by
two doors in the middle of the north side, opening from
a good-sized hall in which are held the meetings of the Benevolent Society and
other associations connected with the officers of Her Majesty's Customs. It is
surrounded by a flat counter, with a cross section at the east end of the
room. Behind this counter sit some four dozen clerks of various ranks, the space
being parcelled out among the different requirements of the service in the
manner shown in the accompanying diagram; the course of the captain of an
English vessel lying, on each voyage out and home, from A to I, in
regular alphabetical order. The captain of a foreign vessel commences his
travels at C, taking A and B at the conclusion of his
experiences.At A is kept a careful record of the names, owners, and measurement of all vessels belonging to the port of London, with a full account of all mortgages, transfers, bills of sale, &c., effected on them; the duplicate record of out-port and colonial registry having been transferred since 1873 to the office of the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen in Basinghall-street. At this counter, also, the vessel is supplied on her first entry into life with her nationality papers, or baptismal certificate, in the shape of a parchment document wherein are recorded full particulars of her tonnage, construction, load line, &c., as ascertained by previous survey by officers of the Board of Trade, with her name and official number, the former of which must be painted in letters of certain prescribed dimensions on stem and stern, whilst the latter has to be cut indelibly into the solid wood of the main beam. Should she not be on her first voyage, some of these formalities will of course be omitted; but any structural alterations, any change of name, or generally any departure from the conditions as noted in her original certificate, must here be noted before she can again obtain permission to leave the port of London, even for the most trifling voyage. Until quite recently this permission could be evaded by the simple process of a transfer, actual or collusive, to a foreign flag. A vessel might even have been seized by the officers of the Board of Trade as altogether rotten and unseaworthy; but notice would be given at counter A of her Mons. Crapaud, or Mynheer van Donck, and she would hoist her new flag and defy Her Majesty's Customs to refuse her permission to carry it to the bottom in her own way. Thanks to the strenuous exertions of Mr. Thomas Gray of the Board of Trade, the present Merchant Shipping Act has abolished this privilege. Counter A will still record the fact that the ship has been transferred to a foreign flag, but she will be under just the same requirements as to surveys and so forth as before. These preliminaries completed, she next puts in an appearance in the compartment B, marked off at the east end of the room, where all business is transacted in connection with her entry and clearance outwards; the former phrase, it must be understood, having reference not to her personal coming into harbour, but to her entry in the books of the office as about to sail. Her business in this section concluded, and her papers in due order for departure, she has now nothing further to do in the Long Room until her return, when her captain's first duty is to present himself within at the utmost twenty-four hours of his arrival, in company with the broker or his representative, at counter C, where Bills of Sight and Baggage Sufferances are issued, and where he hands in his report in the shape of a detailed list of every article on board, whether cargo or surplus items remaining from the ship's stores, with all particulars as to addresses, marks, &c., on each individual package. To the correctness of this list he has to pledge himself by a statutory "declaration:" the clerk at counter C being always a magistrate for the purposes of such declarations. This done - and about five-and-forty such reoports are received on an average daily from foreign-going ships alone - the captain's personal duties in connection with the Long Room are generally over for the voyage: the customary course being for the broker to transact all further business. But it is all supposed to be done by the captain himself, whose position in respect of responsibility is worth a passing glance as affording a more than commonly quaint illustration of the facility with with which logic may be dispensed with in the practical affairs of business life. The process of taking in and delivering cargo is as follows. The bills of lading or lists of articles to be sent on board, with the marks on each package, are made up, of course, by or for the shipper. The articles are then received on board, and in the receipt compared package by package with the bill of lading by the chief mate. On arrival the second mate takes up the running, and personally superintending the re-delivery of the goods which his superior officer has received, whilst meanwhile the bills of lading have been, as a rule, forwarded by post to the broker at the port of arrival, by whom the report is made out from them for the purposes of the declaration at the Custom House. The one person connected with the ship in any recognised position, who has no control over, no connection with, and no personal knowledge of any single item of cargo or stores, is the captain. After which it is probably superfluous to remark that he is the one person responsible step by step for the whole transaction. Accordingly when any error or discrepancy occurs in the report, it is the captain who is officially called upon for an explanation, and on whom in inflicted the fine or other penalty imposed by the Board on the offence. In the case, however, of a foreign captain manifestly ignorant of