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2 7 9 8 7 3

GINX'S BABY.

En quid agis ? duplici in diversuni ncinderis hamo
Hunccine an hunc sequeris ?

Nam et luctata canis nodum abripii, attamen illi
Quum fugit a collo trahitur pars longa catente !

PREFACE.

-0-

1 ^ Critic. — / never read a more improbable
story hi my life.

A UTHOR.
true.

Notivithstanding, it viay be

CONTEXTS.

PART I.

WHAT G'NX DID WITH HIM.

PAOB

T. Ab initio % 17

II. Home, sweet Home 20

III. Work and Ideas 24

IV. Digressive, and may be skipped without mu-

tilating tlie History 27

V. Reasons and Resolves [,2

VI. The Antagonism of Law and Necessity 34

VII, Malthus and Man 39

VIII. The Baby's First Translation 44

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 47

II. The Protestant Detectoral Association 54

III. The Sacrament of Baptism 58

IV. Law on Behalf of Gospel 59

V. Magistrate's Law 66

VI. Popery and Protestantism in the Queen's

Bench 70

VII. A Protestor, but not a Protestant 75

VIII. " See how these Christians love one another " 77

IX. Good Samaritans, and Good-Samaritan Two-

pences 86

X. The Force — and a Specimen of its Weakness. 88

XI. The Unity of the Spirit and the Bond of Peace 91

XII. No Funds— no Jaith, no Work 104

XIII. In transitu 106

XVI CONTENTS.

PART III.

WHAT THK I'AUIEU DID WITH lUM.

I. Parochial Knots — to be untied without Pr(!Ju-

dice 108

II. A Board of Guanh'ans. 109

III. <' The World is my Parish '' 114

IV. Witliout Prejudice to any one but the Guar-

dians 116

V. An Ungodly Jungle 121

VI. Parochial Benevolence — and another Trans-
lation 12G

PART IV.

WHAT THE CLUBS AND POLITICIANS DID WITH HIM

I. Moved on 1 3p

II. Club Ideas 132

III. A thorough-paced Reformer — if not a Revo-

lutionary 138

IV. Very Broad Views 146

V. Party Tactics — and Political Obstructions to

Sot;ial Reform 155

VI. Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body 163

PART V.

WHAT GINX'S BABY DID WITH HIMSELF,

The last Chapter 167

PART L

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, Rose-
mary 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 appro-
priate. Ginx had been married to Betsy Hicks
at St. John's, Westminster, on the twenty-fifth
day of October, 18 — , as appears from the " mar-
riage lines " retained by Betsy Ginx, and care-
fully collated by me with tlie original register.
Our hero was their thirteenth child. Patient
inquiry has enabled mo to verify the following
history of their propagations. On July the

GINX'S BABY.

twenty-fifth, the year after their marriage, Mrs.
(liiix was safely delivered of a girl. ]^o announco-
mentofthis appeared in the newspapers. On
the tentli of April following, the whole neigh-
bourhood, including Great Smith Street, Mar-
sham Street, Great a -d Little Peter Streets,
Regent Street, Horsefc -ry Koad, and Strutton
Ground, was convulsed by the report that a
woman named Ginx had <Avcn birth to " a tri-
plet," con.sisting of two girls and a boy. The
news penetrated to Dean's Yard and the ancient
school of AVest minster. Tho Dean, who ac-
ce])ted nothing on trust, sent to verify the re-
port, his messenger', bearing a bundle of baby-
cloths from the Dean's wife, who thought that
the mother could bcarcelj^ have provided for so
large an addition to her family. The schoolboys,
on their way to the pla^'-ground at Vincent
Square, slyly diverged to have a look at the
curiosity, paying sixpence a head to Mrs. Ginx's
friend and crony, ^^{r.^. Spittal, who pocketed the
money, and said nothing about it to the sick
woman. This birth was announced in all the
newspa})ers throughout the kingdom, with the
further news that Her Majesty the Queen had
been graciously pleased to forward to Mrs. Ginx
the sum of thirty pounds.

What could have possessed the woman I can't
say, but about a twelvemonth after, Mrs. Ginx,

AB INITIO.

Mrs.

mco-

Mar-

rccts,

utton

luit a

a tri-

Tho
icient
lO ac-
10 rc-
baby-
t tliat
for so
[Iboys,

licent
Lt tho

?d tho
sick

with tho assistance of two doctors hastily fetch-
ed from the hospital by hor frii^htoncd luisband,
nearly perished in a fresh ctfort ol' maternity.
This time two sons and two dan<;-htor» fell to tho
lot of the happy ])air. Her Majesty sent .our
pounds. But whatever ])eaco there was at
home, broils disturbc(l the street. The nei^i^h-
bours, who had sent for the ])olice«on the occa-
sion, were angered by a notoriety which was
becoming uncomfortable to t^em, and began to
testify their feelings in various rough ways.
Ginx removed hh family to Rosemary Street,
where, up to a year before the time when ftinx's
Baby was burn, his wife had continued to add to
her oiTspring until the talc reached one dozen.
It was then that (iinx .itlectionat ely but firmly
be£rc:ed tliat his wife would consider her family
ways, since, in all conscience, he had fairly
earned tho blessedness of the man who hath his
fjuiver full of them ; and irankly gave her notice
that, as his utmost ofibrts could scarcely main-
tain their existing family, if sho ventured to pre-
sent him with any more, jaft-her single, or twins,
or triples, or otherwise, he would most assuredly
drown him, or her, or them in tho water-butt,
and take the consequences.

***

GINX'S BABY.

II. — Homo, sweet Home !

The day on which Ginx uttered his awful threat
was that next to the one wherein number twelve
had drawn its first bi^eath. His wife lay on the
bed which, at the outset of wedded life, they had
purchased second-hand in Strutton Ground for
the sum of nine shillings and sixpence. Second-
hand/ T.t had passed through, at least, as many
hands as there wcff c 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
matromy woman, were in it, there was little va-
cant 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 nest-
led 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. How-
ever they were safe, for they were sure to fall
on one or the other of their brothers or sisters.

. ^

HOME, SWEET HOME.

threat
welve
Dn the
jyhad
ad for
Second-
many
1 upon
xbond,
ire in
rough
inches
navvy,
'ive, a
tie va-
forced

it not
nt was
odies ;
* room
e nest-
r board
ts was
Ginx's

How-
to fall
sters.

I shall be as particular as a valuer, and de-
'scribe what I have seen. The family sleeping-
room measured 13 feet G 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 Clinx 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 re-
mained 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 j)atch-
work 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 an-
gered, and struck out his leg in navvy fashion,
it sometimes came to puss that a couple of child-
ren tumbled upon the mass of infantile humanity
below.

Not to be described are the din£>;iness 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

PVKI

GINX'S BABY.

height, and any curious statist can calculate the
number of cubic feet of air which they afibrdcd
to each person.

The other side of jpo street was 14 feet dis-
tant. Behind, the backs of si mi bar tenements
came up black and cowering over the little ^^ard
of Number Five. As rare, in the well thus
formed, was the circulation of air as that of coin
in the pockets t)f the inhabitancs. I have seen
the yard ; let me warn you, if you are fastidious,
not to enter it. Such of the tilth of the house
as could not, at night, be thrown out of the front
windows, was tlicre collected, and seldom, if
ever, removed. What became of it? What be-
comes of countless such accretions in like places?
Are a large proportion of these tilthy atoms ab-
sorbed by human creatures living and dying,
instead of being carried away by scavengers and
inspectors ? The forty-live big and little lodgers
in the house were provided with a single office
in tlie corner of the yard. It had once been
capped by a cistren, long since rotted away —

'1^

The street was at one time the prey of the
gas company; at another, of the drainage con-
tractors. They seemed to delight in turning up
the f(rtid soil, cutting deep trenches through
various strata of filth, and piling up for days

HOME, SWEET HOME.

ing,

and

.gcrs

)ffico

been

the

■011-

Ig up
ough
lays

or weeks matter that reeked with veicetablo and
animal decay. One needs not affirm that Rose-
mary Street was not so callj^ irom its fragrance.
If tlie Ginxes and their neighbours preserved
any sembhmceof health in this place, the most
popuhxr guardian on the board must own it a
miracle. Thay, poor people, knew nothing of
''sanitary relbrm," "sanitary precautionH,"
'' zymotics," ^' endemics,"." epidemics," " deodo-
risers," or '- disinfectants." They regarded dis-
ease with tho apatliy of creatures who felt it to
be inseparable from iuimanity, and with the
fatalism of despair.

Gin was tlieir cardinal prescription, not for
cure, but for oblivion : '' Sold everywhere." A
score of pahices 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 wreck'cd masses about them. ' Veritable
wreckers they who construct these haunts, viler
than the wretches who place false beacons and
])lunder bodies on the beach. Bringdown the
real owners of these phices, and show them their
deadly work! Some of them leading Philan-
thropists, eloc|uent at Missionary meetings and
Eible Societies, paying tribute to the Lord out
of tlie pockets of dying drunkards, fighting glo-

OINX S BABY.

rious 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 foui-fold 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
coun; 1 dropped offered some un])leasant alter-
natives, leaving out one, however, which now-
a-days 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. Ilis 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 principlities, or wicked
spirits in liigh places. Ho 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 rugged-

WORK AND IDEAS.

holding
51 V 6 the
iimmin,
iciple of
•ne who
ng from

man to
ast, and
ch that
it alter-
3h now-

of your

is wife,
on the

on that
in his

:sclf by

iro any

sh and
wicked

;h clods

hands

nature

rugged-

ness of the things wherewith ho battled. Hard
and with a will had ho 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 I 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 over-
running 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 know-
ledge as if Eve had never rifled the tree where-
on it grew. Vacant of policies were liis
thoughts ; innocent ho 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 powders. Indeed, he had been

.3Crif7t»i-SMi'tiineurJS*J- •

GINX'S BABY.

Ii!i

present when some v:>f his better-informed com-
panions had recognised with cheers certain
gentlemen, — of whom Ginx's estimate was ex-
pressed 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 ChanceHor of the Exchequer
and the Prime Minister. Little recked he of
their uses or abuses. The functions of Govern--
mcnt were to him Asian m3'sterics. 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 main-
tained the parks ; for that he thanked it. Go-
vernment made laws, but what they were, or
with what aim or elfects made, he knew not,
save only that by them something wiis 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 the him persons and objects of the

d corn-
certain
ras cx-
riority
reatest
y little
hequer
I lie of
rovern-'
le only
n, like
jserved
ercfore
.h the
> clear
e else
t were,
L in his
s — that
; main-
t. Go-
^ere, or
)W not.
Jone to
. sugar,
i do so
3 cared,
arkness
\ of the

A DIORESSION.

legislators that he could not criticise the theories
which those powerful beings were subjecting to
experiment at any cost. I must, at any risk, say
something about this in a separate cliapter.

