house-men, and thrown from boats with
heavy weights tied to them, into the pit
where the water and the gas tell no tales.
There, may be mangled corpses brought by
assassins on horseback, as Cæsar Borgia
brought his brother the Duke of Gandia, to
the Tiber, and thrown into the dull plashing
stream, with stones in their cloaks to make
them sink. There, may be dead men, drowned
in stepping from one ship to another, or who
have slipped off planks, drunk, or fallen from
mast-heads, or who have leaped into the river
to escape pressgangs, or robbers, or river policemen.
There, may be "run" cargoes of
contraband goods, tobacco, fiery spirits, rich
silk or delicate lace; there, may be bales of
goods plundered by fresh-water thieves from
foreign ships, and sunk by bullets and
iron weights until the time shall serve for
fishing them up again. There, may be
the suicide of yesterday; the wayward
boy, once the pride and hope of the family;
the girl, once loved and prized; the ruined
spendthrift; the hopeless bankrupt; the
desperate man, driven by an intolerable misery
and utter hunger and nakedness, to cast
himself into these jaws of death as into a bed of
slumber and soft repose. Oh you gas upon
the bridges! how many times have the
garments of forlorn women gleamed in your
unpitying light as they flung themselves from
the high parapet into the abyss beneath. Oh
you gas! how many sighs and prayers and
words of despairing farewell! There was a
shriek, a plunge, a plash, the vertical
reflection of the gas was for a moment broken
into zigzag sparkles by a body combating
with the remorseless river. Then, the waters
of death went over the head of mortality, and
all was still and all was over. Oh gas!
Where are they now? The hope of the
family, the focus of tender love, and anxious
care, and fond aspirations. The advertisements
which entreat them to return are yet
in the Times; the bills which describe their
appearance are yet on the walls; the watchers
at home are waiting; the river men are out
with drags; but the water holds them fast,
and the gas shines secretly above them, and
they shall no more appear in the comeliness
of life and love. If we ever hear of these,
oh gas, it will be, at best, at the grim
dead house by the waterside, and their
only epitaph will be the awful placard on
the wall of the Police Station, "Dead body
found."

Fast does the gas keep the secrets of the
river. They cannot escape. The janitor gas-
lamps guard either side. They watch over
long lines of docks, and see that no light, save
their own, appear about gaunt-masted ships,
and strong bricken warehouses where the old
wines ooze into toping casks, and muddle
them with vinous fumes; where the sawdust
is purpled with emptied glasses; where the
spiral threads which the coopers' gimlet has
made, dance; where the great wreaths of
cobwebs, hang lazily from the roof as if quite
gone in liquor and overcome with the tasting
orders of years; where floors A and B, and
cellarages C and D, are pungent with pepper
and tobacco and guano, and fragrant with
coffee and spices, and sickly with oranges
and grapes, and sticky with figs and muscovado
and molasses, and herboraceous with
crisp teas and chicory and pemmican, and
ammoniacally nauseous with horns and hoofs
and untanned skins, and oleaginous with
tallow and palm oil, and hive-smelling with
bees'-wax, and drowsy and vapid with huge
chests of opium, packed by Turkish rayahs
or Hindoo ryots, and in its black flabby cakes
concentrating Heaven knows how much
madness, and misery, and death, strangely mingled
with soothing relief from pain and with
sparkling gaiety. The gas hems in the
stealthy dockyard watchman going his rounds,
the beetle-browed convict in the dismantled
grated-ported hulks, the swift galleys of the
Thames Police, the moaning sufferers in
the Dreadnought hospital-ship; the gas
throws into skeleton relief the ribs and
timbers of half-ribbed ships, the stripped
and spectral hulks of condemned and broken-
up vessels rotting in the mud. The gas
twinkles on the trellised panes of the Gothic
windows of the great Parliament Houses, and
listens slily to the late debates. The gas
feebly illumines the blackened coal barges
and lighters, full of bricks and huge paving-
stones. It shines at the end of the landing
stages, and at the feet of the slimy river
stairs, upon moored wherries and  river steam-
boats so bustling and busy by day, so hushed
and quiet by night. The gas shines on the
time-worn bastions of the Tower; the gas
knows the secrets of the honeycombed old
cannon better than their tompions; the gas
knows the password and the countersign; the
gas is aware of the slow-pacing sentinel; the
gas mirrors itself in the darkling stream
which gurgles about the heavy timber
barricades, with which the better feeling of the
age has blocked up the Traitor's gate. The
gas is too young to relate to you the secrets
of the Tower in days gone by. It lighted
not Elizabeth climbing the slimy stairs, and
sitting down, defiant of her gaolers, at the top;
it has no knowledge of Jane Grey creeping
to her doom; it has not seen the furtive
wherries with the warders and halberdiers in
the stern, and the prisoners in the midst,
rowing towards the gate of death. It has
not seen the courtly mien of Surrey; the
gallant grey hairs, the toil and travel and
trouble furrowed, but yet handsome face
of Raleigh; the fierce white locks of the
Countess of Pembroke; the sneers and
sarcasms and wicked wrinkles of Simon Lord
Lovat; the blue eyes and gentle smile
of Derwentwater; the stern heroism of
Charles Radcliffe; the crazy fanaticism of
George Gordon; the Spa-fields and Cato
Street enthusiasm of the poor feeble traitor