We can't unring any bells here. There's no point in trying to second-guess anyone right now. What's done is done.

One would expect that the controversy would have been resolved when Leeds' next almanac appeared, thereby confirming his nondemise and exposing the hoax while branding Poor Richard “a fool and a liar.”

You could put a Wirralian and a Boltonian in the same railway compartment and swear that they came from opposite poles of the old empire.

But take it all in all, the overland trail was a trial by fire. One gets a notion of its deadliness from the fact that over five thousand people died of cholera alone.