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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller +with OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + +GINX'S BABY +His Birth and other Misfortunes +A SATIRE +{by Edward Jenkins?? 1838-1910??} + + +PREFACE. + ---- +CRITIC.--I never read a more improbable story in my life. + +AUTHOR.--Notwithstanding, it may be true. + + + +CONTENTS. +---- +PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM. +I. Ab initio +II. Home, sweet Home! +III. Work and Ideas +IV. Digressive, and may be skipped without mutilating the History +V. Reasons and Resolves +VI. The Antagonism of Law and Necessity +VII. Malthus and Man +VIII. The Baby's First Translation + +PART II. WHAT CHARITY AND THE CHURCHES DID WITH HIM. +I. The Milk of Human Kindness, Mother's Milk, and the Milk of + the Word +II. The Protestant Detectoral Association +III. The Sacrament of Baptism +IV. Law on Behalf of Gospel +V. Magistrate's Law +VI. Popery and Protestantism in the Queen's Bench +VII. A Protestor, but not a Protestant +VIII. "See how these Christians love one another" +IX. Good Samaritans, and Good-Samaritan Twopences +X. The Force--and a Specimen of its Weakness +XI. The Unity of the Spirit and the Bond of Peace +XII. No Funds--no Faith, no Works +XIII. In transitu + +PART III. WHAT THE PARISH DID WITH HIM. +I. Parochial Knots--to be untied without Prejudice +II. A Board of Guardians +III. "The World is my Parish" +IV. Without Prejudice to any one but the Guardians +V. An Ungodly Jungle +VI. Parochial Benevolence--and another Translation + +PART IV. WHAT THE CLUBS AND POLITICIANS DID WITH HIM. +I. Moved on +II. Club Ideas +III. A thorough-paced Reformer--if not a Revolutionary +IV. Very Broad Views +V. Party Tactics--and Political Obstructions to Social Reform +VI. Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body + +PART V. WHAT GINX'S BABY DID WITH HIMSELF. + The Last Chapter + + + + +PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM. +I.--Ab initio. +The name of the father of Ginx's Baby was Ginx. By a not +unexceptional coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The gender +of Ginx's Baby was masculine. + +On the day when our hero was born, Mr. and Mrs. Ginx were living +at Number Five, Rosemary Street, in the City of Westminster. The +being then and there brought into the world was not the only +human entity to which the title of "Ginx's Baby" was or had been +appropriate. Ginx had been married to Betsy Hicks at St. John's, +Westminster, on the twenty-fifth day of October, 18--, as appears +from the "marriage lines" retained by Betsy Ginx, and carefully +collated by me with the original register. Our hero was their +thirteenth child. Patient inquiry has enabled me to verify the +following history of their propagations. On July the +twenty-fifth, the year after their marriage, Mrs. Ginx was safely +delivered of a girl. No announcement of this appeared in the +newspapers. + +On the tenth of April following, the whole neighborhood, +including Great Smith Street, Marsham Street, Great and Little +Peter Streets, Regent Street, Horseferry Road, and Strutton +Ground, was convulsed by the report that a woman named Ginx had +given birth to "a triplet," consisting of two girls and a boy. +The news penetrated to Dean's Yard and the ancient school of +Westminster. The Dean, who accepted nothing on trust, sent to +verify the report, his messenger bearing a bundle of baby-clothes +from the Dean's wife, who thought that the mother could scarcely +have provided for so large an addition to her family. The +schoolboys, on their way to the play-ground at Vincent Square, +slyly diverged to have a look at the curiosity, paying sixpence a +head to Mrs. Ginx's friend and crony, Mrs. Spittal, who pocketed +the money, and said nothing about it to the sick woman. THIS +birth was announced in all the newspapers throughout the kingdom, +with the further news that Her Majesty the Queen had been +graciously pleased to forward to Mrs. Ginx the sum of three +pounds. + +What could have possessed the woman I can't say, but about a +twelvemonth after, Mrs. Ginx, with the assistance of two doctors +hastily fetched from the hospital by her frightened husband, +nearly perished in a fresh effort of maternity. This time two +sons and two daughters fell to the lot of the happy pair. Her +Majesty sent four pounds. But whatever peace there was at home, +broils disturbed the street. The neighbors, who had sent for the +police on the occasion, were angered by a notoriety which was +becoming uncomfortable to them, and began to testify their +feelings in various rough ways. Ginx removed his family to +Rosemary Street, where, up to a year before the time when Ginx's +Baby was born, his wife had continued to add to her offspring +until the tale reached one dozen. It was then that Ginx +affectionately but firmly begged that his wife would consider her +family ways, since, in all conscience, he had fairly earned the +blessedness of the man who hath his quiver full of them; and +frankly gave her notice that, as his utmost efforts could +scarcely maintain their existing family, if she ventured to +present him with any more, either single, or twins, or triplets, +or otherwise, he would most assuredly drown him, or her, or them +in the water-butt, and take the consequences. + + +II.--Home, sweet Home! + +The day on which Ginx uttered his awful threat was that next to +the one wherein number twelve had drawn his first breath. His +wife lay on the bed which, at the outset of wedded life, they had +purchased secondhand in Strutton Ground for the sum of nine +shillings and sixpence. SECOND-HAND! It had passed through, at +least, as many hands as there were afterwards babies born upon +it. Twelfth or thirteenth hand, a vagabond, botched bedstead, +type of all the furniture in Ginx's rooms, and in numberless +houses through the vast city. Its dimensions were 4 feet 6 +inches by 6 feet. When Ginx, who was a stout navvy, and Mrs. +Ginx, who was, you may conceive, a matronly woman, were in it, +there was little vacant space about them. Yet, as they were +forced to find resting-places for all the children, it not seldom +happened that at least one infant was perilously wedged between +the parental bodies; and latterly they had been so pressed for +room in the household that two younglings were nestled at the +foot of the bed. Without foot-board or pillows, the lodgment of +these infants was precarious, since any fatuous movement of +Ginx's legs was likely to expel them head-first. However they +were safe, for they were sure to fall on one or other of their +brothers or sisters. + +I shall be as particular as a valuer, and describe what I have +seen. The family sleeping-room measured 13 feet 6 inches by 14 +feet. + +Opening out of this, and again on the landing of the third-floor, +was their kitchen and sitting-room; it was not quite so large as +the other. This room contained a press, an old chest of drawers, +a wooden box once used for navvy's tools, three chairs, a stool, +and some cooking utensils. When, therefore, one little Ginx had +curled himself up under a blanket on the box, and three more had +slipped beneath a tattered piece of carpet under the table, +there still remained five little bodies to be bedded. For them +an old straw mattress, limp enough to be rolled up and thrust +under the bed, was at night extended on the floor. With this, and +a patchwork quilt, the five were left to pack themselves together +as best they could. So that, if Ginx, in some vision of the +night, happened to be angered, and struck out his legs in navvy +fashion, it sometimes came to pass that a couple of children +tumbled upon the mass of infantile humanity below. + +Not to be described are the dinginess of the walls, the smokiness +of the ceilings, the grimy windows, the heavy, ever-murky +atmosphere of these rooms. They were 8 feet 6 inches in height, +and any curious statist can calculate the number of cubic feet of +air which they afforded to each person. + +The other side of the street was 14 feet distant. Behind, the +backs of similar tenements came up black and cowering over the +little yard of Number Five. As rare, in the well thus formed, +was the circulation of air as that of coin in the pockets of the +inhabitants. I have seen the yard; let me warn you, if you +are fastidious, not to enter it. Such of the filth of the house +as could not, at night, be thrown out of the front windows, was +there collected, and seldom, if ever, removed. What became of +it? What becomes of countless such accretions in like places? +Are a large proportion of these filthy atoms absorbed by human +creatures living and dying, instead of being carried away by +scavengers and inspectors? The forty-five big and little lodgers +in the house were provided with a single office in the corner of +the yard. It had once been capped by a cistern, long since rotted +away-- + + * * * * * + + The street was at one time the prey of the gas company; at +another, of the drainage contractors. They seemed to delight in +turning up the fetid soil, cutting deep trenches through various +strata of filth, and piling up for days or weeks matter that +reeked with vegetable and animal decay. One needs not affirm +that Rosemary Street was not so called from its fragrance. If +the Ginxes and their neighbors preserved any semblance of health +in this place, the most popular guardian on the board must own it +a miracle. They, poor people, knew nothing of "sanitary reform," +"sanitary precautions," "zymotics," "endemics," "epidemics," +"deodorizers," or "disinfectants." They regarded disease with +the apathy of creatures who felt it to be inseparable from +humanity, and with the fatalism of despair. + +Gin was their cardinal prescription, not for cure, but for +oblivion: "Sold everywhere." A score of palaces flourished +within call of each other in that dismal district--garish, rich- +looking dens, drawing to the support of their vulgar glory the +means, the lives, the eternal destinies of the wrecked masses +about them. Veritable wreckers they who construct these haunts, +viler than the wretches who place false beacons and plunder +bodies on the beach. Bring down the real owners of these places, +and show them their deadly work! Some of them leading +Philanthropists, eloquent at Missionary meetings and Bible +Societies, paying tribute to the Lord out of the pockets of dying +drunkards, fighting glorious battles for slaves, and manfully +upholding popular rights. My rich publican--forgive the +pun--before you pay tithes of mint and cummin, much more before +you claim to be a disciple of a certain Nazarene, take a lesson +from one who restored fourfold the money he had wrung from honest +toil, or reflect on the case of the man to whom it was said, "Go +sell all thou hast, and give to the poor." The lips from which +that counsel dropped offered some unpleasant alternatives, +leaving out one, however, which nowadays may yet reach you--the +contempt of your kind. + + + +III.--Work and Ideas. + +I return again to Ginx's menace to his wife, who was suckling her +infant at the time on the bed. For her he had an animal +affection that preserved her from unkindness, even in his cups. +His hand had never unmanned itself by striking her, and rarely +indeed did it injure any one else. He wrestled not against +flesh and blood, or powers, or principalities, or wicked spirits +in high places. He struggled with clods and stones, and primeval +chaos. His hands were horny with the fight, and his nature had +perhaps caught some of the dull ruggedness of the things +wherewith he battled. Hard and with a will had he worked through +the years of wedded life, and, to speak him fair, he had acted +honestly, within the limits of his knowledge and means, for the +good of his family. How narrow were those limits! Every week he +threw into the lap of Mrs. Ginx the eighteen or twenty shillings +which his strength and temperance enabled him continuously to +earn, less sixpence reserved for the public-house, whither he +retreated on Sundays after the family dinner. A dozen children +overrunning the space in his rooms was then a strain beyond the +endurance of Ginx. Nor had he the heart to try the common plan, +and turn his children out of doors on the chance of their being +picked up in a raid of Sunday School teachers. So he turned out +himself to talk with the humbler spirits of the "Dragon," or +listen sleepily while alehouse demagogues prescribed remedies for +State abuses. + +Our friend was nearly as guiltless of knowledge as if Eve had +never rifled the tree whereon it grew. Vacant of policies were +his thoughts; innocent he of ideas of state-craft. He knew there +was a Queen; he had seen her. Lords and Commons were to him vague +deities possessing strange powers. Indeed, he had been present +when some of his better-informed companions had recognized with +cheers certain gentlemen,--of whom Ginx's estimate was expressed +by a reference to his test of superiority to himself in that +which he felt to be greatest within him--"I could lick 'em with +my little finger" --as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the +Prime Minister. Little recked he of their uses or abuses. The +functions of Government were to him Asian mysteries. He only +felt that it ought to have a strong arm, like the brawny member +wherewith he preserved order in his domestic kingdom, and +therefore generally associated Government with the Police. In +his view these were to clear away evil-doers and leave every one +else alone. The higher objects of Government were, if at all, +outlined in the shadowiest form in his imagination. Government +imposed taxes--that he was obliged to know. Government +maintained the parks; for that he thanked it. Government made +laws, but what they were, or with what aim or effects made, he +knew not, save only that by them something was done to raise or +depress the prices of bread, tea, sugar, and other necessaries. +Why they should do so he never conceived--I am not sure that he +cared. Legislation sometimes pinched him, but darkness so hid +from him the persons and objects of the legislators that he could +not criticise the theories which those powerful beings were +subjecting to experiment at his cost. I must, at any risk, say +something about this in a separate chapter. + + + +IV.--Digressive, and may be skipped without mutilating +the History. + +I stop here to address any of the following characters, should he +perchance read these memoirs: +You, Mr. Statesman--if there be such; + Mr. Pseudo-Statesman, Placeman, Party Leader, Wirepuller; + Mr. Amateur Statesman, Dilettante Lord, Civil Servant; + Mr. Clubman, Litterateur, Newspaper Scribe; + Mr. People's Candidate, Demagogue, Fenian Spouter; +or whoever you may be, professing to know aught or do anything in +matters of policy, consider, what I am sure you have never fairly +weighed, the condition of a man whose clearest notion of +Government is derived from the Police! Imagine one who had never +seen a polyp trying to construct an ideal of the animal, from a +single tentacle swinging out from the tangle of weed in which the +rest was wrapped! How then any more can you fancy that a man to +whose sight and knowledge the only part of government practically +exposed is the strong process of police, shall form a proper +conception of the functions, reasons, operations, and relations +of Government; or even build up an ideal of anything but a +haughty, unreasonable, antagonistic, tax-imposing FORCE! And how +can you rule such a being except as you rule a dog, by that which +alone he understands--the dog-whip of the constable! Given in a +country a majority of creatures like these, and surely despotism +is its properest complement. But when they exist, as they exist +in England to-day, in hundreds of thousands, in town and country, +think what a complication they introduce into your theoretic free +system of government. Acts of Parliament passed by a +"freely-elected" House of Commons, and an hereditary House of +Lords under the threats of freely-electing citizens, however pure +in intention and correct in principle, will not seem to him to be +the resultants of every wish in the community so much as +dictations by superior strength. To these the obedience he will +render will not be the loving assent of his heart, but a +begrudged concession to circumstance. Your awe-invested +legislature is not viewed as his friend and brother-helper, but +his tyrant. Therefore the most natural bent of his +workman-statesmanship--a rough, bungling affair--will be to tame +you--you who ought to be his Counsellor and Friend. When he +finds that your legislative action exerts upon him a repressive +and restraining force he will curse you as its author, because he +sees not the springs you are working. Should he even be a little +more advanced in knowledge than our friend Ginx, and learn that +he helps to elect the Parliament to make laws on behalf of +himself and his fellow-citizens, he will scarce trust the +assembly which is supposed to represent him. Will he, like a +good citizen and a politic, accept with dignity and self-control +the decision of a majority against his prejudices: or will he not +regard the whole Wittenagemote with suspicion, contempt, or even +hatred? See him rush madly to Trafalgar Square meetings, Hyde +Park demonstrations, perhaps to Lord George Gordon Riots, as if +there were no less perilous means of publishing his opinions! +There wily men may lead his unconscious intellect, and stir his +passions, and direct his forces against his own--and his +children's good. + +Did it ever occur to you, or any of you, how many voters cannot +read, and how many more, though they can read, are unable to +apprehend reasons of statesmanship?--that even newspapers cannot +inform them, since they have not the elementary knowledge needed +for the comprehension of those things which are discussed in +them; nay, that for want of understanding the same they may +terribly distort political aims and consequences? + +Might it not be worth while for you, gentlemen--may it not be +your duty to devise ways and means for conveying such elementary +instruction by good street-preachers on politics and economy, or +even political bible- women or colporteurs, and so to make clear +to the understanding of every voter what are the reasons and aims +of every act of Legislation, Home Administration, and Foreign +Policy? If you do not find out some way to do this he may turn +round upon you--I hope he may-- and insist on annually-elected +parliaments, and thus oblige ambitious state-mongers, in the +rivalry of place, to come to him and declare more often their +wishes and objects. Other attractions may be found in that +solution: such as the untying of some knots of electoral +difficulty, and removing incitements to corruption. Ten thousand +pounds for one year's power were a high price even to a +contractor. Think then whether at any cost some general +political education must not be attempted, since there is a +spirit breathing on the waters, and how it shall convulse them is +no indifferent matter to you or to me. Everywhere around us are +unhewn rocks stirred with a strange motion. Leave these chaotic +fragments of humanity to be hewn into rough shape by coarse +artists seeking only a petty profit, unhandy, immeasurably +impudent; or dress them by your teaching--teaching which is the +highest, noblest, purest, most efficient function of Government, +which ought to be the most lofty ambition of statesmanship--to be +civic corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace. + + + +V.--Reasons and Resolves. + +Ginx has been waiting through three chapters to explain his +truculence upon the birth of his twelfth child. Much explanation +is not necessary. When he looked round his nest and saw the many +open mouths about him, he might well be appalled to have another +added to them. His children were not chameleons, yet they were +already forced to be content with a proportion of air for their +food. And even the air was bad. They were pallid and pinched. +How they were clad will ever be a mystery, save to the poor woman +who strung the limp rags together and Him who watched the noble +patience and sacrifice of a daily heroism. Of her own +unsatisfied cravings, and the dense motherly horrors that +sometimes brooded over her while she nursed these infants, let me +refrain from speaking, since if as vividly depicted as they were +real, you, Madam, could not endure to read of them. Her poor, +unintelligent mind clung tenaciously to the controverted +aphorism, "Where God sends mouths he sends food to fill them." +Believing that there was a God, and that He must be kind, she +trusted in this as a truth, and perhaps an all-seeing eye reading +some quaint characters on her simple heart, viewed them not too +nearly, but had regard to their general import, for, as she +expressed it, "Thank God! they had always been able to get +along." + +In the rush and tumult of the world it is likely that the summum +bonum of nine-tenths of mankind is embraced in that purely +negative happiness--to get along. Not to perish: to open eyes, +however wearily, on a new morning: to satisfy with something, no +matter what, a craving appetite: to close eyes at night under +some shadow or shelter: or, it may be, in certain ranks to walk +another day free from bankruptcy or arrest: Thank Heaven, they +are just able to get along! + +Convinced that another infant straw would break his back, Ginx +calmly proposed to disconcert physical, moral, and legal +relations by drowning the straw Mrs. Ginx clinging to Number +Twelve listened aghast. If a mother can forget her sucking child +she was not that mother. The stream of her affections, though +divided into twelve rills, would not have been exhausted in +twenty-four, and her soul, forecasting its sorrow, yearned after +that nonentity Number Thirteen. She pictured to herself the +hapless strangeling borne away from her bosom by those strong +arms, and--in fact she sobbed so that Ginx grew ashamed, and +sought to comfort her by the suggestion that she could not have +any more. But she knew better. + + +VI.--The Antagonism of Law and Necessity. + +In eighteen months, notwithstanding resolves, menaces, and +prophecies, GINX'S BABY was born. The mother hid the impending +event long, from the father. When he came to know it, he fixed +his determination by much thought and a little extra drinking. +He argued thus: "He wouldn't go on the parish. He couldn't keep +another youngster to save his life. He had never taken charity +and never would. There was nothink to do with it but drown it!" +Female friends of Mrs. Ginx bruited his intentions about the +neighborhood, so that her "time" was watched for with interest. +At last it came. One afternoon Ginx, lounging home, saw signs of +excitement around his door in Rosemary Street. A knot of women +and children awaited his coming. Passing through them he soon +learned what had happened. Poor Mrs. Ginx! Without staying to +think or argue, he took up the little stranger and bore it from +the room---- + +"O, O, O, Ginx! Ginx!!" + +She would have risen, but a strong power called weakness pulled +her back. + + * * * * + + +The man meanwhile had reached the street. + +"Here he comes! There's the baby! He's going to do it, sure +enough!" shrieked the women. The children stood agape. He +stopped to consider. It is very well to talk about drowning your +baby, but to do it you need two things, water and opportunity. +Vauxhall Bridge was the nearest way to the former, and towards it +Ginx turned. + +"Stop him!" + +"Murder!" + +"Take the child from him!' + +The crowd grew larger, and impeded the man's progress. Some of +his fellow-workmen stood by regarding the fun. + +"Leave us aloan, naabors," shouted Ginx; "this is my own baby, +and I'll do wot I likes with it. I kent keep it; an' if I've got +anythin' I kent keep, it's best to get rid of it, ain't it? This +child's goin' over Wauxhall Bridge." + +But the women clung to his arms and coattails. + +"Hallo! What's all this about?" said a sharp, strong man, +well-dressed, and in good condition, coming up to the crowd; +"anothe r foundling! Confound the place, the very stones produce +babies. Where was it found?" + +CHORUS (recognizing a deputy-relieving officer). It warn't found +at all; it's Ginx's baby. + +OFFICER. Ginx's baby? Who's Ginx? + +GINX. I am. + +OFFICER. Well? + +GINX. Well! + +CHORUS. He's goin' to drown it. + +OFFICER. Going to drown it? Nonsense. + +GINX. I am. + +OFFICER. But, bless my heart, that's murder! + +GINX. No 'tain't. I've twelve already at home. Starvashon's +sure to kill this 'un. Best save it the trouble. + +CHORUS. Take it away, Mr. Smug, he'll kill it if you don't. + +OFFICER. Stuff and nonsense! Quite contrary to law! Why, man, +you're bound to support your child. You can't throw it off in +that way;--nor on the parish neither. Give me your name. I must +get a magistrate's order. The act of parliament is as clear as +daylight. I had a man up under it last week. "Whosoever shall +unlawfully abandon or expose any child, being under the age of +two years whereby the life of such child shall be endangered or +the health of such child shall have been or shall be likely to be +permanently injured (drowning comes under that I think) shall be +GUILTY OF a MISDEMEANOR and being convicted thereof shall be +liable at the discretion of the court to be KEPT IN PENAL +SERVITUDE for the term of three years or to be imprisoned for any +term not exceeding two years with or without hard labor." + +Mr. Smug, the officer, rolled out this section in a sonorous +monotone, without stops, like a clerk of the court. It was his +pride to know by heart all the acts relating to his department, +and to bring them down upon any obstinate head that he wished to +crush. Ginx's head, however, was impervious to an act of +parliament. In his then temper, the Commination Service or St. +Ernulphus's curse would have been feathers to him. The only +feeling aroused in his mind by the words of the legislature was +one of resentment. To him they seemed unjust, because they were +hard and fast, and made no allowance for circumstances. So he +said: + +GINX. D---- the act of parliament! What's the use of saying I +shan't abandon the child, when I can't keep it alive? + +OFFICER. But you're bound by law to keep it alive. + +GINX. Bound to keep it alive? How am I to do it? There's the +rest on 'em there (nodding towards his house) little better nor +alive now. If that's an act of Parleyment, why don't the act of +Parleyment provide for 'em? You know what wages is, and I can't +get more than is going. + +CHORUS. Yes. Why don't Parleyment provide for 'em? You take +the child, Mr. Smug. + +OFFICER (regardless of grammar). ME take the child! The parish +has enough to do to take care of foundlings and children whose +parents can't or don't work. You don't suppose we will look +after the children of those who can? + +GINX. Jest so. You'll bring up bastards and beggars' pups, but +you won't help an honest man to keep his head above water. This +child's head is goin' under water anyhow!" --and he prepared to +bolt, amid fresh screams from the Chorus. + + + +VII.--Malthus and Man. + +Two gentlemen, who had been observing the excitement, here came +forward. + +FIRST GENTLEMAN. This is our problem again, Mr. Philosopher. + +Mr. PHILOSOPHER (to Ginx). You don't know what to do with your +infant, my friend, and you think the State ought to provide for +it? I understand you to say this is your thirteenth child. How +came you to have so many? + +This question, though put with profound and even melancholy +gravity, disconcerted Ginx, Officer, and Chorus, who united in a +hearty outburst of laughter. + +GINX. Haw, Haw, Haw! How came I to have so many? Why my old +woman's a good un and---- + +In fact, after searching his mind for some clever way of putting +a comical rejoinder, Ginx laughed boisterously. There are two +aspects of a question. + +PHILOSOPHER. I am serious, my friend. Did it never occur to you +that you had no right to bring children into the world unless you +could feed and clothe and educate them? + +CHORUS. Laws a' mercy! + +GINX. I'd like to know how I could help it, naabor. I'm a +married man. + +PHILOSOPHER. Well, I will go further and say you ought not to +have married without a fair prospect of being able to provide for +any contingent increase of family. + +CHORUS. Laws a' mercy! + +PHILOSOPHER (waxing warm). What right had you to marry a poor +woman, and then both of you, with as little forethought as +two--a--dogs, or other brutes--to produce between you such a +multitudinous progeny-- + +GINX. Civil words, naabor; don't call my family hard names. + +PHILOSOPHER. Then let me say, such a monstrous number of +children as thirteen? You knew, as you said just now, that wages +were wages and did not vary much. And yet you have gone on +subdividing your resources by the increase of what must become a +degenerate offspring. (To the Chorus) All you workpeople are +doing it. Is it not time to think about these things and stop +the indiscriminate production of human beings, whose lives you +cannot properly maintain? Ought you not to act more like +reflective creatures and less like brutes? As if breeding were +the whole object of life! How much better for you, my friend, if +you had never married at all, than to have had the worry of a +wife and children all these years. + +The philosopher had gone too far. There were some angry murmurs +among the women and Ginx's face grew dark. He was thinking of +"all those years" and the poor creature that from morning to +night and Sunday to Sunday, in calm and storm, had clung to his +rough affections: and the bright eyes, and the winding arms so +often trellised over his tremendous form, and the coy tricks and +laughter that had cheered so many tired hours. He may have been +much of a brute, but he felt that, after all, that sort of thing +was denied to dogs and pigs. Before he could translate his +thoughts into words or acts a shrewd-looking, curly-haired +stonemason, who stood by with his tin on his arm, cut into the +discussion. + +STONEMASON. Your doctrines won't go down here, Mr. Philosopher. +I've 'eard of them before. I'd just like to ask you what a man's +to do and what a woman's to do if they don't marry: and if they +do, how can you honestly hinder them from having any children? + +The stonemason had rudely struck out the cardinal issues of the +question. + +PHILOSOPHER. Well, to take the last point first, there are +physical and ethical questions involved in it, which it is hard +to discuss before such an audience as this. + +STONEMASON. But you must discuss 'em, if you wish us to change +our ways, and stop breeding. + +PHILOSOPHER. Very well: perhaps you are right. But, again, I +should first have to establish a basis for my arguments, by +showing that the conception of marriage entertained by you all is +a low one. It is not simply a breeding matter. The beauty and +value of the relation lies in its educational effects--the +cultivation of mutual sentiments and refinements of great +importance to a community. + +STONEMASON. Ay! Very beautiful and refining to Mr. and Mrs. +Philosopher, but I'd like to know where the country would have +been if our fathers had held to that view of matrimony? Why, +ain't it in natur' for all beings to pair, and have young? an' +you say we ain't to do it! I think a statesman ought to make +something out of what's nateral to human beings, and not try to +change their naturs. Besides, ain't there good of another kind +to be got out of the relation of parents and children? Did you +ever have a child yourself? + +GINX (contemplating the Philosopher's physique). HE have a +youngster! He couldn't. + +CHORUS. Ha! Ha! Ha! + +STONEMASON. I don't believe in yer humbuggin' notions. They +lead to lust and crime;--I'm told they do in France. If you +yourself haven't the human natur in you to know it, I'll tell +you, and we can all tell you that as a rule if the healthy +desires of natur ain't satisfied in a honest way, they will be in +another. You can't stop eating by passin' an act of Parleyment +to stop it. And as for yer eddication and cultivation, that +makes no difference. We know something here about yer eddicated +men;--more than they think. Who is it we meet about the streets +late at night, goin' to the gay houses? Some of 'em stand near +as high as you, but that don't alter their natur. They have +their passions like other men; and eddication don't keep 'em +down. Well, if that's the case, how can you ask people of our +sort to put on the curb, or make us do it? Are we to live more +like beasts than we are now, or do what's worse than murder? I +don't see no other way. Among us I tell you, sir, three-fourths +of our eddication, is eddication of the heart. We have to learn +to be human, kind, self-denyin', and I think this makes better +men, as a rule, than head-larnin'; tho' I don't despise that, +neither. But you don't suppose head-citizens would fight for +their country like men with wives and children behind 'em; why +they don't even at home work for daily food like a man with wife +and babies to provide for! + +The stonemason was above his class--one of those shrewd men that +"the people called Methodists" get hold of, and use among the +lower orders, under the name of "local preachers;" men who learn +to think and speak better than their fellows. The Philosopher +testified some admiration by listening attentively, and was about +to reply, but the Chorus was tired, and the women would not hear +him. + +CHORUS. Best get out o' this. We don't want any o' yer +filhosophy. Go and get childer' of yer own, &c., &c. + +The Philosopher and his friend departed, carrying with them +unsolved the problem they had brought. + + +VIII.--The Baby's First Translation. + +The stonemason had been the hero of the moment; now attention +centred on our own hero. Ginx hurried off again, but as the +crowd opened before him, he was met, and his mad career stayed, +by a slight figure, feminine, draped in black to the feet, +wearing a curiously framed white-winged hood above her pale face, +and a large cross suspended from her girdle. He could not run +her down. + +NUN. Stop, MAN! Are you mad? Give me the child. + +He placed the little bundle in her arms. She uncovered the +queer, ruby face, and kissed it. Ginx had not looked at the face +before, but after seeing it, and the act of this woman, he could +not have touched a hair of his child's head. His purpose died +from that moment, though his perplexity was still alive. + +NUN. Let me have it. I will take it to the Sisters' Home, and +it shall live there. Your wife may come and nurse it. We will +take charge of it. + +GINX. And you won't send it back again? You'll take it for good +and all? + +NUN. O, yes. + +GINX. Good. Give us yer hand. + +A little white hand came out from under her burthen, and was at +once half-crushed in Ginx's elephantine grasp. + +GINX. Done. Thank'ee, missus. Come, mates, I'll stand a drink. + +A few minutes after, the woman of the cross, who had been up to +comfort the poor mother, fluttered with her white wings down +Rosemary Street, carrying in her arms Ginx's Baby. + + + +PART II. + +WHAT CHARITY AND THE CHURCHES DID WITH HIM. + +I.--The Milk of Human Kindness, Mother's Milk, and the +Milk of the Word. + +The early days of his residence at the Home of the Sisters of +Misery, in Winkle Street, was the Eden of Ginx's Baby's +existence. Themselves innocent of a mother's experiences, the +sisters were free to give play to their affections in a novel +direction, and to assume a sort of spiritual maternity that was +lucky for the changeling. He was nestled in kind serge-covered +arms: kisses rained upon him from chaste lips. A slight scandal +thrilled the convent upon the discovery of his sex, which had of +course been a pure matter of conjecture to Sister Pudicitia when +she rescued him; but enthusiasm can overcome anything. The +awkward questions foreshadowed in the discovery were left to be +considered when their growing importance should demand upon them +the judgment of the archbishop. Visions of an unusual sanctity +to be fostered in the pure regions of the convent, and to be sent +on a mission into the world to attest the power of their +spiritual discipline, began to haunt the brains of the +sequestered nuns. Might not this infant be an embryo saint, +destined for a great work in the heretical wilderness out of +which he had come? How little healthy food the brains must have +had wherein these insane dreams were excited by our innocent +baby! Hardly did the sacred spinsters forecast what was in store +for them when he should be teething. + +But Ginx's Baby was in a religious atmosphere, and that is always +surcharged with electricity. His lot must have been above that +of any other human being if he could long have remained in such a +climate unvisited by thunder. The mother had been permitted to +attend at the Home with the same regularity as the milkman, to +discharge her maternal duties. Then with the rise of the +visionary projects just mentioned the gravest doubts began to +agitate the fertile and casuistic mind of the Lady Superior. The +holier her ideal St. Ginx of the future, the more to be deplored +was any heretical taint in the present. Holy mother! Was it not +perhaps eminently perilous to his spiritual purity that an +unbeliever like Mrs. Ginx should bring unconsecrated milk into +the convent to be administered to this suckling of the Church! +In her uneasiness she appealed to Father Certificatus, the +conventual confessor. He gave his opinion in the following +letter:-- + +"DEAR SISTER SUSPICIOSA, + "The very grave question you have put to me has given me +much anxiety. It could not but do so since it occupied, I knew, +so fully your own holy reflections. I pondered it during the +night while I repeated one hundred Aves on my knees, and I think +the Blessed Virgin has vouchsafed her assistance. + +"I understood you to say you thought that the physical health of +the infant, so singularly and miraculously thrown upon your care, +required the offices of his heretic mother, and yet that you felt +how inconsistent it was with the noble future we contemplate for +him, that he should receive unorthodox lacteal sustentation. In +this you are but following the usage of the Church in all ages, +for She has ever enjoined the advantage of infusing Her doctrines +into Her children with the mother's milk. + +"Three courses only appear to me to be open to us. First, we may +try to work upon the mother's feelings, and on behalf of her +child induce her to avail herself of the inestimable privileges +of the Church in which he is fostered. Secondly, should she +repel us--and these lower class heretics are even brutally +refractory--we might at least allure her to allow us to make with +holy water the sign of the Cross upon the natural reservoirs of +infant nourishment each time before she approaches the infant. +This, besides overcoming the immediate difficulty and securing +for the child a supply of sanctified food, might open the way for +the entrance into her own bosom of the milk of the word. +Thirdly, should she reject these proposals, I see nothing for it +but to forbid her to have access to her infant, and, commending +him to the care of the Holy Mother, to feed him with pap or other +suitable nourishment, previously consecrated by me in its crude +state, and prepared by the most holy hands of your community. +Thus we may hope to shield the young soul in its present +freshness from contact with carnal elements. + "Your loving Father in, &c., + "CERTIFICATUS." + + +On receiving this letter the Superioress conferred not with flesh +and blood, but sent for Mrs. Ginx. That worthy woman was not +enchanted with her child's position. I have hinted that her +faith was simple, but in proportion to its simplicity it was +strongly-rooted in her nature. 'Tis not infrequent to find it +so. Lengthy creeds and confessions of faith are apt to extend +the strength and fervor of belief over too wide a surface. In +the close frame of some single article will be concentrated the +whole energy of the soul. The first formula, "Repent and believe +in the Lord Jesus Christ," was maintained with a heat that became +less intense, though more distributed, in the insertion of an +Athanasian creed. Mrs. Ginx's creed was succinct. + + Mrs. GINX'S PRIMARY CREED. + +I believe in God, giver of bread, meat, money, and health. + +This she maintained, with indifferent ritual and devotional +observances. But there was to Mrs. Ginx's faith a corollary or +secondary creed, only needed to meet special emergencies. + +Mrs. GINX'S SECONDARY CREED. + +1. I believe in the Church of England. +2. I believe in Heaven and Hell. +3. (A negative article) I hate Popery, priests, and the Devil. + + +When her husband made his fatal gift to the nun, this third +article of his wife's belief, or unbelief, stirred up and waxed +aggressive. + +Said the Lady Superior, "My good woman, your child thrives under +the care of Holy Mother Church." + +"Yes'm, he thrives well," replies Mrs. Ginx, repeating no more of +Sister Suspiciosa's sentence, "an' I've 'ad more milk than ever +for the darlin' this time, thank God." + +"And the Holy Virgin." + +"I dunno about her," cries Mrs. Ginx emphatically, perhaps not +seeing congruity between a virgin and the subject of +thankfulness. + +"And the Holy Virgin," repeated the nun, "who interests herself +in all mothers. She has thus blessed you that your child may be +made strong for the work of the Church. Do you not see a miracle +is worked within you to prove Her goodness? This, no doubt, is +an evidence to you of Her wish to bless you and take you for Her +own. I beseech you listen to Her voice, and come and enter Her +fold." + +"If you mean the Virgin Mary, mum, I ain't a idolater, beggin' +yer parding," says Mrs. Ginx; "an' tho' I wouldn't for the world +offend them as has been so kind to my child, an' saved it from +that deer little creetur bein' thrown over Wauxhall Bridge--an' +Ginx ought to be ashamed of hisself, so he ought-- I ain't +Papish, mum, and I ain't dispoged, with twelve on 'em there at +home all Protestant to the back bone, to turn Papish now, an' so +I 'ope an' pray, mum," says Mrs. Ginx, roaring and crying, "you +ain't agoin' to make Papish of my flesh an' blood. O dear! O +dear!" + +The Lady Superior shut her ears; she had raised a familiar spirit +and could not lay it. She temporized. + +"You know your husband has given the child to us. It will be +called the infant Ambrosius." + +"Dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. Ginx, "what a name! " + +"We wish him to be kept from any worldly taint, and by-and-by his +saintliness may gain you forgiveness in spite of your heretical +perversity. I cannot permit you to give him unconsecrated milk, +and as we wish to treat you kindly, the holy Father Certificatus +has allowed me to make an arrangement with you, to which you can +have no objection--I mean, that you should let me make the sign +of the cross upon your breasts morning and evening before you +suckle your infant. You will permit me to do that, won't you?" + +Conceive of Mrs. Ginx's reply, clothed in choice Westminster +English: it asserted her readiness to cut off her right hand, her +feet, to be hanged, drowned, burned, torn to pieces, in fact to +withstand all the torments ascribed by vulgar tradition to Roman +Catholic ingenuity, and to see her baby "a dead corpse" into the +bargain, before she would submit her Protestant bosom to such an +indignity. + +"No, mum!" she said; "I couldn't sleep with that on my breast;" +and cried hysterically. + +This lower class heretic WAS "brutally refractory." So thought +the Superioress, and so gave Mrs. Ginx notice to come no more. +She went home rather jubilant--she was a martyr. + + + +II.