Ned Ward, in his _London Spy_, describes the sailors he met with in his day in this neighbourhood, and says, "Sometimes we met in the street with a boat's crew just come on shore, in search of those land debaucheries which the sea denies them; looking like such wild, staring, gamesome, uncouth animals, that a litter of squab rhinoceroses drest up in human apparel could not have made a more ungainly appearance.... Every post they came near was in danger of having its head broken; for every one as he passed by gave the senseless block a bang with his cudgel, as if they wished every post they met to be either the boatswain or the purser. The very dogs in the street shunned them with as much fear as a loitering vagrant would a gang of press-masters, being so cautioned against their ill usage by the stripes they had formerly received, that, as soon as ever they saw a seaman, away ran the poor curs, with their tails between their legs, to avoid the danger of the approaching evil. I could not forbear reflecting on the 'prudence' (?) of those persons who send their unlucky children to sea to tame and reform them." Even now, after all the alterations and improvements which have been made, there are places in the neighbourhood of St. Katherine and the London Docks which present almost the same features as they did a century or two ago, and such may be found within five minutes' walk of the Docks we are describing. No contrast can be greater than that between the west and the east end of London; the very houses, dresses, and language of the inhabitants are different; for in the latter their talk is "all of ships." Here, at the shop-doors dangle oil-case nor'-westers, with long fantails behind, telling that, unlike the hats in Bond-street, these are made to keep a billow that breaks over the head out of the nape of the neck; while the rough pilot-coats that hang like skins about the tent of a Russian bear-hunter, proclaim that they were never made to be worn in "a lady's chamber," but to be donned where the winds whistle, and the sea-gulls scream, and the big waves come roaring after each other like a thousand unchained hungry lions. There you see the gaudy handkerchief which Jack loves to leave a little out, that it may be seen from his blue jacket-pocket; those slops, in the whiteness of which he prides himself; and the checked shirt that he delights to throw open about his sun-browned throat, while he leaves the fringed corners of his black neckerchief to flutter like a pennon in the breeze. There is a forecastle-smell about the streets, a minglement of junk and rum, tar and biscuit, casks, ropes, and tobacco, not unpleasant to one who is proud of the wave-washed island on which he was born.