On reaching London we found that the freight steamer on which the car
had been shipped had not yet arrived. As Ruth was most anxious to
see her sister, who lives in Yorkshire, she was persuaded to proceed
by train and leave me to bring on the car alone. This was, indeed, a
happy solution of a problem which had caused me some anxiety. I was
quite ready to risk one valuable life, but did not care to risk two!
The next day I received word that the _Georgic_ had arrived at the
Tilbury docks, and that the car was being held "at the risk of the
owner." I had been advised to take a chauffeur with me and not to
attempt to drive the car into London myself, which advice I followed.
When we arrived at Tilbury, which is about twenty-five miles from
London, we found the car, still in its crate, standing on the docks.
There were few formalities to be complied with, and a carpenter was
soon at work opening the case.
While waiting I fell into conversation with the third officer, who
had charge of the unloading of the vessel, and expressed my
admiration of the docks, and said I wished we had some equal to them
in New York. He admitted they were a fine bit of work, but said that
the possibilities of our port were the greatest in the world. "I
have often wished," he added, "that I might see that port fifty years
hence. You see, it is the only great city in the world that is
directly on the sea, and therefore has much the same advantage now
that Venice had of old. The East River, being as it were a canal,
connecting New York Bay with Long Island Sound, and the Hudson being
an estuary of the sea, the largest ships can dock almost in the heart
of the city, discharge cargo, then load again and pass out at any
tide. Nowhere else is such a thing possible."
I said I was thinking rather of the cleanliness and "smartness" of
the docks than of their convenience.
"I grant you," he said, "that we beat you there. But already you are
replacing your old wooden docks with concrete, which will last as
long as stone. The reason your docks are not so clean as ours is
because of the high price of unskilled labor with you. If we had to
pay twelve shillings a day to the man who sweeps and tidies up, we
should have to have the work done twice a week as you do."
"Well," said I, "that means that we shall never be able to have docks
and streets as clean as yours."
"If it did," he replied, "there are better things than neatness.
Neatness may imply poverty on the part of labor, and poverty leads to
drink and so to the breeding of more poverty."
"Still," I urged, "though neatness may imply poverty, slovenliness
shows a lack of self-respect. A city that cannot keep its front
door-step clean is a bad neighbor."
He laughed at this homely illustration but said the solution of the
problem must be found in another way. "It is all very well to talk
of the 'dignity' of labor, but where is the dignity in sweeping up
dung?--perhaps taking up the last of it in one's hands. No man does
it willingly, he is driven to it by necessity."