*^.'f^

IV. — Digressive, and may be skipped without mutilating

the History.

I STOP hero to address any of the following
characters, should he perchance read these me-
moirs :

You, Mr. Statesman— if there be such ;

Mr. Pseudo-Statesman, Placeman Party
\ Leader, Wirepuller;

Mr. Amateur Statesman, Dilettante Lord,
Civil Servant;

Mr. Clubman, Litterateur, Newspaj^er

Scribe ;

Mr. People's Candidate, Demagogue,
Fenian Spoutcr ;

or wdioever you may be, professing to know
aught or do anything in matters of policy,
consider, what I am sure you have never
fiiirly weighed, the condition of a man whoso

aiNX'S BABY.

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 I 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, unreason-
able, 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
today, in hundreds of thousands, in town and
country, think what a complication they in-
troduce 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

A DIGRESSION.

from

1' seen

)f the

out

st was

fancy

JO the

3sed is

proper

'ations

lild up

eason-

And

as you

rstands

n in a

se, and

emcnt.

ngland

v^n and

ley in-

:em of

i by a

,nd an

threats

ire in

.11 not

y wish

ons by

superior strength. To these the obedience he
will render will not be the loving assent of his
heart, but a begrudged concession to circum-
stance. Your awe-invested legislature is not
viewed as his friend and brother-helper, but
his tyrant. Therefore the most natural bent
of his workman-statemanship — a rough, bung-
ling 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 rej)ressive and restraining force
he will curse you as its author, because ho
sees not the springs you are working. Should
he even be a little more advanced in know-
ledge that 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 scarcely trust the assembly which is sup-
posed to represent him. Will he, like a ^,^ood
citizen and a politic, accept with dignity and
self-control the decision of a majority against
his prejudices; or will ho not regard the whole
Wittenagemote with suapicion, contemjit, 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 publish-
ing his opinions! There wily men. may lead
his unconscious intellect, and stir his passions,

aiNX'S BABY.

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, thougli they can read, arc unable to
apprehend reasons of statesmanship? — that
oven newspapers cannot inform them, since
they have not the elementary knqjledge
needed for the comprehension of those"
which are disscussed in them ; nay, tl
w^ant of understanding the same th(
terribly distort political aims and
quences ? • '

Might it not bo worth while for you,
gentlemen — may it not be your duty to devise
ways and means for conveying such elemen-
tary instruction by good s t r e o trm'e ac h e r s on
polities and economy, or even pOTitical 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.

A DIGRESSION.

and his

ou, how
maiij^
able to
?— that
, sinco
[ledge

hers on
l1 bible-
clear to
are the

islation,

'y-i If

this he
may —
iments,
:ers, in
in and
objects.

Other attractions may be found in tliat solu-
tion : such as the untying of some knots of
electoral difficulty, and removinii; incitements
to corruption. Ten thousand pounds for one
year's power were a hi,i;'h price even to a
contractor. Think then whether at any cost
some general political education must not bo
attempted, since there is a spirit breathing on
the waters, and how it shall convulse them is
no indilVerent matter to you or to me. Every-
where 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, unhand}', immeasurably impudent; or
dress them hy 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 bo
civic corner-stones polished after the simili-
tude of a palace.

aiNX'S BABY.

V. — Roaiona and Rosolvea.

GiNX has boon waiting through throo chapters
to explain his truculcnco upon the birth of his
twelfth child. Much explanation is not neces-
sary. When he looked round his nest and saw
the many open mouths around 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 pro-
portion 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 unaatisiied cravings, and the dense motherly
horrors that sometimes brooded over her whilst
slie 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

REASONS AND RESOLVES.

aptors
of his
Tiecos-
d saw
might
them.

thoy
I pro-
;he air

How
ave to
) rags

noblo
Q. Of
therly
whilst
I from
3 they
o read
clung
orism,

to fill
i, and
is as a
3ading
heart,
ard to

their general import, for, as sh» expressed it,
" Thank God I they had been always been able
to got along."

In the rush and tumult of the world it is
likely that the summum honum of nine-tenths of
mankind is embraced in that purely negative
happiness — to get along. Not to perish : to
open eyes, however wearily, on anew morning:
to satisfy with something, no matter what, a
craving appetite : to close eyes at night under
some shadow or shelter : or, it ma}^ be, in cer-
tain ranks to walk another day free from bank-
ruptcy or arrest: Thank Heaven, they are just
able to get along !

Convinced that another infant straw would
break his baclv, 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 aflec Lions though
divided into twelve rills, would not have been
exhausted in twenty-four, and her soul, fore-
casting its sorrows, yearned after that nonenitj^
Number Thirteen. She pictured to herself the
hf^less strangeling borne away from her bosom
by those strong arms, and — in fact she sobbed

GTNX S BABY.

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 Necc^eity.

In eighteen months, notwithstanding resolves,
menaces and prophecies, Ginx's Baby was born.
The mother hid the impending event long from
tbe father. When lie came to know it, he fixed
his determination by much thought and a little
extra drinking. He argued thus : " lie wouldn't
go on tbe parish. He couldn't keep another
youngster to save his life. He had never taken
charity and never "vould. There was nothing
to do with it but drcvai it !" Female friends of
Mrs. Ginx bruited his intentions about the
neighorhood, so that her ''time" was watched
for with interest. At last it came. One after-
noon Ginx, lounging home, saw signs of excitc-
nient around his door in Eosemary Street. A
knot of women and children awaited his coming.
Passing through them he soon learned what
had happened. Poor Mis. Ginx! Without
staying to think or argue, he took up the little
stranger and bore it from the room

"0,0, 0, Ginx! Ginx! I"

..»

ight to
} could

LAW AND NECESSITY.

ty.

3 solves,

IS born.
ig from
le fixed
a little
wouldn't
mother
r taken
nothing
Lends of
)iit the
v\atchcd
10 after-
cxcite-
set. A
?oming.
d what
fVithout
le littlo

She would have risen, but a strong nower
called weakness pulled her back.

^i ^ :ii j}c

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 t?tood 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. Yauxhall
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 Avot 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?
I'his child's going over WauxhuU Bridge."

But the women clung to his arms and coat-
tails. '

" Hollo ! What's all this about?" said a sharp
strong man, well-dressed and in good condition,

GINX'S BABY.

coming up to the crowd ; " another foundling !
Confound the place, the very stones produce
babies. Where was it found ?"

Chorus. Q-ecognismg a deputy relieving officer,')
It vvarn'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 going to drown it.
Officer. Going to drown it ? Nonsense.
Ginx. I am.

Officer. But, bless my heart, that's mur-
der !

Ginx. No tain't. I've twelve already at
home. Starvashon's shure to lull this 'un.
Best ^ive it the trouble.

Chorus. Take it away, Mr. Smug, he'll kill
it if you don't.

Officer. Stiiif and nonsense ! Quite con-
trary to law ! Why, man, you're bound to sup-
port 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

w*^^^^

LAW AND NECESSITY.

idling !
)roduco

officer,)

onse.
t's mur-

3ady at
his 'un.

le'll kill

ito con-
to sup-
in that
ive mo
J order,
ight. I
osoevor

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
MISDEMEANOUR 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
labour."

Mr. Smug, the officer, rolled out this section
^n 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 parlia-
ment. In his then temper, the Commi nation
Service of St. Ernulphus's curse would h^o
been feathers to him. The only feelings arouj^R
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 circumstancci. So he said :

GiNx. D tho act of parliament ! What's

li^iUiWHH

GINX'S BABY.

the use of saying I slifin't abandon the cluld,
when I can't keep it alive ?

Officer. But your 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 (nod-
ding towards hi house) little better nor alivo
now. If that's an act of Parleyment, why don't
tlie 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 pro-
vide for 'em ? You take the child, Mr. Smug.

Officer Qrganlless of grammnr), J/c take the
child ! The parish has enough to do to tako
care of foundlings and children v^^hose 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
beggar's pups, but you won't help an honest
man keep his head above water. This child's
head is goin' under water anyhow !" — and he
prepju'ed to bolt, amid fresh screams from the
Chorus.

3IALTIIUS AND MAN.

child,
kc02) it

w am I
(nod-
)r alive
y don't
' You
ro than

snt pro-
Smug.

ike the
to take
parents
wa will

'ds and
honest

child's
Eind he
)m the

VII. — Malthug and Man.

Two gentlemen, who had been observing the
excitement, here came forward.

First Gentleman. This is our problem
again, Mr. Philosopher.

Mr. PiiiLOSoniER (to Glnx). You don't know
what to do with your infimt, my friend, and
you think the State ought to provide for it? I
understand you to say this is 3^our thirteenth
child. How came you to have so many ?

This question, though put with profound and
even melancholy gravity, diwconcerted Ginx,
Officer and Chorus, who united in a hearty out-
burst 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 comcial rejoinder, Ginx
laughed boisterously. There are tw^o aspects of
a question.

PiiiLOSoriiER. I am serious, my friend. Did
it never occur to you that you had no right to
bring children into the world unless you couhl
feed and clothe and educate theni ?

Chorus. Laws a' mercy I

Ginx. Pd like to know how I could help it,
naabor. Pm a married man.

GINX'S BABY.

Philosopher. Well, I will go further and
say 3^ou 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 (icaxing waryii). 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 mon-
strous number of children as thirteen? You
knew, as j^ou 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
arc 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 the worrj of
a wife and children all these years.

MALTIIUS AND MAN.

er and
hout a
or any

L right
m both
— a —
en you

xll my

a mon-
? You
js were
id yet
fcos by
)nerate
:people
t these
jtion of
'operly
^c like
As if
How
)u had
orrj of

The philosopher had gone too far. There
were some angry murmurs among the women
and Ginx's face grew dark. lie 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 affec-
tions : 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 tirpd 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 at 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.

GINX S BABY.

Stone:\iason. But you must discuss 'cm, if
you wish us to chiingo our wiiys, and stop
breed in <>:.

