in which (if we mistake not) the British
Queen and the President were built; and
then there is a busy group of anchorsmiths,
copper merchants, mast and block makers,
shipping butchers, and ship–chandlers. Then,
advancing further south down the western
margin, we come to establishments of large
size. There are the huge anchors of Messrs.
Brown and Lenox, the timber preserving
works of Sir William Burnett, the white lead
and chemical works of Messrs. Pontifex and
Wood, the cement works of Messrs. Blashfield,
the engineering works of Swayne and Bovill,
of the Napiers, of John Scott Russell, and
of others, the mast and oar works of Messrs.
Ferguson, the works of the Bastenne bitumen
company, the metallic lava works of
Orsi and Armani; and such an array of
pitch and tar men, timber men, ship men,
lightermen, block and pump men, wire–rope
men, galvanized–iron men, ship–tank men,
and lime–burning men, as gives a very
peculiar character to this district. Advancing
beyond the Ferry House, and beginning to
mark the eastern contour of the island, we
encounter a—church a bran–new, pretty, early
English church. What saint is to patronise
it, we do not know; but at present it is
"Mr. Cubitt's church." Wherever this name
of six letters is found busy, we may be pretty
sure that a new town is about to spring up;
and without diving into the secrets of private
speculation, we may pretty securely guess
that the great builder has purchased a tract
of ground here, which he is bounding on one
side by a river wall, and which will, by and
bye, present factories and dwelling–houses in
considerable number. The Isle of Dogs is in
good hands, when such firms purchase an
interest in it. Further on, along the eastern
line, there are at present navvies and brick–
makers who have the region all their own—
they are forming a ship–building yard of some
six or seven acres, where, if we mistake not,
iron ship–building will be carried on on a
large scale. High price of coals and high
price of labour render ship–building in the
Thames somewhat more costly than in the
northern ports; but still there are abundant
reasons why London should supply a liberal
quota of floating castles; and it is a
distinguished honour to our Isle of Dogs that so
much of the Thames' ship–work should be
conducted in its immediate vicinity. Upward
and upward we bend our steps until Blackwall
begins to take the place of Millwall.
Strype says that Blackwall was so named
"because it is a wall of the Thames, and
distinguished by the additional term 'black,' from
the black shrubs which grew on it"—a theory
which strikes us as being rather a sorry one.
However, to Blackwall we do at length come;
and here we find that the Plough, and the
Artichoke, and the Brunswick taverns
present a degree of smartness which eclipses the
other Isle of Dogs' taverns—they tell of
whitebait dinners.

An embarrassing thought now presents
itself. Why do Cabinet Ministers eat whitebait?
And why do they eat them at the close
of the parliamentary session in a tavern at
Blackwall or Greenwich?  Whitebait, being
fish, are cold–blooded animals; but is there
on this ground any analogy between them
and Cabinet Ministers?  It is a phenomenon
both ichthyological and topographical, this
whitebait eating in the Isle of Dogs. Let us
see whether Mr. Yarrell's description of a whitebait
will furnish any clue to this subject:—
The whitebait, then, is a little fish, something
like the young of the shad, varying from two
to six inches in length. From the beginning
of April to the end of September it is caught
in the Thames, seldom higher than Woolwich
or Blackwall, at flood–tide. The fishery is of
rather a peculiar nature. The mouth of the
net has about three square feet of area, with
a very small mesh or bag–end. The boat is
moored in the tide–way, where the water is
from twenty to thirty feet deep, and the net
with its wooden framework is fixed to the
side of the boat. The tail of the hose, swimming
loose, is from time to time handed into
the boat, the end untied, and its contents
shaken out. The wooden frame forming the
mouth of the net does not dip more than four
feet below the surface of the water. The
further the fishermen go down towards the
mouth of the river, the sooner they begin
to catch whitebait after the flood–tide has
commenced. When fishing as high as Woolwich,
the tide must have flowed from three
to four hours, and the water become sensibly
brackish to the taste, before the whitebait
make their appearance. They return down
the river with the first of the ebb–tide;
and all attempts to preserve them in well–
boats, in pure fresh water, have failed. A
few whitebait are caught near the Isle
of Wight, and in the Firth of Forth; but
they are very little known except in the
Thames.

So far, there is very little analogy or
apparent connexion between a Cabinet Minister
and a whitebait. We will therefore see
whether M. Soyer's account of the method of
cooking this fish will elucidate the matter.
"This very delicate little fish," says the great
Gastronomic Regenerator, "is cooked in the
most simple manner. Dry them in a couple
of cloths, shake the cloths at the corner, but
do not touch the fish with your hands; then
have ready an equal quantity of bread–crumbs
and flour in a dish, throw the fish into it, toss
them lightly over with the hands, take them
out immediately, put them in a wire basket,
and fry them in very hot lard. One minute
will cook them; turn them out on a cloth,
sprinkle a little salt over them, dish them on
a napkin, and serve them very hot." The
same authority tells us, that "these lilliputian.
fishes never can be had at home in the
perfection you get them at Greenwich or Blackwall,
where they are obtained as soon as