Chapter 326: Gold Medal Pigherd

As a port city founded in the 13th century, Liverpool spans the Plantagenet Dynasty, Lancaster Dynasty, York Dynasty, Tudor Dynasty, Stuart Dynasty and even today's Hanoverian Dynasty.

The relatively peaceful environment has also created a diversity of local architectural styles. Whether it is the Gothic architecture with sharp edges and spires, or the Tudor style known for its striped appearance and half-timbered structure, or the Georgian architecture that has been popular for a century and combines the Baroque curve form with Rococo decorative elements, you can see it in Liverpool.

And Castle Street, where Liverpool City Hall is located, is where Tudor style gathers.

But today Arthur obviously has no time to appreciate these centuries-old old buildings. Even in the ball with bright lights, handsome men and beautiful women, and countless dignitaries, the Scotland Yard Superintendent from London has become a small focus.

There is an endless stream of guests coming to toast and chat. Perhaps because the climate in Liverpool is much better than that in London, Liverpool people also seem to be more enthusiastic than Londoners.

Whether it was the smoking room, the entertainment room, or the corners of the dance hall and restaurant, wherever Arthur went, there would be some unfamiliar faces coming up to chat.

Among these people were government employees working in various departments in Liverpool, rich young men doing various businesses in the local area, and of course, some were ambitious young people like Gladstone who were determined to join the political circle.

But according to Arthur's observation, there was still a certain difference between Liverpool's political inclination and London's.

In London, the power of the Tory Party and the Whig Party was basically 50-50.

In Liverpool, the number of people holding Tory positions was obviously higher than that of Whig positions.

But if you think about it carefully, it is not difficult to explain.

As a city that made its fortune by the slave trade, most Liverpool people have inextricable ties with the slave trade. In this case, how could they like the Whig Party that introduced the "Abolition of the Slave Trade Act"?

Not to mention that Mr. William Wilberforce, the advocate of abolitionism, was not satisfied with just abolishing the slave trade. At this point, he still wanted to take advantage of the Whig Party's return to power to completely abolish slavery in Britain and overseas colonies, and rescue the slaves who were sold before the abolition of the slave trade.

According to the first bill proposed by Wilberforce and his supporters, these abolitionists did not want to give even a penny to the slave owners. They claimed that if the slave owners wanted compensation, they should go to the slave traders who sold them the slaves.

Such behavior naturally caused an extreme backlash in Liverpool, and it was not difficult to understand that the Liverpool City Council was full of Tories from old to young.

In the ballroom, Arthur danced the waltz under the guidance of a young lady. Under the ambiguous lights, their ears were full of the low voices of other dancers whispering.

The lady seemed to be very curious. Although she had danced with the sheriff of Liverpool before, it was her first time to contact the head of a new security organization like Scotland Yard.

She was very interested in Arthur's epaulettes, the royal sword bestowed by the king, or the encounters that Scotland Yard police officers would encounter in their daily operations.

As for Arthur, he had guessed that the ladies would probably ask this question.

Thanks to the year he had known the ladies of the Blue Stockings Club, he now had a preliminary understanding of the topics that the ladies might be concerned about.

The secret history of the palace was definitely what would interest them the most, but unfortunately, Arthur didn't know much, so his limited knowledge could only be used as a trump card.

However, if he couldn't talk about the king's household affairs, he could still talk about Arthur in the folk.

Frankenstein, the origin of species, marriage lawsuits, and prostitution cases. If that didn't work, he could talk about Mrs. Berkeley's whip and the Earl who left the lady's room in the dark.

However, when discussing these issues, he still had to be careful to tell them slowly and not to raise the ladies' emotions too high at once.

Since coming to London, Arthur has learned that ladies will really faint on the spot when they are too excited. A long time ago, he always thought that this was made up by "unscrupulous novelists" like Dickens, Dumas and Mr. Disraeli.

But in fact, the corsets commonly worn by ladies in this era will flatten the lungs, change the position of the ribs, and squeeze some organs on the spine, and even push them to the lower abdomen.

Therefore, ladies often have symptoms of difficulty in breathing and blood supply, which also affects their appetite and further forms a vicious circle.

Of course, in the eyes of Arthur, who has a rough knowledge of chemistry, those toxic cosmetics should also be responsible for the fainting phenomenon of ladies.

However, it is not always that ladies' fainting is caused by physiological reasons. It is also a social tool for them.

Since women are considered to be synonymous with fragility and sensibility, fainting in public is also in line with society's perception of them. Therefore, it is not only not considered rude, but also considered an elegant behavior.

Ladies can freely use this trick when they are tired or do not want to continue the conversation with the guests. From Arthur's observation at the banquet, the effect is usually very good.

However, the lady Arthur met today was obviously over-energized, and she did not intend to faint for the time being.

"You dance the waltz very well. Did you ask someone to teach you? Or was it a lady who introduced you to the art?"