PiiiLoscPiiEii. Very well: perhaps you are
right. But, again, I should first have to estab-
lish a basis for my arguments, by showing that
the conc'e})tion of n\arriagc 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 cllect — the cultivation of
mutual sentiments and refinements of great
importimco to a community. ,

Stonemason. Ay ! Yery beautiful and re-
fining to Mr. and Mrs. Philosopher, but I'd like
to Icnow 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' 3'ou say wo ain't to do it ! I
think a statesman ou<>'ht to make somcthinf»:
out of what's iiateral to human beings, and not
try to change their naturs. Besides, ain't there
good of another kind to be got out ef the rela-
tion of parents and children f Did you ever
have a child yourself?

GiNx (conte7nplati7ig the Fhilusopliers physique^'
He have a youngster ! He couldn't.

Chorus. Ila ! Ha ! Ha !

lOii,

MALTIIUS AND MAN,

cni, if
stop

u are
e^tab-
^ that

Y you

edinii:

lation

OM of

groat

1(1 ro-
ll like
)oii if
loiiy ?
L", and
;! I
thing
:1 not
there
i re la-
over

iqiie) '

Stonemason. I don't believe in your hum-
biiggin' notions. They lead to lust and crime ;
I'm told tliey do in France. If you yourself
havn't the human natur in you to know it, I'll
tell you, and wo can all tell you that as a rule
if the healthy desires of natur' ain't satisfied in
honest way, they will be in another. You can't
stop eating- by passin' an act of Parleyment to
ytop it. And as for yer eddication and culti-
vation, that makes no diiferonce. AVe know
sonicthinghere about yer eddicatod men ; — nioro
than you think. Who is it we meet about the
streets late at niglit, goin' to the gay houses ?
Some of 'em stand near as high as you, but that
don't alter their natur. They have thoir passions
like other men ; and eddicalion don't k'cep 'em
down. Well^ if that's the case, how can you
ask people of our f?ort to put on the curb, or
make us do it ? Are wo to live more like beasts
th;in wo do now, or do what's worse than mur-
der? I don't see no other way. Among us T
tell you, sir, threc-fourlhs of our eddication is
eddication of the hear. Wo have to learn to be
human, kind, se!f-denyin', and I think this
makes better men, as a rule, than head learnin';
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 be-
hind 'em; why they don't even at homo

GINX'S BABY.

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 preach-
ers;" 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.

CnoRus. Best get out o' this. We don't
want any o' yer filhosoj^hy. Go and get childei*'
of yer own, &c., &c.

The Philosopher and his friend departed,
carrying with them unsolved the problem they

had brought.

***

VIII.— Thoy Baby's First Translation.

The stonemason had been the hero of the mo-
ment ; now attention centred on our own hero,
Ginx hurried off again, but as the crowd opened
before him, ne 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

THE baby's first TRANSLATION.

vifo and

— ono of
called
aong the

preach-
ik better

testified
^ely, and
as tired,

7g don't
'j childei''

leparted,
om they

the mo-
wn hero,
d opened
d career
•aped in
^ framed
30, and a

large cross suspended from her girdle. Ho 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 ]:air 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
Sister's 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. 0, yes.

Ginx. Good. Give us your 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 Hosemary
Street, carrying in hcx- arms Ginx's Baby.

PAET IT

FAUl' II.

WHAT ClIAlilTY AND THE CHUKCHES' DID

WITH HIM.

T.— Tho Milk of Human Kindness, Mother's Milk, and the

Milk of tho Word.

THE early clays of his rcsidenco at the Home
of the Sisters of Misery, in Winkle Street,
was tho Eden of Ginx's ]3aby's existence
Themselves innocent of a mother's experiences,
the sisters wore free to give play to their aliec-
tions in a novel direction, and to assume a sort
of spiritnal maternity that was lucky for the
changeling. lie was nestled in kind serge-cov-
ered arms : kisses rained upon him from chaste
lips. A slight scandal thrilled the convent upon
the discovery of his sex, wdiich had of course
been a pure matter of conjecture to Sister Pudi-
citia when she rescued him ; hut enthusiasm
can overcome anything. The awkward ques-
tions foreshadowed in the discovery were left to
bo considered when their growing importance
should demand upon them the judgment of the
archbitehop. Yisions of an unusual sanctity to
be fostered in the x>uro regions of the convent,

GINX S BABY.

and to be sent on a mission into the world to
attest the power of their spiritual discipline, be-
gan to liannt the brains of tlie sequestered nuns.
Might not this infant be an embryo saint, des-
tined for a great work in the heretical wilder-
ness out of whicli ho had come? How little
healthy food the brains must have had wherein
those insane dreams were excited by our inno-
cent baby ? Hardly did the sacred spinsters
forecast what was in store for them when he
ahould be teething.

But Ginx's Baby was in a religious atmo-
sphere, and that is always surcharged with elec-
tricity. His lot must have been above that of
any other human being if he could long have re-
mained 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 moiher! Was it not perhaps
eminently perilous to his spiritual purity that
an unbeliever like Mrs. Ginx should bring un-
consecrated milk into the convent to bo admin-

MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS, ETC.

rorld to
line, be-
3d nuns.
,int, des-
wilder-
)vv littlo
wherein
)ur inno-
^pinsters
v^hen he

IS atmo-
ith elec-
e that of
have re-
thunder,
d at the
iiilkman,
I en with
ntioned
e fertile
r. Tho
he more
in the
perhaps
■ity that
ring un-
admin-

istcrcd to tliis suckliiii;- of tho Cliui't-li ! In her
uneasiness she appealed to the Father Corliii-
catus, the conventual confessor. He gave his
opinion in the following letter : —

Dear Sister Suspiciosa,

'' The very gi-avo 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 kness, and 1 think the J>lessed Virgin has
vouchsafed her assistance.

"I understood yon to sajwou thought that
the ph3^sical health of the infant, so singularly
and miraculously thrown upon your care, re-
quired the offices of his heretic mother, and yet
that you felt how inconsistent it was with tho
noble future we contemplated i")r liim, that he
should receive nnorthodox lacteal sustentation.
In this you ai'e but following the usage of tho
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 onh' appear to me to be open
to us. First, we may try to work upon the
mother's feelings, and on behalf of her ch^Id in-

GINX'S BABY.

duce 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 in-
fant, 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 Superiors con-
ferred not with flesh and blood, but sent for
Mrs. Ginx. That worthy woman was not en-

ttssaaias^^Z^&^^^a^I^^^^K^i^

^k^.feifdnbiMui<.^ttcar.\. ^a^^fw^ti^Wlk . 'b-

lestiraable
8 fostered,
lese lower
3tory — we
8 to make
i upon the
aent each
nt. This,
Rculty and
tified food,
;e into her
Thirdly,
ee nothing
? to her in-
are of the
p or other
ecrated by
Y the most
as we may
ts present
ements.

&c.,

MTLK OF HUMAN KINDNESS, ETC.

ICATUS.

chanted with her child's position. I have hint-
ed 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 fervour 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 disturbed, in the assertion
of an Athanism creed. Mrs. Ginx's creed was
succinct.

Mrs. Ginx's Primary Creed.

1 believe in God, giver of bread, meat, money,
and health.

This she maintained, with indificrent ritual
and devotional observances. But there was
to Mrs. Ginx's faith a corollary or secondary
creed, only needed to meet special emergencies.

triors con-
ifc sent for
as not en-

Mrs. Ginx's Secondary Creed.

1. I believe in the Church of England.

2. I believe in Heaven and Hell.

f
^

GINX S BABY.

3. (A noi>;titivc article) I hale Popeiy, prier^ts,
and llie Devil.

"When her husband made his fatal gift to the
nun. this third article of his wife's belief, or un-
beliet, stirred up and waxed aggressive.

Said the Lad}" Superior, " My good woman,
3'our child thi'ives under the care of Holy
Mother Church."

" Yes'm, he thrives well," replies Mrs. Ginx,
repeating no more of Sister Suspiciousa's sen-
tence, "an' I've 'ad more milk than ever for the
darlin' this time, thank Ciod."

" And the Holy Virgin."

" I dunno about her," cries Mrs. CJinx empha-
tically, pei'haps not seeing congruity between ix
virgin and the subject of thankfulness.

'* And the Holy Virgin," repeated the nun,
^' Avho interests herself in all mothers. She has
thus blessed you that your child may be made
strong for th-j work of the Church. Do you not
see a miracle is w^orked within 3'ou to prove
Her goodness? This, no doubt, is an evidence
to you of Jler wish to bless you and take you for
Her own. I beseech you listen to Ifer voice,
and come and enter Her fold."

MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS, ETC.

])ricsls,

ft to the
ii\ or 11 n-

woman

of Holy

vs. Ginx,
isa's scn-
;r for the

: enipha-
^twcen ix

he nun,

Slie has

)C made

you not

o prove

•idence

you for

13 r voice,

'•If you mean the Virgin ^fary, mum, I ain't
a idohater, beggin' yer parding," says Mrs.
Ginx; '' an' tho' I wouldn't for the world offend
them as has been so kind to mv child, an' saved
it from tliat deer little creetur bein' thrown over
Wauxhall ]^)ri(]ge — an' Ginx ought to be ashamed
of himself, so he ought— 1 ain't Papish, mum,
an' I ain't dispoged, wnth twelve of 'em there
at home all Protestant to the back bone, to turn
Papish now, an' so 1 'ope an' j)ray mum," says
Mrs. Ginx, roaring and crying, " you ain't agoin'
to make Papish of mj- flesh and blood. O dear !
O dear !"

The Lady Superior shut her ears ; she had
raised a ftimiliar spirit and could not lay it. She
temporised.

*' You know^ your husband has given the
child to us. It will be called the infant Am-
brosius."

''Dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. Ginx, ''what a
name !

" We wish him to be kept from any worldly
taint, and b3'-and-by his saintliness may gain
you forgiveness in'ispite of your heretical perver-
sity. 1 cannot j^ermit you to give him uncon-
secrated milk, and as we wish to treat you kind-
ly, the hol}^ Father Certificatus has allowed mo
to make an arrangement with you, to which

GINX S BABY.

you can have no objection — I mean, thai 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 the Roman Catholic inge-
nuity, and to see her baby " a dead corpse" into
the bargain, before she would submit her Pro-
testant bosom to such an indignity.

''No, mum !" she cried ; '♦ I couldn't sleep
with that on my breast;" and cried hysteri-
cally.

