H. Rider Haggard

“ What, I asked the electors of Dunchester, could they think of a man who in these modern and enlightened days sought to reimpose upon a free people the barbarous infamies of the Vaccination Acts? Long ago we had fought that fight, and long ago we had relegated them to limbo, where, with such things as instruments of torment, papal bulls and writs of attainder, they remained to excite the wonder and the horror of our own and future generations. ”

“ From the beginning I wished to be a doctor like my father and grandfather before me, for I knew that I was clever, and I knew also that successful doctors make a great deal of money. Ground down as I had been by poverty from babyhood, already at nineteen years of age I desired money above everything on earth. I saw then, and subsequent experience has only confirmed my views, that the world as it has become under the pressure of high civilisation is a world for the rich. Leaving material comforts and advantages out of the question, what ambition can a man satisfy without money? ”

“ Jane asked.
“No, miss, it isn’t Tottie this time, it’s the baby. She’s got convulsions, or something like it, and I’ve sent for Dr. Merchison. Would you like to see her? She’s lying in the front room.”
Jane hesitated. She was tired and wanted to get home with her canvass cards. But the woman looked tired too and in need of sympathy; possibly also, for nature is nature, Jane hoped that if she lingered there a little, without in any way violating her promise, she might chance to catch a brief glimpse of the man she loved. ”

“ Thus the whole policy of compulsory vaccination, which for many years had been in force in England, was destroyed at a single blow by a Government with a great majority, and a House of Commons composed of members who, for the most part, were absolute believers in its virtues. Never before did agitators meet with so vast and complete a success, and seldom perhaps did a Government undertake so great a responsibility for the sake of peace, and in order to shelve a troublesome and dangerous dispute. ”

“ If the reader has any doubts upon the point, let him imagine a time when, as used to happen in the days of our forefathers, almost everybody suffered from smallpox at some period of their lives, those escaping only whose blood was so fortified by nature that the disease could not touch them. Let him imagine a state of affairs—and there are still people living whose parents could remember it—when for a woman not to be pitted with smallpox was to give her some claim to beauty, however homely might be her features. ”

“ Therne,” she said, “but you really must look,” and she pointed through the window of the coach.
Following her hand I saw a sight which no one who has witnessed it can ever forget: the sun rising on the mighty peak of Orizaba, the Star Mountain, as the old Aztecs named it. Eighteen thousand feet above our heads towered the great volcano, its foot clothed with forests, its cone dusted with snow. The green flanks of the peak and the country beneath them were still wrapped in shadow, but on its white and lofty crest already the lights of dawn were burning. ”

“ Of these, the most, I believe, were cut off by smallpox. Let him search the registers, and they will tell the same tale. Let him ask old people of what their mothers told them when they were young of the working of this pestilence in their youth. Finally, let him consider how it comes about, if vaccination is a fraud, that some nine hundred and ninety-nine medical men out of every thousand, not in England only, but in all civilised countries, place so firm a belief in its virtue. Are the doctors of the world all mad, or all engaged in a great conspiracy to suppress the truth? ”

“ I was ready with my tongue and fond of public speaking; from boyhood it had been my desire to enter Parliament, where I knew well that I should show to some advantage. Now, without risk or expense to myself, an opportunity of gratifying this ambition was given to me. Indeed, if I succeeded in winning this city, which had always been a Tory stronghold, for the Radical party I should be a marked man from the beginning, and if my career was not one of assured prosperity the fault would be my own. ”

“ Now we were in the plaza. This plaza, where in happier times the band would play, for all Mexicans are musical, and the population of San Jose was wont to traffic in the day and enjoy itself at night, was bordered by an arched colonnade. In its centre stood a basin of water flowing from a stone fountain of quaint and charming design.
“Look at all those people sleeping,” said Emma, as we passed five or six forms that, very small and quiet, lay each under a blanket beneath one of the arches. “Why, there are a lot more just lying down over there. ”

“ And you thought that you could make all these things better by killing yourself. Doctor, I didn’t believe that you were such a fool. You say you have done nothing to be ashamed of, and I believe you. Well, then, what does it matter what these folk think? For the rest, when a man finds himself in a tight place, he shouldn’t knock under, he should fight his way through. You’re in a tight place, I know, but I was once in a tighter, yes, I did what you have nearly done—I went to jail on a false charge and false evidence. ”

“ Prophecy is dangerous, but, speaking for myself as a private member of Parliament, I can scarcely believe that responsible ministers of any party, moved by the pressure of an ill-informed and erroneous opinion, would ever consent under this elastic plea of conscience to establish such a precedent of surrender. Vaccination with its proved benefits is outside the pale of party. After long and careful study, science and the medical profession have given a verdict in its favour, a verdict which has now been confirmed by the experience of generations. ”

