Note 56 — CHAP. VIII.

In the throng season of the year at least 900 inferior Customhouse officers, and about 300 Excisemen, are stationed on board of ships in the Port of London, besides 82 Customhouse watermen and 36 superior Officers who do duty on the River Thames. The fair allowance of the established Tide Officers may be from 50l. to 55l. a year. The preferable Officers having 3s. 6d. a day only when employed, are supposed to receive wages for 2-3ds. of the year; while the extra Officers, who have only 3s. a day, are not supposed to be employed above half the year: and the Glutmen not more than two months in the throngest part of the season.

Men in such situations having a trust committed to them of great magnitude and importance, in the protection of a Revenue amounting to more than Seven Millions, and receiving wages inferior to common labourers, with pecuniary pressures upon them, arising from the wants in many instances of large families, assailed on all hands by temptations to connive at evil practices, as they relate both to the Revenue and the Individual—What can be expected from them?—Humanity, policy, and even justice pleads for an increase of salary, as the best means of preserving their morals and increasing the Revenue. Other Regulations through the medium of the Police System might be established, whereby their purity might be secured, and the Revenue eased of a considerable expence, by reducing the number employed at present, often in promoting mischievous instead of useful purposes.