--The Protestant Detectoral Association. + +Ginx's baby was now fed on consecrated pap. But his mother was +not a woman to be silent under her wrongs. From her husband she +hid them, because the subject was forbidden. She poured out her +complaint to Mrs. Spittal and other Protestant matrons. Thus it +came to pass that one day, in Ginx's absence, the good woman was +surprised by a visit from a "gentleman." He was small, sharp, +rapid, dressed in black. He opened his business at once. + +"Mrs. Ginx? Ah! I am the agent of the Protestant Detectoral +Association." + +Mrs. Ginx wiped her best chair and set it for him. + +"By great good fortune the secretary received only half an hour +ago intelligence of the shocking instance of Papal aggression of +which you have been the victim." + +To hear her case put so grandly was honey to Mrs. Ginx. + +"Well now," continued the little man, "we are ready to render you +every assistance to save your child from the claws of the Great +Dragon. I wish to know the exact circumstances--let me +see--(opening a large pocket book) I have this memorandum: the +child was carried off from his mother's bedside in broad daylight +by a nun accompanied by two priests and a large body of Irish: is +that a correct version?" + +"Law, no, sir, it warn't quite like that," said Mrs. Ginx. +"We've 'ad so many on 'em that Ginx was for drownin' the +thirteenth"-- + +--The little man opened his eyes---- + +"An' he went and gave it away, sir," said she crying, "to a nun, +sir--ah! ah! ah!-- they won't let me see the darlin' now, sir-- +ah! ah! ah! because I won't let Missis Spishyosir mark me with +the cross, sir, an' me with as fine a breast o' milk as ever was +for 'im, sir--ah! ah! ah! " + +"Hem!" said the little man, "that's different from what I +understood." + +He was quite honest, but who does not know how disappointing it +is to find a wrong you wish to redress is not so bad as you had +hoped? + +However, it looked bad enough, and might be made worse. It was +the very case for the Protestant Detectoral Association. + +"Would Mr. Ginx not join in an effort to recover his child?" + +"No, sir; I should think not: he went an' gave it away." + +"I know; but he is a Protestant?" + +"I don't think he be much o' anything, sir. I know he hate +priests like pison, but he don't care about these things as I +do." + +"Oh! I see." Writes in his memorandum book--husband indifferent. + + +"But don't you think he would help you to get the child back +again?" + +"No, sir. I wouldn't speak of it to him for the world. He'd +knock any one down if they was to mention the child to him." + +The little man mentally determined not to see Ginx. + +"Well; would you like to have your child back?" + +"You see, I couldn't bring it 'ere, sir. Ginx won't 'ave it; but +I'd like to see it took away from them nunnerys." + +"Ha! very well then. We can perhaps manage it for you. You +would be content to hand it over to some Protestant Home, where +it would be taken care of and you could see it when you liked?" + +"O yes, sir," cries Mrs. Ginx, brightening. + +"Then we'll have an affidavit and apply for a Habeas Corpus." + +It was impossible not to be satisfied with such words as these, +whatever they meant and Mrs. Ginx was cheered, while the little +man went on his way. + + + +III.--The Sacrament of Baptism. + +Mother, or "Mrs." Suspiciosa, fed Ginx's Baby with holy pap. It +seemed proper now that he should be christened and formally +received into the Church. No small stir was made by this +ceremony, for which all the resources of the convent were called +into action. The day selected was that sacred to St. Ambrosius. +The chapel was decorated with flowers. Mass was celebrated, +candles flamed upon the altar surrounding a figure of the Infant +Jesus, incense was burning around the baby, sisters and novices +knelt in serried rows of virginity + + "like doves + Sunning their milky bosoms on the thatch. " + +Mother Suspiciosa carried the infant, clothed in a pure white +robe, with a red cross embroidered on its front. In the absence +of the natural parent a wax figure of St. Ambrosius did duty for +him, and another wax figure stood godfather: but I dare not enter +into details of matters that may be looked at as awfully profane, +or awfully solemn, by different spectators. These things are a +mystery. + +I have no hesitation about describing the impious behavior of +little Ginx. Whatever swaddled infant could do in the way of +opposition, with hands, and legs, and voice, was done by that +embryo saint. The incense made him cough and sputter; the +lights and singing raised the very devil within him. His cries +drowned the prayers. He frightened his conductress by the +redness of his face. He ruined the red cross with ejected +matter. You would have taken him for an infant demoniac. Mother +Suspiciosa, though annoyed, was encouraged. She looked upon this +as an evident testimony to little Ginx's value. The devil and +St. Michael were contending for his body. At length he was +baptized, and carried out. Credat Judaeus. He instantly sank +into a deep sleep. It was a miracle: Satan had yielded to the +sign of the cross! + + +IV.--Law on Behalf of Gospel. + +In the moment of Sister Suspiciosa's triumph, the enemy was +laying his train against her. The little man made his report to +the secretary of the Protestant Detectoral Association. This +gentleman was well-born and well-bred; moved to work in this +"cause" by an honest hatred of superstition, priestcraft, and +lies; now giving all his energies to the ambitious design of +pulling down the strongholds of Satan. In any other matter he +could act coolly, and with deliberation; in this he was an +enthusiast. He had a keen Roman nose. He could scent a priest +anywhere in the United Kingdom. He could smell Jesuitry in the +Queen's drawing-room, a cabinet council or convocation, though he +had never been at either. His eye was beyond a falcon's; he saw +things that were invisible. It penetrated through all disguises. +He knew a secret emissary of the Pope by the cock of his hat, or +the color of his stockings. At least, he thought so, and +thousands of persons acted on his estimate of himself. + +"This case," said he to the little man, when he had concluded his +report, "though not in its first incidents so grave as we were +led to expect, is, in another point of view, very serious. Here +is a man, as you have expressed it, 'indifferent' to his child's +life-- animal and spiritual. The mother, with a true Protestant +heart, and a fine breast of milk, is longing to nurture her +child, and to deliver it from the toils of the Papacy. But the +husband, what's his name? . . . . Ginx-- Ginx? a very bad name +for a case, by the way--GINX'S CASE!--this Ginx has given up his +child to the Sisters of Misery. How are we to get it away again, +without his cooperation? . . . . Well, we must try." + +The solicitor of the Association was forthwith summoned. When +the matter had been laid before him, he expressed doubts, offered +and withdrew courses of action, and ended by suggesting that he +should take the opinion of counsel. + +"Mr. Stigma, I suppose?" said he to the secretary. + +"Oh, yes, Sir Adolphus Stigma is one of our principal supporters, +and his son's heart is thoroughly with us." + +Messrs. Roundhead, Roundhead and Lollard, drew up a case to be +submitted to Mr. Stigma. I will only transcribe the latter +paragraphs:-- + + +Mr. Ginx being indifferent, and Mrs. Ginx being ready to assist +in regaining the custody of her child, to be conveyed to a +Protestant Home, + + "YOU ARE REQUESTED TO ADVISE: + +"1. Whether a summons should be taken out before a magistrate +against the Lady Superior of the convent, for enticing away or +detaining the infant, under the 56th sect. of 24 and 25 Vict., c. +100 Or, + +"2. Whether the proper remedy is by a writ of Habeas Corpus? +and, if so, whether it is necessary that the father should be +joined in the proceedings or his leave obtained to prosecute +them? Or, failing these, + +3. Whether counsel is of opinion that this is a case within +Talfourd's Act, and an application might not be made to the Lord +Chancellor, or the Master of the Rolls, on the mother's behalf +for the custody of her child? And, + +"4. To advise generally on behalf of the infant." + + +Mr. Adolphus Stigma took ten days to consider. Meanwhile, the +infant Ambrosius continued to thrive on conventual pap. Then Mr. +Stigma wrote his opinion. It was a model for a barrister. You +took the advice at your own peril--not his. Therefore I +transcribe it. + + "OPINION. + +'I have given to this case my most careful attention; and it is +one of great difficulty. Having regard to the questions put to +me, I think-- + +"1. Section 56 of the Act of 24 and 25 Vict., c. 100, appears at +first sight to be directed against the stealing and abduction of +children for marriage, or other improper purposes. It provides +that 'Whosoever shall UNLAWFULLY, either by force or fraud, lead +or take away, or decoy, or entice away, or detain any child, &c., +with intent to deprive ANY parent, &c., of the possession of such +child'--shall be guilty of felony. It is perfectly clear, that +in the case before me, the infant was not, 'by force or fraud, +led or taken away, or decoyed, or enticed away.' The statute, +however, uses the word 'detain;' and this, it appears to me, has +much the same force and intention as the previous words. It is +to be noted, however, that it is separated from them by the +disjunctive 'or;' and, therefore, it might be argued with some +plausibility that any act of forceful or fraudulent detention, +after notice, by persons who have originally acquired a child's +custody in a lawful way, came within the section. The point is +new, and of great importance; and if the Protestant Detectoral +Association feel disposed to try it, they would do so under +favorable circumstances in the present case. Should they decide +to do so, a written demand should be served upon the authorities +of the convent, by the mother, or some one acting on her behalf, +to give up the infant. + +"2. The second question is also involved in difficulty. Were the +father to be joined in the proceedings, the writ of Habeas Corpus +would be the correct remedy. But his probable refusal +necessitates the inquiry whether the mother can alone apply for +the writ. The general rule of law is, that the father is +entitled to the custody and disposition of his children. In +Cartlidge and Cartlidge, 31, L. J., P. M. & D. 85, it was held +that this rule would not be generally departed from by the +Divorce Court; but in Barnes v. Barnes, L. R. I, P. & D. 463, the +court made an order, giving the custody of two infant children to +the mother, respondent in a suit for a dissolution of marriage, +on the ground that the mother's health was suffering from being +deprived of their society, and that they were living with a +stranger, and not with the father. These cases were, however, in +the Divorce Court, and do not apply. But, as there seems to be +much ground in the peculiar circumstances here, for arguing that +the mother should have the custody of the child, or, at least, +that it should not be left to that of persons of a different +religion from both parents, an application might be made to the +Queen's Bench to try the question. + +"3. Should the common law remedies fail, resort may perhaps be +had to the powers in Chancery under Talfourd's Act, but on this +point I should like to confer with an equity counsel before +giving a decided opinion. It has been decided under this Act +that the court has power to give the custody of children under +seven to the mother. (Shillito v. Collett, 8, W. R. 683-696.) As +this infant is but six weeks old it comes within that case. + +"4. I have no general advice to give on behalf of the infant. + "ADOLPHUS STIGMA, + "9, Plumtree Court." + + +If none of the courses suggested by Mr. Stigma was very decided, +Messrs. Roundhead, Roundhead and Lollard were not sorry to have +three strings to their bow. The Detectoral Association +were good clients; most of their funds went into their lawyers' +pockets. It was part of their policy to be litigious. Thereby +the world was kept alive to the existence of Papacy within its +bosom. Who shall say the Association were wrong? Some healthy +daylight was occasionally let in upon the mysteries of Jesuitism, +and there are people who think that worth while at the risk of a +chance injustice. Though the Devil should not get his due, few +would give him any sympathy. + +The solicitor at once instructed Mr. Dignam Bailey, Q.C., to +apply with Mr. Stigma to a magistrate for a summons. Mr. Bailey, +Q.C., was not chosen for his partialities. In religious matters +he was a perfect Gallio; but he was like St. Paul in one +particular, he could be all things to all men. + + +V.--Magistrate's Law. + +The personnel of the magistrate to whom Mr. Dignam Bailey, Q. C., +(with him Mr. Adolphus Stigma), applied in the case of re an +infant, exparte Ginx, is not material to this history. He was +like his fellow stipendiaries --mild as to humor, vigilant in his +duties, opinionated in his views, resenting the troublesome +intrusion into his court of a barrister, apt to treat him with +about one-eighth of the courtesy extended to the humblest junior +by the Queen's Bench, and curiously unequal both with himself and +his brother magistrates in adjusting punishment. It will be most +convenient to insert the report of the Daily Electric Meteor:-- + "WESTMINSTER. + +"Mr. Dignam Bailey, Q.C., (with whom was Mr. Adolphus Stigma), +applied for a summons against Mary Dens, commonly called Sister +Suspiciosa, of the convent of the Sisters of Misery, in Winkle +Street, for abducting and detaining a male child of John Ginx and +Mary his wife. + +"Mr. D'ACERBITY. On whose behalf do you apply? + +"The learned counsel stated that he was instructed by the +Protestant Detectoral Association to apply on behalf of the +mother. The case was also watched by the solicitors of the +Society for Preventing the Suppression of Women and Children. + +"Mr. D'ACERBITY. Does the father join in the application? + +"Mr. BAILEY. No, sir. + +"Mr. D'ACERBITY. Why? He ought to be joined if living. + +"Mr. BAILEY. Perhaps you will allow me, sir, to state the case. +The circumstances are peculiar. The fact is---- + +"Mr. D'ACERBITY. I cannot understand why the father should not +be represented if the child has been abducted. Where was it +taken from? + +"Mr. Bailey proceeded to state that the child had been taken by a +nun from No. 5, Rosemary Street, without the mother's consent, +and was now imprisoned in the convent. The father appeared to be +indifferent, or to have given a sort of general acquiescence. +This was Mrs. Ginx's thirteenth child, around whom gathered the +concentrated affections + +"Mr. D'ACERBITY (interrupting the learned gentleman). We have +no time for sentiment here, Mr. Bailey. If the father consented, +can you call it abduction? It looks like reduction. (Laughter.) + +"Mr. Bailey called attention to the consolidated statutes of +criminal law, and said he was going for illegal detention rather +than abduction, and argued at great length from section 56. At +the conclusion of the argument, after refusing to hear Mr. +Stigma, + +"Mr. D'Acerbity said that the case clearly did not come within +the section, and he was afraid the learned counsel knew it. The +father had been a consenting party, on the counsel's own +statement, to the child's removal, and no suggestion had been +made that he had withdrawn his consent. He should refuse a +summons. + +"Mr. Bailey endeavored to address the magistrate but was stopped. + +"Mr. D'ACERBITY. I have no more to say. You can apply to the +Queen's Bench. I have no sympathy with you whatever." + +Mr. D'Acerbity's law was good, but--what has justice to do with +"sympathies?" Surely the day after this report appeared the +magistrate must have had a letter from the Home Secretary? + + + +VI-Popery and Protestantism in the Queen's Bench. + +The application to the magistrate was far from satisfactory. +There had not even been an exposure, and the Windmill Bulletin +gayly bantered the Detectoral Association. Meanwhile had +happened the grand christening, of which a circumstantial account +was in the hands of the council of the Detectoral Association +shortly after the ceremony had been performed. Here was a +monstrous indignity to a Protestant child! The account was at +once printed, together with a verbatim report of the application +to the magistrate as well as one of "a conversation held with the +mother by an agent of the Association." Board-men paraded the +great thoroughfares carrying this appeal:-- + +PROTESTANT DETECTORAL ASSOCIATION. +-------- +NO POPERY! +Abduction Of an Infant! +Assault on the Liberty of the Subject! +Mysterious and Awful Proceedings! +Baptism of a Protestant Child in a Convent! + +OUTRAGE +Upon the Nation by Foreign Mercenaries! +---------------- +Every Father and Mother is Invited to Co-operate in +Maintaining the +PROTESTANT RELIGION, +The Sanctity of Home, and the Inviolability of +BRITISH FREEDOM! +-------- +NO SURRENDER! + + +If there was no coherency in this production, it should be noted +how little that is of the essence of popular appeal. The +metropolis was in an uproar. Meetings were held, subscriptions +poured in, dangerous crowds collected in Winkle Street. When Mr. +Dignam Bailey, Q. C., went down to Westminster, to move the Court +of Queen's Bench, multitudes besieged it. Protestant champions +and Papal ecclesiastics vied in their efforts to get seats. The +writ had gone from judge's chambers returnable to the full court. +Sister Suspiciosa, bearing the infant Ambrosius, and supported by +two novices and Father Certificatus, had been smuggled into court +through mysterious passages in its rear. Mrs. Ginx also, brought +from Rosemary Street by the little man who provided her with a +bonnet trimmed with orange-colored ribbons, sat staring with red +eyes at her child, now enveloped in a robe that was embroidered +with little crosses. + +Why need I tell you, how dead silence fell upon the Court after +the stir caused by the entrance of the judges; how everybody knew +what was coming when a master beneath the bench rose, and called +out, "Re Ginx, an infant, Exparte Mary Ginx!" How the Chief +Justice, fresh and rosy-looking, then blew his nose in a delicate +mauve-colored silk handkerchief: how he tried and discarded +half-a-dozen pens, amid breathless silence; how in his blandest +manner he said: "Who appears for the Respondent?" and Mr. Dignam +Bailey, Q. C., and Mr. Octavius Ernestus, Q. C., rose together to +say that Mr. Ernestus did! + +Mr. Ernestus was a Catholic. He was assisted by half-a-dozen +counsel. He riddled the affidavits on the other side, and read +voluminous ones on his own; bitterly animadverted upon the +absence of an affidavit by the father; held up to the scorn of a +civilized world the course pursued towards his meek and gentle +clients by the "fanatical zealots of the Protestant Detectoral +Association;" in moving tones referred to the shrinking of "quiet +recluses, from the gaze of a rude, unsympathizing world;" cited +cases from the time of Magna Charta, down; called upon the Court +to vindicate Protestant justice, ending his peroration with the +aphorism of Lord Mansfield, Fiat justitia ruat caelum. + +One cannot do Justice to Mr. Dignam Bailey's argument, when after +lunch he rose to reply. He was logical and passionate, +vindictive and pathetic by turns. He inveighed against the Lady +Superior, against her attorneys, against Father Certificatus, +against Ginx,--"craven to his heaven-born rights of political and +religious freedom,"-- against the Roman Catholic religion, the +Pope, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Virgin Mary. The Court +knew, and every one else knew, that this was pure pyrotechny, and +Mr. Bailey knew that best of all; but, though the Bench is swift +to speak, slow to hear, it felt obliged, in a case of this public +interest, to sit by, and be witnesses of the exhibition. Mr. +Bailey concluded by a play on the aphorism cited by his learned +friend. "He would say that if such justice were to be done, as +his friend had urged, the Kingdom of Heaven in England would rush +to its fall." + +The Court at once decided that, as the father had confided the +custody of the infant to the Sisters of Misery, and did not +appear to desire that it should be withdrawn, they, disregarding +the religious clouds in which the subject had been too carefully +involved on both sides, gave judgment for the defendant, with +costs. + +As they passed out of Court, Mr. Stigma said to his clients, +"Quite as I anticipated; you remember I told you so in my +Opinion." + + + +VII.--A Protestor, but not a Protestant. + +The infant Ambrosius and his conductors could scarcely reach the +convent in safety. The building showed few windows to the +street, but they were all broken. What might have happened in a +few days, but that Ginx's Baby took the matter into his own +hands, none can say. + +The treatment to which the little saint was subjected soured his +temper. His kind nurses had choked him twice a day with incense, +and now he had inhaled for seven hours the air of the Queen's +Bench. On his return to the convent he was hastily fed, and +carried to the chapel to give thanks for the victory of the day. +Wrapped in a handsome chasuble, they laid him on the steps of the +altar. In the most solemn part of the service he coughed, and +grew sick. The chasuble was bespattered. When the officiating +priest, to save that garment, took the child in his arms, he +nefariously polluted the sacerdotal vestments and the altar +steps. Then he kicked toward the altar itself, roared lustily, +and finally went into convulsions in Sister Suspiciosa's arms. +Like most women, the Lady Superior required her enthusiasm to be +fed with success. She began to think that she had been cozened: +Ginx's Baby was too evidently a spiritual miscarriage. He must, +like the rest of his family, be, indeed, "Protestant to the +backbone." Father Certificatus agreed with her. His robes and +best chasuble were befouled. + +"Let us not risk a repetition of this conduct," said he; "let the +child be given up. He is baptized, and cannot be severed from +the Church. He will return after many days." + +Next morning the solicitors of the Protestant Detectoral +Association received a letter from their opponents. In this they +said that--presuming Messrs. Roundhead, Roundhead, and Lollard, +intended to apply to the Master of the Rolls, the authorities of +the convent had decided, after having vindicated themselves in +the Queen's Bench, to give up the child, which would be, for +twenty-four hours, at the order and disposal of the Association, +and afterwards of his parents. "We are instructed by our +clients," they added, "to ask you to bear in mind that the child +has been admitted, and is a member of the Catholic Church, owing +allegiance to the Holy Father at Rome, a bond from which only the +Papal excommunication can absolve him." + + + +VIII.--"See how these Christians love one another." + +A mass-meeting of Protestants had been summoned for three o'clock +on the day designated in the letter of the Papist attorneys, to +be held in the Philopragmon Hall. That was the favorite centre +of countless movements, both well-meant and well-executed, and of +others as futile as they were foolish. Yet one could not say +that a larger proportion of the latter were connected with the +Hall than existed in as many other human enterprises of any sort. +The concession of the Romanists at first dashed the managers of +the demonstration. Their grievance was gone. Still there +remained topics for a meeting: they would rejoice over victory, +and consult about the future of the Protestant Baby. + +The Secretary was an old hand at these meetings. He planned to +import into this one a sensation. Ginx's Baby, brought from the +convent, stripped of his papal swathings and enveloped in a +handsome outfit presented by an amiable Protestant Duchess, was +placed in a cradle with his head resting on a Bible. I am afraid +he was quite as uncomfortable as he had ever been at the +convent. When, at the conclusion of the chairman's speech, in +which he informed the audience of their triumph, this exhibition +was deftly introduced upon the platform, the huzzas, and +clappings, and waving of handkerchiefs were such as even that +place had never seen. The child was astounded into quietness. + +Mr. Trumpeter took the chair--believed by many to be, next to the +Queen, the most powerful defender of the faith in the three +kingdoms. I never could understand why the newspapers reported +his speeches--I cannot. + +When he had done, Lord Evergood, "a popular, practical peer, of +sound Protestant principles," as the Daily Banner alliteratively +termed him next morning, rose to move the first resolution, +already cut and dried by the committee-- + +"That the infant so happily rescued from the incubus of a +delusive superstition, should be remitted to the care of the +Church Widows' and Orphans' Augmentation Society, and should be +supported by voluntary contributions." + +Before Lord Evergood could say a word murmurs arose in every part +of the hall. He was a mild, gentlemanly Christian, without +guile, and the opposition both surprised and frightened him. He +uttered a few sentences in approval of his proposition and sat +down. + +An individual in the gallery shouted-- "Sir! I rise to move an +amendment!" + +Cheers, and cries of "Order! order! Sit down!" &c. + +The Chairman, with great blandness, said: "The gentleman is out +of order; the resolution has not yet been seconded. I call upon +the Rev. Mr. Valpy to second the resolution." + +Mr. Valpy, incumbent of St. Swithin's-within, insisted on +speaking, but what he said was known only to himself. When he +had finished there was an extraordinary commotion. On the +platform many ministers and laymen jumped to their feet; in the +hall at least a hundred aspirants for a hearing raised themselves +on benches or the convenient backs of friends. + +The Chairman shouted, "Order! ORDER, gentlemen! This is a great +occasion; let us show unanimity!" + +There seemed to be an unanimous desire to speak. Amid cheers, +cries for order, and Kentish fire, you could hear the Rev. Mark +Slowboy, Independent, the Rev. Hugh Quickly, Wesleyan, the Rev. +Bereciah Calvin, Presbyterian, the Rev. Ezekiel Cutwater, +Baptist, calling to the chair. + +A lull ensued, of which advantage was taken by Mr. Stentor, a +well-known Hyde Park orator, who bellowed from a friend's +shoulders in the pit, "Mr. Chairman, hear ME!" an appeal that was +followed by roars of laughter. + +What was the matter? Why the proposal to hand over the baby to +an Anglican refuge stirred up the blood of every Dissenter +present. It was lifting the infant out of the frying-pan and +dexterously dropping him into the fire. But the chairman was +accustomed to these scenes. He stayed the tumult by proposing +that a representative from each denomination should give his +opinion to the audience. "Whom would they have first? " + +The loudest cries were for Mr. Cutwater, who stood forth--a weak, +stooping, half-halting, little man, with a limp necktie, and +trousers puffy at the knees--but with honest use of them, let me +say. It is quite credible that if Dr. Watts's assertion be true +that-- + + "Satan trembles when he sees + The weakest saint upon his knees," + +that arch-enemy was unusually perturbed when Ezekiel Cutwater was +upon his. On these he had borne manly contests with evil. Two +things--yea, three--were rigid in Ezekiel's creed; fire would +never have burned them out of him: hatred of Popery, contempt of +Anglican priestcraft and apostolic succession, and adhesion to +the dogma of adult baptism and total immersion. Whoso should not +join with him in these let him be Anathema Maranatha. + +His eye kindled as he looked at the seething audience. "Sir," +said he, "I beg to move an amendment to the motion of the noble +lord. (Cheers.) That motion proposes to transfer to the care of +the Established Church this tender and unconscious infant +(bending over Ginx's baby), just snatched from the toils of a +kindred superstition. (Oh, oh, hisses and cheers.) I withdraw +the expression; I did not mean to be offensive. (Hear.) This is +a grand representative meeting--not of the English Church, not of +the Baptist Church, not of the Wesleyan Church--but of +Protestantism. (Cheers and Kentish fire.) In such an assembly +is it right to propose any singular disposition of a +representative infant? This is now the adopted child, not of +one, but of all denominations. (Cheers.) Around his, or her--I +am not sure which --cherubic head circle the white-winged angels +of various Churches, and on her or him, whichever it may be----" + +The Chairman said that he might as well say that he had authentic +information that it was HIM. + +"Him then--concentrate the sympathies of every Protestant heart. +Let us not despoil the occasion of its greatness by exhibiting a +narrow bigotry in one direction! Let us bring into this +infantile focus the rays of Catholic unity. (Loud cheering and +Kentish fire.) To me, for one, it would be eminently painful to +think--what doubtless would occur if the motion is adopted--that +within a week of his entrance into the asylum of the society +named in it, this diminutive and unknowing sinner should go +through the farce of a supposititious admission into the Church +of Christ. (Oh!) Yes! I say a farce, whether you regard the +age of the acolyte or the indifferent proportion of water with +which it would be performed. (Uproar, oh, oh! and some cheering +from the Baptist section.) But I will not now further enter into +these things," said Mr. Cutwater, who knew his cue perfectly +well, "I can hold these opinions and still love my brethren of +other denominations. I move, as an amendment, that a committee, +consisting of one minister and one layman to be selected from +each of the Churches, be appointed to take charge of the physical +well-being and mental and spiritual training of the infant." + +By this proposition, which was received with enthusiasm, Ginx's +Baby was to be incontinently pitched into an arena of polemical +warfare. Every one was willing that a committee should fight out +the question vicariously; and, therefore, when Mr. Slowboy +seconded the amendment, it was carried with loud acclamations. + +But they were not yet out of the wood. On proceeding to nominate +members of the committee, the Unitarians and Quakers claimed to +be represented. The platform and the meeting were by the ears +again. It was fiercely contended that only Evangelical +Christians could have a place in such a work, and many of the +nominees declared that they would not sit on a committee +with--well, some curious epithets were used. The Unitarians and +Quakers took their stand on the Catholic principles embodied in +the amendment, and on the fact that Ginx's Baby had now "become +national Protestant property." Mr. Cutwater and a few others, +moved by the scandal of the dispute, interfered, and the +committee was at length constituted to the satisfaction of all +parties. It was to be called "The Branch Committee of the +Protestant Detectoral Union for promoting the Physical and +Spiritual Well-being of Ginx's Baby. " + +A fourth resolution was adopted, "That the subject should be +treated in the Metropolitan pulpits on the next Sabbath, and a +collection taken up in the various churches for the benefit of +the infant." This promised well for Master Ginx's future. + +The meeting had lasted five hours, and while they were discussing +him the child grew hungry. In the tumult every one had forgotten +the subject of it, and now it was over, they dispersed without +thought of him. But he would not allow those near him at all +events to overlook his presence. + +Some, foreseeing that awkwardness was impending, slipped away; +while three or four stayed to ask what was to be done with him. + +"Hand him over to the custody of the Chairman," said a Mr. Dove. + +"I should be most happy," said he, smoothly, "but Mrs. Trumpeter +is out of town. Could your dear wife take him, Mr. Dove?" + +Mr. Dove's wife was otherwise engaged. + +The Secretary was unmarried--chambers at Nincome's Inn. + +In the midst of their distress a woman who had been hanging about +the hall near the platform, came forward and offered to take +charge of him, "for the sake of the cause." Every one was +relieved. After her name and address had been hastily noted, the +Protestant baby was placed in her arms. My Lord Evergood, the +Chairman, the clergy, the Secretary, and the mob went home +rejoicing. Some hours after, Ginx's Baby, stripped of the +duchess's beautiful robes, was found by a policeman, lying on a +doorstep in one of the narrow streets, not a hundred yards behind +the Philopragmon. By an ironical chance he was wrapped in a copy +of the largest daily paper in the world. + + +IX.--Good Samaritans, and Good-Samaritan Twopences. + +At every breakfast-table in town next morning the report of the +great Protestant meeting was read, and a further report, in +leaded type, of the discovery of Ginx's Baby at a later period of +the evening by a policeman. A pretty comment on the proceedings! +The Good Samaritan put his patient on his ass and carried him to +an inn; while the priest and the Levite, though the latter looked +at him, at least let him alone. To have called a public meeting +to discuss his fate before deserting him, would have been a +refinement of inhumanity. The committee were rather ashamed when +they met. Instant measures were taken to recover the child and +place him in good hands. The duchess again provided +baby-clothes. The next Sunday sermons were preached on his +behalf in a score of chapels. The collections amounted to L 800, +a sum increased by donations and subscriptions to the handsome +total of L 1360 10s. 3 1/2d. + +It will be seen hereafter what the committee did with the baby, +but I happen to have an account of what became of the funds. +They were spent as follows, according to a balance sheet never +submitted to the subscribers:-- + + Pounds s. d. +Committee-rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 0 0 +2 Secretaries employed by the + Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 0 0 +Agents, canvassing, &c . . . . . . . . . . 88 6 2 +Printing Notices, Placards, + Pamphlets, a "Daily Bulletin of + Health," "Life of Ginx's Baby," + "Protestant Babyhood, a Tale," + "The Cradle of an Infant Martyr," + "A Snatched Brand," and other + Works issued by the Committee . . . . . . 596 13 5 +Advertisements of Meetings, + Sermons, &c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 1 1 +Legal Expenses . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 77 6 8 +Stationery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 10 0 +Postage, Firing, and Sundries . . . . . . . 27 19 2 + ---------------- + Total Pounds 1251 16 6 + ================ + + +This left L 108 13s. 9 1/2d. for the baby's keep. No child could +have been more thoroughly discussed, preached and written about, +advertised, or advised by counsel; but his resources dwindled in +proportion to these advantages. Benevolent subscribers too +seldom examine the financial items of a report: had any who +contributed to this fund seen the balance sheet they might have +grudged that so little of their bounty went to make flesh, bone, +and comfort for the object of it. A cynic would tell them that +to look sharply after the disposal of their guerdon was half the +gift. Their indifference was akin to that satirized by the +poet-- + + "Prodigus et stultus dedit quae spernit et odit." + +In an age of luxury we are grown so luxurious as to be content to +pay agents to do our good deeds for us; but they charge us three +hundred per cent. for the privilege. + + +X.--The Force--and a Specimen of its Weakness. + +Ginx's baby had been discovered by a policeman swaddled in a +penny paper, distressingly familiar to metropolitan travellers by +rail. To omit the details of his treatment at the hands of that +great institution, "The Force," would be invidious. The member +thereof who fell in with him was walking a back street, sighting +doors with his bull's-eye. He was provided with massive boots, +so that a thief could hear him coming a hundred yards off; he was +personally tall and unwieldy, and a dexterous commissioner had +invented a dress designed to enhance these qualities--a heavy +coat, a cart-horse belt, and a round cape. He had been carefully +drilled not to walk more than three miles an hour. He was not a +little startled when the rays of his lamp fell upon a struggling +newspaper, out of which, as from a shell, came mysterious cries. +He took up a corner of the paper and peeped in upon the face of +Ginx's Baby; then he occupied a quarter of an hour in +embarrassing reflections. A nearly naked child crying in the +cold ought to be housed as soon as possible, but X 99 was ON HIS +BEAT, and those magic words chained him to certain limits. This, +of course, was the rule under a former commissioner, and every +one knows that such absurd strategy has been abolished in the +existing regime. At that time, however, each watchman had his +beat, to leave which was neglect of duty, except with a prisoner, +and then it was neglect of all the householders within the magic +compass. Had X 99 heard the baby crying across the street, which +was part of the beat of X 101, he would have passed on with a +cheery heart, for the case would have been beyond his +jurisdiction. Unhappily the baby was on his beat, and he was +delivered from the temptation of transferring it to the other by +the appearance of X 101's bull's-eye not far off. What was he to +do? The station was a mile away--the inspector would not arrive +for an hour--and it would be awkward, if not undignified, to +carry on his rounds a shouting baby wrapped in the largest daily +paper. If he left it where it was, and it perished, he might be +charged with murder. He was at his wits' end--but having got +there, he resolved on the simplest process, namely to carry it to +the station. No provision was made by the regulations of the +force to protect a beat casually deserted even for a proper +purpose. Hence, while X 99 was absent on his errand of mercy, +the valuable shop of Messrs. Trinkett and Blouse, ecclesiastical +tailors, was broken into, and several stoles, chasubles, +altar-cloths and other decorative tapestries were appropriated to +profane uses. + +At the station the baby was disposed of according to rule. Due +entry was first made in the night-book by the superintendent of +all the particulars of his discovery. Some cold milk was then +procured and poured down the child's throat. Afterwards, wrapped +in a constable's cape, he was placed in a cell where, when the +door was locked, he could not disturb the guardians of the peace. + +The same night, in the next cell, an innocent gentleman, seized +with an apoplexy in the street but entered in the charge-sheet as +drunk and incapable, died like a dog. + + +XI.--The Unity of the Spirit and the Bond of Peace. + +When the committee met, every one discovered his incongruity with +the rest. Each was disposed to treat Ginx's Baby in a different +way--in other words, each wished to reflect the views of his +particular sect on the object of their charity. They were a new +"Evangelical Alliance," agreed only in hatred to Popery. + +Finding at their first meeting that the discussion needed to be +brought into a focus, the committee appointed three of their +number to draw up a minute of the matters to be argued. This +committee reported that there arose, respecting the child, the +following questions:-- + +"I. As touching the body: + + a. Wherewithal he should be fed and clothed? + + b. In what manner and fashion that should be done? + + II. As touching the mind and spirit: + + a. Whether he should be educated? If so, + + b. What were to be the subjects of instruction? + + c. What creed, if any, should be primarily taught? + + d. Should he be further baptized? If so, + + 1. Into what communion? + + 2. By what ceremonial?" + + + +This programme, it appeared to its concoctors, embraced +everything that concerned Ginx's Baby except his death by the act +of God or the Queen's enemies. No sooner was the report made +than adopted. Then a member, eager for the fray, moved the +postponement of the first division of questions until the others +had been determined. Why should apostles of truth trouble +themselves to serve tables? These were very subordinate +questions to them--though, I think, of first importance to Ginx's +Baby. It was decided to discuss little Ginx's future before +considering his present. + +The ball was opened by the Venerable Archdeacon Hotten, who, amid +much excitement, contended that from the earliest buddings of +thought in an infant mind religion should be engrafted upon it; +there could be no education worth the name that was not +religious. That with the A should be taught the origin, and with +the Z the final destiny and destruction, of evil. To separate +education from religion was to clip the wings of the heavenly +dove. He asserted that the committee ought at once to have the +child baptized in Westminster Abbey, though he was rather of +opinion that the previous baptism was canonically valid; that he +should be taught the truths of our most holy faith, and since +there could be no faith without a creed, and the only national +creed was that of the Church of England, the baby should be +handed over to the care of a clergyman, and then be sent to a +proper religious school. He need not say that he excluded Rugby +under its then profane management. + +The Church was, however, divided against itself, for the Dean of +Triston said he would give more latitude than his very reverend +brother. You ought not to define in an infant mind a rigid +outline of creed. In fact, he did not acknowledge any creed, he +was not obliged to by law and was disinclined to by his reason. +He would rather allow the inner seeds of natural light--the +glorious all-pervading efflorescence of the Deity in all men's +hearts, to grow within the young spirit. The Dean was assuredly +vague and far less earnest than his brother cleric. + +The "Rev." Mr. Bumpus, Unitarian, met the suggestions of the +Archdeacon with the scorn they