SGB Chapter 326

## Chapter 326: The Golden Pig Keeper

As a port city founded in the 13th century, Liverpool had witnessed the rise and fall of numerous dynasties, from the Plantagenets, Lancasters, Yorks, Tudors, Stuarts, and now the Hanoverians.

The relatively peaceful environment had fostered a diverse architectural landscape. From the sharp-edged, spire-studded Gothic structures to the Tudor style with its striped exteriors and half-timbered construction, and the Georgian architecture, which had been fashionable for a century, blending Baroque curves and Rococo decorative elements, Liverpool had it all.

Castle Street, home to Liverpool’s City Hall, was a hub of Tudor-style buildings.

However, Arthur, a Scotland Yard Inspector from London, had no time to admire these centuries-old structures. Even amidst the dazzling lights, handsome men, beautiful women, and high-ranking officials of the grand ball, he had become a notable figure.

Guests approached him constantly, eager to raise a toast and engage in conversation. Perhaps due to Liverpool’s milder climate compared to London, the locals seemed more enthusiastic.

Whether in the smoking room, the entertainment room, the dance hall, or even in the corners of the restaurant, Arthur found himself surrounded by new faces, each eager to chat.

Among them were government officials working in various departments in Liverpool, wealthy young gentlemen engaged in diverse businesses, and ambitious young men like Gladstone, aspiring to join the political arena.

However, Arthur observed a distinct political leaning in Liverpool compared to London.

In London, the Tories and Whigs held roughly equal power. But in Liverpool, those with Tory views outnumbered those with Whig sympathies.

Upon reflection, this disparity wasn’t hard to explain.

As a city built on the foundation of slave trade, most Liverpool residents had intricate ties to the slave business. How could they possibly favor the Whigs who had enacted the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act?

Furthermore, William Wilberforce, the advocate for abolition, wasn’t content with merely ending the slave trade. He aimed to leverage the Whigs’ return to power to abolish slavery altogether in Britain and its overseas colonies, rescuing those who had been sold into slavery before the abolition of the trade.

Based on the first bill proposed by Wilberforce and his supporters, these abolitionists weren’t willing to pay a single penny to the slave owners. They argued that if the slave owners wanted compensation, they should seek it from the slave traders who had sold them slaves.

Such actions naturally sparked intense backlash in Liverpool. The dominance of Tories in the Liverpool city council, from old to young, became understandable.

In the dance hall, Arthur waltzed with a young lady, their ears filled with the hushed whispers of other dancers under the suggestive lighting.

This lady seemed brimming with curiosity. While she had danced with Liverpool’s magistrate before, this was her first encounter with the head of Scotland Yard, this new law enforcement organization.

She was intrigued by everything, from Arthur’s shoulder boards and the king’s gift of a court sword to the encounters Scotland Yard officers typically faced during their daily operations.

Arthur, for his part, had anticipated this line of questioning.

Thanks to his year-long acquaintance with the Bluestocking ladies, he had a basic understanding of the topics that might interest them.

Court secrets were undoubtedly the most captivating, but unfortunately, Arthur didn’t know much about them. His limited knowledge could only be used as a last resort.

However, he was comfortable discussing matters beyond the royal household.

Frankenstein, the Origin of Species, marital disputes, prostitution cases, and even Lady Berkeley’s small whip and the certain Earl who left her room in the dead of night, refreshed and invigorated, were all within his repertoire.

But when discussing these topics, it was crucial to be subtle, avoiding a sudden surge in the ladies’ emotions.

Since arriving in London, Arthur had learned that women could faint on the spot if they got too excited. In the past, he had always thought this was a fabrication by unscrupulous novelists like Dickens, Dumas, and Disraeli.

But in reality, the tight-fitting corsets commonly worn by women in this era flattened their lungs, altered the position of their ribs, and compressed some organs against the spine, even displacing them to the abdomen.

As a result, women often experienced breathing and blood supply difficulties, which also affected their appetite, creating a vicious cycle.

Of course, in Arthur’s opinion, those toxic cosmetics also played a role in the women’s fainting spells.

However, not all fainting spells among women were caused by physiological reasons. It was also a social tool.

As women were considered synonymous with fragility and sensitivity, fainting in public aligned with societal perceptions of them. It wasn’t considered disrespectful, but rather a graceful act.

Women could freely use this tactic when feeling tired or unwilling to continue a conversation with a guest. Based on Arthur’s observations at the ball, it generally worked quite well.

However, the lady he was with today was clearly overflowing with energy, and she had no intention of fainting anytime soon.

“Your waltz is exquisite. Did you take lessons specifically, or was it a lady who introduced you to the dance?”

“Is that so? Thank you for the compliment. My friends would be delighted to hear that. I learned most of my dancing from them.”

“They must be regulars at social gatherings if they could teach you so well.”

