Chapter 42

“There are two mountains we need to climb to enact the Food Safety Act.”

One was lowering the murderous grain tariffs.

The other was improving the hygiene of the food manufacturing process.

If tariffs are high, the price of flour rises; when the price of flour rises, merchants mix in impurities to meet costs. If flour gets even more expensive, the impurities increase further.

If this cycle keeps repeating, bad money will drive out good, just like Gresham’s law.

Was it really just flour, though?

Murderous tariffs were slapped on sugar as well, so people made it green with copper rust, gave it shine with arsenic, and added sweet weight with lead.

At this rate, finding a normal, wholesome meal on the tables of commoners in cities like London was practically impossible. No, wouldn’t it be better to call it an alchemist’s testing ground instead?

Tariffs and hygiene. I need to catch both of these rabbits at once.

How?

By launching a war of public opinion.

However, explaining the cause-and-effect relationship of how high tariffs threatened London’s dinner tables in a way the general public could easily understand was far more complex and difficult than expected.

The truth was usually complicated, and the complicated was usually ignored. People gladly accepted anger that could be summarized in a single line, but they turned their heads away at the very first line of a ten-line causal relationship.

Right now, the people in London’s slums had their entire attention focused on whether or not they had something to eat for dinner that evening. They simply lacked the bandwidth to peer into macroeconomic structures like tariffs.

Giving an economics lecture to a starving person was no different from explaining the physics of swimming to someone flailing about and drowning. To them, expensive bread prices were the fault of a bad harvest or a greedy baker. Telling them that bone dust ended up in their bread because of tariffs would only result in their fists flying toward the face of the nearest bakery owner, not Parliament.

On the other hand, the aristocrats who made the laws were completely numb to the hygiene issue.

They ate clean flour from their own estates and freshly squeezed milk; whether bone dust got into the market bread or calf brains were mixed into the milk, that was just the bad luck of the lower classes, not their problem.

A numbness to the suffering of others. This stemmed not from malice, but from distance.

Just like how bird cries sound distant when you are far away.

In the end, it’s a matter of conscience.

I put down my quill and closed my eyes.

In the darkness, two worlds appeared.

One was the world of the commoners, and the other was the world of the aristocrats.
Even though both worlds existed within the same city, they couldn’t understand each other’s languages.

If this gap wasn’t bridged, the Food Safety Act was a distant dream.

Parliament would, at best, make an example of a few merchants by punishing them, beef up the charge of lèse-majesté, and try to sweep the incident under the rug.

Just like the Whigs were gearing up to do right now.

“I need to change my approach.”

I returned to my desk and pulled out an envelope tucked deep inside the drawer.
As soon as Isidore and Daguerre returned from Qing China, they followed my instructions and toured the back-alley factories of London, sketching what they saw.

“With these drawings, I can deliver a shock.”

The scenery inside the drawings was a veritable picture of hell.

Mills grinding bones to mix into flour sacks, workers scraping copper rust and arsenic to pour into candy jars, and the process of dumping mushy calf brains into watered-down milk.

Isidore’s detailed sketches were enough to churn one’s stomach just by looking at them, but merely exposing the foul hygiene and showing the parade of bizarre additives wasn’t enough.

People would certainly get angry upon seeing the horrifying drawings, but before long, they would snap right back to their harsh reality.

“That kind of one-time outburst of anger won’t help solve the problem at all.”

I picked up my quill.

When I opened the ink bottle’s cap, the black ink reflected the candlelight, shining like a single star.

“Lord, please let me be a righteous whistleblower today.”

First, I wrote down the title.

[The bread, milk, and candy you eat… The truth behind all these foods.]

Beneath that, I poured out the information I had scraped together over the past few days without holding back.

Why the Corn Laws existed. How these Corn Laws distorted the price of flour.

How the distortion of flour prices drove honest bakers to ruin.

And how the monster born at the end of that ruin was bone-dust bread.

I tried to write as simply as possible.

I attempted to translate the language of economics into the language of the streets.

I tried to turn the abstraction of tariff rates into the concrete reality of the price of a loaf of bread.