English rules of procedure, the Board commonly takes a lenient view, and imposes only a nominal penalty. The report delivered, and permission received at counter C for the landing or warehousing of the vessel's cargo, the next visit is to counter D, where light and pilotage dues are paid for the voyage. The remaining operations have to do with the cargo only, and consist in paying at counter E the duty on any tea that may be included in it; or at counter F occupying the whole of the northwest corner of the room, upon all wines, spirits, coffee, or tobacco. These two counters are officially known as constituting the Treasury Branch. The whole Clearance Department is divided for official purposes into two branches, the second being for warehoused tea only, while the first is subdivided into two sections, the first of which is devoted to all goods for house consumption other than tea, wine, or spirits; all "prime" entries of any description of goods, and all fines and monies not duties other than charges. Payments can be made in coin or bank-notes, by transfer, or banker's cheque, which is a draft on the Bank of England which may be obtained from any of the banks in the following list and are accepted as "cash," or by the merchant's own cheque on any of those banks, crossed "Bank of England for Customs' Duties." These cheques, however, are not received after 2 pm., and are only forwarded for clearance three times a day, viz., at 10, 12, and 2 o'clock. Receipts for amounts so paid are only given after the actual payment of the amount into the Bank of England. Receipts for duties are forwarded from the Treasury to the Long Room at alternate intervals of ten and twenty minutes, viz., at 15, 25, 45, and 55 minutes after each hour. These deliveries would be made every quarter of an hour, but despatches being made to the docks every half-hour, the alternate deliveries of receipts are advanced five minutes each to ensure correspondence. Cash is received up to 3.30 p.m., except on Saturdays, when it in received up to 2.30 pm. only. The following are the banks on which cheques may be drawn, and from which transfers may be obtained:
Alliance Bank, Bartholomew-lane.
Bank of England.
Bank of Scotland, Lothbury.
Barclay and Co., Lombard-street.
Barnett, Hanbury and Co., Bir chin-lane.
Bosanquet, Salt and Co., Lombard-street.
British Linen Co., 10, King William-street.
Brown, Janson and Co., Abchurch-lane.
Capital and Counties Bank, Threadneedle-street.
Central Bank of London, Cornhill.
Cheque Bank, 124, Cannon-street.
City Bank, Threadneedle-street.
Consolidated Bank, Threadneedle-street.
Dimsdale and Co., Cornhill.
Fuller and Co., Lombard-street.
Glyn, Mills, Currie and Co., Lombard-street.
Imperial Bank, Lothbury.
London Joint Stock, Princes-street.
London and County, Lombard-street.
London and South Western Bank, 7, Fenchurch-street.
London and Westminster, Loth bury.
Martin and Co., Lombard-street.
Merchant blanking Co., 112, Cannon-street.
Metropolitan, Cornhill.
National, Old Broad-street.
National Provincial, Bishopsgate-street.
Prescott and Co., Threadneedle-street.
Robarts and Co., Lombard-street.
Smith and Co., Lombard-street.
Union Bank, Princes-street.
Williams and Co., Birchin-lane.
In the opposite corner of the principal compartment of the room, at G, bonds are given for the removal of goods from port to port, either at home or abroad, without previous payment of duty. This is the busiest part of the room, a little string of merchants being almost continually in waiting at the counter.
Persons desiring to enter into bond must execute a notice of bond in an instrument setting forth the nature and value of the goods according to their tariff rating, together with the name and address of the person proposed as surety and the amount of stamp duty. Before sending in this notice it should be ascertained that the surety will be able to attend at the Bond Office; and if the bond is for exportation of goods, observe that the vessel is entered outwards, and that the port of landing corresponds with the entry of the vessel. In the case of notices of bond for transhipmsent it must be first certified at the Report Office that the goods have been duly reported in transit, and a correct account of them must be endorsed on the transhipment bond-note. An appreciable economy of time is occasionally effected by persons preparing their own bonds. If it is designed to adopt this course it should be signified at the time of tendering notice. Great care must be taken in checking the form of bond and the amount of stamp. Quantities should always be given in words, and erasures and additions avoided. Before the bond is signed it should be handed in for examination. When the bond is executed the fact is certified upon the bond-note, and the same is returned to the merchant in cases of exportation or transhipment ; but when the removal of warehoused goods is in question, the bond-notes are taken to their destination by the appointed messengers, who are despatched from the Long Room every thirty minutes during office hours. In the case of warehoused tea the bond-notes are taken to the tea department every fifteen minutes. By a general order dated August, 1849, it is permitted that articles of the same nature taken out for exportation may be described in the bond under their generic instead of their specific denomination, as "Spirits," &c. When this is done security is exacted in double the highest rate of duty on the article, it resting with the Controllers of Accounts to see that the correct description is endorsed upon the bond-note before delivery. Under the Act 33 and 34 Vic. C. 97, the stamp duties payable upon bonds taken in the Long Room are:
When the penalty does not exceed £25 0s. 8d
When the penalty does not exceed £50 1s. 3d.
