The "Tackle House" and City Porter Companies complained that if the import and export business were removed beyond the city limits, their right to the exclusive privilege of unloading and delivering all merchandise imported into the city would be worthless. The carmen who enjoyed a similar privilege and monopoly made the same complaint, and they stated that Christ's Hospital, an institution much revered by all Londoners, derived an income of four thousand pounds a year from the licenses under which they held their monopoly; the watermen, who were then numbered by thousands, foretold that the establishment of docks would deprive one half of their number of bread; the lightermen stated that they had a capital of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds invested in tackle and craft, employed to transport merchandise, which capital would be annihilated if ships were allowed to discharge their cargoes on quays within docks; the proprietors of the "legal quays" as they were called, and the "sufferance wharves," or wharves which held no legal title, all prophesied that the trade of London would be ruined at once if the new system of docks was established. However these people differed in some details of their grievances, they all concurred in stating that unloading ships in closed docks would be more expensive than discharging them into lighters in the river. On the other hand the advocates of the new system estimated on paper that the unloading of five hundred hogsheads of sugar from a vessel could be done in the new docks for about three hundred and fifty dollars of American money less than under the old lighterage and open quay system, to say nothing of the greater safety of the property thus enclosed in dock walls. Finally, Parliament passed an act creating the new docks and granting a compensation of four hundred and eighty-six thousand and eighty-seven pounds to the proprietors of the legal quays in addition to the sum of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-one pounds which was paid to persons having "vested rights" in the mooring claims on the river. Altogether the cost of the different London Docks, including ground purchases, etc., was about thirty millions of dollars. The West India Docks were the first opened in 1802, and the citizens of London have, I am sure, no cause to regret the decision which gave them the finest and safest system of wharfage in the world. The passenger traffic, by water, which transpires daily between London and Continental cities and towns is incalculable. This of course does not include the traffic almost as great between London and American and Colonial ports. You can go from London to New York in a splendid stateroom with every comfort and luxury at sea, for about one hundred and thirty dollars, or you can take passage in a steerage, herding like a beast as best you may for about forty dollars, by steam.