This lower class herctici677s '' brutall}^ refrac-
tory." So thought thr superioress, and so gave
Mrs. Ginx notice to come no more. She went
home rather jubilant — she was a martyr.

II. — The Protestant Dotectoral 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

DETECTORAL ASSOCIATION.

I at you
IS upon
)re you
e to do

bed in
ed her
feet, to
3ces, in
[bed by
ie inge-
le" into
er Pro-

t sleep
ysteri-

refrac-
]0 gave
e went

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 Grinx'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 for 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 shock-
• ing 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 3'ou 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) 1 have this
memorandum : the child was carried off from his
ynother's bedside in broad daylight by a nun occom-
panied by two priests and a large body of Irish; is
that a correct version?"

*' Law, no, sir, it wran't quite like that," said
Mrs. Ginx. " We've 'ad so many on 'em that

QINX'S BABY.

Ginx was for drownin' the thirtcerith" —
— The little man opened his eyes

^' An' ho went an' 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 j
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 'ini sir — ah ! ah i
ah!"

" Hero !" said the little man, '' that's different
from what I understood."

lie 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 Pro-
tcstant Detectoral Association.

" AYould Mr. Ginx not join in an effort to re-
cover 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 poison, but he don't

care about these thiniifs as I do."

''Oh! I see." Writes in his memorandum
book — husband indifferent* '

nth"—

[lid sliG
— llicy
1 ! ah I
r mark
fine a
ill ! ah ! »

ifferent

)t know
oil wish
i?

lig-ht be
he Pro-

I't to rc-

ent an'

ing, sir.
le don't

randum

DETECTORAL ASSOCIATION.

((

But don't you think lie would help you to

L^et the child back airain ?

"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 sec
Ginx.

^'Well; would jou like to have your chikl
back ?

"You see, I couldn't brint^ it 'ere. sir. Ginx
won't 'ave it; but I'd like to see it took away
from them nunnery s."

"Ha! very well then. "We can perhaps
manage it for you. You will be content to
hand it over to the Protestant Home, where it
would be taken care of and you could see it
when you liked ?" ^,

" yes, sir," cries Mrs. Ginx, brightening. ^'

"Then we'll have an affidavit and apply for a
Habeas Corpus."

It was impressible 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.

* ^ *
*

-i'.?

GINX'5 BABY.

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 was 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
I'ows of virginity

" like doYos
Sunning their milky bosoms on the thatch."

Mother Suspiciosa carried the infant, clothed
in a pure white robe, with a red cross em-
broidered on its front. In the absence of the
natural parent a wax figure of St. Am-
brosius 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 profame, or awlully solemn, by dif-
ferent spectators, These things ai*e a mys-
tery.

jinx's

L" now
mally
r was
1 tho
into
red to
orated
andlos
uro of
iround
ierried

lothed
3S cm-
of tho
Am-
wax
enter
ccd at
}y dif-
mys-

THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM.

I have no hesitation about describing tho
impious behaviour of little Ginx. Whatever
swaddled infant could do in the way of oppo-
sition, with hands, and legs, and voice, was
done by that embryo saint. The incense
made him cough and h;putter ; tho lights and
sinking raised the very devil with him.
His cries drowned the prayers. He frightened
his conductress by the redness of his face. Ho
ruined the red cross with ejected matter. You
would have taken him for an infant demo-
niac. 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 ho was baptized,
and carried out. Credat Jiidoeus. He in-
stantly sank into a deep sleep. It was a
miracle : Satan had yielded to the sign of
the cross !

IV. — Law on Behalf of fiospcl.

In the moment of Sister Suspiciosa's triumph,
the enemy was laying his train against her.
The little man made his report to the secre-
tary of the Protestant Detectoral Association.

GINX'S BABY.

Thiw gciillcnian was well-born and woll-bred ;
moved to work in this " c'i>nso "by an honest
liatrcd of Bupcrstition, priestcraft, and lies;
now giving all his cno^'icics to the ambitious
desifj;n of pnllini^ do\ the stron<>-]iolds of
Satan. Jn any other matter lie could act
coolly, an<l with deliberarion ; — in this he
was an enthusiast. He had a keen ll.oman
nose, lie could scent a ])riest anywhere in
the United Kin/^dom. lie could smell Jesuitry
in the (Queen's drawing-room, a cabinet
council or convocation, thou<;'h he had never
been at either. His eye was beyond a
falcon's; he saw thin that were invisible.
It penetrated throu^ all disguises. He
knew a secret emissary of the Pope by the
cock of his hat, or the colour of his stock-
ings. At least, he thought so, and thousands of
persons acted on his estimate of himself.

"This case," said lie 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, ' indiflerent ' to his child's life —
animal and spiritual. The mother, with a
true Protestant heart, and a fine breast of
milk, is loni»:inii: to nurture her child, and to

LAW ON BEHALF OF (lOSl'LL.

man,

deliver it from the toils of the Pnpixcy. But
the husbaiul, whjit's his name? .... (Jinx—
Ginx? a very bad name for a ease, hy Iho
way — Ginx 8 case! — this Ginx ha.s given up
his child to the Sisters of Misery. ITow are
we to o-et it away again, wilhonL liis
co-operation? .... Well, \vv nui^t try."

The solicitor of the Association was forth-
with summoned. When the matter had been
laid before him, he expressed doubts, oil'ered
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
sec otary.

'' Oh, yes. Sir Adolphus Stigma is one of
our principal supporters, and his son's heart
is thoroughly with us."

Messrs. Eoundhead, 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,

GINX'S BABY.

" 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 council is of opinion that this is a
case within Talfburd's Act, and an appli-
cation 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 Jidvise 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.

LAW ON BEHALF OF GOSPEL.

en out

Lady

r away

h sect.

writ of
r it is
joined
ned to

« •

us IS a

appli-

Lord

lis, on

)f her

f the

^s to
"OS ins
Then

odel

your
)e 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 y 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 per-
fectly 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 ' de-
tain ;' 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 fraud-
ulent detention, after notice, by persons who
have orginally acquired a child's custody in

i*Jtwun*iMfc*aAw.int^

GINX S BABY.

fi 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
favourable circumstances in the present case.
Should the}' decide to do so, a written de-
mand 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 Cor-
pus would be the correct remed}'. But his
probable refusal necessitates the inquiry
whether the mother can also ap])ly for the
writ. The general rule of law is, that the
father is entitled to the custody and dis-
position of liis children. In CartUdge 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. 1, P. & D. 464, 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 w^as suffering
from being deprived of their society, and that

LAW ON BEHALF OF GOSPEL.

they were living with a sti\angcr, and not
with the father. These cases were, however,
in the Divorce Court, and do not apply. Eat,
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 question. It
has been decided under this Act that the court
has power to give the custody of children
under seven to the mother. (ShilUto v.
CoUett, 8, W. R. G83— G9G. 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:'

GINX'S BABY.

If none of the courses suggested by Mr.
Stigma was very decided, Messrs. Round-
head, Roundhead and Lollard were not sorry
to have three strings to their bow. The De-
tectoral Association were good clients ; most
of their funds went into their lawyers' pockets.
Thereby the world was kept alive to the
existence of Papacy within its bosom. Who
shall say the Association were wrong ? Sortie
Wealthy 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

Ujab'aUta.'Sn

MAGISTRATE'S LAW.

this history. He was like his fellow stipen-
diaries — mild as to humour, 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 punish-
ment. It will be most convenient to insert
the report of the Daily Electric Meteor : —

** Westminster.

'' Mr. Dignara Bailey, Q.C., (with whom wag
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 As-
sociation to apply on behalf of the mother.
The case was also watched by the solicitors

GilNx's BABY.

of tho 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. What ? lie 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 tho
child had been taken by a nun from No.
5, Bosemary Street, without the mother's con-
sent, and was now imprisoned in tho 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 re-
duction. (Laughter.)

P^!a^^?rff^^^^B^H

magistrate's law.

Mr. Bailey called attention to the conso-
lidated statutes of criminal law, and said he
was going for illegal detention rather tlian
abduction, and argued at great length from
section 56. A.t the conclusion of the argu-
ment, 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 re-
moval, and no suggest on had been made
that he had withdrawn his consent. He
should refuse a sumiiions.

" Mr. Bailey endeavoured to address the
magistrate but was stopped.

''Mil. D'AcERBiTY. 1 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 magis-
trate must have had a letter from the Home
Secretary ?

ik ik

OINX'S BABY.

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
gaily bantered the Detectoral Association.
Meanwhile had happened the grand christ-
ening, of which a circumstantial account was
in the hands of the council of the Detectoral
Association shortly after the ceremony had
been performed. Here w^as a monstrous in-
dignity to a Protestant child ! The account
was at once printed, together with a verba-
tim report of the application to the magis-
trate as well as one of '' a conversation held
with the mother by an agent of the Asso-
ciation." Board -men paraded the great
thoroughfares carrying this appeal : —

l^^lj^-^-^.^*'^^. i^-i^AJi^<i is&i.'i^'i^ij^-JiL'iJJiii^:'-

POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.

PROTESTANT DETECTORAL ASSOCIATION,

NO POPERY!

Abducation of an Infant I

Assault on the Liberty of the Subject 1

Mysterious and Awful Proceedings!

Baptism of a Protestant Child in a Convent 1

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 I

NO SUERENDER !

GINX S BABY.

If llicrc was no coherency in this production,
it should bo noted liow little that is of the
essence of popular appeal. The metropolis
was in an uproar. Meetings were held, sub-
scriptions poured in, dangerous crowds col-
lected in Winkle Street. When Mr. Dignam
Bailey, (^.C, went down to Westminster
to move the Court of Queen's Bench, mul-
titudes besieged it. Protestant champions and
Papal ecclesiastics vied in their eiforts to
get seats. The writ had gone from judge's
chambers returnable to the full court. Sister
8uspiciosa, bearing the infant Ambrosius, and
supported by two novices and Father Certi-
ficatus, had been smuggled into the court
through mysterious passages in its rear. Mrs.
Ginx, also, brought from Eosemary Street by
the little man, who provided her with
a bonnet trimmed with oranc-e-coloured rib-
bons, sat staring with red eyes at her
child, now enveloped in a robe that Avas em-
broidered with little crosses.

