Shadow of great britain

As a port city founded in the 13th century, Liverpool has spanned the Plantagenets, Lancastrians, Yorks, Tudors, Stuarts, and today's Hanoverian dynasty.

The relatively peaceful environment has also created a diversity of local architectural styles, whether it is Gothic architecture with sharp edges and spires, Tudor style known for its striped appearance and half-timbered construction, or fusion that has been popular for a century You can see Georgian architecture with Baroque curves and Rococo decorative elements in Liverpool.

Castle Street, where Liverpool City Hall is located, is where the Tudor style gathers.

It's just that today's Arthur obviously doesn't have time to appreciate these centuries-old old buildings. Even amidst the feasting, feasting, beautiful men, and countless dignitaries, this Scotland Yard superintendent from London has become a little Not a small focus.

There was an endless stream of guests coming to toast and chat. Perhaps it was because the climate in Liverpool was much better than that in London, so the people in Liverpool seemed more hospitable than the people in London.

Whether it was in the smoking room, the entertainment room, or in the corners of the dance hall and restaurant, wherever Arthur went there would be some new faces to talk to.

Among these people were government employees working in various departments in Liverpool, as well as wealthy young men engaged in various local businesses. Of course, there were also some motivated young people like Gladstone who were interested in joining the political circle.

However, according to Arthur's observation, there are still certain differences between the political tendencies of Liverpool and London.

In London, the Tories and Whigs were roughly evenly divided.

In Liverpool, the number of people holding Tory positions was significantly higher than those holding Whig positions.

But if you think about it carefully, it's not that difficult to explain.

As a city that made its fortune from the slave trade, most people in Liverpool are inextricably linked to the slave trade. In this case, how could they like the Whigs who introduced the Slave Trade Abolition Act?

Not to mention, the abolitionist advocate Mr. William Wilberforce was not satisfied with simply abolishing the slave trade. Even now, he still wants to take advantage of the Whig Party's return to power to completely abolish slavery in Britain and the overseas colonies, and to rescue those slaves who were sold before the abolition of the slave trade.

Judging from the first bill proposed by Wilberforce and his supporters, these abolitionists did not want to give even a penny to the slave owners. They claimed that if slave owners wanted compensation then they should go to the slave traders who sold them slaves.

Such behavior naturally caused an extreme backlash in Liverpool, and it is not difficult to understand why the Liverpool City Council is full of Tories from the oldest to the youngest.

In the ballroom, Arthur danced a waltz under the guidance of a young lady. Under the ambiguous light, their ears were filled with the low voices of other dancers whispering among themselves.

The woman seemed to be full of curiosity. Although she had danced with the Sheriff of Liverpool before, this was her first contact with Scotland Yard, a new policing organization.

Whether it was Arthur's epaulettes, the palace sword given by the king, or the encounters that Scotland Yard police officers encountered in their daily operations, she was very interested.

As for Arthur, he had already guessed that the ladies would probably ask this.

Thanks to the year he got to know the ladies of the Blue Stocking Club, he now has a preliminary understanding of the topics that the ladies may be concerned about.

The secret history of the palace must be the most interesting to them, but unfortunately, Arthur doesn't know much, so the few knowledge reserves can only be used as a trump card.

However, if we can't talk about the king's household affairs, Arthur can still talk about civil affairs.

Frankenstein, the origin of species, marriage lawsuits, sex trafficking cases, if that doesn't work, let's talk about Mrs. Berkeley's little whip and the so-and-so Earl who left the lady's room in the refreshing night.

However, when talking about these issues, you still have to be careful not to raise the ladies' emotions to too high a level all at once.

Since coming to London, Arthur has learned that ladies who are too excited will actually faint on the spot. A long time ago, he had always thought that this was made up by 'unscrupulous novelists' like Dickens, Alexandre Dumas and Mr. Disraeli.

But in fact, the corsets commonly worn by women in this era flattened the lungs, changed the position of the ribs, and squeezed some organs on the spine and even pushed them into the lower abdomen.

Therefore, women often have symptoms of difficulty breathing and blood supply, which also affects their appetite and further forms a vicious cycle.

Of course, in the opinion of Arthur, who has extensive knowledge of chemistry, those toxic cosmetics should also bear some responsibility for the fainting phenomenon of ladies.

However, not all of the time, women's fainting is caused by physiological reasons, it is also a social tool for them.

Since women are considered to be synonymous with vulnerability and sensibility, fainting in public is also in line with society's perception of them. Therefore, not only will it not be considered rude, but it will be considered an elegant act.

Ladies are free to use this trick when they are tired or do not want to continue the conversation with the guests. From Arthur's observation at the banquet, the effect is usually very good.

However, the lady Arthur met today was obviously too energetic, and she had no intention of fainting for a while.

"You dance the waltz very well. Did you ask someone to learn it? Or did some lady bring you in?"

"Really? Thank you for your compliment. If some of my friends hear this, they will definitely be very happy. I basically learned my dance from them."

