SGB Chapter 356

## Chapter 356: Knighthood

**London, Westminster, The Lord Chancellor’s Office.**

Arthur had just stepped out of his carriage and saw rows of Household Cavalrymen marching in formation along Whitehall Street. They were pacing in small, measured steps.

He habitually lit his pipe and watched the men riding their tall horses, muttering to himself, “Such a heavy guard? Even a cholera epidemic doesn’t warrant this. Is London in trouble again?”

Louis, who accompanied him, spoke up, “Deploying the Household Cavalry isn’t for cholera prevention. I had a brief chat with some of the other police secretaries this morning. They said that the Reform Bill, the Swing Riots, cholera, and the Liverpool shooting have all happened at once, so everyone in Parliament and the Cabinet is on edge.

London hasn’t seen major riots lately, but minor disturbances are happening almost daily. It’s said that the Duke of Wellington proposed deploying the army to resolve the situation, but Sir Peel talked him out of it. However, considering the lack of police power in London, the Home Office finally decided to send the Household Cavalry, who have been disarmed, to patrol the streets.”

“I see.”

Arthur glanced at the passing Household Cavalry, “No wonder they’re all carrying walking sticks. If you didn’t tell me, I’d have thought they stole them from Scotland Yard.”

Louis looked at him with a strange expression, “The noble Household Cavalry would steal?”

“Noble? They’re far from noble now.”

Arthur said, “Even though they used to be mostly sons of noble families, the war between Britain and your uncle took out the first generation of those noble lads. If they stuck to that selection criteria, we’d be lacking in soldiers. So, since then, the standards for the Household Cavalry have been lowered to ‘good citizen’s sons’.”

Louis replied, “France isn’t much better. The French soldiers were at their best quality at the beginning of the Revolution. When my uncle led them into Central Europe, many Germans and Swiss were attracted by their tall and handsome appearance and their neat and beautiful uniforms, so they joined the French army.

But by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, they couldn’t even guarantee that the soldiers were tall and handsome, let alone their uniforms being neat and uniform. When they marched, they were like a rainbow, it was truly unsightly. The worst part was that many of them were just released from prison, so you know, you can’t find any discipline among these people, let alone chivalry.”

Arthur took a puff of his pipe, “It seems that Britain and France are truly in the same boat in this regard. I mentioned this to the Duke of Wellington when I was chatting with him.”

Louis, upon hearing the name Wellington, was immediately interested. Besides studying his uncle, his greatest hobby was studying his uncle’s lifelong enemy.

“What did His Grace say?”

Arthur thought back for a moment, then began to imitate the Duke’s cold, slightly impatient tone.

“In the Peninsular War, I led a proud iron army. They always carried out my orders and risked their lives for it. It’s always heartbreaking to see such excellent lads sacrifice their lives, and that’s why I hate war.

But at the Battle of Waterloo, it was a different story. At that time, I was leading a bunch of British social trash. They were stealing, committing crimes, defying military discipline, and even marching in formation seemed to be a death sentence for them. That’s why I never considered Waterloo to be the greatest moment of my life. I have no interest in standing on a pile of garbage.”

Louis couldn’t help but laugh, “It seems that great people always have something in common, whether it’s hating scoundrels or advocating for the use of force to suppress riots. However, the Duke of Wellington’s character is more reserved than my uncle’s. If my uncle were in Wellington’s position, he wouldn’t have listened to Sir Peel and wouldn’t have agreed to let the Household Cavalry switch to walking sticks.”

Arthur, upon hearing this, suddenly remembered the biography of Napoleon he had read.

He took a deep breath of the cold London air, “His Grace’s reserved character is Britain’s good fortune. As far as I know, the Parisian barricades only cowered in the face of Napoleon in the last half-century.”

Louis knew what Arthur was referring to.

Napoleon rose to power by helping the Thermidorians suppress the Thermidorian Reaction, and when the Royalists launched a massive uprising in Paris, Napoleon responded with forty cannons. The Parisian barricades, which Louis XVI and his followers couldn’t handle, only lasted for an hour in the face of Napoleon.

Louis also knew that this dark history wasn’t something to be brought up, but he didn’t answer directly and instead used a different way of speaking to cover up his embarrassment.

“My father did go a bit too far that time. If it were me, I could have done it better.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows and smiled, “Really? Are you going to reason with the rioters?”