Why need I tell j'ou, 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, ^' Be Ginx, an
infant, Exparte Mary Ginx !" How the Chief

'^i^'c^L,\i^i^*i£i'iiA~:lik^ii!:.J^XLS€^>ciii.-Aii^iiit.'K^

POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM.

Justice, fresh and rosj'-looking, then blew
his nose in a di'licate iriauve-coh)ured .silk
haiidk'crcdiief: how he tried and discarded
half-a-dozen pens, amid breathless silence :
how in his bhmdest manner ho said: ''Who
appears for the Ilespondent ?" and Mr. l)ii^-
nam Bailey, (2.C., and Mr. Octavius Ei'nes-
tus, Q.C., rose tog'ether to any tliat Mr.
Ernestus did !

Mr. Ernestus was a Catholic. He was
assisted by halfa-dozen counsel. He riddled
the affidavits on the other side, and read
voluminous ones of his own ; bitterly animad-
verted 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, un-
sympathising world ;" cited cases from the
time of Magna Charla, down ; called upon
the Court to vindicate Protestant justice, end-
ing his peroration with the aphorism of Lord
Mansfield, Flat just It in mat cadu/n.

One cannot do justice to Mr. Dignam
Bailey's argument, w^hcn after lunch he rose

GINX'S BABY.

to reply. He was logical and passionate,
vindictive and pathetic by turns. He in-
veighed against tlie Lady Superior, against
her attorneys, against Father Cerlilicatus,
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 tliis was pure pyrotechny,
and Mr. Bailey knew the best of ail ; but,
though the Bench is swift to speak, slow to
hear, it felt oblige I in the 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 w^ere to be
done, as his friend had urged, the IJ^ingdom
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, • i did n(»t appear
to desire that it si ' ' drawn, they,

disregarding the r in which the

subject had beei jo c; ^luiiy involved on
both sides, gave judgment for the defendant,
with costs.

tmm

PROTESTOR, BUT NOT A PROTEflTANT. 75

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."

VIII. — 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 ia 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 6fficiating priest, to save that gar-

7(1

GINX S BABY.

mcnt, look the child in his arms, he nefariously
polluted the sacredotal vestments and the altar
steps. Then he kicke(] towards the altar it-
self, roared lustily, and finally went into eon-
vulsions in Sister Suspiciosa's arms. Like
most women, the Lady Superior required her
enthusiasm to be fed with success. She
beii'an to think that she had been cozened :
Ginx's Baby was too evidently a spiritual
miscarriage. lie must, like the I'cst of his
iamily, be, indeed, "Protestant to the back-
bone." Father Certificatus ai^reed with her.
His robes and best chasuble were befouled.

''Let us not risk a repetition of this con-
duct," said he ; '' let the child be given up.
lie is ba})tized, and cannot be severed from
the Church. He will reiurn after many days.'

Next morning the solicitors of the Pro-
testant Hetcctoral Association received a
letter from their opponent!^. In thit^ they
said that — presuming Messrs. Roundhead,
Eoundhead, and Lollard, intended to apply
to the Master of the Rolls, the authorities
of the convent had decide<l, after having
vindicated themselves in th.c 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

HWr WWHH PgBBg WHWt iUIUIW

LOVING ONE ANOTHER.

cad,

'Ply

ties

C'h,

for

osal

his

parents. " Wc arc iiihtrucled by our clienlH,"
they added, " to ask you to bear in mind that
the child has been admitted, and is a member
of the Catholic Church, owiuiz; allegiance to the
Holy Father at Rome, a bond from which only
the Papal excommunication can absolv'e him."

VIII. — " See how these Christians love one another."

A MASS-MEETING of Protcstants had been sum-
moned for three o'clock on the day designated
in the letter of ihe Papist attorneys, to be held
in the Philopragmon Hall. That was the fav-
ourite 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 lai'ge jn'Ojiortion of the latter were con-
nected with the Hall than existed in as many
other human enterprises of any sort. The con-
cession of the Eomanists at first dashed the
managers of the demonstration . Their griev-
ance was gone. Still there remained to))ics for
a meeting: they would rejoice over victoiy,
and consult about the future of the Protestant
]3aby. '

The Secretary was an old hand^^hese meet-

GINX S BABY.

ing8. He plannod to import into thin one a
sensation. Ginx's Baby, brought from the con-
vent, stripped of his papal swathings and enve-
loped in a handsome outfit presented by an ami-
able Protestant duchess, was placed in a cradle
with his head resting on a Bible. T 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 handker-
chiefs were such as even that place had never
seen. The child was astounded in quietness.

Mr. Trumpeter took the chair — believed by
many to be, next to the Queen, the most power-
ful 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 popu-
lar, practical peer, of sound Protestant princi-
ples," as the Daily Banner alliteratively termed
him next morning, rose to move the first resolu-
tion, already cut and dried by the committee —

'' That the infant so happily rescued from the
incubus of a delusive superstition, should be re-
mitted to t]^ care of the Church Widows' and

LOVING ONE ANOTHER.

the

re-

an4

Orphans' Augmentation Society, and should be
supported by voluntary contributions."

Before Lord Evergood could say a word mur-
murs 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
I rise to move an amendment !"

Cheers, and cries of '' Order ! order I Sit
down I" &c.

The Chairman, with great blandness, said . —
" The gentleman is out of order ; the resolution
has not yet been seconded. I call upon the Kev.
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 plat-
form 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, '' Oi*der ! order, gen-
tlemen ! This is a great occasion ; let us show
unanimity I" ^

•X.

GINX'S BABY.

There seemed to be an unanimoiis desire to
speak. Amid cheers, cries for order, and Ken-
tish fire, you could hear the Eev. Mark Slowboy,
Independent, the Rev. Hugh Quickly, Wesleyan,
the Eev. Bereciah Calvin, Presbyterian, the
Eev. Ezekicl 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 P' 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 stir-
red up the blood of every Dissenter present. It
was lifting the infant out of the frying-pjin and
dexterously dropping him into the tire. But the
chairman was accustomed to these scenes. Ho
stayed the tumult by proposing that a represen-
tative from each denomination should give his
opinion to the audience. '' Whom would they
have lirst ?" ^

The loudest cries were for Mr. Cutwater, who
stood forth — a weak, stooping, half-halting,
little man, with a limp necktie, and trousers
puify at tJjUknees — but \vith honest use of them,

LOVING ONE ANOTHER.

let me tmy. It is quite credible that if Dr. Watt'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 priest-
craft and apostolic succession, and adhesion to
the dogma of adult baptism and total immersion.
Whoso should not join with him in these lethim
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 super-
stition. (Oh, oh, hisses and cheers.) I with-
draw the expression ; I did not mean to be of-
fensive. (Hear.) This is a grand representa-
tive meeting — not of the English Church, not
of the Baptist Church, not of the Wesleyan
Cliureli — hut of Protcs.uuti.^i?;. (C.ejrs aid

OINX'S BABY.

a
«.

f ,

Kentish fire.) In such an assembly is it right to
propose any singular disposition of a rejDresen-
tative infant? This is now the adopted ohikl,
not of one, but of all denominations. (Cheers.)
Around his, or her — I am not sure which — che-
rubic head circle the white-winged angels of var-
ious 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 raj-s 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 asy-
lum 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 force,
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

ffl*Aii*iasiisiiv

'r T"°n"r1n'iiiiiri

f-^^;^^\J3£^-

LOVING ONE ANOTHER.

,4it to
resen-
child,
leers.)
— che-
ofvar-
3ver it

ell say
it was

lies of
loil the
) arrow
ito this
(Loud
one, it
—what
:»ted—
c asy-
nutive
y\\ the
to the
I farce,
yte or
which
! and
) 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 ph3^sical well-being and mental and
spiritual training of the infant."

By this pro])Osition, which was received with
enthusiasm, Ginx'^ 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, there-
fore, when Mr. Slowboy seconded the amend-
ment, it was carried with loud acclamations.

But they were not yet out of the wood. On
proceeding to nominate members of the com-
mittee, the Unitarians and Quakers claimed to
be representJi-l. The platform and the meeting
were by the cars again. It was fiercely con"
tended 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, me 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

GINX*S BABY.

Eaby had now " become national Protestant
property." Mr. Cutwater and a few others,
moved by the Bcandal 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 Dc-
tectoral 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 v^jell for Master
Ginx's future.

The meeting had lasted tive hours, and while
they were discussing him the child grew hungry.
In the tumult every one had fhrgotten the sub-
ject of it, and now it was over, they dispersed
without thought of him. But he'would not al-
low 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 Chair-
man," said a Mr. Dove.

LOVING ONE ANOTHER.

Bfttant
tbers,
'fered,
lied to
called
mt De-
al and

lat the

poll tan

llection

benefit

Master

d while
hungry,
the sub-
ispersed
i not al-
look his
rardness
three or
Dne with

[Q Chair-

" I should be most happy," aaid 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 plat-
form, came forward and offered to tnke charge
of him, " for the sake of the cause." Everyone
was relieved. After her name and address had
been hastily noted, the Protestant baby was
placed in her arras. My Lord Evergood, the
Chairman, the clergy, the Secretary, and the
mob went home rejoicing. Some hours after,
Ginx's Baby, strippea of the duchess's beautiful
robes, was found bj^ a policeman, lying on a
doorstep in one of the narrow streets not a hun-
dred yards behind the Philopragmon. By an
ironical chance he was wrapped in a copy of the
largest daily paper in the world.

* ^ *

iMnrwiifiiii^rmTiTi'r'' t - r • '-.

I.;

OINX'S BABY.

IX. — Good Samaritans, and Good Samaritan TwoponcoB.

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 ;
wjiile the priest and the Levite, though the
latter looked at hiai, at least let him alone. To
have called a public meeting to discuss his fate
before deserting him, would have been a refine-
ment' of inhumanity. The committe were
rather ashamed when they met. Instant meas-
ures were taken to recover the child and place
him in good hands. The duchess again pro-
vided baby-clothes. The next Sunday sermons
were preached on his behalf in a score of
chapels. The collections amounted to £800, a
sum increased by donations and subscriptions
to the handsome total of £13G0 10s. 3jd.