“You can’t hide anything from you. That’s right, my friends are practically glued to these events. And it’s not just London; they also have some reputation in Paris’ social circles.”

“Paris? Oh my God! I knew there was a hint of French style in your steps. Since you have French friends, you must speak French, right?”

“Un peu, a little. If it’s just simple communication, I should be fine.”

The lady, upon hearing this, switched languages, bombarding Arthur with a barrage of French words. It took him a while to decipher their meaning.

Arthur smiled and replied, “As the French often say, the lake isn’t on fire. You can slow down a bit.”

As Arthur finished speaking, he caught a glimpse of a sturdy figure darting past him.

The French fat man, with his arm around his dance partner’s waist, moved swiftly, leaving only a French phrase in Arthur’s ear: “Arthur! Je te dis merde!”

Arthur’s brow furrowed immediately. He turned to Dumas, “Did you just curse me? I heard merde.”

Dumas, unconcerned, chuckled, “Arthur, it’s a special usage. While sentences with merde are often used for cursing, this one is a blessing. You know, I’m a playwright. We often use this phrase to bless actors. Think about it, if there’s more horse manure in front of the theater, it means business is better than before.”

Dumas’ dance partner, upon hearing this, couldn’t help but laugh, “Mr. Dumas, you’re so witty.”

But Arthur remained serious, “So, the question is, if I’m the actor, who’s the horse manure?”

Arthur’s dance partner, upon hearing this, couldn’t help but blush. She pulled out her handkerchief and rebuked him, “That’s rude! So rude!”

Dumas’ dance partner also sensed the inappropriateness. She loosened her grip on Dumas and excused herself, “I’m sorry, Alexander, I need to check on Jenny.”

Now that he was free, Arthur finally had a chance to retrieve his pipe from his pocket. He nudged Dumas with his elbow, “Come on, let’s go to the smoking room?”

Dumas rolled his eyes, “Arthur, why did you have to bring that up? Now I’m going to be branded as the one who called the lady horse manure.”

Arthur put his arm around Dumas as they walked towards the smoking room, saying, “Alexander, I never thought your phrase was actually a blessing.”

“What else could it be?! Now your horse manure is gone, and so is mine. Arthur, you’re doing more harm than good!”

Dumas stormed into the smoking room with Arthur. Perhaps because the ball had already begun, there were fewer guests than before.

In the spacious smoking room, only Heine and Louis were present, chatting while smoking.

“I found a few copies of The Englishman magazine and skimmed through them. Honestly, Britain’s freedom of the press is even more extensive than I imagined. If your Napoleon’s Thoughts Overview was published in Austria, Metternich would definitely order its suppression. Austrians can’t stand anyone speaking a word of praise for Napoleon.”

“It’s unavoidable. The mindset of the defeated is like that. They’ve never conquered France, so Metternich harbors a long-held resentment and fear. This is evident in how he treats my brother like a canary, confined to the palace. Metternich doesn’t see him as an Austrian prince; he only sees him as Napoleon’s son.”

“Speaking of which, why are you working for Scotland Yard? While the Bonaparte name may not hold the same influence as it did in Europe, it shouldn’t have fallen to the point where you’re carrying a stick and patrolling the streets.”

“Heinrich, how can I explain this to you? The Bonaparte name isn’t just an honor; it’s also a heavy burden. Perhaps the blow I received from the failure of the Italian Carbonari uprising has made me reluctant to think too much about anything right now. It’s good for me to do something simple, to find something to keep myself busy. Everyone needs to find something to do, right?

And you’re undervaluing the police profession. It makes me question whether you’re really Prussian. I heard from my time at the military academy in Switzerland that using informal language towards the police in Prussia could land you in prison, right?”

“Ha! Yes, in my view, that’s exactly why this profession is lowly.”

Arthur pushed open the door, lit his pipe, and took a puff, “If you were to use your evaluation system, British police officers would be slightly more noble than their Prussian counterparts.”

Dumas, still not over it, added, “That’s right, like the difference between Je te dis merde and merde.”

Louis, seeing Arthur enter, asked, “Speaking of which, what are you planning to do about the situation in Liverpool? While the Dock Board and the Port Authority have publicly started isolating merchant ships as instructed, who knows if they’re secretly smuggling goods to nearby cliffs for distribution? And today, the Liverpool City Council seems to have decided to send representatives to London to protest the Cabinet’s isolation policy.”

Arthur waved his hand, “I believe the Royal Navy’s anti-smuggling fleet will certainly increase their efforts, so we don’t have to worry about that. And the real reason for our trip to Liverpool isn’t about smuggling. The Cabinet wants to suppress the cases in Liverpool. They’re taking smuggling seriously because they think the cases were brought in through smuggling. But whether cholera is actually transmitted through ship-borne miasma is still debatable.”