merited. It was impossible to +apply to a representative child of an enlightened age theories so +long exploded. The Dean had certainly come nearer the truth with +that broad sympathy for which he was noted. He himself proposed +that the child should be made a model nursling of the liberalism +of a new era. Old things were passing away;--all things had +become new. Creeds were the discarded banners of a mediaeval +past, fit only to be hung up in the churches, and looked at as +historic monuments; never more to be flaunted in the front of +battle! The education of the day was that which taught a man the +introspection whereby he recognized the Divine within +himself--under any aspect, under any tuition, whether of Brahma, +Confucius, or Christ. Truth was kaleidoscopic, and varied with +the media through which it was viewed. As for the child, every +aspect of truth and error should be allowed to play upon his +mind. Let him acquire ordinary school learning for fifteen +years, and then send him to the London University. + +Here the Chairman, and half-a-dozen members of the committee, +protested that the said University was a school of the devil, and +several interchanges of discourtesy took place. + +Mr. Shortt, M. P., begged to suggest, as a matter of business, +that for the present the child was not capable of receiving any +ideas whatever, and might die, or prove to be dumb, or an idiot, +and so require no education. Ought they not to postpone this +discussion until the subject was old enough to be worth +consideration? + +It was Mr. Shortt's habit to show his practical vein by +business-like obstructions of this kind. He had been able a +score of times to demonstrate to the House of Commons how silly +it was to consider probabilities. In fact, he was opposed heart +and soul to prophetic legislation; he would live, legislatively, +from hand to mouth. + +But the committee would not allow Mr. Shortt to run away with the +bone of contention. + +The Rev. Dr. M'Gregor Lucas, of the National Caledonian +Believers, had been silent too long to contain himself further. +This man needs some particular description whenever his name is +made public. Nay, for this he lives, and by it, some think. At +all events, he appears to be equally eager for rebuke and +applause; they both involve notoriety, and notoriety is sure to +pay. Few absurdities had been overlooked by his shallow +ingenuity. Simply to have invested his limited mental endowments +in trying to make the world believe him a genius, would have been +only so like what many thousands are doing as to have absolved +him from too harsh a judgment; but he traded in perilous stuff. +Cheap prophecy was his staple. It was his wont to give out about +once in five years, that the world would shortly come to an end, +and, like Mr. Zadkiel, he found people who thought their +inevitable disappointment a proof of his inspiration. Had you +heard the honeyed words dropping from his lips, you would have +taken him for a Scotch angel, and, consequently, a rarity. Could +such lips utter harsh sayings, or distil vanities? Show him a +priest, and you would hear! The Pope was his particular born +foe; Popery his enemies' country--so he said. It was safe for +him to stand and throw his darts. No one could say whether they +hit or did not; while most spectators had the good will to hope +that they did. How he would have lived if Daniel and St. John +had dreamed no dreams, one cannot conjecture. As it was, they +provided the doctor with endless openings for his fancy. Since +no one could solve the riddle of their prophecies, it was certain +that no one could disprove his solutions. Yet these came so +often to their own disproof by lapse of time, that I can only +think that the good doctor hoped to die before his critical +periods came, or was so clever as to trust the infallibility of +human weakness. + +I describe Dr. Lucas at so great a length, because it will be +easier and more edifying to the reader to conceive what he said, +than for me to recount it. He showed the Baby to be one of seven +mysteries. He was in favor of teaching him at once to hate +idolatry, music, crosses, masses, nuns, priests, bishops, and +cardinals. The "humanities," the Shorter Catechism, the +Confession of Faith, and "The whole Duty of Man," would, in his +opinion, be the books to lay the groundwork in the child's mind +of a Christian character of the highest type. + +Mr. Ogle, M. P., here vigorously intervened. Said he:-- + +"I can't, with all deference, agree to any of these suggestions. +They involve hand-to-hand fighting over this baby's body. No one +of us is entitled to take charge of him. Else why did we all +unite to rescue him from the nunnery? He will be torn to pieces +among contending divines! I think a purely secular education is +all that as a committee we should aim at. We have, but just +withdrawn the child from the shadow of a single ecclesiastical +influence--would you transfer it to another? Every Protestant +denomination is contributing to his support, how can you devote +their gifts to rearing him for one? You would have no peace; +better at once treat him as the man of Benjamin treated his wife, +cut him up into enough pieces to send to all the tribes of +Israel, summoning them to the fight. I say we have nothing to do +with this just now; let him be educated in a secular academy, and +let each sect be free to send its agents to instruct him out of +school hours as they please." + +The Rev. Theodoret Verity, M.A., rose in anger. + +"Surely, sir, you cannot seriously propound such a scheme! Would +you leave this precious waif to be buffeted between the +contending waves of truth and error, in the vague hope that by +some lucky wind he might finally be cast upon a rock of safety? +I protest against all these educational heresies--they are +redolent of brimstone. Truth is truth, or there is none at all. +If there be any, it is our duty to impart it to this immortal at +the outset of his existence. Secular education! What do you +mean by it? Who shall sever one question from another, and call +one secular and the other religious? Is not every relation and +every truth in some way or other connected with religion?" &c. +&c. Mr. Verity has been saying the same thing any time these +forty years. + +"Forgive me," replied Mr. Ogle, "if I say that this is very vague +talking. I have not proposed to sever one question from another. +I only propose to do in a different way that which is being done +now by the most rigid of Mr. Verity's friends. It is impossible +to comprehend what is meant by such a statement as that every +truth is somehow connected with religion. It may be +that the notion--if it really is not, as I suspect it to be, mere +verbiage and clap-trap, used by certain fools to mislead +others--means that there is some such coherency between all +truths as there is, for instance, between the elements of the +body. I would admit that, but is not blood a different and +perfectly severable thing from bone? Each has its place, office, +relation. But who would say that one could not be regarded by a +physicist in the largest variety of its aspects apart from the +other? Yet the physicist comes back again to consider with +respect to each its relations to all the rest! The separate +study has rather prepared him for more profound insight into +those relations. Thus it is with the body of truth. In spite of +Mr. Verity I affirm that there are truths that have not in +themselves any element of religion whatever. The forty-seventh +proposition of Euclid will be taught by a Jesuit precisely as it +is taught in the London University; geography will affirm certain +principles and designate places, rivers, mountains--that no faith +can remove and cast into unknown seas. These subjects and others +are taught in our most bigoted schools in separate hours and +relations from religion. What then do you mean by affirming that +there can be no secular education of this child--apart from +religious teaching? We are not likely to agree, if I may judge +from what I have seen, on any one method of religious instruction +for it, therefore I wish first to fix common bounds within which +our common benevolence may work. Well, we all go to the Bible. +We agree that between its covers lies religious truth somewhere. +If you like let him have that--and let him have some kindly and +holy influences about him in the way of practice and example, +such as many of our sects can supply many instances of. Give him +no catechism--let him read a creed in our daily life. The +articles of faith strongest in his soul will be those which have +crystallized there from the combined action of truth and +experience, and not as it were been pasted on its walls by +ecclesiastical bill-posters. 'What is truth?' he must ask and +answer for himself, as we all must do before God. Don't mistake +me; I hope I am not more indifferent to religion than any here +present--but I differ from them on the best method of imbuing the +mind and heart with it. Surely we need not, we cannot--it would +be an exquisite absurdity--pass a resolution in this committee +that the child is to be a Calvinist! Who then would agree to +secure him from any taint of Arminian heresy in years to come? +Dare you even resolve that he shall be a Christian and a +Protestant! I would not insure the risk. But, with so many of +Christ's followers about me, surely, surely without providing any +ecclesiastical mechanism, there will be testified to him simply +how he may be saved. Your prayers, your visits, your kindly +moral influence and talk, your living example of a goodness +derived not from dogmas but from affectionate following of a holy +pattern and trust in revealed mercies, your pointing to that +pattern and showing the daily passage of these mercies will +prompt his search after the truth that has made you what you are. +Let some good woman do for him a mother's part, but choose her +for her general goodness and not for the dogmas of her church. +The simpler her piety the better for him I should say!" + +This straightforward speech fell like a new apple of discord in +the midst of the committee. Angry knots were formed, and the +noble chairman found that he could not restore order. An +adjournment was agreed to. Luckily for the body of Ginx's Baby, +he had been meanwhile sent to a home where Protestant money +secured to him for the time good living, while his benefactors +were discussing what to do with his soul. + +-------- + + +Surely, it were no impertinence to interrupt this history and +advert to the fact, that, in the discussion just related, every +one was to some extent right and to some extent agreed. + +That religious teaching was due to an immortal spirit--some +notion and evidence of the Divine and the Great Hereafter to be +conveyed to it--scarce was disputed. Nor was there collision +over the necessity of what is called intellectual cultivation. +The boy must be taught something of the world in which he was to +live; nay, this latter knowledge seemed to be most immediately +practical. As each disputant fixed his eye on one or the other +aim that end appeared to him to be the most important. Hence, by +a natural lapse, they came to treat subjects as antagonistic +which were, in fact, parallel and quite consistent. The one +called the others godless--the others threw back the aspersion of +bigotry. Then came complication. What was "religion?" +Intellectual culture they could agree about--it embraced +well-known areas; but this religion divided itself into many +disputable fields. These brother Protestants were like country +neighbors who must encounter each other at fairs, markets, meets, +and balls, and smile and greet, though each, at heart, is looking +savagely at the other's landmarks, and most are very likely +fighting bitter lawsuits all the while. It was because religion +meant CREED to most members of the committee, and because it so +implies to the vast bodies they represented, that they could not +come to terms about Ginx's Baby or any other infantile immortal. +Not always, perhaps, but often, they fought for futile +distinctions. Had Mahomet's creed consisted of but one article, +There is one God, the blood of many nations might never have +given testimony against the creed they resented when to it he +tacked and Mahomet is His prophet. Could Protestants but consent +to agree in their agreement and peacefully differ in their petty +differences, how would the aggregated impulse of a simple faith +roll down before it all the impediments of error! + +When Ginx's Baby had grown to a discretionary age, and was at all +able to know truth from error--supposing that to be +knowable--there were in the country fifty thousand reverend +gentlemen of every tincture of religious opinion who might ply +him with their various theories, yet few of these would be +contented unless they could seize him while his young nature was +plastic, and try to imprint on immortal clay the trade-mark of +some human invention. + + +XII.--No Funds--no Faith, no Works. + +The Committee of the Protestant Detectoral Union on Ginx's Baby +held twenty-three meetings. They were then as far from unity of +purpose as when they set out. Variety was given to the meetings +by the changing combinations of members in attendance. The +finances were little heeded in the intensity of their zeal for +truth. These at length fell altogether into the hands of the +association's secretary, and we have seen involved large items of +expense. The twenty-three meetings extended over a year. At the +end of that time the secretary startled the committee by laying +on the table a demand for the board and keep of the Protestant +baby for three months, amounting to L 36; and adding that the sum +in hand was L 1, 4s. 4 1/2d. In his report he said: "No effort +has been spared by means of advertisements, pamphlets, tales, +leaders and paragraphs in newspapers and religious journals, +together with occasional sermons, to maintain the public interest +in this child; but attention has been diverted from him by the +great Roman Spozzi case, and the anxiety created throughout the +Protestant world by the recent discovery made by Dr. Gooddee, of +a solitary survivor of the ancient Church of the Vieuxbois +Protestants in a secluded valley of the Pyrenees." + +The secretary asked the committee to provide the money to +discharge the baby's liabilities; but they instantly adjourned, +and no effort could afterwards get a quorum together. When the +persons who had charge of the Protestant foundling discovered the +state of affairs they began to dun the secretary and to neglect +the child, now about thirteen months old and preparing to walk. +Since no money appeared they sold whatever clothes had been +provided for him, and absconded from the place where they had +been farming him for Protestantism. The secretary, by chance +hearing of this, was discreet enough to make no inquiries. +Ginx's Baby, "as a Protestant question," vanished from the world. +I never heard that any one was asked what had been done with the +funds; but I have already furnished the account that ought to +have been rendered. + + + +XIII.--In transitu. + +One night, near twelve o'clock, a shrewd tradesman, looking out +of his shopdoor before he turned into bed, heard a cry which +proceeded from a bundle on the pavement. This he discovered to +be an infant wrapt in a potato-sack. He was quick enough to +observe that it had been deftly laid over a line chiselled across +the pavement to the corner of his house, which line he knew to be +the boundary between his own parish of St. Simon Magus and the +adjacent parish of St. Bartimeus. He took note, being a business +man, of the exact position of the child's body in relation to +this line, and then conveyed it to the workhouse of the other +parish. + + + +PART III. + +WHAT THE PARISH DID WITH HIM. + +I.--Parochial Knots--to be untied without prejudice. + +The infant borne to the workhouse of St. Bartimeus was Ginx's +Baby. When he had been placed on the floor of the matron's room, +and examined by the master, that official turned to the unwelcome +bearer of the burden. + +"Did you find this child?" + +"Yes." + +"Where?" + +"Lying opposite my shop in Nether Place." + +"What's your name? " + +"Doll." + +"Oh! you're the cheesemonger. Your shop's on the other side of +the boundary, in the other parish. The child ought not to come +here; it doesn't belong to us." + +"Yes it does: it wasn't on my side of the line." + +"But it was in front of your house?" + +"Well, the line runs crossways: it don't follow the child was in +our parish." + +"Oh, nonsense! there's no doubt about it! We can't take the +child in. You must carry it away again." + +Mr. Snigger turned to leave the room. + +"Wait a bit, sir," said Mr. Doll; "I shall leave the child here, +and you can do as you like with it. It ain't mine, at all +events. I say it lay in your parish; and if you don't look after +it you may be the worse of it. The coroner's sure to try to earn +his fees. Good-night." + +He hurried from the room. + +"Stop!" shouted the master, "I say: I don't accept the child. +You leave it here at your own risk. We keep it without +prejudice, remember-- without prejudice, sir!--without----" + +Mr. Doll was in the street and out of hearing. + + + +II.--A Board of Guardians. + +The Guardians of St. Bartimeus met the day after Mr. Doll's +clever stratagem. Among other business was a report from the +master of the workhouse that a child, name unknown, found by Mr. +Doll, cheesemonger, of Nether Place, in the Parish of St. Simon +Magus, opposite his shop, and, as he alleged, on the nearer side +of the parish boundary, had been left at the workhouse, and was +now in the custody of the matron. The Guardians were not +accustomed to restrain themselves, and did not withhold the +expression of their indignation upon this announcement. As Mr. +Doll had himself been a guardian of St. Simon Magus, it was clear +to their impartial minds that he was trying by a trick to foist a +bastard--perhaps his own--on the wrong parish. + +Mr. Cheekey, a licensed victualler, moved that the master's +report be put under the table. + +Mr. Slinkum, draper, seconded the motion. + +Mr. Edge, ironmonger, pointed out that there was no parliamentary +precedent for such a disposition of the report, and, further, +that such action did not dispose of the baby. + +"Well," said Mr. Cheekey, turning painfully red, "no matter how +ye put it, I move to get rid of the brat. What's the best form +of motion?" + +A churchwarden, who happened to be a gentleman, explained that +the Board could not dismiss the question in so summary a way. +"He could foresee that there might be a nice point of law in the +case. They would have to take some legal means of ascertaining +their liabilities, and of forcing the other parish to take the +child if they ought to do so. They must consult their +solicitor." This gentleman was sent for post haste. Meanwhile +the baby was ordered to be brought in for inspection. The matron +had handed him over to a sort of half-witted inmate of the house, +whose wits, however, were strangely about him at the wrong time, +to nurse and amuse him. This person brought Ginx's Baby into the +Board-room, and placed him on the table. The Board of Guardians +took a good look at him. He was not then in fair condition. He +was limp, he was dirty, hollow in the cheeks, white, stiff in his +limbs, and half-naked-- (to be regardless of gender)-- + + "Pallidula, rigida, nudula." + + +"Hum!" said Mr. Stink, who was a dog-breeder--"What's his +pedigree?" + +This brutal joke was well received by some of the Guardians. + +"His pedigree," answered the half-wit, gravely, "goes back for +three hundred years. Parients unknown by name, but got by Misery +out o' Starvashun. The line began with Poverty out o' Laziness +in Queen Elizabeth's time. The breed has been a large 'un +wotever you thinks of the quality." + +This pleasantry was less acceptable to the Board. + +"Well," said Mr. Scoop, grocer, a great stickler for +parliamentary modes of procedure, "I move it be committed. " + +"Committed! Where?" said Mr. Stink. + +"To Newgate I s'pose," said the half-wit, his eyes twinkling. + +"Nonsense, sir,--for consideration. Send that man out," +exclaimed Scoop--"clear the room for consultation." + +Davus was expelled, and the baby was then formally consigned to +the care of a committee. By this time the legal adviser came in. +The facts having been stated to him, he said: + +"Gentlemen, as at present advised I am of opinion that the parish +in which the child was found is bound to maintain him. If Mr. +Doll (a highly respectable person, my own cheesemonger) found the +child beyond the boundaries of St. Simon Magus--and he will of +course swear that he did--you cannot refuse to take it in. +However, I had better ascertain the facts from Mr. Doll and take +the opinion of counsel. Meanwhile we must beware not to +compromise ourselves by admitting anything, or doing anything +equivalent to an admission. Let me see--Ah!