“ It was a very triumph of opportunism, for the Government, aided and abetted by their supporters, threw over their beliefs to appease a small but persistent section of the electors. Convinced that compulsory vaccination was for the benefit of the community, they yet stretched the theory of the authority of the parent over the child to such an unprecedented extent that, in order to satisfy his individual prejudices, that parent was henceforth to be allowed to expose his helpless infant to the risk of terrible disease and of death. ”

“ My grandfather, Thomas Therne, whose name still lives in medicine, was a doctor in the neighbourhood of Dunchester, and my father succeeded to his practice and nothing else, for the old gentleman had lived beyond his means. Shortly after my father’s marriage he sold this practice and removed into Dunchester, where he soon acquired a considerable reputation as a surgeon, and prospered, until not long after my birth, just as a brilliant career seemed to be opening itself to him, death closed his book for ever. ”

“ In the course of our conversation I discovered that the Strongs, who had had no children, devoted themselves to the propagation of various “fads.” Mr. Strong indeed was anti-everything, but, which is rather uncommon in such a man, had no extraneous delusions; that is to say, he was not a Christian Scientist, or a Blavatskyist, or a Great Pyramidist. Mrs. Strong, however, had never got farther than anti-vaccination, to her a holy cause, for she set down the skin disease with which she was constitutionally afflicted to the credit, or discredit, of vaccination practised upon her in her youth. ”

“ Personally I had no longer any fear of contagion, for within a week from that fatal night four large vesicles had formed on my arm, and their presence assured me that I was safe. At any other time this knowledge would have rejoiced me more than I can tell, but now, as I have said, I did not greatly care.
Another six days went by, bringing me to the eve of the election. At lunch time I managed to get home, and was rejoiced to find that Jane, who for the past forty-eight hours had been hovering between life and death, had taken a decided turn for the better. ”

“ The world has treated you badly, and I want to see you one of its masters, with all these smart people who look down on you licking your boots, as they will sure enough if you grow rich and powerful. That’s my private reason. My public one is that you are the only man in Dunchester who can win us the seat, and I’d think 10,000 pounds well spent if it put those Tories at the bottom of the poll. I want to show them who is “boss,” and that we won’t be lorded over by bankers and brewers just because they are rich men who have bought themselves titles.” ”

“ After all, although the thought of it shocked me at first, the price I was asked to pay was not so very heavy, merely one of the usual election platform formulas, whereby the candidate binds himself to support all sorts of things in which he has little or no beliefs. Already I was half committed to this anti-vaccination crusade, and, if I took a step or two farther in it, what did it matter? One crank more added to the great army of British enthusiasts could make little difference in the scheme of things.
If ever a man went through a “psychological moment” in this hour I was that man. ”

“ At first I could think of none; then suddenly I remembered that the driver and his companion, who no doubt knew every inch of the road, had leaped from the coach, apparently over the edge of the precipice. This I felt sure they would not have done had they been going to certain death, since they would have preferred to take their chance of mercy at the hands of the brigands. Moreover, these gentry themselves had driven the mules into the abyss whither those wise animals would never have gone unless there was some foothold for them. ”

“ The effect of all this was wonderful, for I know of nothing capable of rousing honest but ignorant people to greater rage and enthusiasm than this anti-vaccination cry. They believe it to be true, or, at least, seeing one or two cases in which it is true, and having never seen a case of smallpox, they suppose that the whole race is being poisoned by wicked doctors for their own gain. ”

“ Whilst I was wondering how to arrange matters I chanced to meet Sir John Bell in consultation. After our business was over, developing an unusual geniality of manner, he proposed to walk a little way with me.
“I understand, my dear Therne,” he said, “that there is an interesting event expected in your family.”
I replied that this was so.
“Well,” he went on, “though we may differ on some points, I am sure there is one upon which we shall agree—that no man should doctor his own flesh and blood. Now, look here, I want you to let me attend upon your good wife. ”

“ How often have I heard you declare in your lectures down at Dunchester that men of our race are all equal—except the working-man, who is better than the others—and that but for social prejudice the ‘son of toil’ is worthy of the hand of any titled lady in the kingdom? ”

“ Among the habitués of this club was a certain Major Selby, who, having retired from the army and being without occupation, was generally to be found in the smoking or billiard room with a large cigar between his teeth and a whisky and soda at his side. In face, the Major was florid and what people call healthy-looking, an appearance that to a doctor’s eye very often conveys no assurance of physical well-being. Being a genial-mannered man, he would fall into conversation with whoever might be near to him, and thus I came to be slightly acquainted with him. ”

