Genre:

News-Commentary

Subjects:

Disease, Sanitation, Pollution, Government, Commerce, Public Health

    Noting the battle over who should pay for the 'purification of the Thames', warns that Father Thames may force Englishmen to pay by the appearance of cholera, by which time it will be too late to argue over the 'pestilential tax'. Observes that it is only when the disease is 'at our thresholds' that we regret the 'accumulation of filth' on the river bed.