Eastern police magistrate had said, through the morning papers,
that there was no classification at the Wapping workhouse for
women, and that it was a disgrace and a shame, and divers other
hard names, and because I wished to see how the fact really stood.
For, that Eastern police magistrates are not always the wisest men
of the East, may be inferred from their course of procedure
respecting the fancy-dressing and pantomime-posturing at St.
George's in that quarter: which is usually, to discuss the matter
at issue, in a state of mind betokening the weakest perplexity,
with all parties concerned and unconcerned, and, for a final
expedient, to consult the complainant as to what he thinks ought to
be done with the defendant, and take the defendant's opinion as to
what he would recommend to be done with himself.

Long before I reached Wapping, I gave myself up as having lost my
way, and, abandoning myself to the narrow streets in a Turkish
frame of mind, relied on predestination to bring me somehow or
other to the place I wanted if I were ever to get there. When I
had ceased for an hour or so to take any trouble about the matter,
I found myself on a swing-bridge looking down at some dark locks in
some dirty water. Over against me, stood a creature remotely in
the likeness of a young man, with a puffed sallow face, and a
figure all dirty and shiny and slimy, who may have been the
youngest son of his filthy old father, Thames, or the drowned man
about whom there was a placard on the granite post like a large
thimble, that stood between us.

I asked this apparition what it called the place? Unto which, it
replied, with a ghastly grin and a sound like gurgling water in its
throat: