Summary

On Monday the Golden Square was like a ghost town. The Eley Brothers factory was in mourning over the two dozen workers they lost and the news that Susannah Eley had died. The pattern of disease in the area was hit and miss. None of the 80 workers at the nearby Lion Brewery had fallen ill. Residents of Green’s Court, a filthy, overcrowded area, were also spared. The poor and destitute on Poland Street were largely spared while the wealthy who lived in the area surrounding the street had lost half of their population.

Some people blamed the epidemic on sewer excavation that had disturbed a 300-year-old graveyard and tainted the air. The sewers were responsible for the epidemic but not for what they put in the air but what they deposited into the...