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
eheet never submitted to the subscribers : —

(

GOOD SAMARITANS. §7

n . ' -C s. d,

Committeo-rooms 45

2 Socrotarios omployod bj tho Com-

"'"^" 120

Agouts, canrassing, »fec 88 6 2

Printing Notices, Placards, Pam-
phlets, a " Daily Bulletin of
Health," '« Lifo of Ginx's Baby,"
" Protestant Boyhood, a Tale,".
, "The Cradle ofan Infant Martyr,"
" A Snatched Brand," and other
Works issued by the Committee... 596 13 5
Advertisements of meetings. Ser-
mons, «fec 261 1 1

Legal Expenses ^ 77 6 8

^^'^^^onory ™ 35 10

Postage, Firin'T and Sundries 27 19 2

Total £1251 16 6

This left £108 13s. dU. for tho baby's keep,
^o child could have been more thoroughly dis-
cussed, preached and written about, advertised,
or advised by counsel ; but his resources dwin'
died in proportion to these advantages. Ben-
evolent subscribers too seldom examine the
linancial items of a report: had any who con-
tributed 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

OINX S BABT.

guerdon was half the gift. Their indilforenco
was akin to that satirised by the poet —

" Prodigui et stultus dedit quue spernit ot odit."

In an ago of luxury we are grown so luxu-
rious as to be content to pa}^ 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 police-
man swaddled in a penny paper, cHstressingly
familiar to metropolitan travellers by rail. To
omit the details of his treatment at the hands
of the great institution, ''The Force," would
be invidious. The member thereof who fell in
W'ith 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 per-
sonally 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

ismsiSi!v-iijMaiSsa!tmmB

3ronce

luxu-

lo our

three

)SS.

police-
jsingly
il. To
! hands
would
► fell in
ghting
•ovided
Id hear
as per-
xterous
2;Ded to
a cart-
d been
three
startled

THE FORCE.

when the rays of his lamp fell upon a struggling
newspaper, out of which, as from a shell, came
mysterious cries, lie took up a corner of the
paper and peeped in upon the face oi Ginx's
Baby; then ho occupied a quarter of an hour
in embarrassing reflections. A nearly naked
child crying in the cold ought to be lioused as
soon as possible, but X 91) was on his heat, 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 tlie
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 that magic compp.jS. Had X 99 hoard
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 lOl's bull's-
eye not far off. What was he to do ?
The station was a mile away — and it would be
awkward, if not undignified, to carry on his
rounds a shouting baby wrapped in the largest

GINX'S BABY.

daily paper. If he left it where it was, and it
perished, he might be charged with murder.
He v/as at his wit's 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 Elouse, ecclesiastical tailors, was broken
into, and several stoles, chasubles, altar-cloths
and other decorative tapestries were appropri-
ated 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 con-
stable'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 apoplexy in the
street but entered in the charge sheet as drunk
r.nd incapable, died like a dog.

t:;-

UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

'*ent
the
•nnk

XI. — The Unity of the Spirit and the Bond of Peace.

When the committee met, everyone discov-
ered 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 Alli-
ance," agreed only in hatred to Popery.

Finding at their first meeting that the discus-
sion needed to be brought into a focus, the com-
mittee 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 toL hing the body :

a. Wherewithal he should be fed and
clothed ?

h. In what manner and fashion that should
bo done ?

II. As t'/uching the mind and spirit :
a. Whether he should be educated ?

If so,
h. What were to be the subjects of instruc-
tion ?
c. What creed, if any, should be primarily
taught?

iilii

w^K:--fi,'!i'»m^s\-'%\a'-'-fMS-i'ja,if.mi»:w'RMi

dlNX's BABT.

d. Should he be further baptized ? If
so,

1. Into what communion ?

1. By what ceremonial ?"

This programme, it appeared to its concoc-
tors, 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 Arch-
deacon llotten, who, amid much excitement,
contended that from the earliest buddings of
thought in an infant mind religion should be en-
grafted 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
Z the final destiny and destruction, of evil. To
separate education from religion was to clip the
wings of the heav'enly dovo. He asserted that

i'a iT,W?«5»i-C«»Kygg«a3i^?W'-"-''W, ^ff|[glg^

UNITY OP THE SPIRIT.

the committee ought at once to have the child
baptized in Westminster Abbey, though he was
rather of opinioQ that the previous baptism was
canonically valid ; that he should be taught the
truths of our most holy faith, and wince there
could be no faith without a creed, and the only
national creed was that of the Church of Eng-
land, the baby should be handed over to the
care of a clergyman, and then be sent to a pro-
per religious school. He need not say tha^ he
excluded Bugby under its then profane manage-
ment.

The Church, was, however, divided against
itself, for the Dean of Tristonsaid ho 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 ac-
knowledge 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 effloresence of
the Deity in all men's hearts, to grow within
the 3'oung 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 imjiossible to apply to a

GINX'S BABY.

reproscntativo child of an enlightened age the-
ories so long exploded. The Dean had certainly
come nearer the truth with that broad sympathy
for which ho was noted. lie himself proposed
thai 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 medifoval
past, fit only to bo hung up in the churches, and
looked at as historic monuments ; never more to
be flaunted in the front of battle! The educa-
tion of the day is that which taught a man the
introspection whereby he recognised the Divine
within himself — under any aspect, under any
tuition, whether of Brahma, Confucius, or
Christ. Truth was kaleidosopic, 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 fif-
teen years, and then send him to the London
University.

Here the Chairman, and half-a-dozen mem-
bers 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

■.'.!t?':^g:!>ifigyB^:u

UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

any
, or

child was not capable of receiving any ideas
whatever, and might die, or prove to be
dumb, or an idiot, and so re(pire no education.
Ought they not to postpone thi^ discussion until
the subject was old enough to be worth con-
sideration ?

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 demon-
strate 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 conten-
tion.

Tho Rev. Dr. M'Gregor Lucus, of the National
Caledonian Believers, had been silent too long
to contain hiniself 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 bo
equally eager for rebuke and applause ; they
both involve notoriety, and notoriety is sure to
pay. Few absurdities had been overlooked by
liis shallow ingenuity. sSimply to have invested
his limited mental cndowiucnts in trying to

GINX'S BABY.

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 ])roof 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 goodwill to hope
that they did. How he would have lived if
Daniel and St. John had dieamed no dreams,
one cannot conjecture. As it was, they provid-
ed 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 dis-
prove his solutions. Yet these came so often to
their own disproof by lapse of time, that J. can
only think that the good doctor hoped to die

liiis, would
■ thousands
n too hai'sli
ilous stutf.
It was his
years, tliat
I end, and,
ho thought
roof of his
jyed words
lave taken
quentlj, a
sayings, or
t, and you
cular born
;o he said,
t' his darts.
* did not ;
ill to hope
e lived if
dreams,
y provid-
s for his
lie of their
could dis-
o often to
at I can
ed to die

^gjumi^

UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

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, be-
cause 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 fiivour of teaching
him at once to hate idolatry, music, crosses,
masses, unn^ 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 typo.

Mr. Ogle, M.P., here vigorousl}^ intervened.
Said he : —

*'I can't, with all defferenc^, agree to any of
these suggestions. They involve hand-to-hand
fighting over thi» baby's body. jSfo one of us is
entitled to lake 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 a committee 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 denom-

OINX'S BABY.

ination 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
liim, 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 figlit.
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.

'' Surel}^, sir, you cannot seriously propound
such a scheme ? Would you leave this precious
waif to be bufieted 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 — thcj^ are redo-
lent 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 ?"

i,«««.^iBm^^'^^^,.:~.;^.

.;VT<'gaffli»''.fe;

iiiliiii

UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

&c., &c. Mr. Verity has been saying the same
thing any time these forty years.

« Forgive me," re2)lied Mr. Ogle, " if I say
that this is very vague tallving. I have not
proposed to sever one question from another.
I only propose to do in a ditierent way tliat
which is been done now by the most rigid
of Mr. Verity's friends. It is impossible to
comprehend what is meant by such a state-
ment as that every truth is somehow con-
nected witli 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 cer-
tain 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 con-
sider 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

100 OINX'S BABY.

aflfirm 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; geograghy will
affirm certain princii)les and designate places,
rivers, mountains — that no faith can remove
and cast into unknown seas. These subjects
and others are taught in our mosl bigoted
schools in separate hours and relations from
religion. What then do you moan by affirm-
ing that there can be no secular education
of this child — apart from religious teaching?
We arc not likely to agree, if 1 may judge
from what I have seen, on any one method of
religious instructions for it, therefore I wish first
to fix common bounds within which our com-
mon benevolence maj^ work. Well, we all go to
the Bible. We agree that between its covers
lies religious truths 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 crystal-
lised there from the combined action of truth

1 i

UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

and experience, and not as it were jmsted
on its walls by ecclesiastical bill-posters.
' What is truth ?' he must aslc 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 imbuini^'
the mind and heart with it. Surely we need
not, we cannot — it would be an exquisite
absurdity — pass a resolution in this com-
mittee 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 it shall be a
Christain and a Protestant! I would not in-
sure the risk. But, with so many of Christ's
followers about me, surely, surely without
providing any ecclesiastical mechanism, there
will be testitied to him simply how he may
be saved. Your prayers, your visits, 3'our
kindly moral influence and talk, your living
exam])le of a goodness derived not from dog-
mas but from atlcctionate 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

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I

102

GINX'S BABY.

i^ ■ ■

him a mother's part, but chooao 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 inter-
rupt this history and advert to the foot, 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 im"
mortal spirit — some notion and evidence of
the Divine and the Great Hereafter to be con-
veyed to it — scarce was disputed. Nor was
there collision over the necessity of what is
called intelleqtual cultivation. The boy must

A DIGRESSION.

103

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 reli-
gion divided itself into many disputable
fields. Those brother Protestants were like
country neighbours who must encounter each
other at fairs, markets, meets, and balls, and
smile and greet, though each, at heart, is look-
ing 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 in-
fantile immortal. Not always, perhaps, but
often, they fought for futile distinctions. Had
Mahomet's creed consisted of but one article,

104

GINX'S BABY.

wis

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 ^?ro/)/^e^ Could Protes-
tants but consent to agree in their agreement
and peacefully differ in their petty diifer-
enceo, how would the aggregated impulse of
a simple faith roll down before it all the
impediments of error !

When Grinx's Baby had grown to a dis-
cretionary age, and was at all able to know
truth from error — supposing that to be know-
able — there were in the country fifty thousand
reverend gentlemen of every tincture of reli-
gious opinion who might ply him with their
various theories, yet few of tliese v^ould be
contented unless they could seize him w^hile
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 meet-
ings. They were then as far from unity of pur-
pose as when they set out. Variety was given

NO FUNDS — NO FAITH.

