“As it is written by the Prophet,” returned Hassan, “‘when the sheik sickens, his slaves droop.’ Thy whole household was sick, and clamoured for medicine; and, lo, the man of drugs straightway drenched them therewith, ordering us all, on pain of the Prophet’s curse, not to give thee so much as a single grain of rhubarb.” “Breath of Mahomet,” ejaculated his Mightiness; “am I then to die, and are my slaves to live?” When a Mussulman is puzzled what to say, he invariably exclaims, “Allah is merciful;” which was Hassan’s consolation. “Let the wretched mediciner appear!” commanded the Prince. The doctor came. “Illustrious father of a hundred generations!” said the general practitioner, “thine own physician only could cure thee, and he lies on his pallet a helpless being. _I_ may not so much as look at thy transcendant tongue, or feel thine omnipotent pulse.” “Wherefore? O licenciate of the Destroyer!” “Inasmuch as I may not infringe the _vested rights_ of thine own special and appointed physician. The law—even that of the Medes and Persians, which never altereth—forbids me. Thy slaves I _may_ heal, seeing that no vested rights in them exist; but——” Here the Prince interrupted the speaker with a hollow groan, and sank on his pillow in despair. The Arabic manuscript, from which this affecting incident was translated, ends with these words—“and the Prince died.” This story is evidently a foreshadowing of what has recently happened in reference to the metropolis of this country and the Public Health Act. London was _in extremis_ from the effects of density of population, filth, bad air, bad water, the window-tax, and deficient drainage. It called in certain sanitary doctors—the regular consulting body, namely, the Government, being too weak to afford the slightest assistance. The result was, that a prescription, in the form of the Public Health Act, was concocted,—but was made applicable to every other member of the great retinue of towns, _except_ to the Imperial City; which was exempted in consequence of the existing Vested Rights in crowded houses, deadly stenches, putrid water, foggy courts, and cesspools. “Although,” in the words of a resolution, passed at the meeting which formed the Metropolitan Sanitary Association, “the strenuous efforts made in the metropolitan districts to procure a sanitary enactment mainly contributed to the passing of the Public Health Act; yet these districts were the only parts excluded from the benefits of that enactment. This exclusion has led to much misery and a great sacrifice of life.”