e to
see two sick children."

"Certainly," I said, and we started.

"Who are the children and what is the matter with them?" I asked
presently.

"Son and daughter of a working boot-maker named Samuels. As to what is
the matter with them, you can judge of that for yourself," he replied
with a grim smile.

Passing into the poorer part of the city, at length we reached a
cobbler's shop with a few pairs of roughly-made boots on sale in the
window. In the shop sat Mr. Samuels, a dour-looking man of about forty.

"Here is the doctor, Samuels," said Strong.

"All right," he answered, "he'll find the missus and the kids in there
and a pretty sight they are; I can't bear to look at them, I can't."

Passing through the shop, we went into a back room whence came a sound
of wailing. Standing in the room was a careworn woman and in the bed lay
two children, aged three and four respectively. I proceeded at once
to my examination, and found that one child, a boy, was in a state
of extreme prostration and fever, the greater part of his body being
covered with a vivid scarlet rash. The other child, a girl, was
suffering from a terribly red and swollen arm, the inflammation being
most marked above the elbow. Both were cases of palpable and severe
erysipelas, and both of the sufferers had been vaccinated within five
days.

"Well," said Stephen Strong, "well, what's the matter with them?"

"Erysipelas," I answered.

"And what caused the erysipelas? Was it the vaccination?"

"It may have been the vaccination," I replied cautiously.

"Come here, Samuels," called Strong. "Now, then, tell the doctor your
story."

"There's precious little story about it," said the poor man, keeping his
back towards the afflicted children. "I have been pulled up three times
and fined because I didn't have the kids vaccinated, not being any
believer in vaccination myself ever since my sister's boy died of it,
with his head all covered with sores. Well, I couldn't pay no more
fines, so I told the missus that she might take them to the vaccination
officer, and she did five or six days ago. And there, that's the end
of their vaccination, and damn 'em to hell, say I," and the poor fellow
pushed his way out of the room.

It is quite unnecessary that I should follow all the details of this sad
case. In the result, despite everything that I could do for him, the boy
died though the girl recovered. Both had been vaccinated from the same
tube of lymph.