--yes--a notice to be +served on the other parish repudiating the infant; another notice +to Mr. Doll to take it away, and that it remains here at his risk +and expense--you see, gentlemen, we could hardly venture to +return it to Mr. Doll; we should create an unhappy impression +in the minds of the public--" + +"D--n the public!" said Mr. Stink. + +"Quite so, my dear sir," said Mr. Phillpotts, smiling, "quite so, +but that is not a legal or in fact practicable mode of discarding +them; we must act with public opinion, I fear. Then, to resume, +thirdly and to be strictly safe, we must serve a notice on the +infant and all whom it may concern. I think I'll draft it at +once." + +In a few minutes the committee in charge pinned to the only +garment of Ginx's Baby a paper in the following form:-- + + +PARISH OF ST. BARTIMEUS. + +To ---- ---- (name unknown), a Foundling, and all other persons +interested in the said Foundling. + +TAKE NOTICE + +That you, or either of you, have no just or lawful claim to have +you or the said infant chargeable on the said Parish. And this +is to notify that you, the said infant, are retained in the +workhouse of the said Parish under protest, and that whatsoever +is or may be done or provided for you is at the proper charge of +you, and all such persons as are and were by law bound to +maintain and keep the same. + + WINKLE & PHILLPOTTS, + Solicitors for the Board. + + +III.--"The World is my Parish." + +When Mr. Phillpotts called upon Doll, the cheesemonger, the +latter straightway gave him the facts as they had occurred. He +pointed out the exact spot on which the bundle had lain; he gave +an estimate of the number of inches on each side of the line +occupied by it, and declared that the head and shoulders of the +infant lay in the parish of the solicitor's clients. Ginx's +Baby, under the title "Re a Foundling," was once more submitted +for the opinion of counsel. They advised the Board that as the +child was in both parishes when found, but had been taken up by a +ratepayer of St. Simon Magus, the latter parish was bound to +support him. Whereupon the Guardians of St. Bartimeus at their +next meeting resolved that the Vestry of the other parish should +have a written notice to remove the child, failing which +application should be made to the Queen's Bench for a mandamus to +compel them to do it. + +On receiving the challenge the Guardians of St. Simon Magus also +took counsel's opinion. They were advised that as the greater +part, and especially the head of the infant, was when discovered +in the parish of St. Bartimeus, the latter was clearly +chargeable. Both parties then proceeded to swear affidavits. +The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, the two great +law-officers of the crown, were retained on opposite sides, and +took fees--not for an Imperial prosecution, but as petty Queen's +Counsel in an inter-parochial squabble. + + +IV.--Without prejudice to any one but the Guardians. + +The Court of Queen's Bench, after hearing an elaborate statement +from the Attorney-General, granted a rule nisi for a mandamus. +This rule was entered for argument in a paper called "The Special +Paper," and, the list being a heavy one, nearly a year elapsed +before it was reached. It was then again postponed several times +"for the convenience of counsel." + +The Board of St. Bartimeus chafed under the law's delay. They +became morbidly sensitive to the incubus of Ginx's Baby, +especially as the press had been reviewing some of their recent +acts with great bitterness. The Guardians were defiant. Having +served their notices, they were induced by Mr. Stink to resolve +not to maintain the infant. The poor child was threatened with +dissolution. Thus, no doubt, many difficulties in parochial +administration are solved--the subject vanishes away. The baby +was kept provisionally in a room at the workhouse. On the +outside of the door was a notice in fair round-hand:-- + +NOTICE. + +DOLL'S FOUNDLING. + +Pending the legal inquiry into the facts concerning the above +infant, and a decision as to its settlement, all officials, +assistants, and servants of the workhouse are forbidden to enter +the room in which it is deposited, or to render it any service or +assistance, on pain of dismissal. No food is to be supplied to +it from the workhouse kitchen. + +N.B. This is not intended to prevent persons other than +officials, &c., from having access to the infant, or assisting +it. + BY ORDER OF THE BOARD. + + +That any body of human beings, other than Patagonians, could have +coolly contemplated such a result as must have followed upon the +strict performance of this order, would be incredible except in +the instance of the Guardians of St. Bartimeus. There was +nothing they could not do--or leave undone. Fortunately for +Ginx's Baby, the order was disobeyed. Occasionally lady visitors +went to look at him and give him some food--he was toddling about +the room on unsteady legs--but charity seemed to be appalled by +the official questions hanging about this child. The master, +Snigger, whose business it was every day to ascertain whether the +cause of the great parochial quarrel was in, or out of, +existence, became a traitor to the Board. When the child grew +hungry and dangerously thin, he brought bottles of pap prepared +by Mrs. Snigger, and administered it to him. No conclusions to +the disfavor of the Board were to be drawn from this conduct, for +Snigger was particular to say to the boy in a loud voice, each +time he fed him:-- + +"Now, youngster, this is without prejudice, remember! I give you +due notice--without prejudice." + +Who, in Master Ginx's situation, would have had any prejudices to +such action, or have expressed them even if they were +entertained? He took no objection as he took the pap; while +Snigger was glad to be able to do an unusual kindness without +compromising the parish. + +Thus things had gone on for many months, when one day an eye of +that Argus monster, the Public, was set upon Ginx's Baby. A +well-known nobleman, calling at the workhouse to see a little +girl whom he had saved from infamy, as he passed down a corridor +was arrested by the notice on the door of our hero's room. +Curiosity took him in, and horror chained him there for some +time. Had he not entered, Ginx's Baby, spite of Snigger, would +in twenty-four hours have ceased to supply facts to history. He +was suffering from low fever, and his condition was as +sensationally shocking as any reporter could have wished. Out +rushed the peer for a doctor, took a cab to a magistrate and +detailed the whole case, to be repeated in next morning's papers. +Penny-a-liners ran to the spot, wrote vivid descriptions of the +baby and the room, and transcribed the notice. The Guardians +were drubbed in trenchant leaders and indignant letters. They, +instead of bending to the storm, strove to confront it, and +passed angry resolutions of a childish and grotesque character. +The few of them who possessed any sense of propriety were railed +at in the meetings till they ceased to attend. The uproar +outside increased. Why did not the President of the Poor-Law +Board interfere? At last he did interfere: that is, instead of +visiting the scene himself, and satisfying his own eyes as to the +truth of what his ears had heard, a process that would have taken +a couple of hours, he appointed a gentleman to hold an inquiry. +The Guardians became furious. The reports of their proceedings +read like the vagaries of a lunatic asylum or the deliberations +of the American Senate. They discharged Snigger for breach of +orders, substituting a relative of Mr. Stink. They put a lock on +the door, and passed food to the Baby by a stick. A committee +was appointed to see him fed, and they forwarded a memorial to +the Poor-Law Board, stating that "he daily had more food than he +could possibly eat, and was in admirable condition." They +refused to allow any doctor but one employed by themselves to see +him. They procured from him a certificate that the noble +busybody and his physician had made a mistake, and that all the +functions of life in the infant appeared to be in perfect order. +Then came the gentleman, and the inquiry, and his report, and a +letter from the Poor-Law Board, and further discussions and more +letters, until the bewildered public gnashed its teeth at the +Minister, the Guardians, and the law, and wished them all at +Land's End or beyond it. + + +V.-An Ungodly Jungle. + +The case of the Guardians of St. Bartimeus against the Guardians +of St. Simon Magus was at length reached. The argument lasted +for two days. There is a grim work, the short title whereof is +"Burns's Justice," in five fat volumes, from which the legal +Dryasdust turns aghast. In one of these portentous books, title +"Poor," pp. 1200, the inquisitive may find a code unrivalled by +the most malignant ingenuity of former or contemporary nations: a +code wherein, by gradual accretion, has been framed a system of +relief to poverty and distress so impolitic, so unprincipled, +that none but the driest, mustiest, most petrified parish +official could be expected to lift up his voice to defend it; so +complicated that no man under heaven knows its length or breadth +or height or depth; yet it stands to this hour a monument of +English stolidity--a marvel of lazy or ignorant statesmanship. +Imagine, if you please, a Lord Chief Justice and three Puisnes, +all keen, practical men, alive to public policy and the common +weal, eager to extricate the truth and do the right, plunging +into this "ungodly jungle," thwarted at every turn, in search of +justice for Ginx's Baby. With all his patient industry and +lightning quickness of apprehension, the Chief Justice found it +hard to reconcile past and present, or evolve from the vast +confusion anything consistent with his moral instincts. + +--Clear the board, gentlemen. True regenerative legislation will +begin by drawing away the rubbish. Reform means more than +repair. Mend, patch, take down a little here, prop up some +tottering nuisance there, fill in gaping chinks with patent +legislative cement, coat old facades with bright paint, hide +decay beneath a gloze of novelty, titivate, decorate, +furbish--and after all your house is not a new one, but a whited +sepulchre shaking to decay. Repair? There is a Repair party, +intermediating between Tories and Reformers--Radicals or Rooters +let us call these latter if you like--who cling to "vested +interests" and all other sorts of antique nuisances, yet say they +are willing to improve them. REFORM, which means, Pull down with +bold statesman's hand, and with like hand REBUILD, is no darling +of your political Repairer. Call the party and the men by their +right names: and give me for utility in legislation or +administrative action an Old Tory and Obstructive party rather +than this middling, meddling, muddling Repairer-- + + "Eager to change yet fearful to destroy." + +Just now all Social Reformation, in its noblest aims and +attempts, is fettered by the Repair party. What is termed +Sanitary Reform is enfeebled, and the vigor withdrawn from it, by +this party. "Vested rights," "the Liberty of the people," +"Interference with personal freedom," "EXPENSE," --these are the +watchwords of the Repairer in opposition to him who, pointing to +the pallor and fever of a hundred neighborhoods, calls upon a +ministry to cleanse them with imperial force. + +A comprehensive scheme of National Education is seized and +half-throttled by the Repair party. "Oh! utilize what there is; +improve on and tack to the denominational system; avail yourself +of the jealousy of sects; see what a grand building that has +already erected! True, it is not large enough; true, it is badly +built; but repair that, and add wings. It will cost you ever so +much to rebuild--Repair!" + +The methods of relief to the Poor are old, cumbrous, unequal, as +stupid as those who administer them. Forth steps the Reformer, +and cries out--"Clear this wrack away! Get rid of your +antiquated Bumbledom, your parochial and non-parochial +distinctions, your complicated map of local authorities; +re-distribute the kingdom on some more practical system, redress +the injustice of unequal rating, improve the machinery and spirit +of relief, and so on." You have the Repair party shouting its +Non possumus as loudly as any other arch-obstructive: "Heaven +forbid! Queen Elizabeth and the Poor Laws for ever! To the +rescue of Local Government and Vested Interests! Repair!" + +Some one with a long head and a divinely-warmed heart, searching +vainly for help to thousands in the packed alleys of his English +Home, sends his quick glance across seas to rich lands that daily +cry to heaven for strong arms that wield the plough and spade. +"Ho!" he shouts, "Labor to Land--starvation to production--death +unto life!" and he calls upon every statesman and patriot to help +the good work, and give their energies to frame an Emigration +Scheme. Then the Repair party foams: "Send away the Labor, the +source of our wealth? No. Mend the condition of the laborer; +give him the sop of political rights--free breakfasts--the +ballot. Give State funds to alter social conditions? No. +Improve the methods of local assistance to Emigration; it is a +temporary remedy--Repair!" + +Thus, according to the gospel of this party, everything must be +subject of restoration only. Like antiquarians, they utter +groans over the abolition of anything, however ugly it may be, +however unfitted for human uses, and with however so elegant a +piece of artistry you desire to displace it. For them a +Gilbert-Scott politician, reverential restorer of bygone styles, +enthusiastic to conserve and amend the grotesque Gothic policies +of the past, rather than some Brunel or Stephenson statesman, +engineering in novel mastery of circumstances--not fearful to +face and conquer even the antique impediments of Nature. Give me +a trenchant statesman, or I pray you leave legislation alone. +Better things as they are than patched to distraction. + +At length, by means of some delicate legal adjustments, the +judges saw their way to affirming that Ginx's Baby's parish was +that of St. Bartimeus, and refused the rule for a mandamus. + + + +VI.--Parochial Benevolence--and another translation. + +The authorities of St. Bartimeus did not take kindly to the +charge imposed upon them by the Queen's Bench. Some of the +Guardians privately hinted to the master that it was unnecessary +to overfeed the infant. They did not burthen him with much +clothing, and what he had was shared with many lively companions. +When you, good matron, look at your little pink-cheeked daughter, +so clean and so cosy in her pretty cot, waking to see the +well-faced nurse, or you, still sweeter to her eyes, watching +above her dreams, perhaps you ought to stop a moment to contrast +the scene with the sad tableaux you may get sight of not far +away. + +* * * +Ginx's Baby was not an ill-favored child. He had inherited his +father's frame and strength: these helped him through the changes +we are relating. What if these capacities had, by simple +nourishing food, cleanly care-taking, and brighter, kindlier +associations, been trained into full working order? Left alone +or ill-tended they were daily dwindling, and the depreciation was +going on not solely at the expense of little Ginx, but of the +whole community. To reduce his strength one-half was to reduce +one-half his chances of independence, and to multiply the +prospects of his continuous application for STATE AID. + +The money spent in stopping a hole in a Dutch dyke is doubtless +better invested than if it were to be retained until a vast +breach had laid half a kingdom under water. Surely your +Hollander would agree to be mulcted in one-third of his fortune +rather than run the hazard! + +Every day through this wealthy country there are men and women +busy marring the little images of God, that are by-and-by to be +part of its public-shadowing young spirits, repressing their +energy, sapping their vigor or failing to make it up, corrupting +their nature by foul associations, moral and physical. Some are +doing it by special license of the devil, others by Act of +Parliament, others by negligence or niggardliness. Could you +teach or force these people--many unconsciously engaged in the +vile work--to run together, as men alarmed by sudden danger, and +throw around a helpless generation influences and a care more +akin to your own home ideal, would you not transfigure the next +epoch--would not your labor and sacrifice be a GOD-WORK, reaching +out weighty, fruit-laden branches far into the grateful future? +'Tis by feeling and enjoining everywhere the need of such a +movement as this that you, O all-powerful woman! can carry your +will into the play of a great economic and social reform. +Society that recognizes not a root-truth like that is sowing the +wind--God knows what it will reap. + +So the Guardians, keeping carefully within the law, neglected +nothing that could sap little Ginx's vitality, deaden his +happiest instincts, derange moral action, cause hope to die +within his infant breast almost as soon as it were born. Good +God! + +The items the Board were really entitled to charge the +rate-payers as supplied to our hero were-- + +Dirt, + +Fleas, + +Foul air, + +Chances of catching skin diseases, fevers, &c., + +Vile company, + +Neglect, + +Occasional cruelty, and + +A small supply of bad food and clothing. + +Every pauper was to them an obnoxious charge by any and every +means to be reduced to a minimum or nil. Ginx's Baby was reduced +to a minimum. His constitution enabled him to protest against +reduction to nil. But, just after the bills of costs had been +taxed, mulcting the rate-payers of St. Bartimeus in a sum of more +than L 1,600, the Guardians were made aware of the name and +origin of their charge. One of the persons who had deserted him +was arrested for theft, and among other articles in her +possession were some of the Baby's clothes. She confessed the +whole story, and declared that the child left in Nether Place was +no other than the Protestant Baby, son of Ginx, about whom so +much stir had been made two years before. The Guardians were not +long in tracing Ginx, and, at his quarters in Rosemary Street, +the hapless changeling was one day delivered by a deputy +relieving-officer, with the benediction, by me sadly recorded-- + +"There he is, d--n him!" + +I am sure if the Guardians had been there they would have said: + +"Amen." + + + +PART IV. + +WHAT THE CLUBS AND POLITICIANS DID WITH HIM. + +I.--Moved on. + +Ginx's Baby's brothers and sisters would have nothing to say to +him. Mrs. Ginx declared she could see in him no likeness to her +own dear lost one; and her husband swore that the brat never was +his. The couple had latterly been pinching themselves and their +children to save enough to emigrate. For this purpose aid and +counsel were given to them by a neighboring curate, whose name, +were my pages destined to immortality, should be printed here in +golden letters. Rich and full will be his sheaves when many a +statesman reaps tares. Finding that a thirteenth child was +imposed on them by so superior a force as the law of England the +Ginxes hastened their departure. + +Their last night in London, towards the small hours, Ginx, +carrying our hero, went along Birdcage Walk. He scarcely knew +where he was going, or how he was about to dispose of his burden, +but he meant to get rid of it. On he went, here and there met by +shadowy creatures who came towards his footsteps in the uncertain +darkness, and when they could see that he was no quarry for them +flitted away again into the night. + +He passed the dingy houses, since replaced by the Foreign Office, +across the open space before the Horse Guards, near the house of +a popular Prime Minister, and up the broad steps till he stood +under the York Column. The shadow of this was an inviting place, +but a policeman turning his lantern suspiciously on the man +walking about at that silent hour with a child in his arms +frustrated his wish. Slowly Ginx tramped along Pall Mall, with +only one other creature stirring, as it seemed for the moment--a +gentleman who turned up the steps of a large building. Seating +the child on the bottom step and telling him not to cry, Ginx +instantly crossed the road, turned into St. James's Square, +passed by the rails, and stealing from corner to corner through +the mazes of that locality, reached home by way of Piccadilly and +Grosvenor Place. Henceforth this history shall know him no more. + + + +II.