105

to the meetings by changing the 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
^een 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 £36 ; and add-
ing that the sum in hand was £1. 4s. 4J^. In
his report he said : ^'No effort has been spared
by means of advertisements, pamphlets, tales,
leaders and paragraphs in newspapers and reli-
gious journals, together with occasional ser-
mons, to maintain the public interest in this
child; but attention has been diverted from him
by the great Koman Spozzl case, and the anx-
iety created through the Protestant world by
the recent discovery made by Dr. Gooddco, 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 eflbrt could
jifter wards get a quorum together. When the

106

GINX'S BABY.

persons who had charge of the Protestant found-
ling 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 what-
ever clothes bad been provided for him, and
absconded from the place where they had been
farming him for Protestanism. The secretary
hearing of this was discreet enough to make no
inquiries. Ginx's Baby, as a Protestant ques-
tion 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 trades-
man, looking out of his shop door before he
turned into bed, heard a cry which proceeded
from a bundle on the pavement. This he dis-
covered to be an inlant 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

IN TRANSITTT.

107

1
parish of St. Bartimeus. He took note, being a
busiDess 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.

...ii

es-

led

lis-

L'k.

lad

.he .

' - ' —

Nil

■'■' ", '■

FART in.

WHAT THE PARISH DID WITH HIM.

1. — Parochial Knots to be untied without prejudice.

THE infant borne to the workhouse of St.
Bartimeus was Ginx's Bab3^ 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 j it
doesn't belong to us."

" Yes it does : it wasn't on my side of tKo
line."

"But it was in front of your house ?"

PAROCHIAL BENEVOLENCE.

109

" Well, the line runs crossways.' it don't fol-
low the child was in our parish."

"Oh, nonsense I 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 ol it. The coroner's sure to
try to earn his fees. Good-night."

He hurried from the room.

"Stop 1" 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

110

GINX'S BABT.

shop, and, as ho alleged, on the nearer side of
the parish boundarj^, had been left at the work-
house, 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 an-
nouncement. 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 labb.

Mr. Slinkum, draper, seconded the motion.

Mr. Edge, ironmonger, pointed out that there
was no parliamentary precedent for such a dis-
position 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. T move to get rid
of the brat. What*s the best form of motion?"

A churchwarden, who happened to be a gen-
tleman, explained that the Board could not dis-
miss the question in so summary a way. " lie
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 liabili-
ties, and of forcing the other parish to take the

^ •

A BOARD OF GUARDIANS.

11?

"lie
point*
take
abili-
e the

child if thoy oiiglit to do so. Thoy 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,
whoso wits, however, wore 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, stilt' 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, grave-
ly, " goes back for three hundred years. Pari-
ents unknown by name, but got by Misery out
o' Starvashun. The line began with Poverty
out o' Laziness in Qu«en Elizabeth's time. The
breed has been a large'un wotever you think of
the quality,"

112

OINX R BABT.

This pleasantry was less acceptable to the
Board.

'' Well," said Mr. Scoop, grocer, a great stick-
ler for i)arliamentary modes of procedure, '* I
move it be committed."

*' Committed ! Whore?" 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
liighly respectable person, my own cheese-mon-
ger) 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. Mean-
while we must beware not to compromise our-
selves by admitting anything, or doing any-
thing equivalent to an admission. Let me see —
Ah 1— yes — a notice to be served on the other

A BOAAD of OtJARDIANS.

l!3

parish repudiating the infant; another notice to
Mr. Doll to tnke it away, and that it remains
here at hi.s risk and expense — you see, gentle-
men, we could hardly venture to return it to
Mr. Doll ; wo should create an unhMj)py impres-
sion in the minds of the public — "

'' D— n the public I" said Mr. Stink.

''Quite so, my dear sir," said Mr. Philpotts,
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 char<'-e
pinned to the only garment of Ginx's Baby a
paper in the following form : —

* 4

114

OINX'S BABT.

Parish of St. Bartimeus.

(name unknown), a Foundling ^

and all other persons interested in the said
Foundling.

TAKE NOTICE

That yoUy or either of you, have no just or law-
ful claim to have you or the said infant charge-
able on the said Parish. And this is to notify
that you, the said infant, are retained in the
workhouse of the said 2^cirish under protest, and
that whatsoever is or 7nay he 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 keejj 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

ill, the
ve him
ted out
ain ; he
chos on

THE WORLD IS MY PARISH.

115

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 client.^. 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 Mugus, 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 dis-
covered in the parish of St. Bartimeus, the lat-
ter was clearly chargeable. Both parties then
proceeded to swear affidavits. The Attorney-
General and Solicitor-General, the two great
law-ofl&cers of the crown, were retained on oppo-
site sides, and took fees — not for an Imjjerial
prosecution, but as a petty Queen's Counsel in
an interparochial squabble.

116

GINX'S BABT.

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; sen-
sitive to the incubus of Ginx's Baby, especially
as the press had been reviewing some of their
recent acts with great bitterness. The Guard-
ians 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 vanished 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 : — '

WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

117

dians.

earing
orney-
iamus.
in a
id, the
)lapsed
again
5nience

under
I3; sen-
>ecially
f their
Guard-
notices,
Ive not
ild was

doubt,
itratiou
'. The

at the
L" was a

NOTICE.

DOLL S FOUNDLING.

Fending the legal enquiry into the facts con-
cerning the above infant^ and a decision as to its
settlement J all officials, assistants, and the servants
of the workhouse are forbidden to enter the room in
tvhich 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, dhc, 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 in-
credible except in the instance of the Guardians
of St. Bartiraeus. There were nothing they
could not do — or leave undone. Fortunately
for Ginx's Baby, the order was disobeyed. Oc"

118

GINX S BABY.

casionally lady visitors went to look at him and
give him some food — he was toddling about the
room on unsteady logs — 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 disfavour 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 had 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 ex-
pressed them even if they were entertained ?
He t'ook nonobjection 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,

I and
t tho
ed to
iging
^4iose
ether
as in,
the
T and
f pap
red it
^f the
ct, for
y in a

adice,
ithout

have
^e ex-
lined ?
I while
I usual
h.

WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

119

mths,
ister,

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 in-
famy, as he had passed down a corridor was ar-
rested by the notice on the door of our hero's
room. Curiosity took him in, and horror chain-
ed him there for some time. Had he not enter,
ed, Ginx's Baby, spile 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 sensationall}' 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 tho notice. The
Guardians were drubbed in trenchant leaders
and indignant letters. They, instead of bend-
ing to the storm, strove to confront it, and pass-
ed angry resolutions of a childish and grotesque
character. The few of them who possessed anj'
sense of propriety were railed at in the meeting
till they ceased to attend. The uproar outside
increased. Why did not the President of the
Poor-La w Board interfere ? At last he did in-
terfere: that is, instead of visiting the scene
himself, and satisfying his own eyes as to the

120

GINX S BABt.

truth of what his ears had heard, a process that
would have taken a couple of hours, he appoint-
ed a gentleman to hold an enquiry. The Guard-
ians hecame furious. The reports of their pro-
ceedings 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 appoint-
ed to see him fed, and they forwarded a me-
morial 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 them-
selves to see him. They procured from him a
certificfito that the noble busybod}^ 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 enquiry, 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 Guard-
ians, and the law, and wished them all at Land'.s|
End or beyond it.

.1 :

AN UNGODLY JUNGLE.

121

ocess that
3 appoi lit-
he Guard-
their pro-
a lunatic
American
• breach of
ilr. Stink.
;ed food to
IS appoint-
ded a me-
T that " he
Dssibly eat,
ley refused
d by them-
rom him a
y and his
that all the
'od to be in
t,leman, and
letter from
discussions
3 red public
the Guard-
ill at Land's

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 turn
aghast. In one of these portentous books, title
''Poor," pp. 1200, the inquisitive may find a
code unrivalled by the most malignant in-
genuity 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 Eng-
lish 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

122

GINX S BABY.

industry and lightning quickness of apprehen-
sion, the Chief Justice found it hard to reconcile
past and present, or evolve from the vast con-
fusion anything consistent with his moral in-
stincts.

— Clear the board, gentlemen. True regene-
rative legislation will begin by drawing away
the rubbish. Reform means more than re-
pair. 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, titi-
vate, decorate, furbish — and after all your
house is not a new one, but a whited
sepulchre shaking to decay. Eepair? 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 nuis-
ancee, 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 ^our political
Repairer. Call the party and* the men by
their right names ; and give me for utility
in legislation or administrative action an Old

prohon-
jconcilo
ist con-
oral in-

AN UNGODLY JUNGLE.

123

rogene-
g away
han re-
le here,
ere, fill
[^islative
t paint,
Ity, titi-
m your
whited
There
a Tories
us call
vested
ue nuis-
improve
vvn with
CO hand
political
imen by
utility
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 en-
feebled, and the vigour withdrawn from it, by
this party. " Tested rights," '' the Liberty of
the people," ^' Interference with personal free-
dom," ^' Expense," — these are the watchwords
of the Repairer in opposition to him who, point-
ing to the pallor and fever of a hundred neigh-
bourhoods, calls upon a ministry to cleanse
them with imperial force.

A comprehensive scheme of I^ational Educa-
tion is seized and half-throttled by the Repair
party. '' Oh ! utilise 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 ! Ti-ue,
it is not large enough : true, it is badly built ;
but repair that, and add wrings. 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 ad-

124

GiNx's BABY.

minister them. Forth steps the Keformcr, and
cries out — '' Clear this wreck away! Get rid
* of your antiquated Bumbledom, your parochial
and non-parochial distinctions, your complicated
map of local authorities ; re-distribute the king-
dom on some more practical system, redress the
injustice of unequal rating, improve the ma-
chinery and spirit of relief, and so on." You
have the Eepair 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 arras that wield the plough and spade-
'' Ho !" he shouts, *' Labour to Land — starva-
tion to production — death unto life !" and he
calls upon ever}'- 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 Labour,
the source of our wealth ? No. Mend the
condition of the labourer; give him the sop of

AN UNGODLY JUNGLE.

125

', and
)t rid
3chial
icated
king-
ss the
ma-
You
ssumus
Lctivo :
d the

Local

• I"
,11* !

