THE INTERNAL NAVIGATION


The London world, visitors as well as residents, are well
acquainted also with Somerset House; and it is moreover tolerably
well known that Somerset House is a nest of public offices, which
are held to be of less fashionable repute than those situated in
the neighbourhood of Downing Street, but are not so decidedly
plebeian as the Custom House, Excise, and Post Office.

But there is one branch of the Civil Service located in Somerset
House, which has little else to redeem it from the lowest depths
of official vulgarity than the ambiguous respectability of its
material position. This is the office of the Commissioners of
Internal Navigation. The duties to be performed have reference to
the preservation of canal banks, the tolls to be levied at locks,
and disputes with the Admiralty as to points connected with tidal
rivers. The rooms are dull and dark, and saturated with the fog
which rises from the river, and their only ornament is here and
there some dusty model of an improved barge. Bargees not
unfrequently scuffle with hobnailed shoes through the passages,
and go in and out, leaving behind them a smell of tobacco, to
which the denizens of the place are not unaccustomed.

Indeed, the whole office is apparently infected with a leaven of
bargedom. Not a few of the men are employed from time to time in
the somewhat lethargic work of inspecting the banks and towing-
paths of the canals which intersect the country. This they
generally do seated on a load of hay, or perhaps of bricks, in