When exceeding £50 and not exceeding £100 2s. 6d.
When exceeding £100 and not exceeding £150 3s. 9d.
When exceeding £150 5s. 0d.
Under the Cattle Plague Act the amount of bond to be given on the importation of a milch cow is fixed at £100. Bonds for passenger vessels, for the removal and deposit of oysters, and for the exportation of tobacco entitled to Customs' drawback, are exempt from stamp duty. The time allowed for the due landing of goods exported under bond to any port of Europe, including Malta and its dependencies, or to the east coast of North America, is three months ; to all other ports six months; but discretion is vested in the collector to allow a longer period in such cases as may seem to him to require it.
These bonds are all ready printed, and the process of filling up and completing barely occupies a minute; but the applications are like those at the pit-door when a popular piece is running, and the shillings and half-crowns for the needful stamps pass in in a continuous stream. At counter H, occupying the whole north-east corner of the longer compartment of the room, a good deal of business is also carried on, duties being here paid on bonded goods taken out for sale. Finally, at the little office at I, at the inner end of the southern half of the cross counter, are paid the City Coal and Wine Dues, together with what are known as the "Orphan Dues," formerly collected its this office for the direct benefit of City orphans.
Finally, when a British vessel's last voyage is done, either merely as such by reason of a change in her nationality, or absolutely through her actual decease, whether by stranding or foundering, or by the rarer "natural death" of the ship.breaker's yard, her last official obsequies are celebrated at the same counter A at which her official career commenced; her ultimate fate and its cause is duly noted in the ponderous register wherein has been recorded, step by step, every important incident of her life, and a closing endorsement on her baptismal certificate converts it into one of death and burial, henceforth to be laid up among the archives of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen.
Remains only the little counter it between the two entrance doors, the functions attached to which are quite distinct from those of the remainder of the Long Room. Counter K neither receives money nor issues documents, nor, indeed, transacts any actual business of any kind. Its property is solely thus collecting and affording information as to the doings of the rest of the room, and its wording is of the utmost importance to the convenience of the mercantile world.
If any person shall, in any matter relating to the Customs, make and subscribe any declaration false or untrue in any particular, or if any person required to answer any question put by officers of Customs shall not truly answer such questions or shall falsify or counterfeit any document, or wilfully use any document so falsified or counterfeited, he shall forfeit for every such offence the sum of £100.
After office hours the Long Room is used as a drill-room for the two Custom House regiments of volunteers, the 26th Middlesex (Rifles), and the 2nd Middlesex (Artillery), whose guns are housed at either end of the entrance-hall.
The remainder of the establishment is divided into the following departments:
WEST WING. - Ground Floor: Tea Office; Comptroller of Tea Accounts; Laboratory; Dry Goods, London Docks Pay Office; Controller of Outdoor Staff; Surveyor Inspector General; Principal Inspector of Gaugers. First Floor: Comptroller of Accounts ; Legal Quays Department; Pay Office; Treasury; Bench Office; Principal Surveyor for Tonnage. Second Floor: Customs' Benevolent Fund; Accountant and Controller General.
EAST WING - Ground Floor: Register Office; Home and Statistical; Fishing Office; Superintendents of Lockers Medical Inspector. First Floor: Petition Office: Secretary's Department; Official Post Office. Second Floor: Bill of Entry; Sugar Assessment Surveyor of Buildings; Solicitor; Surveyor General. Third Floor: Fireman. The Long Room on the first, and the Queen's Warehouse belonging to the Receiver of Wrecks on the ground floor, stretch into both wings, occupying the chief part of the whole area.