The French Government suddenly imposed, and as suddenly suspended, a
quarantine against smallpox. No British visitor, it was announced, would be admitted to France who could not produce proof that he had been vaccinated within two months. In France vaccination is compulsory, and that fact deprived us of any right to complain of the extreme inconvenience. Moreover, as the French authorities thought it necessary to act, they could not have done otherwise than act quickly when they heard that the liner Tuscania ' had brought to England cases of virulent smallpox. We should not think that vaccination within two months was, in any event, necessary for French safety, but all the same we cannot help wishing that fewer of Jenner's country- men availed themselves of their right to refuse vaccina- tion. French newspapers have been saying that smallpox is always rife in Great Britain. In a sense that is true, but the endemic type is mild. After the British Ambas- sador in Paris had asked for a suspension of the new regulation the French Government consented, provi- sionally, for the purpose of consultation.
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