Louis replied, “But shouldn’t we follow the Cabinet’s rules and do what’s most reliable until we figure out the cause of the disease? If we strictly follow the Cabinet’s orders, even if things go wrong, the blame won’t fall on us.”

“That’s right, if you’re only concerned about protecting yourself, that’s the most reliable way to do it. But that’s not what I’m thinking about, Louis. While you were investigating during the day, I wasn’t idle. Do you know what I was investigating?”

At this point, Arthur pulled a map covered in small red dots from his coat pocket.

Louis and the others leaned in to take a look, “What is this?”

Arthur removed his pipe and said, “You joined the Police Intelligence Bureau relatively late, so you don’t know what we used to do. The Police Intelligence Bureau was previously the London District Temporary Measurement and Investigation Statistics Bureau. Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary at the time, publicly assigned us the task of measuring and statistically analyzing the narrow streets of the East End to demonstrate the correlation between narrow streets and crimes like assault on officers, so that the Home Office could later present a proposal to Parliament for expanding and renovating the East End streets.

However, the Tories later fell from power, and LPS was reorganized into the Police Intelligence Bureau, so this issue was temporarily shelved. But while the issue was shelved, I learned how to use maps to find correlations. Since Liverpool’s epidemic broke out earlier, it provided a lot of data for mapping cholera. Look at this map, do you see anything?”

Heine pondered for a moment, “Cholera mostly breaks out in poor neighborhoods?”

Dumas also analyzed, “The red dots are very dense, so the disease doesn’t erupt in small numbers; it’s a massive outbreak. Does this mean the miasma theory is actually correct? Poor neighborhoods typically have worse living conditions, so once an area is contaminated by miasma, it will lead to a large-scale outbreak.”

Louis scanned the map with his eyes. He furrowed his brow and thought for a long time, then pointed to a blank area within a cluster of red dots, “Why is this place unaffected? It’s also a poor neighborhood; there’s no reason for the surrounding areas to be fully contaminated by miasma while this one is clean!”

Arthur smiled and said, “I was thinking the same thing, so I took a trip there this afternoon. I found that the area is a porter brewery, and the residents are mostly brewery employees.”

“You mean to say, beer can prevent cholera?”

“How is that possible?”

“It’s unheard of! What’s going on?”

Arthur nodded, “I talked to the local residents about their illness, and they told me that not all Liverpool breweries are so lucky. They’re just an exception. When I asked what made this brewery different from the others, they told me that the brewery owner is generous. As long as they don’t steal the brewery’s products to sell, all the employees can drink freely and even take cups home with them. So, these brewery workers’ families never drink water. They drink alcohol to sustain themselves, just like medieval nobles. They even use beer to cook.”

Dumas, upon hearing this, couldn’t help but question, “If beer can prevent cholera, why was the first case in Sunderland an old sailor? Sailors live by drinking, don’t they?”

Louis, stroking his chin, speculated, “Could it be a matter of the type of alcohol? Does only porter beer have the effect?”

Heine spoke, “If that’s the case, are you going to inform the Liverpool Health Committee to have them distribute free beer to the citizens for a few months? While I don’t know if it actually works, the brewery owners in Liverpool will definitely support your decision.”

Arthur shook his head with a smile, “Heinrich, you’re right on the mark. To succeed in fighting the epidemic in Liverpool, the key isn’t whether it’s right or wrong, but whether it can make money for people. If I say drinking can cure the disease, all the alcohol industry operators will support me. But just having their support isn’t enough.

And in my opinion, it’s not necessarily about drinking that cures the disease; it’s more likely a water source issue. Look at this map; the red circles where the disease breaks out are almost always centered around wells and spread outward. If it’s all coincidence, it’s too strange.”

Heine, upon hearing this, widened his eyes, “This… seems to be the case?”

Dumas, on the other hand, frowned, “Are you going to seal all the wells? But that doesn’t seem much different from isolating merchant ships; neither is very popular.”

“No, it’s not just the wells; it’s also the dilapidated sewage system.” Arthur said, “We need to overhaul everything here. Of course, the prerequisite for the overhaul is that Liverpool must prove to Parliament that cholera is actually caused by contaminated water sources.”

Upon hearing this, Louis almost instantly thought of the document he had submitted to Arthur today, “Arthur, you’re thinking?”

Arthur nodded with a smile, “I’ve already passed that document through private channels. They will certainly send someone to explain the port expansion issue to me. But actually, I don’t intend to cause them any trouble. On the contrary, I want to support them with another major project. But the precondition for the project is that they must listen to me.”

Agareus, lying on the windowsill, chuckled, “You’re truly the golden pig keeper from the Yorkshire countryside, Arthur. You really know how to feed the little pigs! Now, you don’t even need to ask them; just shake the food trough, and they’ll all come running to you.”

(End of Chapter)