Genre:

Poetry

Subjects:

Disease, Government, Politics, Public Health, Sanitation

    Written from the perspective of King Cholera, who begins by calling for a clear path for his 'cold blue scythe of Death' and for the 'incense of wasted breath' on which he flourishes. Reveals that it is 'Bumble the Great', not 'Filth, Stench, Hunger, or Cold', who is King Cholera's 'right hand'. His 'peals' for 'anti-centralisation' and 'penny-wisdom' arms Cholera's hand, he has caused the 'open water butt' to 'drink the breath / Of plague', and his 'flabby heart and leaden skull [...] keep the rates down and the dead-house full'. Concludes by hoping that Bumble and his 'Local Self-Government hobby' will continue to promote his evil enterprise. (The reference is to the parish beadle Bumble from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist.)