London, 1851. This is Annie. She’s seven years old. And she’s standing barefoot in raw sewage. Annie is a watercress seller. She gathers watercress from the River Fleet before dawn—wading into the water, pulling the plants from the muddy bottom. The River Fleet is London’s sewer: ∙ Raw human waste flows directly into it ∙ Factory chemicals ∙ Dead animals ∙ Everything the city discards Annie stands in this water for hours: ∙ It’s freezing ∙ Her feet are numb ∙ The water comes up to her knees ∙ She can smell the sewage ∙ She’s seven She gathers the watercress, bunches it, sells it on the streets for a penny a bunch. “Fresh watercress! Fresh and green!” The watercress grows in sewage. She sells it to wealthy people for their salads. They think it’s healthy. Clean. Fresh. Annie has typhoid. She doesn’t know it yet. The contaminated water she stands in daily—it’s killing her. She’ll be dead within two weeks. London, 1851. When children stood in sewers to sell salad greens to the ri...