G23 
opened in 1821, had been completed twenty years ; but as 
L)r. Maclean* has shown, marshes are not, as a rule, dangerous, 
when abundantly covered with water; and that it is only when 
the water’s level is lowered, and the saturated soil is exposed 
to the drying influence of a high temperature, and the direct rays 
of the sun, that the poison is evolved in abundance ; the circum- 
stances were, therefore, at that time, most favourable for the 
dissemination of the malarial germs, not only the freshly-turned 
soil and margins of the cut being exposed, but also the old bed 
ot the river, which took many years to drain and bring into 
cultivation, ibis state of things lead to a most pernicious abuse 
of opiates, laudanum being consumed by the Fen-folks, by whom it 
was at first used as a prophylactic against malarious fever, or as an 
antidote to the periodic attacks — in cpiantities altogether astonishing. 
Happily, with the disappearance of the disease, the abuse of the 
remedy has gradually ceased; and at the present time, although, 
doubtless, there are many confirmed elderly laudanum-drinkers in 
Fen-land, it is a practice which is first dying out, and will, it is to 
be hoped, cease with the jrresent generation of elders. Ague was 
fiimiliarly known as the “ Bailiif of iMarshland.” 
A very eccentric character, named William Hall— who loved to 
stylo himself “ Antiquarian Hall,” “ Will Will-be-So,” or “ Fen 
Bill Hall” — died at Lynn in 1825. Hall was born on June 1st 
(old style), 1 1 48, at Willow ^Booth, then a small island “ of but 
few perches in extent, in the Lincolnshire Fens, near Heckington 
Lase, in the parish of South Kyme, He has left behind him 
some doggerel verses, now very scarce, entitled ‘A Chain of 
Incidents relating to the state of the Fens from earliest accounts 
to the present time.’ Printed by W. G. Whittingham of Lynn 
in 1812 for the author, and sold by him only. Price one shilling. 
This “ sketch of local history ” only reached its third number, and 
the only copy I have seen is in the library of the British Museum. 
It is a curious mixture of odds and ends in prose and doggerel 
Averse, but is interesting from the references it contains to the 
state of the Fens in the author’s early days, and the occasional 
glimpses it reveals of the lite led by the “Fen slodgers” more than 
one hundred years ago. 
* Quain’s ‘ Dictionary of .Medicine:’ article “Malaria.” 
