Act, good people, and compel me to remove
it. I shall be charmed."

This being the state of things in Cess-cum-
Poolton, and the contest against the sanitary
innovators being very violent, now it may
perhaps be comprehended how it was that at
a great meeting of our ratepayers holden after
the first inquiry at the Fitz-Canute Arms, a
petition to the General Board of Health was
agreed upon, and eventually signed by our
squire, Nimrod Fitz-Canute, and two hundred
and thirty-five other persons, expressing their
unaltered opinion, "that the provisions of
the Public Health Act are not wanted in this
place," and earnestly praying "that the said
Act may not be put in force in this town
against the wish of the great mass of its
inhabitants."

For what reason our Squire put on his
boots to go down to this meeting, and
employed his influence as lord of the manor
against the sanitary reformers, may be best
stated in the words of his own companion
memorial, sent after the petition to the Board of
Health. Of the area submitted to the operation
of the Act, more than two-thirds, he
observed, "are not only wholly unbuilt upon,
but there is not the remotest probability of
any part of the same ever being used for
building purposes, such lands consisting of
the lawns, pleasure and other ornamental
grounds, and gardens and other premises
belonging and appertaining to your memorialist's
mansionhouse, and of farm lands, arable
and pasture, also the property of your
memorialist. That your memorialist, in addition
to such lands and premises aforesaid, is also
the owner of house property to a very
considerable amount in the town of Cess-
cum-Poolton, and that therefore, should the
district as recommended by your inspector
be adopted, the taxation for the purpose of
draining and ameliorating the sanitary
condition of the town of Cess-cum-Poolton would
fall most unjustly and oppressively on your
memorialist, whose said mansionhouse, lawns
and pleasure grounds, arable lands and
pasture grounds, could, neither directly nor
indirectly, derive any benefit whatever from
the purposes to which such hereditaments
and tenements would be rated in pursuance
of the powers contained in the said Public
Health Act, 1848."

That is the actual literal complaint of
Squire Fitz-Canute, who therein shows
himself quite one of our hill gods, "careless of
mankind." The lawns, pineries, pleasure
grounds, pastures, &c., not being at all chargeable
under the Public Health Act for the
water supply and drainage of town houses
and buildings, the plaint of Fitz-Canute
amounts simply to this, that as a large
number of the unwholesome houses in our
town of Cess-cum-Poolton are his property,
a good deal of the rating for health
purposes would fall upon himself; and,
however much the cleansing of the town might
benefit his tenantry, it would not improve
his roses or his melons, his lawns, pleasure
grounds, arable lands, or cattle. As a lord
of the manor and a landed proprietor, he
declines, therefore, having anything to pay. So
the Squire settled it.

Nevertheless, the second inquiry was duly
instituted, and it began with the scrutiny of
signatures demanded by us, who accused
Mr. Zinzib of having used improper persuasion.
Henry Jones accordingly came forward
and proved that he had signed both petitions.
Mr. Zinzib presented the first to him, and he
signed it. He "had since signed the counter-
petition, his opinions having changed in
consequence of what he had been told respecting
other towns where the Act had been applied.
He could not exactly say what towns they
were, nor what was said of them." Zinzib
Rad was still more strongly put to the blush
by Mr. Cavendish Pole, our fashionable
hairdresser. He is a very gentlemanly man, and
he deposed as follows: "I have been a rated
inhabitant of the parish of Cess-cum-Poolton
twenty years. I am a hairdresser. I signed
a petition brought to me by Mr. Zinzib. I
did not thoroughly know what it was; he
laid the petition before me. I do not think I
read it; perhaps I might scan part of it over,
but I did not, to the best of my belief, read it,
as I was busy at the time. As Mr. Zinzib
represented it to me, I took it to be a petition
to form a board to drain the town better. I
signed it, and have since signed a petition
the other way." We had more such evidence,
but it was unavailing; nevertheless, I think
enough has been said to show the enlightened
nature of our contest against the sanitarians,
and to make clear how quiet we should all
have been had we been let alone. We
could have been eating the lotos day by
day, just as conveniently lodged over our
deadening cesspools, as if "propped on beds
of amaranth and moly;" it would have
suited us quite well to lie beside their nectar,
and to hear agitators buzzing among distant
parishes their doleful song, telling "a tale
of little meaning, though their words are
strong."

We also, spurred to energy, found strong
words to oppose to our antagonists. Old
Doctor Doughpill has practised for forty
years in Cess-cum-Poolton; he and his son
attend the parish and have all the leading
people in the place for patients. Doctor
Doughpill is a gentleman of the old school,
who still wears corduroy trousers and top
boots, and who is as prompt as his son to
follow the Fitz-Canute hounds. Young
Doctor Quina, who is a physician by right and a
medallist fresh from the hospital trying to
make a practice, has thoughtlessly committed
himself to the sanitary cause. Doughpill, who
knows better, follows the Squire as readily
after the health-mongers as after the hare.
Doctor Quina said, among other things
about our town, "Typhus is by no means an