"At the Exeter Police-court yesterday Albert Edward Lee, of Smythen-street was summoned at the instance of Mrs. Ashford, Vaccination-officer, for not complying with orders for his two young children to be vaccinated.
Defendant, in most emphatic language, said he objected, and he would not have the operation performed. The Chairman said that by Act of Parliament, and for the good of the country, children had to be vaccinated and the law must be obeyed. The law could not be defied by defendant or anybody else. He would have to pay 5s with respect to each child, or, in default seven days hard labour. It transpired that the costs of the previous cases had not been paid. Defendant said he had no goods and went to prison for 28 days' hard labour - seven days for each offence, and a similar time for non-payment of the costs."
Smallpox had been the killer since the beginning of time. In the twentieth century it was estimated to have killed, according to Wikipedia, an estimated 300 to 500 million people. In 1899 in Exeter, it would seem, you went to prison if you failed to vaccinate your children. By 1979 smallpox world-wide had been virtually eradicated. I suppose Mr. Lee's children went into the new century forcibly vaccinated against the killer disease. In the enlightened twenty-first century, with our progressive understanding of the liberty of the individual, anti-vaxxers are infecting each other and dying of Covid.19!
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