It would not be hard for a gentleman brought face to face with a broken chest of tea to fill his pockets with a loose pound or two, for instance. The search at the gate stops that. Knowing that detection is certain, those men who would be dishonest if they could get a chance see the impossibility of escaping with their plunder, and so, making a virtue of necessity, respect the eighth commandment. The Docks are in the custody of a special body of Dock-police, who maintain order, keep guard night and day over the goods in the warehouse, search the men, and check all the carts and vans passing out or in at the gates, and are generally responsible for everything. The boys employed as messengers between the Dock House in Billiter Street and the Docks themselves, and also the lads employed on the spot, are all dressed in a remarkably neat uniform, and add to the picturesqueness of the busy scene. All these boys are drilled, and come to attention and salute their superiors with the precision of old soldiers. I have given a little space to the inside of the Docks because such numbers of the men whose homes we have visited in previous chapters are employed there, and it is there that unskilled labour finds the readiest market. But it is outside that one must search for the misery which those who know them best acknowledge to be the commonest lot of the Dock-labourer. Inside, when the men are at work, the beer barrel on a stand with wheels is trundled merrily along at certain hours, and there is a contractor who supplies the men with food. It is outside that the beer barrel and the food contractor find their occupation gone. Poverty in its grimmest form exists here, and it is for these men, struggling so bravely and waiting so patiently for the work their hands are only too willing to do, that philanthropists might look a little more earnestly into the question of house accommodation. Looking at the uncertainty of employment, it is not hard for anyone to see that a rent of five shillings for a single room is too much for these men to pay, and they cannot go out into the suburbs, where rents are cheaper, because they could not get to the Docks in anything like condition to work. These men must live within a reasonable distance of their labour, and to do so they have to pay exorbitant prices for vile accommodation. They are kept in the lowest depths of poverty, because rent almost exhausts all the money--all that the luckiest can hope to earn.