I have read somewhere a funny story, which really appears to be true as well as funny, of a witness in the local police-court, who, asked his occupation by the Bench, replied that he was a professional man. “What profession?” inquired the magistrate. “Well,” said the witness diffidently, “I walk on the pier of an afternoon, and see the boats in!” This sly humorist--if that is his proper description--narrowly escaped committal for contempt of court. But the Admiralty Pier has ever been the resort of people, resident in Dover, whose chief interest in life has seemed just this same seeing in the boats; and now that the Admiralty Pier and the great new harbour-works have provided a much more extended promenade, the “profession” has become correspondingly enlarged. Dover is an ambitious place, and intends to compete vigorously with Southampton, Plymouth, and Liverpool for overseas traffic. That is all very enterprising, but what it gains as a strategic base, as a place of arms, and as a great commercial port, it will inevitably lose in its capacity as a residential and seaside town. For the rest, it is rapidly becoming a place of monuments. Prominent among these is the bronze portrait-bust of Captain Webb, the first person to swim the Channel. It was unveiled early in 1910, and stands upon a red granite obelisk bearing an inscription recording his famous swim from Dover to Calais, 21 miles in 21 hours 55 minutes, August 24th, 1875. Many attempts--much advertised and conducted with every aid to success--have since been made to rival Webb’s fine performance; but all proved failures until September 6th, 1911, when Thomas William Burgess, after numerous disappointments, swam from near the South Foreland, Dover, to Le Chatelet, near Calais, in 22 hours 35 minutes: 40 minutes longer than the time taken by Captain Webb. It was his sixteenth attempt. The occasion was made the very most of, in the hysterical manner of the age; from a congratulatory telegram from the King down to the excited comments of the halfpenny press. Webb’s finer performance of thirty-six years earlier was a comparatively obscure affair. It is a rather saddening instance of the decay of the national character, under the lead of advertisers and half-educated journalists, bent upon sensation-mongering. The Channel crossing is no longer solely concerned with tunnelling, swimming, or steamboat travelling. The conquest of the air provides a newer way. So long ago as March 22nd, 1882, Colonel Burnaby crossed in a balloon from Dover. Starting at 10 a.m., he landed at Montigny, Normandy, at 2.15 p.m. Burnaby knew Dover well. An out-of-the-way association with him will be found in the hill-top cemetery, where one epitaph at least has the rare quality of true sympathy. It was placed by him over the grave of his servant, George Radford, and runs: “True as steel. This stone is erected by the man he served so well.”