Yet the more I wrote, the more a single anxiety clung stubbornly to the tip of my quill.

Will these writings really touch people’s hearts?

By the time I finished writing, it was well past three in the morning.

Before the candle grew short and the darkness on the desk completely swallowed it up, I placed the manuscript along with Isidore’s illustrations into an envelope, poured water from the carafe, and drank it down.

“Phew….”

My stomach felt relieved.

Now, if I sent this manuscript to a newspaper office, it would probably make front-page news as a sensational scoop.

Wait.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t thought about whose name to send this under or where to send it.

If I sent it under the name of Victoria, who knew what might happen? I needed a suitable pen name, and if I just sent it to any random newspaper, a paper catering to the aristocrats’ tastes like The Morning Chronicle might burn the manuscript right up.

What should I use…?

Just then, as if hearing my worries, a star in the night sky twinkled.

A few days later, people gathered and buzzed around every place that handled newspaper publications.

Among them was The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, a newspaper that, though recently founded, was exploding in popularity among the working class for covering various Chartist activities. And today, an article under the name of Astraea was published in that paper.

[An Uncomfortable, Astounding Story About the Bread, Milk, and Candy That Grace Your Tables - An In-depth Diagnosis of How the Corn Laws Threaten London’s Bakeries and Ovens, Accompanied by Detailed Illustrations and Explanations to Discuss the Rationale for Enacting a Food Safety Act]

“…Is that title for real?”

Holding up the copy of the Northern Star carrying the manuscript, I was too dumbfounded for words for a moment.

The title of the manuscript I had submitted definitely wasn’t that.

I knew that publishers of this era liked to draw out titles long—longer still, making the title itself read like a thesis—but experiencing it firsthand left me a bit dazed.

Still, I had expectations.

I believed that once the article spread to the public, public opinion would boil over, Parliament would be pressured, and discussions would begin not only on enacting a Food Safety Act but even on abolishing the Corn Laws, with the weight of truth breaking down the walls of prejudice.

Yet reality always struck back at me.

[Damn those wretches! How dare they put bone dust in bread?!]

[Vicious merchants like that should all be hanged!]

People were angry. Just as I had expected. But the arrows of that anger were aimed solely at the merchants. The structural problems of the Corn Laws and tariffs, which I had painstakingly explained in the article, drifted away. Like words written on water, they maintained their shape for a moment before being erased by the ripples.

Guessing the reason wasn’t difficult. It was simply too boring.

The paragraphs explaining tariffs, sliding scales, and import-suppression mechanisms failed to catch people’s eyes.

Their gazes were trapped entirely by the drawings of the mills grinding bones and the workers putting brain matter into milk.

Bad guys did bad things.

No further reason was needed.

[If you lower tariffs, the price of bread goes down!]

[What does that have to do with anything? The guy who put poison in it is the bad guy!]

Lowering tariffs might or might not lower bread prices, but putting the guys who put poison in prison would surely cut down on adulterated food, wouldn’t it?

Conversations exchanged in pubs and streets were mostly along those lines.

Commoners cursed the merchants, and aristocrats clicked their tongues.

“Tsk tsk, such base creatures. Playing tricks with food just to make a few pennies.”

Parliament’s response was also lackluster. No, not just lackluster—it flowed in the exact opposite direction.

Whig MPs used Astraea’s article as a basis, but rather than following the finger pointing where it pointed, they selectively read only the parts that benefited them.

“Look at this! These drawings are the proof! The greed of the merchants has crossed the line! We must tighten regulations and increase punishments! Isn’t discussing the Food Safety Act enough after that?”

No, that’s not what I meant….

Clutching my head as I received the report in my office, I groaned.

The arrow I shot missed the target. Or, more accurately, the arrow flew straight, but the target moved. From the essence of the Corn Laws to the peripheral morality of the merchants, from structure to individual, from cause to symptom.

The next morning, London was turned upside down once again.

Yet this time, the epicenter was not The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, but an official announcement from the Melbourne cabinet.

[The Cabinet Swiftly Arrests Poisonous Food Merchants!]

