uncommon disease here. Now, looking at
the elevation and general appearance of the
town, one would naturally wonder how such
a disease as typhus could exist here. The
poison, doubtless, must emanate from those
abominable dead wells and open sewage holes
which send out such a noxious and pestilential
smell over the yards and houses in which they
are situate." Doctor Doughpill—a most
influential man—whose nose is turned more in
the right direction of the wind, said on the
other hand: "I have been a surgeon here for
forty years, and am well acquainted with the
locality and most of the people. Cess-cum-
Poolton has always been a remarkably healthy
place. There is nothing to make it unhealthy.
The water is very good." He was our great
witness, and a bold knight too, who would
charge any number of windmill crotchets. If
it had not been for the awkwardness of birth
and death returns, and for the existence of
two eyes .and a nose on the inspector's face,
the evidence of our respected Doctor would
have quashed the whole investigation. "With
reference," he observed, "to what is said in
Mr. Zinzib's letter to the General Board, about
polluted water and foul air, I know of no
cases of fever in Cess-cum-Poolton produced
by polluted water and foul air."

The inspector having taken evidence of this
kind, and heard much of our general
recrimination and of that flat contradiction of each
other into which gentlemen are led who make
astounding slips of memory and confusion as
to fact, under the influence of party feeling
—having got through this part of his business,
quietly betook himself to the investigation
of our registration tables. He made
out that the average age at which we all
of us die is twenty-nine years and one month,
omitting the exceptional district of the New
Town of Cess-cum-Poolton. If that district
be included in the calculation it is made to
appear that we die, taking us all together,
before the age of twenty-four is reached. In
either case, not less than half of us die under
the age of twenty. As for the massacre of
our innocents, how that is continually taking
place I have already recorded. The inspector
then employed his eyes and nose, and went
about the parish seeing and smelling things
for himself and asking questions. The result
was a mass of notes concerning us, a part of
which the chiel has printed. Of their nature
some notion may be gathered from the
accounts I have given of the abodes of Mr.
Brown, Mr. Galloon, Mr. Goose, and others,
who may stand for almost all. Some of the
worst I have not quoted, because, though
they describe dwellings in which we are on
the whole disposed to live, the mere account
of them would be disagreeable to reasonably
wholesome people.

The Old Town of Cess-cum-Poolton is built
as I said on a hill, with an outfall on all sides—
the very place for an efficient and cheap system
of drainage; there is a brook at hand, from
which an abundant supply of good water,
constantly on tap, could be furnished at a
price of a penny three farthings per week
per cottage house, including the cost of
lifting.

The complete drainage of the Old Town
would cost, it was calculated, for a cottage
house only one penny a week, on the principle
of distributed payments for thirty years. That
is what we have been opposing.

The New Town of Cess-cum-Poolton is
unhappily not less unhealthy than the Old,
although money has been spent ungrudgingly
by the railway company, which is chief owner,
on the moral and physical welfare of the
inhabitants. When the New Town first rose,
five thousand pounds were sunk in drains.
Most unfortunately, the drainage established
was laid down upon an utterly wrong
principle. It was a complicated system of egg-
shaped cesspools and long drains. In each
pool, poisonous gas is generated as in the bulb
of a retort, and the drains acting as the necks
of retorts serve to convey the deadly product
into all the houses. Connected with this
system also, there is an open foul ditch, and an
inadequate provision has been made for
flushing. The railway company petitioned
as we did against the interference of the
Public Health Act: surely however not on
selfish grounds, for it was prepared to sink
five thousand pounds more in drainage. Less
than that sum would uproot the existing
drains, put an end to the two hundred
cesspools which form part of the old rotten system,
and purify the New Town thoroughly upon a
safe plan. The adoption of such a plan would
at the same time save considerably yearly
outlay. If it be well to be active, the railway
company has done well; it has established
even a park for its men, and there can be no
doubt that it is prepared to amend the
underground ways of the New Town of Cess-cum-
Poolton whenever it is fairly led to see the
error of them.

As for our Old Town on the hill, the
inspector, I see in his report just issued, has
recommended that the Public Health Act be
applied to us, and that we should have a
local board of health, consisting of six
members. But, if we get the Squire for one,
and Doctor Doughpill for another, we may
even yet hope that, for a time at least, the
inhabitants of Cess-cum-Poolton will be
allowed to die in peace, and at the rate that
pleases them. So long as men can pay their
debts, it is not our business to settle for them
at what rate they ought to live. The debt of
nature they are sure to pay, and why need we
dictate the rate at which they ought to die?
The only rates we ought to look at, are
parochial rates. When people say that a
small payment for health and strength brings
in even a large money profit, and invite us to
reason with them on the subject, we say,
reason with you? No, we don't do that. We
are not talking about reason, but about rates.