“No, I wouldn’t do such a foolish thing, I prefer to prevent it before it happens.”

Louis confidently raised his head and waved the Liverpool city renovation document towards Arthur, “If I’m lucky enough to serve France one day, I’ll completely renovate Paris. I’ll straighten out all those crooked alleys in Paris. No one will be able to build barricades in Paris.”

“Sounds good, at least it’s better than cannons.”

Arthur, with his pipe in his mouth, said, “It seems like it was a wise move to let you participate in drafting the Liverpool city renovation plan. Regardless of what the Treasury and Parliament think of it, you’ve gained experience from it.”

As Arthur and Louis were chatting, Arthur caught sight of a young civil servant in his twenties coming down the steps of the Lord Chancellor’s Office.

It was Edwin Chadwick, the private secretary to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham.

Chadwick was about to board his carriage, but he noticed someone in front of him. He turned his head and met Arthur’s gaze.

“Inspector Hastings?”

Arthur smiled and raised his hand to greet him, “We meet again.”

Chadwick noticed the stitches on the corner of Arthur’s eye and felt a pang of guilt. He turned around and apologized, “What happened to you in Liverpool has been spread all over Whitehall. Sending you to oversee smuggling and cholera prevention at the risk of your life without providing enough manpower was truly our oversight.”

“No need to apologize.”

Arthur smiled and waved his hand, “There are many Royal Navy and Army officers who are missing limbs. The Duke of Wellington is deaf in one ear, and Admiral Nelson lost an arm early on. While I’m not a soldier, as a policeman, I’ve long been prepared for injuries.”

Although Arthur said this, Chadwick, as one of the main people who suggested sending Arthur to Liverpool, still felt a little embarrassed.

He patted his chest and assured Arthur, “The assassination has already happened, and there’s no use regretting the past. But I assure you, we will severely punish the mastermind behind it. That scar on your face doesn’t just belong to you, it also belongs to the Lord Chancellor’s Office, the Home Office, the Customs Service, and the Central Board of Health that entrusted you.”

Arthur saw Chadwick’s solemn expression and didn’t feel particularly touched.

He knew that the real people who had the power to speak weren’t here.

But although Chadwick couldn’t represent the Lord Chancellor’s Office, he was a close associate of Lord Brougham and naturally had his own value.

Arthur said, “Edwin, I’m grateful for your help. But at this moment, I think we should focus on cholera prevention. Did Lord Brougham receive the documents I sent back from Liverpool?”

“That report?” Chadwick nodded with a smile, “The report is very detailed, and the inferences about the cholera pathogen and the suggestions for new treatments are well-founded. Lord Brougham saw it and organized a discussion among the medical authorities on the Central Board of Health that same day. But…”

Arthur had a feeling about this, he asked, “The medical authorities don’t agree with the saline therapy?”

“You guessed it.” Chadwick awkwardly said, “But although they don’t agree, under Lord Brougham’s persuasion, the doctors finally reluctantly agreed to include saline therapy in the new edition of the ‘Cholera Prevention Handbook.’ But before that, they need the creator of this therapy to come to London and answer a few questions in front of them.”

“What questions?”

Chadwick opened his meeting memo and listed them one by one, “First, why is the concentration of the injected saline solution 9%? Second, why is alcohol used to wipe the skin at the injection site? Third, why do the needle and syringe need to be boiled for 10 minutes before use? Fourth…”

Arthur thought that the seized paper by Hadcastle would be enough to help explain the concerns of the Board of Health members, but he realized that while they didn’t question Hadcastle’s theory, the 21st-century common sense questions he added were questioned one by one.

If the Board of Health members insisted on asking Arthur why, he could only tell them that the first one was taught in middle school biology class. As for the second and third, it was because he saw doctors do this when he got injections in the hospital.

Although this knowledge was common sense in the 21st century, it was a big problem to explain it to doctors in this era when the concept of disinfection was still unclear.

From Arthur’s observations of hospitals, if cholera hadn’t come along, and the miasma theorists and contagionists were still arguing over the source of the disease, most hospitals wouldn’t even be able to change the bed sheets every day.

In normal times, whether it was a high-end Royal Hospital or a cheap street clinic, all operating rooms were like what Darwin, who had abandoned medicine to become a naturalist, described: bloody, dirty, and a mess.

