailed camels ? whoshall tell in graphic words of the fantastic interlacing of their mastsand rigging, of the pitchy burliness of their bulging sides ; of thehives of human ants who in barges and lighters surround them, orswarm about their cargo-cumbered decks ? Strange sight to s
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Keywords: ., bookauthormcconnel, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1859
