ABSTRACT
In W. L. Burn's The Age of Equipoise, the cattle plague is discussed in the context of one of his four great 'disciplines', the law. Religion, or at least the Anglican version of it, was, as Burn states, one of the great social disciplines. This chapter provides an examination of the campaign to appoint days of humiliation, to locate the moral boundaries of Burn's England, that England of 'the rectory and the modest mansion house and the farmhouse' rather than of 'factories and co-operative stores'. It begins with a general examination of days of humiliation, a topic which has received little scholarly attention. The chapter explores their function and incidence, and a brief case study of two other mid-Victorian examples, 1847 and 1854, and also focuses on attention to the campaign of 1866. The chapter also examines the debates surrounding the days of humiliation and discusses the various ways in which the informal days were observed.
