Abstract
The year is 1858. Another mid-Victorian winter has been dark and dreary. Londoners watch for the first sign of spring. By early February change is in the frosty air.1 The mercury level in a thermometer on the wall of Camden Square churchyard rises sharply to 41.2° Fahrenheit.2 The sun’s rays warm pavements stained by muddy feet. People once more congregate on the busy streets and thoroughfares. Newspapers report the first flowering of snowdrops and crocuses in the capital’s parks.3 Yet their fragrant beauty cannot quench the stench of pollution. Across London foul drains and cess pits stink with raw sewage. Breathing in the strong scent of rotten eggs, fashionable ladies hold silk scarves to their mouths. John Welsh, the meteorologist, abandons the weather observatory at Kew gardens.4 London’s poor air quality has aggravated his breathing difficulties and on the advice of his doctor he rents temporary lodgings at Falmouth until the stagnant smells are blown away by the March winds. Most of London’s poor do not have the luxury of leaving.5 In the alleyways, lodging houses, and cramped housing, the shafts of early spring sunlight never seem to penetrate a narrow world. The spectre of hunger shapes the daily grind.6 Neighbours gossip about rising food bills, more hungry mouths to feed, and having to pay rent money to avoid debtors’ prison.
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Notes
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© 2012 Elizabeth T. Hurren
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Hurren, E.T. (2012). Chalk on the Coffin: Re-Reading the Anatomy Act of 1832. In: Dying for Victorian Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230355651_1
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