[Prime Minister Melbourne Declares Insult to Her Majesty Calls for Zero Tolerance]

[Fraudulent Acts Exploiting the Royal Warrant to Be Punished to the Fullest Extent of the Law]

The front pages of every newspaper were plastered with sensational phrases.

The Times featured an illustration of police storming bakery shops and milk warehouses in the city of London to drag out their owners. Among them was a caricature of Madison in handcuffs, drawn looking even more contemptuous and cunning than he did in reality.

[Look at this! The government has finally made a move!]

[Just look at that pig Madison getting dragged away in handcuffs!]

[That is so satisfying! Wretches like that belong on the gallows!]

People gathered in pubs waved their newspapers and cheered.

The structural diagnosis that Astraea’s article had carefully laid out a few days ago had already been pushed to the back of their memories. People’s gazes were fixed solely on the punishment right in front of them.

The sight of merchants being arrested and dragged away felt like the moment justice was being realized.

Even if that wasn’t true justice, but merely the shadow of justice.

The masses wanted simple catharsis rather than complex truths.

Demanding systematic analysis from starving people was cruel, and for them, immediate venting was far more desperate than distant future structural reform. And politicians read that desperation with pinpoint accuracy.

The corridors of Westminster Abbey.

Robert Peel walked among the long shadows cast by the stone pillars. His expression was set like stone. Only the sound of his footsteps echoed in the empty corridor.

“Well now, Peel.”

Lord Melbourne, walking from the opposite direction, greeted him with a relaxed smile.

“You look rather glum. Shouldn’t you be rejoicing now that the criminals are being rounded up?”

Peel stopped in his tracks.

The darkness of the corridor lay between the two men.

The shadows of the stone pillars fell alternately across their bodies, resembling prison bars.

“Catching criminals is the job of the Metropolitan Police, Your Lordship.”

Peel’s voice was low and precise, as if well-accustomed to keeping his emotions under control.

“A politician’s job is to make laws so that crimes don’t happen in the first place.”

“Laws, you say.”

Lord Melbourne clicked his tongue.

“You are far too idealistic. There are already plenty of laws in London. It’s just that there were bad apples refusing to follow them.”

“And wasn’t it the cabinet’s laissez-faire attitude that nurtured those bad apples?”

“Oh, do calm down. And let’s get our terms straight. Isn’t it freedom, not neglect? And we are simply making them pay the price for abusing that freedom. Look, aren’t the subjects rejoicing like that?”

When Lord Melbourne pointed out the window, a prison transport carriage carrying the arrested merchants was visible.

The angry voices of the crowd cheering and throwing stones at the carriage pierced through the stone walls, sounding faint.

Some might call it the roar of justice, but Robert Peel knew that sound was the roar of venting spleen.

Yet he seemed to be the only person within this corridor who understood that distinction.

“How long do you suppose that anger will remain focused solely on the merchants?”

Robert Peel’s teeth grated together.

“Cutting off its tail does not turn a lizard into a dragon.”

“Perhaps.”

Lord Melbourne shrugged his shoulders. A bold nonchalance lingered within that casual movement.

“At the very least, the lizard survives and grows its tail back.”

With those words, Lord Melbourne walked past Peel.

The sound of his shoe heels tapping against the stone floor gradually grew distant.

Peel clenched his fists tightly.

He felt the pain of his fingernails digging into his palms, but that pain was almost welcome.

When anger transforms into physical pain, the anger subsides just a little. Ever so slightly.

Damn it…

The Whigs had twisted the essence of food safety into a political battle over lèse-majesté.

The Bill for the Prevention of Adulteration of Foodstuffs prepared by the Conservatives was naturally losing its momentum.

Clearly, on that day in the palace parlor where Her Majesty the Queen refused to take even a single sip of tea in front of everyone, Her Majesty’s intention had been to have a decree drawn up to improve food safety.

He felt a deep sense of self-reproach for failing to capitalize when Her Majesty the Queen had so flawlessly laid the groundwork. Those stone pillars, resembling prison bars, seemed to trap Robert Peel’s heart.

