Then come more wharfs and warehouses, as we
glide past, while our pace slackens, and we stop gently within a
stone's-throw of London Bridge, at Dyers' Hall, where we are bundled
out of the boat with as little ceremony as we were bundled in, and
with as little, indeed, as it has ever been the custom to use since
ceremony was invented--which, in matters of business, is a very
useless thing.
And now, my friend, you have accomplished a half-penny voyage; and
without being a conjuror, you can see how it is that this cheap
navigation is so much encouraged. In the first place, it is cheaper
than shoe-leather, leaving fatigue out of the question; it saves a
good two miles of walking, and that is no trifle, especially under a
heavy burden, or in slippery weather. In the second place, it may be
said to be often cheaper than dirt, seeing that the soil and injury to
clothing which it saves by avoiding a two miles' scamper through the
muddy ways, would damage the purse of a decent man more than would the
cost of several journeys. These are considerations which the humbler
classes appreciate, and therefore they flock to the cheap boats, and
spend their halfpence to save their pence and their time. This latter
consideration of time-saving it is that brings another class of
customers to the boats. In order that it may be remunerative to the
projectors, every passage must be made with a regular and undeviating
rapidity; and this very necessity becomes in its turn a source of
profit, because it is a recommendation to a better class of business
men and commercial agents, to whom a saving of time is daily a matter
of the utmost importance.
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