Chapter 36
In a corner cafe on the street, Darwin and Arthur sat in a corner booth, a few textbooks from Darwin’s classes at Edinburgh University laid out before them.
Darwin poured out his life’s knowledge of pharmacology, while Arthur listened quietly, occasionally picking up a pen to jot down some of the key points he considered important.
Whenever Darwin got to a crucial point, Arthur would raise his hand and ask a few questions.
“So the most widely used anesthetic currently is laudanum? And this stuff is quite easy to buy?”
“Even for a fever, a cold, a headache, or a stomachache, doctors will prescribe this drug?”
“What? They prescribe this for insomnia too?”
“The side effect is addiction? Well, I knew that.”
“You treat patients with bloodletting, I’ve actually seen that at the clinic.”
“Hearing this, I think using leeches to suck blood doesn’t seem so disgusting, at least the patient won’t feel the pain.”
Time passed minute by minute. Darwin glanced at Arthur’s page full of notes and sighed with relief.
“Arthur, I think what we talked about today should be enough for you to digest for a while.”
Arthur nodded. He put his notebook away, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.
“You’ve been so kind today, Charles.”
As he spoke, Arthur glanced at Eldred, who was sitting next to him, engrossed in a newspaper.
He asked, “But… Eldred, what are you doing here today? Didn’t you tell me you’ve been diligently studying drawing techniques lately?”
Eldred, engrossed in his newspaper, waved his hand dismissively. “Let me finish this section first. I can’t believe other newspapers are so interesting. This street newspaper, which sells for a penny, always has more exciting content than the official newspapers that sell for four pence.”
Arthur couldn’t help but say, “Even if you like reading this kind of newspaper, can you please not mention the price in front of me? Everyone knows that a newspaper has a three-pence stamp tax, so anything that sells for less than three pence is an illegal publication. Eldred, I’m still wearing my police uniform, at least wait until I take it off before you say that, okay?”
But Eldred didn’t care whether Arthur was wearing a uniform or not. He excitedly pulled Arthur over by the arm and pointed to a section of the newspaper, saying, “Look at this. It’s calling the Parliament a bunch of donkeys, saying they finally stopped braying.”
Arthur glanced at the newspaper. Most of the content was about the recent “Swine Riot” that had erupted in rural areas.
The farm laborers, unable to bear the high cost of living brought about by the Corn Laws, coupled with the recent agricultural crisis, had gathered together. As night fell, they would attack the landlords’ estates and burn their barns, destroying their threshing machines in the process.
This phenomenon was particularly severe in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Kent. For the past few days, newspapers had been reporting several incidents of landlords and clergymen being burned to death by angry farmers.
Similar events, involving large-scale destruction under the cover of darkness, had occurred many times in England, even forming a standard riot procedure, and not just limited to the agricultural sector.
One of the most famous was the Luddite movement of 1811.
At that time, the hosiery merchants of Nottinghamshire, ignoring industry regulations, produced a low-quality kind of stocking that lowered the price of stockings, severely impacting the normal income of handloom weavers.
Some weavers secretly organized and, under the fictitious name of “General Ludd,” destroyed the merchants’ stocking machines, sabotaged their wool and hosiery factories, and immediately hanged any factory owners they found.
This fire in Nottingham quickly spread across England, and various riots, each with its own unique character, bloomed everywhere within a year.
To suppress the workers’ riots, the British authorities even had to recall some of the army units that were participating in the Napoleonic Wars in the Iberian Peninsula.
At the peak of the Luddite movement, the number of British troops left at home to deal with rioting workers even exceeded those sent to fight Napoleon.
Later, to deal with the Luddite movement, the British government urgently passed two acts, the “Machine Breaking Limitation Act” and the “Malicious Damage Act of 1812.”
But clearly, the rioting workers in their prime didn’t care about that.
The Luddite movement was almost entirely initiated spontaneously by workers in various places, with no unified organization. The British authorities suppressed one wave only to have another emerge, and this continued intermittently until the 1820s, with riots still occurring under the banner of “General Ludd.”
Although this “Swine Riot” did not use the banner of “General Ludd,” they simply replaced it with “Captain Swine,” but their tactics remained the same.
However, the Tory cabinet, headed by the Duke of Wellington, was unusually quiet about this “Swine Riot.” While they still sent police and troops to restore order in the riot areas, they also uncharacteristically stated that they would not send army units to suppress the riots as long as the situation did not continue to escalate.
In the following days, the situation became even more magical.
Almost at the same time as the Swine Riot broke out, Lord Saffeld delivered a speech in the House of Lords about promoting the “Establishment of Allotment System.”
He proposed that 50 acres of land be set aside as allotments in each parish across the country, leased to landless farm laborers at a low price. He emphasized that this would not only effectively reduce poverty rates and improve the employment rate of agricultural workers, but also alleviate the conflict between farm laborers and landowners.
Indeed, Lord Saffeld had previously proposed similar suggestions many times, but this time, it was met with thunderous applause in the House of Lords.
The Speaker of the House of Lords even showered praise on Lord Saffeld, calling his idea an “outstanding, excellent, and creative proposal.”
He said that although he had heard Lord Saffeld mention this proposal many times, each time it was still fresh in his memory.
Just eight days after Lord Saffeld concluded his speech in the House of Lords, Member of Parliament Briscoe expressed his support for Lord Saffeld’s initiative in the House of Commons and intended to submit a feasible bill on the matter.
Since Arthur arrived in this country, he had never felt that the House of Lords and the House of Commons were such an action-oriented institution.
The Tories, known for their conservatism, suddenly made a 180-degree turn, catching the Whigs, who were already eager to impeach the cabinet, off guard.
With both parties nodding in agreement, the implementation of the allotment system was almost irreversible.
The only thing left was the legislative process for the specific promulgation time.
This was the first time since the end of the Napoleonic Wars that the House of Lords and the House of Commons had such a harmonious scene.
Eldred clapped his hands and laughed, holding his stomach. This incident had essentially become his source of amusement for the entire day.
“Just like the newspaper said, the donkeys have stopped braying.”
As for Arthur, he stroked his chin, as if he had seen something in it.
Suddenly, he realized something. Arthur smiled slightly and took the newspaper from Eldred’s hand.
He murmured, “It seems that sometimes, if you use the whip well, you can still make them pull the millstone.”
(End of Chapter)