"To be able to teach such great students as you, they must be frequent guests at social banquets."

"I really can't hide anything from you. Yes, several of my friends spend time there almost every day. And they are not just from London, they are also somewhat famous in Paris' social circles."

"Paris? Oh, my God! How can you see some French style in your dance steps? Since you have French friends, you must speak French, right?"

"Un peu, a little bit, if it's just a simple exchange it should be fine."

When the lady heard this, she immediately changed the language, and a series of French words hit Arthur's face. It took him a long time to figure out what it meant.

Arthur smiled and replied: "As the French often say, there is no fire in the lake, so you can slow down a little."

As soon as Arthur finished speaking, he caught a glimpse of a sturdy figure flashing past him out of the corner of his eye.

The fat French man put his arms around the waist of his dance partner and passed by quickly, leaving only a French sentence in Arthur's ear: "Arthur! Je te dis merde!"

Arthur frowned suddenly when he heard this. He turned his head and looked at Alexandre Dumas: "Did you just scold me? I heard merde."

Dumas smiled nonchalantly and replied: "Arthur, this is a special usage. Although sentences with merde are mostly used to curse people, this sentence is a blessing. You must know that I am a playwright, fuck us People in this industry often use these words to bless actors. Think about it, if there is a lot of horse manure in front of the theater, it means that business is much better than before."

When Alexandre Dumas's dance partner heard this, he couldn't help laughing and said: "Mr. Dumas, you are so funny."

But Arthur asked with a straight face: "Then the question is, if I am an actor, who is the horse manure?"

When the dance partner in Arthur's arms heard this, she couldn't help but change her face. She took out her handkerchief and reprimanded with a red face: "I'm so rude! It's so rude!"

Alexandre Dumas's dance partner also noticed something was wrong. She also let go of her hand and said goodbye to Alexandre: "Sorry, Alexander, I have to go over and see Jenny."

Arthur was free, and the little smoker finally had the chance to take out the pipe from his pocket. He poked Dumas with his elbow and said, "Let's go? To the smoking room?"

Alexandre Dumas rolled his eyes and said: "Arthur, why did you mention that? It's better now. I have to be slapped on the head again with the shit basin saying that ladies are horse shit."

Arthur held Alexandre Dumas in his arms and walked to the smoking room while saying, "Alexander, I really didn't expect that your words were really a blessing."

"Otherwise?! Now your horse dung is gone, and mine is gone too. Arthur, you are harming others and yourself!"

Alexandre Dumas angrily walked into the smoking room with Arthur. Perhaps because the dance had already begun, there were obviously not as many guests staying here as before.

In the huge smoking room, there were only Heine and Louis, who were smoking and chatting.

"I found a few "British" magazines before and briefly browsed them. To be honest, the freedom of the press in Britain is broader than I thought. If your "Summary of Napoleon's Thoughts" was placed in Austria, it would definitely be Banned by Metternich, the Austrians couldn't bear to see anyone saying a good word about Napoleon."

"There is no way, this is how losers think. They have never defeated France, so Metternich has always had long-term resentment and fear. This has been since he put my brother under house arrest in the palace like a canary. It can be seen. Metternich did not regard him as the prince of Austria at all, he only saw him as Napoleon's son."

"Speaking of which, why did you come to Scotland Yard to become a policeman? Although the surname Bonaparte is not as influential as it was in Europe before, it is not reduced to carrying a stick in your waist and hitting people on the street. To what extent?"

"Heinrich, what should I tell you? Bonaparte's surname is not only an honor, but also a heavy burden. Perhaps it was the failure of the Carbonari uprising in Italy that hit me now. I don’t want to think too much for the moment. It’s good for me to do simple things in peace and quiet. People always have to find something to do for themselves, right?

And you regard the police profession as so lowly that I even doubt whether you are a Prussian after all. When I was in military school in Switzerland, I heard that if you don’t use honorifics to the police in Prussia, you will be jailed, right? "

"Ha! Yes, in my opinion, this is the reason why this profession is low."

Arthur opened the door, lit his pipe and took a sip: "If you go by your evaluation system, the British police should be slightly more noble than their Prussian counterparts."

Alexandre Dumas was still angry, and he said, "That's right, it's like the difference between Je te dis merde and merde."

Louis saw Arthur coming in and asked: "Speaking of which, what are you going to do about the Liverpool matter? Although the Dock Committee and the Port Authority have officially begun to quarantine merchant ships as required, who knows whether they are secretly The goods were transported as contraband to nearby cliffs for hiding and distribution. And today the Liverpool City Council seems to have decided to send representatives to London to protest against the cabinet’s segregation policy.”

Arthur waved his hand and said: "I believe that the Royal Navy's anti-smuggling fleet will definitely increase their efforts. We don't need to worry about this. And when we come to Liverpool this time, smuggling is not a key issue. What the cabinet actually wants is To suppress the cases in Liverpool, the reason why they had to treat smuggling strictly was because they thought the cases were imported through smuggling. But whether cholera was specifically spread through miasma on ships is debatable."