"Really? Thank you for your compliment. If my friends heard this, they would be very happy. I basically learned dancing from them."

"They must be frequent guests at social banquets to be able to teach such great students like you."

"You can't hide anything from you. Yes, my friends hang out there almost every day. And they are not only from London, they are also famous in the social circles of Paris."

"Paris? Oh, my God! I was wondering how you could see some French style in your dance steps. Since you have French friends, you must speak French, right?"

"Un peu, a little bit, if it's just a simple communication, then there should be no problem."

When the lady heard this, she immediately switched languages, and a series of French words hit Arthur's face. It took him a long time to figure out what it meant.

Arthur smiled and replied: "As the French often say, there is no fire in the lake, you can go a little slower."

As soon as Arthur finished speaking, he caught a glimpse of a sturdy figure passing by him.

The fat French man hugged his partner's waist and passed by lightly, leaving only a French sentence in Arthur's ear: "Arthur! Je te dis merde!"

Arthur frowned when he heard this, and turned his head to look at Dumas: "Did you scold me just now? I heard merde."

Dumas smiled and replied nonchalantly: "Arthur, this is a special usage. Although most sentences with merde are used to scold people, this sentence is a blessing. You know, I am a playwright, and people in our industry often use this sentence to bless actors. Think about it, if there are more horse manure in front of the theater, it means that business is much better than before. "

Dumas's dance partner couldn't help laughing when he heard this: "Mr. Dumas, you are so funny."

But Arthur asked with a straight face: "Then the question is, if I am an actor, who is the horse manure?"

Arthur's dance partner in his arms couldn't help but change her face when she heard this. She took out her handkerchief and blushed and scolded: "Impolite, it's really rude!"

Dumas's dancing partner also noticed something was wrong, so she let go of Dumas and said goodbye, "Sorry, Alexander, I have to go and see Jenny."

Arthur got a chance, and the little smoker finally had the chance to take out his pipe from his pocket. He nudged Dumas with his elbow and said, "Let's go? To the smoking room?"

Dumas rolled his eyes and said, "Arthur, why did you bring up that? Now I'm going to be accused of saying that ladies are horse manure."

Arthur hugged Dumas and walked towards the smoking room, saying, "Alexander, I didn't expect that your words were really a blessing."

"What else?! Now your horse manure is gone, and mine is gone too. Arthur, you are hurting others and yourself!"

Dumas walked into the smoking room with Arthur angrily. Perhaps because the ball had already started, there were obviously fewer guests here than before.

In the huge smoking room, there were only Heine and Louis who were smoking and chatting.

"I found a few copies of the Brit magazine and flipped through them. To be honest, Britain's freedom of publication is broader than I thought. If your copy of Napoleon's Thoughts was placed in Austria, it would definitely be banned by Metternich. The Austrians can't stand anyone saying a good word about Napoleon."

"There's no way. The loser's mindset is like this. They never defeated France, so Metternich has always had a long-term resentment and fear. This can be seen from the fact that he kept my brother under house arrest in the palace like a canary. Metternich didn't treat him as an Austrian prince at all. He only saw him as Napoleon's son."

"By the way, why did you go to Scotland Yard to be a policeman? Although the surname Bonaparte is not as influential in Europe as before, it shouldn't be reduced to the point of carrying a stick in your waist and beating people on the street, right?"

"Heinrich, How should I tell you? The surname Bonaparte is not only an honor, but also a heavy burden. Perhaps it was the blow brought to me by the failure of the Carbonari uprising in Italy that I don't want to think about too many things for the time being. It's good for me to do some simple things peacefully. People always have to find something to do, right?

And you think the profession of police is too lowly, so that I even doubt whether you are a Prussian. When I was in military school in Switzerland, I heard that in Prussia, if you don't use honorifics to the police, you will be thrown into prison, right? "

"Ha! Yes, in my opinion, this is why this profession is lowly."

Arthur pushed open the door, lit his pipe and took a sip: "If you follow your evaluation system, then the British police should be slightly more noble than their Prussian counterparts."

Dumas was still angry at this time, and he said: "Yes, it's like the difference between Je te dis merde and merde. "

Louis saw Arthur coming in and asked: "Speaking of which, what are you going to do about the Liverpool matter? Although the Dock Committee and the Port Authority have officially begun to quarantine merchant ships as required, who knows whether they are secretly The goods were transported as contraband to nearby cliffs for hiding and distribution, and today the Liverpool City Council seems to have decided to send representatives to London to protest against the cabinet's segregation policy."

Arthur waved his hand and said: "I believe that the Royal Navy's anti-smuggling fleet will definitely increase their efforts. We don't need to worry about this. And when we come to Liverpool this time, smuggling is not a key issue. What the cabinet actually wants is The reason why they suppressed the cases in Liverpool was that they thought the cases were imported through smuggling, but whether cholera was spread through miasma on ships is still debatable.”

