Cobbett, be it observed, thus addressed Wilberforce in 1803, when vaccination was as yet imperfectly tested, and its advocates were in the full blast of enthusiastic persuasion that to be Jennerised was to be made proof against smallpox for ever. When Cobbett had again occasion to write about cowpox, six years had passed away, bearing with them the phantastic certainty with which vaccination had been imposed upon public credulity. Nevertheless the practice was not abandoned: quackery once alive and lucrative, dies hard: but it was discredited, and its apologists exercised their ingenuity in devising explanations and excuses for its manifest failures. The Royal Jennerian Society had split between Jenner and Walker, and application to Parliament was resolved upon for two purposes--first, to save Jenner from poverty; and second, to provide funds for the maintenance of vaccination, voluntary subscriptions having fallen off irretrievably. In short, vaccination had broken down, and the House of Commons was called upon to save it from extinction. There were wire-pullers in the House and out of the House who were compromised by their patronage of Jenner and his imposture, and they had the craft and the power to transfer the responsibility of which they were sick to the national exchequer. With this explanation, we shall understand the following article from the _Register_ of 18th June, 1808. Cobbett wrote-- This experiment with Cowpox, which has cost the nation £30,000 to Dr. Jenner, is now, it seems, to have an Act of Parliament to give it currency. Mr. Rose has brought in a bill for the purpose of establishing a central institution in London for the distribution of Cowpox matter, which bill in all appearance will pass; and this disgusting and degrading remedy will cost the nation another £4,000 or £5,000 annually, though it has been clearly proved not to have answered the purpose intended. This, however, I regard as cheap when compared with the menace of Mr. Fuller, who, in the debate, proposed a compulsory law on the subject. He took up the old idea of Mr. Wilberforce, who was for a law to prevent parents from having their children inoculated with Smallpox unless they chose to send them to pest-houses, or to some place at a considerable distance from any other habitations. This cruel and tyrannical proposition I opposed at the time; and I am happy to perceive that it is now almost universally exploded.