Louis replied: "But before we understand the cause of the disease, isn't it safest to act in accordance with the rules set by the cabinet? As long as we strictly implement the cabinet's orders, even if something goes wrong in the end, the responsibility will not fall on us. "

"Yes, if you are just running to avoid getting into trouble, this is of course the safest thing to do. But that's not the problem I'm thinking of. Louis, in fact, when you went to investigate during the day, I was not idle either. You know I'm going to investigate Something?"

Having said this, Arthur took out a map covered with little red dots from his coat pocket.

Louis and others came over and took a look: "What is this?"

Arthur took off his pipe and said: "You came to the Police Intelligence Bureau relatively late, so you don't know what we did in the past. The predecessor of the Police Intelligence Bureau was the London Regional Provisional Bureau of Survey and Survey Statistics. Sir Peel, the then Home Secretary, revealed that The task assigned to us is to measure and count the narrow streets in the East District and demonstrate the correlation between narrow streets and criminal cases such as assaulting police officers, so that the Ministry of the Interior can submit a bill to the Parliament to expand and renovate the streets in the East District.

However, later on, due to the collapse of the Tories and the reorganization of the LPS into the Police Intelligence Service, this issue was temporarily shelved. However, the issue was shelved, and I learned how to find correlations through maps. The early onset of the epidemic in Liverpool also provided considerable data for mapping cholera. Take a look at this map. What can you see? "

Heine thought about it for a moment and said, "Do most cholera outbreaks occur in poor residential areas?"

Alexandre Dumas also analyzed: "The red spots are very dense, so if the disease does not break out, it will form a group. Does this mean that the miasma theory is actually correct? The environment where poor people live is usually poor, so a certain area Once it is contaminated by miasma, a large-scale outbreak of cases will occur."

Louis' eyes swept across the map. He frowned and thought for a long time. Suddenly he pointed to a blank area among a bunch of red dots on the map and asked: "Why is this place okay? It is also a slum. There is no reason why the surrounding areas are polluted by miasma." It’s the only place that’s clean!”

Arthur smiled and said: "I was thinking about this problem before, so I made a special trip there this afternoon. It turned out that the place was a Porter beer processing plant, and most of the people living nearby were factory workers. employees there.”

"You mean? Beer can stop cholera?"

"What's the point?"

"It's totally unheard of. What the hell is going on?"

Arthur nodded and said: "I went to talk to the local residents about their illness, and they told me that not all Liverpool wineries have such good luck, they are just special cases. And when I asked about this winery and When asked what was different from other wineries, they told me that the operators of this winery were more generous. As long as they did not steal the products from the factory and sell them, all the employees working here could drink to their heart's content or take the wine back in cups. Therefore, the families of these winery employees never drink water, but only drink alcohol to satisfy their hunger like medieval nobles, and they even use beer to cook."

When Alexandre Dumas heard this, he couldn't help but wonder: "If beer can prevent and cure cholera, why was the first case in Sunderland an old sailor? Sailors all live by drinking!"

Louis pinched his chin and guessed: "Is it a problem with the type of wine? Only porter beer is effective?"

Heine said: "In that case, you plan to notify the Liverpool Health Committee and ask them to distribute free beer to the citizens for a few months? Although I don't know whether this will have any effect, but the brewery owners in Liverpool We will definitely support your decision."

Arthur smiled and shook his head and said: "Heinrich, you really hit the nail on the head. If you come to Liverpool to do prevention and control, if you want to be successful, the key is not whether it is right or not, but whether it can make people make money. If I talk about drinking If I can cure diseases, all liquor industry operators will support me. But their support alone is not enough.

Moreover, in my opinion, drinking does not necessarily cure diseases, it may be more about the water source. If you look at this picture, the red circles of disease outbreaks are almost all centered on the wells and spread outward. If this is all a coincidence, it would be too strange. "

Heine's eyes widened when he heard this: "This... seems to be really like this?"

Alexandre Dumas frowned and said: "Are you going to seal all the wells? But this seems to be no different from isolating merchant ships, and it is not very popular."

"No, it's not just the water well problem, but also the sewage system that has been in disrepair." Arthur said: "Every aspect here needs to be renovated. Of course, the premise of the renovation is that Liverpool can prove to the Parliament that cholera is real. are caused by unclean water sources."

When Louis heard this, he almost instantly thought of the document he submitted to Arthur today: "Arthur, what do you want?"

Arthur smiled and nodded: "I have already forwarded that document through personal relations. They will definitely send someone to explain the port expansion issues to me. However, I did not actually intend to cause trouble for them. On the contrary, What’s more, I want to support another big project for them. But the prerequisite for the project to be established is that they must listen to me.”

Agares, who was lying on the window sill, exclaimed in amazement when he heard this: "As expected of the gold medal pigherder in the York countryside, Arthur, you really know how to feed the piglets! Now, you don't need to invite me, just wander around and eat." No, they will all smell it and come looking for you."