London, 1840. This is William. He’s thirty-two years old. And his job is cleaning cesspits. He’s a “gong farmer”—a man who removes human waste from cesspits under houses and privies. He works at night because the smell is unbearable. Because nobody wants to see it happen. He climbs down into pits filled with years of accumulated human waste. Sometimes ten feet deep. Sometimes twenty feet deep. The air is thick with methane gas. One spark and the entire pit explodes. One breath of concentrated fumes and he suffocates. He scoops the waste into buckets. His partner hauls them up. They work in complete darkness except for a single lantern. They can’t use torches—the methane would ignite. The pay is good by laborer standards—six shillings a night. Because nobody else will do it. Last month, a gong farmer named James suffocated in a cesspit in Clerkenwell. The methane overcame him. They pulled his body out three hours later. William knows the risks. He does it anyway. Because six shillings f...