orbus at Sunderland and elsewhere, a great scare was
occasioned in Royston, and the sanitary state of the town at last got
an overhauling, when the result showed what a terrible state of things
had prevailed in the town during the first decades of the century.
{183} Mr. E. K. Fordham, the veteran banker and reformer, was the first
to set the ball rolling, and a regular scheme of house to house
visitation was resorted to. A committee was appointed, and the town
was divided into four parts, each committee to report to the Select
Vestry. The state of things disclosed by that report now seems almost
inconceivable. The Committee's work had a salutary effect, and this
burst of zeal for the public health proceeded so far that a proposal
was carried unanimously that a Board of Health be formed "for the more
effectual removal of nuisances, and obtaining assistance from the
Central Board should the cholera morbus unfortunately break out in this
town." With the disappearance of all danger of the cholera morbus
however the "Board of Health" fell through, but the effect of the
enlightenment which it led to as to the condition of the town was not
altogether lost. The cholera was then considered a new epidemic, and
it broke out at Sunderland and carried off many thousand lives in the
year. Hence the alarm spread to inland towns, the inhabitants of
which, like Royston, had their eyes opened to things little thought of
before, and that great principle of cause and effect took root in
regard to public health, which led up to the Public Health Acts of the
present day. It was on this visitation that Kingsley in his "Two Years
Ago" gives such a graphic description of the terror caused by the
appearance of the cholera, in the treatment of which he makes his hero
Tom Thurnall take a notable part. Whether cholera actually appeared in
the district I am unable to say, but I find an item for Royston, Cambs,
"Cholera bills, &c., 14s. 3d." Probably this was part of the expense
of the steps above described.

Some years after the above date, when vaccination had got established,
a valiant Royston champion of the good old cause inoculated her family
with small-pox. She was brought up at the Bull before the magistrates,
who, evidently reluctant to punish her, asked if she would promise not
to do the like again, to which she adroitly made answer that she could
promise them this, that if she did do it again she would not tell
anyone. This was