“ Yes—five thousand of them or more in Dunchester alone, and, making every allowance, I suppose that in this one city there were very many of these—young people mostly—who owed their deaths to me, since it was my persuasion, my eloquent arguments, working upon the minds of their prejudiced and credulous elders, that surely, if indirectly, brought their doom upon them. “A doctor is not infallible, he may make mistakes.” Quite so, and if a mistake of his should kill a few thousands, why, that is the act of God (or of Fate) working through his blindness. ”

“ Moreover the sword of smallpox hung over the city, and therefore the subject was of supreme interest. When Death is near, whatever they may pretend, men think of little else.
Now he was at the foot of the platform, and now in the gaunt, powerful frame I recognised my daughter’s suitor, Ernest Merchison, and knew that something dreadful was at hand, what I could not guess. ”

“ I could live with great comfort, even with modest splendour, upon about half my income, and the rest of it I purposed to lay out for my future benefit. I had observed that brewers, merchants and other magnates with cash to spare are in due course elevated to the peerage. Now I wished to be elevated to the peerage, and to spend an honoured and honourable old age as Lord Dunchester. So when there was any shortage of the party funds, and such a shortage soon occurred on the occasion of an election, I posed as the friend round the corner. ”

“ STEPHEN STRONG GOES BAIL
Great are the uses of advertisement! When I went into my consulting-room after breakfast that day I found three patients waiting to see me, one of them a member of a leading family in the city.
Here was the beginning of my success. Whatever time may remain to me, to-day in a sense my life is finished. I am a broken-hearted and discomfited man, with little more to fear and nothing to hope. ”

“ Why did not that fool, Merchison, insist? He should have authority over her if any man had. And now it was too late—now no vaccination on earth could save her, unless by chance she had escaped infection, which was scarcely to be hoped. Indeed, such a thing was hardly known as that an unvaccinated person coming into immediate contact with a smallpox patient after the eruption had appeared, should escape infection. ”

“ Within a year it was my lot to listen to an eminent leader of that distinguished member (with the distinguished member’s tacit consent) pressing upon an astonished House of Commons the need of yielding to the clamour of the anti-vaccinationists, and of inserting into the Bill, framed upon the report of a Royal Commission, a clause forbidding the prosecution of parents or guardians willing to assert before a bench of magistrates that they objected to vaccination on conscientious grounds. ”

“ I thought so yesterday, and this morning I am sure of it.”
“Puerperal fever,” I muttered, “then I am ruined, whatever happens to Emma.”
“Don’t talk like that, man,” answered Sir John, “she has a capital constitution, and, I daresay, we shall pull her through.”
“You don’t understand. I have been attending Lady Colford, going straight from Emma’s room to her.”
Sir John whistled. “Oh, indeed. Certainly, that’s awkward. Well, we must hope for the best, and, look you here, when a fellow calls out to you another time just you stop to listen.” ”

“ The piteous little drama is played, both the actors are dead, and the issue of the piece is unknown and, for the present, unknowable. Bitterly opposed as I was to the suit of Merchison, justice compels me to say that, under the cloak of a rough unpromising manner, he hid a just and generous heart. Had that man lived he might have become great, although he would never have become popular. As least something in his nature attracted my daughter Jane, for she, who up to that time had not been moved by any man, became deeply attached to him. ”

“ My position being such that I could ensure her a splendid future, I was naturally anxious that she should make a brilliant marriage, since with monstrous injustice destiny has decreed that a woman’s road to success must run past the altar. But as yet I could find no man whom I considered suitable or worthy. One or two I knew, but they were not peers, and I wished her to marry a peer or a rising politician who would earn or inherit a peerage. ”

“ Whatever I had preached to prove my point and forward my ambition, in truth I had never doubted the efficacy of vaccination, although I was well aware of the dangers that might result from the use of impure or contaminated lymph, foul surroundings, and occasionally, perhaps, certain conditions of health in the subject himself. Therefore I had no prejudice to overcome, and certainly I was not a Conscientious Objector. ”

“ I called on them as free men to rise against this monstrous Tyranny, to put a stop to this system of organised and judicial Infanticide, and to send me to Parliament to raise my voice on their behalf in the cause of helpless infants whose tender bodies now, day by day, under the command of the law, were made the receptacles of the most filthy diseases from which man was doomed to suffer. ”

“ Could I have foreseen the dreadful issues which hung upon my decision, I believe that rather than speak it, for the second time in my life I would have sought the solace to be found in the phials of my medicine chest. But I did not foresee them, I thought only of myself, of my own hopes, fears and ambitions, forgetting that no man can live to himself alone, and that his every deed must act and re-act upon others until humanity ceases to exist. ”