11 JULY 1868, Page 3

The Pall Mall Gazette calls attention to the systematic bullying

practised on every one who lands from abroad in the port of London, the boatmen and porters usually extorting from four to -eight times the proper fare by terror. No policeman is ever stationed there, and the roughs have it all their own way. The Times points out the rapid increase in robberies with violence, -often committed in broad day, and a correspondent relates the Adventures of his wife and mother at Leabridge station, on the Great Eastern Railway, last Sunday. They were detained for three hours, and during that time hustled, robbed, and almost -stripped, the younger lady's ears in particular being lacerated in the effort to get her earrings. The station-master could do nothing, as the same outrages occur every Sunday evening. Escort -even is of little use, for our system, though it does not supply police, forbids travellers to protect themselves except with their fists, and a single man would only have been sent to hospital with his ribs fractured and an eye gouged out.