374 MY LIFE 



Indeed, a heavy discount may generally be taken off as 

 due to laziness, and the desire of most people to take the 

 apparently strongest side. I can only say that the more the 

 vaccinationists go on writing- and talking as they have done 

 for a long time, the more they are likely to be wrong and 

 conscious that they are so. 



" Lest I should be thought to include your ' appendix ' of 

 a socialistic nostrum or ' Remedy for Want ' in my general 

 approval of your book, I think it prudent to add that I con- 

 sider it more demonstrably wrong and ruinous to any country 

 that should adopt it than any disease that has ever been prop- 

 agated; but I am not going to discuss that. I only add 

 that you may either publish this if you like, or announce me 

 as a ' fourth convert ' to anti-vaccination under your treat- 

 ment — and such as Dr. Bond's. 



" Yours obediently, 



" Grimthorpe." 



" Batch Wood, St. Albans, October 4, 1898. 

 To Dr. F. T. Bond, Gloucester. 



" Sir, 



" I am much obliged to you for the copies of your 

 and Mr. Wallace's letters to the Echo. I have read them 

 carefully, and compared them with the chapter on Vaccina- 

 tion in his ' Wonderful Century,' and I have no hesitation in 

 giving my verdict as a ' juryman,' and not as an ' expert/ in 

 his favour. 



" I take it for granted that you have made as good a case 

 as anybody can on your side, and I have less doubt than before 

 that we (I mean Parliament) have done right in putting an 

 end, as the late Act practically has, to punishing parents for 

 refusing to have their children vaccinated at the risk, as they 

 believe, of doing them more harm than good. The few 

 magistrates who are taking upon themselves to judge of the 

 Tightness of the belief will have to be taught that they are 

 breaking and not obeying or executing the law. Nobody will 

 pay a shilling for a certificate that he conscientiously (which 



