THE ANGEL OF DEATH 331 



buildings, business was arrested, the universities deserted, 

 palaces left empty, and the dying abandoned to their 

 misery when it appeared. There was a feeling that some 

 deadly unseen power was present, irresistible and malig- 

 nant. 



It is only to-day — in fact, within the last two years — 

 that we have learnt what that unseen power was. The 

 Angel of Death which moved through the Old Bailey 

 Sessions House in bygone days was, indeed, a living thing. 

 It passed silently and unseen from the prisoner to the 

 warder, from him to the usher, thence to the bar — the 

 jury and the exalted judge. It had no wings, yet it moved 

 slowly and surely carrying black death with it. This 

 terrible and mysterious assassin has at last been unveiled. 

 The shroud of concealment has been torn away and there 

 the dire monster stands — naked, remorseless and hideous. 

 It is of small size, though it makes us all shrink with 

 horror and disgust. It has six claw-like legs and no 

 wings. It is, in fact, neither more nor less than the 

 clothes louse, the Pediculus vestimenti. The filthy, 

 crowded condition in which the prisoners were kept, and 

 (let us well remember and reflect thereon) the personal 

 want of cleanliness of judge, jury, barristers and ushers, 

 rendered the existence of the little parasite and its effec- 

 tive transference from man to man possible. Those pom- 

 pous emblems of authority, the horsehair wigs — those 

 musty robes of unctuous dignity — were full of dirt, and 

 harboured the wandering bearer of typhus infection. 

 Gaol-fever was due to dirt ; its infecting germs were dis- 

 tributed by loathsome insects. 



It is an interesting and really instructive thing to pass 

 in review the gradual process by which the cleanliness of 

 the population of Western Europe has advanced, and to 

 observe that, consciously or unconsciously, the end pur- 

 sued has been, step by step, the removal from man's body 