Coupled with the terrifying tools on the operating table, like iron saws, if you walked in there without knowing what you were looking at, you wouldn’t be able to tell if you were in a hospital or a meat processing plant.

And worse, Hadcastle had medical ethics problems, so he couldn’t be brought to the forefront. Otherwise, the bigwigs on the Liverpool Committee would definitely expose his unauthorized dissection of corpses.

If that happened, forget about promoting saline therapy, the *Lancet* and *London Medical Gazette* would probably have to publish a special issue on medical ethics to put him on trial.

Arthur pondered for a moment and suddenly remembered the York native he had met in Liverpool. At this point, he could only hope that this professional guy could come up with some self-explanatory reasons for him.

If even he couldn’t, Arthur would have to go to the teaching hospital at the University of London and try to get some information from Professor Marsden.

“It’s normal for the Board of Health members to have concerns, which shows their responsible attitude towards public health. Since I advocated for the necessity of saline therapy to the Lord Chancellor’s Office, it’s my duty to answer their doubts. I’ll send a letter to Liverpool after I go back today, and they’ll send experts over soon.”

Chadwick was relieved to hear this, “That’s the best. To be honest, Arthur, if saline therapy is as miraculous as you say, the high death rate from cholera will be reduced soon. In that case, the priests will finally shut their mouths.”

“Priests?” Louis frowned, “Are those guys spouting nonsense again?”

Chadwick, thinking about it, spoke with a hint of anger in his voice, “Of course they are. And it’s not just the priests, some brainless people are joining them. The priests say cholera is God’s punishment for a morally corrupt society, and those who live in the West End and have nothing better to do go even further, they spread the word that cholera only infects the poor, as if they, the noble and virtuous gentlemen and ladies, wouldn’t be infected by cholera.”

“Is that really the case?”

“Of course not.”

Chadwick sarcastically said, “One brainless guy, in order to prove that he wouldn’t get cholera, went for a walk in the East End. He went there in the morning, the symptoms appeared at noon, and the body was transported away at night, and he also infected his whole family. If we hadn’t discovered it in time and quickly sent the whole family to quarantine, there would have been a major outbreak in the West End. In my opinion, cholera doesn’t only infect the poor, it targets those with low IQs.”

Arthur asked, “Fortunately, at least after this incident, those people should finally calm down, right?”

“Calm down?” Chadwick laughed angrily, “Arthur, you really overestimate them. Their current explanation is that the guy got sick because he wasn’t devout enough, that true believers wouldn’t be infected with cholera.”

Arthur shook his head helplessly, “Why is it always like this? Whenever something happens, they blame it on the divine, when humans themselves are already capable of committing all sins.”

“What else?” Chadwick sighed, “Are you going to make them blame themselves?”

As he said this, Chadwick suddenly looked up at the sky, “It’s getting late, I still have to attend a meeting at the Central Board of Health. You’re here to see Lord Brougham, right? He’s inside. Oh, right, Viscount Melbourne, the Home Secretary, is also here. If you haven’t reported to him yet, you can just save a trip to the Home Office.”

“What is Viscount Melbourne doing here?”

Chadwick smiled and patted Arthur on the shoulder, “It’s good news, of course. Regarding the preparations for the establishment of the London Metropolitan Police, Arthur, congratulations, the position of Deputy Chief Prosecutor is basically confirmed. However, I don’t know if it’s good or bad for you…”

“What do you mean?”

Chadwick replied, “Because you won’t have an easy job after you take office, the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor’s Office plan to put the prosecution of the Swing Riots criminals entirely in your hands. But, for the sake of our friendship, let me give you a heads-up…

Because Lord Brougham and Viscount Melbourne also know that this job is not easy, and it’s easy to ruin your reputation if you mess up. Plus, you just got shot in Liverpool, so they’re considering compensating you in other ways.”

Arthur sensed something wrong from Chadwick’s words, “You mean…”

Chadwick slowly nodded, a sly smile appearing on his face, “That’s right, they’re going to apply to the Prime Minister for a knighthood for you, a lower order knighthood. Maybe soon, your business card will need to be reprinted, with a prefix – Sir Arthur Hastings.”

Arthur heard this and instead of feeling any joy, he just held his forehead and muttered, “It seems you’re right, this job really shouldn’t be easy.”

(End of Chapter)