But no longer is Greenwich dignified by the ministerial whitebait dinners that were once held at the “Ship.” These once famous entertainments that generally marked the close of the parliamentary summer session originated in a casual way, about 1798, when the commissioners of Dagenham Breach invited Pitt to be a guest at their annual fish dinner at Dagenham. The occasion was successful enough to be repeated, and the scene was eventually changed to a tavern, sometimes at Blackwall and sometimes at Greenwich. By this time the annual feast had developed into a Tory ministerial event, and proved so useful in the strengthening of party ties that the Whigs, when in office, adopted the custom. The Greenwich ministerial whitebait dinners, held either at the “Ship,” the “Crown and Sceptre,” or the “Trafalgar,” were formerly accompanied by something of what, in less exalted circles, we should style the showy “beanfeast” element; for the Royal and Admiralty barges, gay with bunting, conveyed the guests to the scene of jollity, and back. Only the concertinas were lacking. The function was first broken during the Gladstonian administration of 1868–74. In that last year, with the triumph of the Conservatives, Disraeli revived it, but the excursion was made by steamer instead of by barge. And so it continued, through the next Liberal term of office, until 1883, when it was again discontinued; to be revived on only one occasion since, in 1894, during the short-lived administration of Lord Rosebery. Not only Ministers of the Crown resorted to Greenwich for whitebait dinners: they were long popular with Londoners in general; but now that the swiftest of communication with London is obtainable, this most easily perishable of fish is just as readily to be had there, and Greenwich has suffered in consequence. Whitebait, supposed by some to be a distinct species of fish, and declared by others to be merely the small fry of herring, are caught between Blackwall and Greenwich, said to be the only waters in which they are found. All the way from Greenwich to Woolwich, a matter of three miles, run the electric trams; the river going in a bold loop almost due north, along Blackwall Reach. A fine, broad, new road runs across the dreary flats to the Blackwall Tunnel; and all along these once solitary levels great modern factories are springing up. The explorer will not get much joy of going that way; nor indeed will he find much by going ahead into Woolwich, for the mean things that fringe about the skirts of a great city are abundantly evident.