Excerpt from Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society: Session 1856-57
One sign of the times might well excite a smile - were it of a less serious nature - I allude to the rage for Reformatories concurrently with the all but general Opposition to the establish ment of a system of parochial schools in which youth might be trained to knowledge and virtue. The sign referred to is truly English. \ve are over-run with juvenile delinquents; we do little or nothing to prevent crime; but we are ready to set up Reformatories - that is - hospitals for the cure of the moral maladies of our young criminals! This reminds me of what used to be told of a town in Lincolnshire, notorious for ague. The better class of people, who lived in the higher town, and enjoyed good health themselves, were ever ready to supply Peruvian bark and ague-drops to sufferers from the fever, but they never thought of draining the neighbouring marsh. Now an engineer happened to visit the place, and hearing of the ague, pointed out to the inhabitants how easy it would be to get rid of the miasmata by means of a drain. The project was well received but the owners of the property could not agree there were difficulties in the way; the drain would be an innovation; it would be expensive; and so the marsh was allowed to exhale its poison as before. But, as some amends to tliose suffering from ague, the people of the high town redoubled their benevolence in the shape of bark and ague drops: they refused to drain the marsh, but they were willing to cure the marsh-fever.
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