-Club Ideas. + +Scarcely had the shadow of his parent vanished in the gloom +before Ginx's Baby piped forth a lusty protest: the street rang +again. Ere long the doors at the top of the steps swung back, +and a portly form stood in the light. + +"Halloo! what's the matter?" (This was a general observation into +space.) "Why, bless my heart, here's a child crying on the +steps!" + +Another form appeared. + +"Is there nobody with it? Halloo! any one there?" + +No answer came save from poor little Ginx, but his was decided. +The two servants descended the steps and looked at the miserable +boy without touching him. Then they peered into the darkness in +hope that they might get a glimpse of his mother or a policeman. +A rapid step sounded on the pavement and a gentleman came up to +the group. + +"What have we here?" he said gently. + +"It's a child, Sir Charles, I found crying on the steps. I +expect it's a trick to get rid of him. We are looking for a +policeman to take him away." + +"Poor little fellow," said Sir Charles, stooping to take a fair +look at Ginx's Baby, "for you and such as you the policeman or +the parish officers are the national guardians, and the prison or +the poor-house the home. . . . . Bring him into the Club, +Smirke." + +The men hesitated a moment before executing so unwonted a demand, +but Sir Charles Sterling was a man not safely to be thwarted--a +late minister and a member of the committee. The child being +carried into the magnificent hall of the Club, stood on its +mosaic floor. From above the radiance of the gas "sunlight" +streamed down over the marble pillars, and glanced on gilded +cornices and panels of scagliola. A statue of the Queen looked +upon him from the niche that opened to the dining-room; another +of the great Puritan soldier, statesman, and ruler, with his +stern massive front; and yet another, with the strong yet gentle +features of the champion Free-Trader, seemed to regard him from +their several corners. On the walls around were portraits of men +who had striven for the deliverance of the people from ancient +yokes and fetters. Of course Ginx's Baby did not see all this. +He, poor boy, dazed, stood with a knuckle in his eye, while the +porter, lackeys, Sir Charles Sterling, and others who strolled +out of the reading-room, curiously regarded him. But any one +observing the scene apart might have contrasted the place with +the child--the principles and the professions whereof this +grandeur was the monument and consecrated tabernacle, with this +solitary atomic specimen of the material whereon they were to +work. What social utility had resulted from the great movements +initiated by them who erected and frequented this place? Ought +they to have had, and did they still need a complement? While +wonderful political changes had been wrought, and benefits not to +be exaggerated won for many classes, WHAT HAD BEEN DONE FOR +GINX'S BABY? + +The query would not have been very ridiculous. He was an unit of +the British Empire--nothing could blot out that fact before +heaven! Had anything been left undone that ought to have been +done, or done that had well been left undone, or were better to +be undone now? Of a truth that was worth a thought. + +"What's all this?" said a big Member of Parliament, a minister +renowned for economy in matters financial and intellectual. +"What are you doing with this youngster? I never saw such an +irregularity in a Club in my life." + +"If you saw it oftener you would think more about it," said Sir +Charles Sterling. "We found him on the steps. I think he was +asking for you, Glibton." + +This sally turned a laugh against the minister. + +"Well," said another, "he has come to the wrong quarter if he +wants money." + +"I shouldn't wonder," said a third, "if he were one of the new +messengers at the Office of Popular Edifices. Glibton is +reducing their staff." + +"If that's the case I think you have reached the minimum here, +Glibton," cried Sir Charles. + +"Can't the country afford a livery?" + +"Bother you all," replied the Secretary, who was secretly pleased +to be quizzed for his peculiarities--"tell us what this means. +Whose 'lark' is it?" + +"No lark at all," said Sterling. "Here is a problem for you and +all of us to solve. This forlorn object is representative, and +stands here to-night preaching us a serious sermon. He was +deserted on the Club steps --left there, perhaps, as a piece of +clever irony; he might be son to some of us. What's your name, +my boy?" + +Ginx's Baby managed to say "Dunno!" + +"Ask him if he has any name?" said an Irish ex-member, with a +grave face. + +Ginx's Baby to this question responded distinctly "No." + +"No name," said the humorist; "then the author of his being must +be Wilkie Collins." + +Everybody laughed at this indifferent pleasantry but our hero. +His bosom began to heave ominously. + +"What's to be done with him?" + +"Send him to the workhouse." + +"Send him to the d----" (there may be brutality among the gods +and goddesses). + +"Give him to the porter." + +"No thank you, sir," said he, promptly. + +The gentlemen were turning away, when Sir Charles stopped them. + +"Look here!" he said, taking the boy's arm and baring it, "this +boy can hardly be called a human being. See what a thin arm he +has--how flaccid and colorless the flesh seems--what an old +face!--and I can scarcely feel any pulse. Good heavens, get him +some wine! A few hours will send him to the d---- sure enough. . +. . . What are we to do for him, Glibton? I say again, he is +only part of a great problem. There must be hundreds of +thousands growing up like this child; and what a generation to +contemplate in all its relations and effects!" + +The gentlemen were dashed by his earnestness. + +"Oh, you're exaggerating," said Glibton; "there can't be such +widespread misery. Why, if there were, the people would be +wrecking our houses." + +"Ah!" replied the other, sadly, "will you wait to be convinced by +that sort of thing before you believe in their misery? I assure +you what I say is true. I could bring you a hundred clergymen to +testify to it to-morrow morning." + +"God forbid!" said Glibton. "Good-night." + +The right honorable gentleman extinguished the subject in his own +little brain with his big hat; but everywhere else the sparks are +still aglow, and he, with all like him, may wake up suddenly, as +frightened women in the night; to find themselves environed in +the red glare of a popular conflagration. Well for them then if +they are not in charge of the State machinery. What an hour will +that be for hurrying to and fro with water-pipes and buckets, +when proper forethought, diligence, and sacrifice would have made +the building fireproof. + + +III.--A thorough-paced Reformer--if not a Revolutionary. + +By the kindness and influence of Sir Charles Sterling, Ginx's +Baby that night, and long after, found shelter in the Radical +Club. He gave rise to a discussion in the smoking-room next +evening that ought to be chronicled. Several members of the +committee supported his benefactor in urging that the child +should be adopted by the Club, as a pledge of their resolve to +make the questions of which he seemed to be the embodied emblem +subjects of legislative action. Others said that those questions +being, in their view, social and not political, were not proper +ones to give impulse to a party movement, and that the +entertainment in the Club of this foundling would be a gross +irregularity: they did not want samples of the material +respecting which they were theorizing. To some of the latter Sir +Charles had been insisting that, whether they kept the child or +not, they could not stifle the questions excited by his +condition. + +"You may delay, but you cannot dissipate them. We are filling up +our sessions with party struggles, theoretic discussions, +squabbles about foreign politics, debates on political machinery, +while year by year the condition of the people is becoming more +invidious and full of peril. Social and political reform ought +to be linked; the people on whom you confer new political rights +cannot enjoy them without health and well-being." + +"But all our legislation is directed to that!" exclaimed Mr. +Joshua Hale. "Reform, Free Trade, Free Corn--have these not +enhanced the wealth of the people?" + +"Partially; yet there are classes unregenerated by their reviving +influences. Free trade cannot insure work, nor can free corn +provide food for every citizen." + +"Nor any other legislation: let us be practical. I own there is +much to be done. I have often stated my 'platform.' We must +clip the enormous expenditure on soldiers and ships; reduce our +overweening army of diplomatic spies and busybodies; abstain from +meddling in everybody's quarrels; redeem from taxation the +workman's necessaries--a free breakfast-table; peremptorily +legislate against the custom of primogeniture; encourage the +distribution and transfer of land; and, under the aegis of the +ballot, protect from the tyranny of the landlord and employer +their tenants and workmen." + +"Very good, perhaps, all of them," replied Sir Charles, "but some +not at the moment possible, and all together are not exhaustive. +Why do you not go to the bottom of social needs? You say nothing +about Health legislation--are you indifferent to the sanitary +condition of the people? You have not hinted at Education--Waste +Lands--Emigration--" + +"Oh! I am opposed to that altogether." + +"I forgot, you are a manufacturer; yet the last man of whom I +should believe that selfishness had warped the judgment. You +have done and endured more than any living statesman for the +advantage of your fellow- citizens, so that I will not cast at +you the aspersion of class-blindness. Still, I can scarcely +think you have looked at this matter in the pure light of +patriotism, and not within the narrow scope of trade interests." + +"Quite unjust. Our best economists reprehend the policy of +depleting our labor-market. Emigration is a timely remedy for +adversity and to be very sparingly used. Labor is our richest +vein--" + +"We may have too much of it. Take it as a fact that you now have +more than you can use, and the unemployed part is starving; what +will you do with them?" + +"That is a mere temporary and casual depression, to which all +classes are liable." + +"But," said Sir Charles, "which none can so ill bear. Nay--what +if it is permanent? You look to increased trade. Do you suppose +we are to retain our manufacturing pre-eminence when every +country, new and old, is competing with us? Can our trade, I ask +you honestly to consider, increase at the rate of our population? +Besides, for heaven's sake, look at the thing as a man. Grant +that we have a hundred thousand men out of work, and hundreds of +thousands more dependent on them--do you think it no small thing +that the vast mass should be left for one, two, three years +seething in sorrow and distress, while they are waiting for +trade! By the time that comes they may have gone beyond the hope +of rescue. Ah! if an elastic trade comes back to-morrow, you can +never make those people what they were; ought we not to have +forecast that they should not be what they are? But I contend +that depression has become chronic, the poverty more wide-spread +and persistent--how then shall we, who represent these classes +among the rest, face the prospect?" + +Here interposed a gentleman high in office, a pure, keen, rigid +economist of the highest intellectual and political rank. + +"My dear Sterling, pardon me if I say you are talking wildly. +Perhaps you don't see that you are verging on rank communism. +The working of economic laws can be as infallibly projected as a +solar eclipse. You can secure no class from periodic calamity, +and so regulate laws of supply and demand by guiding-wheels of +legislation and taxation as to save every man from penury. You +wish us to send away our bone and sinew because we have no +present employment for it, and next year, or the year after, +under a recovered trade you will be wringing your hands and +cursing the folly that prompted you to do it." + +"I should be too glad of the opportunity," replied Sir Charles, +sturdily, "but in truth there is an incubus of excessive numbers +that no revival of trade will provide for, even if it is beyond +our extremest hopes, and I for one will not be guilty of the +inhumanity of keeping fellow-creatures in misery till we can find +a use for them. You have forgotten that there are other economic +laws besides those you glance at. Several millions of acres of +unoccupied land belonging in a sense to the people of this +country are to be kept untilled in defiance of the plainest +policy that nature and God have indicated to us, namely, that +labor should come in contact with land! For want of this +conjunction our colonies are to be checked, while at home +miserable millions are gaping for work and food." + +"Oh! let them take themselves out. There are too many going +already. They will follow natural laws, and where labor is +required thither the stream will flow." + +"Mere surface talk, my clever friend," replied the other, "the +men who are trooping out at their own expense are our most sober, +careful, and energetic workmen. Else they could not go. They go +because here so many indifferent ones are weighing down their +shoulders. And where do most of them go to? Not to strengthen +and develop our colonies, but the United States--a not always +friendly people, and just now your free-trader's bugbear!" + +"Well, well," said the minister, "drop that question. It's +utterly impracticable at this time. We couldn't entertain the +demand for State-help for an instant. I tell you again you're a +Fourierite. You virtually propose to put your hand in the pocket +of the upper classes to pay all sorts of expenses for the lower." + +"You may call me a communist if you please," replied Sir Charles +Sterling; "I do not shrink from shadows. Perhaps I am in favor +of something nearer to communism than our present form of +society. One thing I am clear about: no state of society is +healthy wherein every man does not own himself to be the guardian +of the interests of the community as well as his own--does not +see that he is bound, morally and as a matter of public policy, +to add to his neighbor's well-being as well as his own. Does not +society, by its protection and aggregation, make it possible for +the rich to grow rich, the genius and the ambitious man to pursue +their aims, the merchant to gather his vails, the noble to enjoy +his lands? For these privileges there is more or less to pay, +and it may be that the proper proportion which the capable +classes should be called upon to contribute to the common weal +has never been correctly adjusted. The first fruit of practical +Christianity was community of goods, and but for human +selfishness we might hope for an Eutopian era--when, while it +should be ruled that if a man would not work neither should he +eat, there should also be brought home to every man the care of +his poorer, or weaker, or less competent brother. I never expect +to see that. I do hope to see the men of greatest ability pay +more generously for the privileges they enjoy. The best policy +for them too. The better the condition of the general community +the better for themselves. You cannot alarm me with epithets. +But these views are happily not essential to the support of the +Emigration policy." + +"O dear! O dear! mad as a March hare!" cried the minister, as he +stumped from the room. + +"Sterling is a good fellow," said he to a colleague with whom he +walked down Pall Mall, "and a thorough-paced Liberal. Besides, +he carries great weight in the House. But he is an enthusiast, +and, therefore, not always quite practical." + +By PRACTICAL the minister meant, not that which might well and to +advantage be done if good and able men would resolve to do it, +spite of all hindrances, but that which, upon a cunning review of +party balances and a judicious probing of public opinion, seemed +to be a policy fit for his party to pursue. The first, original +and masterly statesmen are needed to initiate and perform--the +other is simply the art of a genius who knows how most adroitly +to manipulate people and circumstances. + + +IV.--Very Broad Views. + +Sir Charles Sterling, Mr. Joshua Hale, and others continued the +conversation interrupted by the minister's exit. What was to be +done with Ginx's Baby? In the great dissected map of society +what niches were cut out for him and all like him to fill? Most +of the politicians were for leaving that to himself to find out. +The term "law of supply and demand" was freely bandied between +them, as it is in many journals nowadays, with little object save +to shut up avenues of discussion by a high-sounding phrase. + +Then of these "statesmen," most clung, if not to self-interest, +to personal crotchets. What is more darling to a man than the +child of his intellect or fancy? How the poor poetaster hugs his +tawdry verses as if they were the imperial ornaments of genius! +Just in the same way does the politician love the policies +himself hath devised, pressing them forward at all hazards, while +he is blind to the utility of others. This is the basis of that +aspect of selfishness which often mars in the approbation of a +country a really honest statesmanship--an egotistic tenacity of +one's own creature as the best, which yet is not the criminal +selfishness of ambition. Still that egotism is not seldom +disastrous to the people's interests. While these statesmen +nursed their own bantlings and held them up to national notice, +they were apt to avoid or too lightly regard the views of men as +able as themselves. For instance, Joshua Hale-- who is far above +these remarks generally--had put forth a scheme for the solution +of the St. Helena property question--very likely a good one, +albeit revolutionary, and nothing would convince him that any +other could succeed. He wished every man in St. Helena--a +turbulent adjunct of the British Empire--to be a landowner, and I +do think, neither desired nor hoped that any man in that island +should be happy until he was one. Yet there were other men ready +to offer simpler remedies, and to prove that if every man in St. +Helena became a landowner it would become a very hell upon earth, +and more unmanageable than it was before. If these gentlemen do +not sacrifice their pet fancies for the sake of a settlement, +what will become of St. Helena? + +Just now they were discussing Ginx's Baby. One thought that +repeal of the Poor-Laws and a new system of relief would reach +his case; another saw the root of the Baby's sorrow in Trades' +Unions; a third propounded cooperative manufactures; a +fourth suggested that a vast source of income lay untouched in +the seas about the kingdom, which swarmed with porpoises, and +showed how certain parts of these animals were available for +food, others for leather, others for a delicious oil that would +be sweeter and more pleasant than butter; a fifth desired a law +to repress the tendency of Scotch peers to evict tenants and +convert arable lands into sheep-walks and deer-forests; a sixth +maintained that there were waste lands in the kingdom of capacity +to support hungry millions. In fact earth, heaven, and seas were +to be regenerated by Act of Parliament for the benefit of Ginx's +Baby and the people of England. Sir Charles listened +impatiently, and at last burst forth again. + +He said: "When you consider it, what we are all trying to do +nowadays is--vulgarly-- to improve the breed; but we go to work +in a round-about way. At the outset we are met by the +depreciated state of part of the existing generation; and one +problem is to prevent these depreciated people from increasing, +or to get them to increase healthily. No one seems to have gone +directly to such a problem as that. The difficulties to be faced +are tremendous. Your dirtiest British youngster is hedged round +with principles of an inviolable liberty and rights of Habeas +Corpus. You let his father and mother, or any one who will save +you the trouble of looking after him, mould him in his years of +tenderness as they please. If they happen to leave him a walking +invalid, you take him into the poorhouse; if they bring him up a +thief, you whip him and keep him at high cost at Millbank or +Dartmoor; if his passions, never controlled, break out into +murder and rape, you may hang him, unless his crime has been so +atrocious as to attract the benevolent interest of the Home +Secretary; if he commit suicide, you hold a coroner's inquest, +which also costs money; and however he dies you give him a deal +coffin and bury him. Yet I may prove to you that this being, +whom you treat like a dog at a fair, never had a day's--no, nor +an hour's--contact with goodness, purity, truth, or even human +kindness; never had an opportunity of learning anything better. +What right have you then to hunt him like a wild beast, and kick +him and whip him, and fetter him and hang him by expensive +complicated machinery, when you have done nothing to teach him +any of the duties of a citizen?" + +"Stop, stop, Sir Charles! you are too virulent. There are +endless means of improving your lad--charities without +number----" + +"Yes, that will never reach him." + +"Never mind, they may, you know. Industrial schools, +reformatories, asylums, hospitals, Peabody-buildings, poor-laws. +Everybody is working to improve the condition of the poor man. +Sanitary administration goes to his house and makes it +habitable." + +"Very," interjected Sir Charles Sterling, dryly. + +"Factory laws protect and educate factory children----" + +"They don't educate in one case out of ten. They don't feed +them, clothe them, give them amusement and cultivation, do they?" + +"Certainly not--that would be ridiculous." + +"Why, the question is whether that would be ridiculous!" replied +Sir Charles. "I do not say it can be done, but in order to +transform the next generation, what we should aim at is to +provide substitutes for bad homes, evil training, unhealthy air, +food and dulness, and terrible ignorance, in happier scenes, +better teaching, proper conditions of physical life, sane +amusements, and a higher cultivation. I dare say you would think +me a lunatic if I proposed that Government should establish +music-halls and gymnasia all over the country; but you, Mr. +Fissure, voted for the Baths and Washhouses." + +"Who's to pay for all this?" asked Mr. Fissure, pertinently. + +"The State, which means society, the whole of which is directly +interested. I tell you a million of children are crying to us to +set them free from the despotism of a crime and ignorance +protected by law." + +"That is striking; but you are treading on delicate ground. The +liberty of the subject----" + +"Exactly what I expected you to say. These words can be used in +defence of almost any injustice and tyranny. Such terms as +'political economy,' 'communism,' 'socialism,' are bandied about +in the same way. Yet propositions coming fairly within these +terms are often mentioned with approval by the very persons who +cast them at you. In a report of a recent Royal Commission I +find