Buckingham Palace.

I flipped page by page through the stack of newspapers brought by Baroness Lehzen, letting out a hollow laugh.

That laugh did not stem from amusement, but rather from the grim realization when a sinister premonition hits the mark.

“Wow… They’re really going with this angle, huh?”

The newspapers were filled with articles praising the government’s resolute response.

The merchants had been cast as shameless criminals, and the Melbourne cabinet was portrayed as the avatar of justice punishing them. The problem of the Corn Laws pointed out in Astraea’s article was nowhere to be found.

As if such an article had never existed in the first place.

Lord Melbourne and the Whigs were indeed formidable opponents.

They dodged a fatal blow by offering up the part that hurt the least.

By willingly sacrificing the necks of a few merchants, they saved their own.

Like a surgeon excising diseased tissue, they precisely selected scapegoats.

That cruelty was made all the more perfect because it was wrapped in the language of morality.

To think they’d weaponize the charge of lèse-majesté like this….

Sending the merchants to prison stroked the aristocrats’ egos and threw a target for venting spleen to the public.

All the while, discussions on the Food Safety Act were quietly shoved into the background.

The Corn Laws were blocked from even being mentioned.

It was a truly flawless defense. No, it was a counterattack that went far beyond mere defense.

The stone I threw had bounced right back and landed right in front of my feet.

At this rate, in a few months, once people’s attention shifted elsewhere, the merchants would quietly be released on bail.

And London’s dining tables would once again be filled with milk containing calf brains and bone-dust bread.

Nothing would change. Absolutely nothing.

“We can’t just leave it like this.”

I bit my lip.

The second page of the diary and the future of Britain hung in the balance. I couldn’t just sit back and watch the Whigs’ tail-cutting show.

But I’ve tried everything I possibly could…?

I used shock therapy.

I acted as a whistleblower. I appealed with logic and showed it through illustrations.
And yet those slippery politicians wriggled this way and that to escape.

I need something more powerful, a finishing blow.

Rational logic wouldn’t cut it.

Simple anger wouldn’t do either.

I needed something that could pierce the politicians’ defenses and claw deep into people’s hearts.

If I couldn’t draw the sympathy of the public, even the most logical whistleblowing would be no different from a castle built on sand.

Instead of just cursing one or two merchants and ending it there, people needed to feel to their very bones that this entire society was flawed. Not through their heads, but through their hearts; not through understanding, but through experience; not via tariff schedules, but through a single person’s story.

If only I could set people’s hearts ablaze.

Unlike the 21st century, however, this era had neither the internet nor television.

The only means to spread information were newspapers, novels, and cameras that were just beginning to be used.

Could I achieve what I wanted with these?

Just then, my eye caught Baroness Lehzen holding and reading something.

“Is there an interesting article you’re reading?”

At my question, Baroness Lehzen startled and lifted her head.

A fleeting flash of embarrassment crossed her face before vanishing.

“Ah, Your Majesty. Forgive me. I was simply reading a novel, and got a bit carried away….”

A novel?

“What is the title?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. It’s called Oliver Twist, a major trending serialized work by an author named Boz. Though I’m not quite sure why the published book lists the name Charles Dickens instead of Boz.”

Oliver Twist… Charles Dickens?

In an instant, it felt as though a lightbulb had popped on in my head.

Oliver Twist.

The story of a boy who grew up abused in an orphanage.

A story casting the horrors of London’s slums through the eyes of a single child.

I understood in a single flash why that novel had made Baroness Lehzen’s eyes tremble and why it had captivated all of London.

People do not weep over reading tariff tables.

Yet they shed tears before the scene of a starving child holding out an empty bowl and pleading, “Please, sir, I want some more.”

What I needed was a true storyteller.

Someone capable of translating the cold numbers of tariffs into the burning suffering of a single human soul.

Charles Dickens.

That name began to burn like a small flame within me.

“Baroness Lehzen.”

The feeling of helplessness from just moments before vanished, replaced by a newly ignited resolve.

“Could you find out where that person named Charles Dickens is and what he’s up to?”