Louis replied: "But before we understand the cause of the disease, isn't it safest to act in accordance with the rules set by the cabinet? As long as we strictly implement the cabinet's orders, even if something goes wrong in the end, the responsibility will not fall on us. "

"Yes, if you are just running to avoid getting into trouble, this is of course the safest thing to do. But that's not the problem I'm thinking of. Louis, in fact, when you went to investigate during the day, I was not idle either. You know I'm going to investigate Something?"

Having said this, Arthur took out a map covered with little red dots from his jacket pocket.

Louis and others came over and took a look: "What is this?"

Arthur took off his pipe and said: "You came to the Police Intelligence Bureau relatively late, so you don't know what we did in the past. The predecessor of the Police Intelligence Bureau was the London Regional Provisional Bureau of Survey and Survey Statistics. Sir Peel, the then Home Secretary, made it clear The task assigned to us is to measure and count the narrow streets in the East District and demonstrate the correlation between narrow streets and criminal cases such as assaults on police officers, so that the Ministry of the Interior can submit a bill to the Parliament to expand and renovate the streets in the East District.

However, later on, due to the collapse of the Tories and the reorganization of the LPS into the Police Intelligence Service, this issue was temporarily shelved. However, the issue was shelved, and I learned how to find correlations through maps. The early onset of the epidemic in Liverpool also provided considerable data for mapping cholera. Take a look at this map. What can you see? "

Heine thought about it for a moment and said, "Do most cholera outbreaks occur in poor residential areas?"

Alexandre Dumas also analyzed: "The red spots are very dense, so if the disease does not break out, it will form a group. Does this mean that the miasma theory is actually correct? The environment where poor people live is usually poor, so a certain area Once contaminated by miasma, large-scale cases will break out.”

Louis' eyes swept across the map. He frowned and thought for a long time. Then he suddenly pointed at a blank area among a bunch of red dots on the map and asked, "Why is this place okay? It's also a slum. There's no reason why the surrounding areas are all polluted by miasma." It’s the only place that’s clean!”

Arthur smiled and said: "I was thinking about this problem before, so I made a special trip there this afternoon. It turned out that the place was a Porter beer processing plant, and most of the people living nearby were factory workers. employees there.”

"You mean? Beer can stop cholera?"

"What's the point?"

"It's totally unheard of. What the hell is going on?"

Arthur nodded and said: "I went to talk to the local residents about their illness, and they told me that not all Liverpool wineries have such good luck, they are just special cases. And when I asked about this winery and When asked what was different from other wineries, they told me that the operators of this winery were more generous. As long as they did not steal the products from the factory and sell them, all the employees working here could drink to their heart's content or take the wine back in cups. Therefore, the families of these winery employees never drink water, but only drink to satisfy their hunger like medieval nobles, and they even use beer to cook.”

When Alexandre Dumas heard this, he couldn't help but wonder: "If beer can prevent and cure cholera, why was the first case in Sunderland an old sailor? Sailors all live by drinking!"

Louis pinched his chin and guessed: "Is it a problem with the type of wine? Only porter beer is effective?"

Heine said: "In that case, you plan to notify the Liverpool Health Committee and ask them to distribute free beer to the citizens for a few months? Although I don't know whether this will have any effect, but the brewery owners in Liverpool We will definitely support your decision.”

Arthur smiled and shook his head and said: "Heinrich, you really hit the nail on the head. If you come to Liverpool to do prevention and control, if you want to be successful, the key is not whether it is right or not, but whether it can make people make money. If I talk about drinking If I can cure diseases, all liquor industry operators will support me, but their support alone is not enough.

Moreover, in my opinion, it is not necessarily drinking alcohol that cures the disease, it may be more about the water source. If you look at this picture, the red circles of disease outbreaks are almost all centered on the wells and spread outward. If this is all a coincidence, it would be too strange. "

Heine's eyes widened when he heard this: "This... seems to be really like this?"

Alexandre Dumas frowned and said: "Are you going to seal all the wells? But this seems to be no different from isolating merchant ships, and it is not very popular."

"No, it's not just the well, there's also the sewage system that's been in disrepair for a long time." Arthur said, "Every aspect here needs to be renovated. Of course, the premise of the renovation is that Liverpool can prove to the parliament that cholera is really caused by unclean water."

When Louis heard this, he almost instantly thought of the document he handed to Arthur today: "Arthur, do you want to?"

Arthur smiled and nodded, "I have already passed on the document through personal connections. They will definitely send someone to explain to me about the port expansion. However, I don't actually intend to cause trouble for them. On the contrary, I want to support them with another big project. But the premise of the project is that they must listen to me."

Agares, who was lying on the windowsill, was amazed when he heard this: "You are worthy of being the gold medal pig farmer in York country, Arthur, you really know how to feed the piglets! Now, you don't have to invite them, just shake the trough, and they will all come to you when they smell the smell."