that one of the Commissioners is quite as revolutionary as I +am. He says it is right by law to secure that no child shall be +cruelly treated or mentally neglected, over-worked or +under-educated. Some people would call that communism, I fancy. +But I think him to be correct as a political economist in that +broad proposition. Why? Because a child's relation to the State +is wider, more permanent, and more important than his relation to +his parents. If he is in danger of being depreciated and damned +for good citizenship, the State must rescue him." + +"A paternal and maternal government together!" cries Lord +Namby--"a government of nurses. You know I should like to stop +the production of children among the lower orders. Your +propositions are far in advance of my radicalism. The State must +sometimes interfere between parent and child; for instance, in +education or protection from cruelty. But, if I understand you, +you actually contemplate a general refining and elevation of the +working class by legislative means." + +"Assuredly: I should aim to cultivate their morals, refine their +tastes, manners, habits. I wish to lift from them that +ever-depressing sense of hopelessness which keeps them in the +dust." + +"So do most men; but you must do that by personal and private +influences, not by State enactments. How would you do it?" + +"How? I think I could draw up a programme. For instance: +Expatriate a million to reduce the competition that keeps poor +devils on half-rations or sends them to the poorhouse; Take all +the sick, maimed, old, and incapable poor into workhouses managed +by humane men and not by ghouls; Forbid such people to marry and +propagate weakness; Legislate for compulsory improvements of +workmen's dwellings, and, if needful, lend the money to execute +it; Extend and enforce the health laws; Open free libraries and +places of rational amusement with an imperial bounty through the +country; Instead of spending thousands on dilettanti sycophants +at one end of the metropolis, distribute your art and amusement +to the kingdom at large; The rich have their museums, libraries, +and clubs, provide them for the poor; Establish temporary homes +for lying-in women; Multiply your baths and washhouses till there +is no excuse for a dirty person; Educate; Provide day schools for +every proper child, and industrial or reformatory schools for +every improper one; Open advanced High Schools for the best +pupils, and found Scholarships to the Universities; Erect other +schools for technical training; Offer to teach trades and +agriculture to all comers for nothing--you would soon neutralize +your bugbear of trades-unionism; Teach morals, teach science, +teach art, teach them to amuse themselves like men and not like +brutes. In a land so wealthy the programme is not impracticable, +though severe. As the end to be attained is the welfare of +future generations, no good reason could be urged why they should +not contribute towards the cost of it--a better debt to leave to +posterity than the incubus of an irrational war." + +Will any sane political practitioner wonder to be told that at +the end of this harangue the smoking-room party broke up, and +that some, as they laughed good-humoredly over Sterling's +egregia, recalled the number of glasses of inspirited seltzer +swallowed by the orator? He was so far in advance of the most +radical reformer that there was no hope of overtaking him for an +era or two: so they determined to fancy they had left him behind. + + + +V.--Party Tactics--and Political Obstructions to Social Reform. + +In the Club our hero revelled awhile under the protection of Sir +Charles Sterling, and the petting of peers, Members of +Parliament, and loungers who swarm therein. Certain gentlemen of +Stock Exchange mannerism and dressiness gave the protege the +go-by, and even sneered at those who noticed him with kindness. +But then these are of the men with whom every question is checked +by money, and is balanced on the pivot of profit and loss. I +dare say some of them thought the worse of Judas only because he +had made so small a gain out of his celebrated transaction. To +foster Ginx's Baby in the Club, as a recognition of the important +questions surrounding him, though these questions involved +hundreds of thousands of other cases, was to them ridiculous. Of +far greater consequence was it in their eyes to settle a dispute +between two extravagant fools at Constantinople and Cairo, and +quicken the sluggishness of Turkish consols or Egyptian 9 per +cents. I do not cast stones at them; every man must look at a +thing with his own eyes. + +But it was curious to note how the Baby's fortunes shifted in the +Club. There were times--when he was a pet chucked under chin by +the elder stagers, favored with a smile from a Cabinet Minister, +and now and then blessed with a nod from Mr. Joshua Hale. Then, +again, every one seemed to forget him, and he was for months left +unnoticed to the chance kindness of the menials until some case +similar to his own happening to evoke discussion in the press, +there would be a general inquiry for him. The porter, Mr. +Smirke, had succeeded, by means of a detective, in discovering +the boy's name, but his parents were then half-way to Canada. + +The members of the Fogey Club opposite, hearing that so +interesting a foundling was being cherished by their opponents, +politely asked leave to examine him, and he occasionally visited +them. They treated him kindly and discussed his condition with +earnestness. The leaders of the party debated whether he might +not with advantage be taken out of their opponents' hands. Some +thought that a judicious use of him might win popularity; but +others objected that it would be perilous for them to mix +themselves up with so doleful an interest. In the result the +Fogies tipped young Ginx, but did not commit themselves for or +against him. Thus a long time elapsed, and our hero had grown +old enough to be a page. He had received food, clothing, and +goodwill, but no one had thought of giving him an education. +Sometimes he became obstreperous. He played tricks with the Club +cutlery, and diverted its silver to improper uses; he laid traps +for upsetting aged and infirm legislators; he tried the coolness +of the youngest and best-natured Members of Parliament by popping +up in strange places and exhibiting unseemly attitudes. At +length, by unanimous consent, he was decreed to be a nuisance, +and a few days would have revoked his license at the Club. + +No sooner did the Fogies get wind of this than they manoeuvred to +get Ginx's Baby under their own management. They instructed +their "organs," as they called them, to pipe to popular feeling +on the disgraceful apathy of the Radicals in regard to the +foundling. They had him waylaid and treated to confectionery by +their emissaries; and once or twice succeeded in abducting him +and sending him down to the country with their party's +candidates, for exhibition at elections. + +The Radicals resented this conduct extremely. Ginx's Baby was +brought back to the Club and restored to favor. The Government +papers were instructed to detail how much he was petted and +talked about by the party; to declare how needless was the +popular excitement on his behalf; and to prove that he must, +without any special legislation, be benefited by the +extraordinary organic changes then being made in the constitution +of the country. + +Sir Charles Sterling resumed his interest in the boy. He had +been gallantly aiding his party in other questions. There was +the Timbuctoo question. A miserable desert chief had shut up a +wandering Englishman, not possessed of wit enough to keep his +head out of danger. There was a general impression that English +honor was at stake, and the previous Fogey Government had ordered +an expedition to cross the desert and punish the sheikh. You +would never believe what it cost if you had not seen the bill. +Ten millions sterling was as good as buried in the desert, when +one-tenth of it would have saved a hundred thousand people from +starvation at home, and one-hundredth part of it would have taken +the fetters off the hapless prisoner's feet. + +There was the St. Helena question always brooding over +Parliament. St. Helena was a constituent part of the British +Empire. Every patriot agreed that the Empire without it would be +incomplete; and was so far right that its subtraction would have +left the Empire by so much less. Most of its inhabitants were +aboriginal--a mercurial race, full of fire, quick-witted, and +gifted with the exuberant eloquence of savages, but deficient in +dignity and self-control. Before any one else had been given +them by Providence to fight, they slaughtered and ravaged one +another. Our intrusive British ancestors stepped upon the +island, and, being strong men, mowed down the islanders like +wheat, and appropriated the lands their swords had cleared. +Still the aborigines held out in corners, and defied the +conquerors. The latter ground them down, confiscated the +property of their half-dozen chiefs, and distributed it among +themselves. By way of showing their imperial imperiousness, they +built over some ruins left by their devastations a great church, +in which they ordered all the islanders to worship. This was at +first abomination to the islanders, who fought like devils +whenever they could, and ended by accepting the religion of their +foes. But the conquerors, afterwards choosing to change their +own faith, resolved that the islanders should do so too. +Forthwith they confiscated the big church and burying-ground, +and, distributing part of the land and spoils among their most +prominent scamps, erected a new edifice of quite a different +character, in which the natives swore they could neither see nor +hear, and their own clerics warned them they would certainly be +damned. To make the complications more intricate, these clerics +owed allegiance to an ancient woman in a distant country, who had +all the meddlesomeness and petty jealousy of her sex, and was, +besides, much attached to some clever wooers of hers, wily +sinners who covered their aims under the semblance of +ultra-extreme passion for her. The prominent scamps died, to be +succeeded by their children, or other of the hated conquerors, +from generation to generation. The islanders went on increasing +and protesting. T hey starved upon the lands, and shot the +landlords when a few gave them the chance, for most lived away in +their own country, and left the property to be administered by +agents. The Home Government had again and again been obliged to +assist these people with soldiers, to provide an armed police, to +shoot down mobs, to catch a ringleader here or there and send him +to Fernando Po, or to deprive whole villages of ordinary civil +rights. Then the yam crop failed, and nearly half the people +left the island and crossed the seas, where they continued to +hate and to plot against those whose misfortune it had been to +get a legacy of the island from their fathers. It would be +wearisome to recount the absurdities on both sides: the stupidity +or criminal absence of tact from time to time shown by the Home +Government--the resolve never to be quiet exhibited by the +natives, under the prompting of their clerics. Upon + + "--that common stage of novelty--" + +there were ever springing up fresh difficulties. Secret clubs +were formed for murder and reprisal. A body called the "Yellows" +had bound themselves by private oaths to keep up the memory of +the religious victories of their predecessors, and to worry the +clerical party in every possible way. Their pleasure was to go +about insanely blowing rams'-horns, carrying flags and bearing +oranges in their hands. The islanders hated oranges, and at +every opportunity cracked the skulls of the orange-bearers with +brutal weapons peculiar to the island. These, in return, cracked +native skulls. The whole island was in a state of perpetual +commotion. Still, its general condition improved, its farms grew +prosperous, and a joint-stock company had built a mill for +converting cocoanut fibre into horse-cloths, which yielded large +profits. The memory of past events might well have been buried; +but the clerics, in the interest of the old woman, fanned the +embers, and the infamous bidding for popularity of parties at +home served to keep alive passions that would naturally have died +out. Besides, latterly folly had been too organized on both +sides to suffer oblivion. Everybody was tired of the squabbles +of St. Helena. At length there was a general movement in the +interests of peace, and to pacify the islanders Parliament was +asked to pull down the wings of the old church edifice, remove +some of the graves, and cut off a large piece of the graveyard. +Some were in favor also of dividing all the farms in the country +among the aborigines, but the difficulty was to know how at the +same time to satisfy the present occupiers. These schemes were +topics of high debate, upon them the fortunes of Government rose +and fell, and while they were agitated Ginx's Baby could have no +chance of a parliamentary hearing. Many other matters of +singular indifference had eaten up the legislative time; but at +last the increasing number of wretched infants throughout the +country began to alarm the people, and Sir Charles Sterling +thought the time had come to move on behalf of Ginx's Baby and +his fellows. + + +VI.--Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body. + +While Sir Charles was trying to get the Government to "give him a +night" to debate the Ginx's Baby case, and while associations +were being formed in the metropolis for disposing of him by +expatriation or otherwise, a busy peer without notice to anybody, +suddenly brought the subject before the House of Lords. As he +had never seen the Baby, and knew nothing or very little about +him, I need scarcely report the elaborate speech in which he +asked for aristocratic sympathy on his behalf. He proposed to +send him to the Antipodes at the expense of the nation. + +The Minister for the Accidental Accompaniments of the Empire was +a clever man--keen, genial, subtle, two-edged, a gentlemanly and +not thorough disciple of Machiavel; able to lead parliamentary +forlorn hopes and plant flags on breaches, or to cover retreats +with brilliant skirmishing; deft, but never deep; much moved too +by the opinions of his permanent staff. These on the night in +question had plied him well with hackneyed objections; but to see +him get up and relieve himself of them--the air of originality, +the really original air he threw around them; the absurd light +which he turned full on the weaknesses of his noble friend's +propositions, was as beautiful to an indifferent critic as it as +saddening to the man who had at heart the sorrows of his kind. +If that minister lived long he would be forced to adopt and +advocate in as pretty a manner the policy he was dissecting. +Lord Munnibagge, a great authority in economic matters, said that +a weaker case had never been presented to Parliament. To send +away Ginx's Baby to a colony at imperial expense was at once to +rob the pockets of the rich and to decrease our labor-power. +There was no necessity for it. Ginx's Baby could not starve in a +country like this. He (Lord Munnibagge) had never heard of a +case of a baby starving. There was no such wide-spread distress +as was represented by the noble lord. There were occasional +periods of stagnation in trade, and no doubt in these periods the +poorer classes would suffer; but trade was elastic; and even if +it were granted that the present was a period when employment had +failed, the time was not far off when trade would recuperate. +(Cheers.) Ginx's Baby and all other babies would not then wish +to go away. People were always making exaggerated statements +about the condition of the poor. He (Lord Munnibagge) did not +credit them. He believed the country, though temporarily +depressed by financial collapses, to be in a most healthy state. +(Hear, hear.) It was absurd to say otherwise, when it was shown +by the Board of Trade returns that we were growing richer every +day. (Cheers.) Of course Ginx's Baby must be growing richer +with the rest. Was not that a complete answer to the noble +lord's plaintive outcries? (Cheers and laughter.) That the +population of a country was a great fraction of its wealth was an +elementary principle of political economy. He thought, from the +high rates of wages, that there were not too many but too few +laborers in the country. He should oppose the motion. (Cheers.) + +Two or three noble lords repeated similar platitudes, guarding +themselves as carefully from any reference to facts, or to the +question whether high rates of wages might not be the +concomitants simply of high prices of necessaries, or to the yet +wider question whether colonial development might not have +something to do with progress at home. The noble lord who had +rushed unprepared into the arena was unequal to the forces +marshalled against him, and withdrew his motion. Thus the great +debate collapsed. The Lords were relieved that an awkward +question had so easily been shifted. The newspapers on the +ministerial side declared that this debate had proved the +futility of the Ginx's Baby Expatriation question. "So able an +authority as Lord Munnibagge had established that there was no +necessity for the interference of Government in the case of +Ginx's Baby or any other babies or persons. The lucid and +decisive statement of the Secretary for the Accidental +Accompaniments of the Empire had shown how impossible it was for +the Imperial Government to take part in a great scheme of +Expatriation; how impolitic to endeavor to affect the ordinary +laws of free movement to the Colonies." Surely after this the +Expatriation people hid their lights under a bushel! The +Government refused to find a night for Sir Charles Sterling, and +after the Lords' debate he did not see his way to force a motion +in the Lower House. Meanwhile Ginx's Baby once more decided a +turn in his own fate. Tired of the slow life of the Club, and +shivering amid the chill indifference of his patrons, he borrowed +without leave some clothes from an inmate's room, with a few +silver forks and spoons, and decamped. Whether the baronet and +the Club were bashful of public ridicule or glad to be rid of the +charge, I know not, but no attempt was made to recover him. + + +PART V. WHAT GINX'S BABY DID WITH HIMSELF. + +A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as +high as two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the +world. A full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, +but the world could afford him a round sum would he simply engage +to go and hang himself.--SARTOR RESARTUS. + + +The Last Chapter. +Our hero was nearly fifteen years old when he left the Club to +plunge into the world. He was not long in converting his spoils +into money, and a very short time in spending it. Then he had to +pit his wits against starvation, and some of his throws were +desperate. Wherever he went the world seemed terribly full. If +he answered an advertisement for an errand-boy, there were a +score kicking their heels at the rendezvous before him. Did he +try to learn a useful trade, thousands of adepts were not only +ready to underbid him, but to knock him on the head for an +interloper. Even the thieves, to whom he gravitated, were +jealous of his accession, because there were too many competitors +already in their department. Through his career of penury, of +honest and dishonest callings, of 'scapes and captures, +imprisonments and other punishments, a year's reading of +Metropolitan Police Reports would furnish the exact counterpart. +-------- + +I don't know how many years after his flight from Pall Mall, one +dim midnight, I, returning from Richmond, lounged over Vauxhall +Bridge, listening to the low lapping of the current beneath the +arches--looking above to the stars and along the dark polished +surface that reflected a thousand lights in its +undulations,--feeling the awfulness of the dense, suppressed life +that was wrapt within the gloom and calm of the hour. I suddenly +saw a shadow, a human shadow, that at the sound of my footstep +quickly crossed my dreamy vision--quickly, noiselessly came and +went before my eyes until it stood up high and outlined against +the strangely-mingled haze. It looked like the ghost of a +slight-formed man, hatless and coatless, and for a moment I saw +at its upper extremity the dull flash as of a human face in the +gloom, before the shadow leaped out far into the night. Splash! +When my startled eyes looked down upon the glancing, waving +ebony, I thought I could trace a white coruscation of foam +spreading out into the darkness, instantly to dissipate and be +lost for ever. I did not then know what form it was that swilled +down below the glistening current. Had I known that it was +Ginx's Baby I should perhaps have thought "Society, which, in the +sacred names of Law and Charity, forbad the father to throw his +child over Vauxhall Bridge, at a time when he was alike +unconscious of life and death, has at last itself driven him over +the parapet into the greedy waters"---- + +Philosophers, Philanthropists, Politicians, Papists and +Protestants, Poor-Law Ministers and Parish Officers--while you +have been theorizing and discussing, debating, wrangling, +legislating and administering--Good God! gentlemen, between you +all, where has Ginx's Baby gone to? + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ginx's Baby, + |