7inely-
3lp to
ilnglish
jeaa to
n for
spade-
starva-
md he
not to
nergies
en the
jabour,
nd 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 I"

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 how-
ever so elegant a piece of artistry you desire to
displace it. For them a Gilbert-Scott politician,
reverential restorer of bygone styles, enthusias-
tic to converse and amend the grotesque Gothic
policies of the past, rather than some Brunei or
Stephenson statesman, engineering in novel
mastry 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 distrac-
tion. • •

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.

***

126

GINX'S BABY.

VI. — Parochial Benevolence — and another translation.

The authorities of St. Bartimeus did not take
kindly to the charge irapofled upon them by the
Queen's Bench. Some of the Guardians priva-
tely 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
little cot, waking to see the well-faced nurse, or
you, still swcoter to her eyes, watching above
her dream-, perhaps you ought to stop a mo-
ment to contrast the scene with the sad tableaux
you may got sight of not far away. * -^ * Ginx's
Baby was not an ill-favoured child. lie had in-
herited his father's frame and strength ; these
helped him through the changes we are relat-
ing. What if these capacities had, by simple
nourishing food, cleanly care-taking, and bright-
er, kindlier associations, been trained into full
working order ? Left alone or ill-tended they
were daily dwindling, and the dc2:)reciation 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

PAROCHIAL BENEVOLENCE.

127

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 wore 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
vigour or failing to make it up, corrupting
their nature by foul associations, moral and
physical. Some are doing it by speciai
license of the devil, others by Act ot Parlia-
ment, 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 influ-
ences and a care more akin to your own home
ideal, would you not transfigure the next epoch
— would not your labour and sacrifice be a God-
work, reaching out weighty, fruit-laden bran-
ches far into the grateful future ? 'Tis by feel-

HHP

128

GINX S BABY.

ing and enjoying 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
recognises 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 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 b applied to our hero
were —

Dirt,

Fleas,

Foul air.

Chances of catching skin diseases,

fevers, &.C.,
Yile company, ^

Neglect,

Occasional cruelty, and
A small cupply of bad food and cloth-

Every pauper was to them an obnoxious
charge by any and every means to be reduced

„ '«

PAROCHIAL BENEVOLENCE.

129

to a minimum ^j 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 £1,600, tne 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 pos-
session were some of the Baby's clothes. She
confessed the whole story, and declared that the
child left in JSTether 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-officel*, 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.

r^ mX'S BABY'S brothers and sisters would
yOr have nothing to say to him. Mrs. Ginx
declared that 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 neighbouring curate, whose name, were my
pages destined to immortality, should be print-
ed here in golden letters. Rich and full will
be his sheeves when many a statesman reaps
tares. Finding that a thirteenth child was im-
posed on them by so superior a force as the
law of England the Ginxes hastened their
departure,

Moved on.

131

Their last night in London, towards the small
hours, Ginx, carrying our hero, went along Brid-
cage Walk. He scarcely knew where he was
going, or how he was about to dispose of his bur-
den, but he meant to get rid of it. On ho went,
here and there met bj' 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 be-
fore the Horse Guards, near the house of a popu-
lar 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 hy the rails, and stealing from corner
to corner through the masses of that locality,

132

GINX S BABY.

'5 1

reached home by way of Piccadilly and Grosve-
nor 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 gen- *
eral 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 de-
scended the steps and looked at the miserable
boy without touching him. Then they peered
into the darknobs in ho^o that they might get a
glimpse of his mother or a policeman. A rapid
btep sounded on the pavement and a gentleman
came up to the group. ^. ,

" What have we here ?" he said gently.

CLtB IDEAS.

133

" 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 offi-
cers 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 execut-
ing 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 scag-
liola. 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 ihe walls
around were potraits of men who had striven for
the deliverance of the people from ancient yokes

» H

134

GtNX's BABY.

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, lacqueys.
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 ridicu-
lous. 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 Parlia-
ment, a minister renowned for economy in mat-

CLUB IDEAS.

135

Jft

ters 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 min-
ister.

" Well," said another, " he has come to the
wrong quarters if he wants money."

'' 1 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 pecu-
liarities — " tell us what this means. Whose
Mark' 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 Clul>-ete^-^left there,

•V ^

136

QINX S BABT.

!!r

perhaps, as a piece of clever irony; *.? might
bo son to some of us. Whai's vour name, my

boy ?"

Ginx's Baby managed to say '• Dunno!"

'' Ask him if he has any name ?" ouid an Irish
ex-member, with a grave face.

Ginx's Baby to this question responded dis-
tinctly " No."

"No name," said the humourist ; " then the
author of his being must be Wilkie Collins."

Everybody laughed at this indifferent plea,
santrj^ but our hero. His bosom began to heave
ominoucsly.

"What's to be done?"

" Send him to the workhouse."

" Send him to the d " (there may be bru-
tality 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 colourless the flesh seems — what
an old face ! — and I can scarcely feel any pulse.
Good heavens, get him some wine I A few hours

CLUB IDEAS.

13?

■^:'

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
bo hundreds of thousands growing up like this
child; and what a generation to contemphite in
all his relations and effects!"

The gentlemen were dashed by his earnest-
ness.

" Oh, you're exaggerating," said Glibton ;
*' there can't be such vvidcs])read 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. " Gfood-night."

The right honourable gentleman extinguished
the subject in his own little brain with his big
hat; hut 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.

138

GINX*S BABY.

What an hour will that bo for hurrying to and
fro with water-pipes and buckets, when proper
forethought, dilligence, and sacrifice would have
made the building fireproof.

III. — A tborough-pacod 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 even-
ing that ought to be chronicled. Several mem-
bers 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 em-
bodied emblem subjects of legislative action.
Others said that those questions being, in their
view, social and not political, were no proper
ones to give impulse to a party movement, and
that the entertainment in the Club of this found-
ling would be a gross irregularity ; they did not
want samples of the material respecting which
they were theorising. 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.

\h-

A THOROUGH-rArED REFORMER.

139

iir

'' You may delay, but you cannot dissipate
them. We are filling up our sessions with party
struggles, iheoretic 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 1"
exclaimed Mr. Joshua Hale. ''Eeform, Free
Trade, Free Corn — have these not enhanced the
wealth of the people ?"

'' Partially ; yet there are classes unregene-
rated by their reviving influences. Free trade
cannot ensure work, nor can free corn provide
food for every citizen."

^'Nor any other legislation : let us be practi-
cal. I own there is much to be done. I have
often stated my ' platform.' VYe 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 J peremptorily legislate against the custom

140

GINX S BABY.

of primogeniture ; encourage the distribution
and transfer of land ; and, under the a^gis of
the ballot, protect from the tyranny of the
landlord and employer their tenants and work-

men.

>»

"Yery good, perhaps, all of them," replied
^ Sir Charles, " but some not at the moment pos-
sible, and altogether 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 Educatioui —
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 selfish-
ness had wraped 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-blind-
ness. 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 inter-
ests."

*' Quite unjust. Our best economists repre-
hend the policy of depleting our labour-market.
Emigration is a,^ timely remedy Tor adversity

A THOROIKill-PACED REFORMER.

141

ilion
is of
f tho
.vork-

3 plied
t po8-
Why
leeds?
1 — are
of the
tion> —

ret the
selfish-
e done
nan for
that I
H-blind-
looked
iotism,
e inter-

repre-
market.
iversity

tind to uo very sparingly used. Labour in our
richest vein — "

'' We may have too m'lch 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 depres-
sion, to which all classes are liable."

" But," said Sir Charles, *' which none can so
ill bear. Nay — ^vhat if it is permanent ? You
look toincreaso<l trade. Do you suppose we are
to retain our maiuifacturing pre-eminence when
every country, new and old, is competing with
us ? Can our trade, I ask you honestly to con-
sider, 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 dejDendent upon 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 I By
the time that comes thc}^ may have gone be-
yond 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 thej^ should not be

142

GINX S BABY.

what they arc ? But I contend that depres-
sion 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 inter2D0t?ed a gentleman high in office, a
pure, keen, rigid economist of the highest intel-
lectual and jDolitical rank.

'* My dear Sterling, pardon me if 1 say you
are talking wildly. Perhaps you don't see that
you are verging on rank communion. 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
emplo3^ment for it, and next year, or the year
iv^'ter, under a recovered trade you will be wring-
ing 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

A THOROUGH-PACED REFORMER.

143

deprcs-

moro

lall we,

ist, face

office, a
it iiitel-

say you
?ee that
1. The
ifallibly
scure no
•e gill ate
•-wheels

■

)vy man
vf?y our
present
he year
! w^ring-
y that

unity,
1 truth,
ers that
1 if it is
3no will

not be guilty of the humanity 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 be-
longing in a sense to 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 labour 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 labour is required
thither the stream will flow."

" Mere surface talk, my clever friend," replied
the other, " the men who ai-e trooj^ing out at
their ow^n 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 ? Xot to strengthen
and develop our colonies, but the United States
— a not always friendly peo2)le, and just now
your free-trader's bugbear !"

"Well, well," said the minister, "drop that

" ■!<

144

GINX^S BABir.

ii f

'Mr

i^;

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 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; "1 do
^ not shrink from shadows. Perhaps I am in
favour of somethinc^ nearer to communism than
our present form of society. One thing I am
clear about: no slate 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 neighbour'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 porportion which the
capable classes should be called upon to contri-
bute to the common weal has never been cor-

A THOROUGH PACED REFORMER.

145

it this

,nd for

again

30SC to

upper
for the

if you
" 1 do
am in
sm than
MX I am
healthy
3lf to bo
nniunity
it he is
c policy,
well as
otection
the rich
ous man
o gather
Is? For
pay, and
hich the
.o contri-
l>ocn cor-

rectly adjusted. The first fruit of practical
Christianity was community of goods, and but
for liuman selfihhness we might hope for an
E Utopian era — when, while it should be ruled
that if a man wauld not work neither should he
eat, there should also be brought bome 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 es-
sential to the support of the Emigration
policy."

*' O dear ! dear ! mad as a March hare !
cried the minister, as he stumped from the
room.

" Sterling is a good fellow," said ho 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
(piite practical."

By practical the minister meant, not that

■■■

15;:

146

GINX S BABY.

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, npon a cun-
ning review of party balances and a judicious
probing of public opinion, seemed to be a policy
fit for his party to pursue. The fii'st, 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 mani-
pulate people and circumstances.

IV. — Very Broad Views.

Sir Charles Sterling, Mr. Joshua Hale,
and others continued the conversation inter-
rupted 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 him
self to find out. The term '• law of supply and
demand" was freelv 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

VERT BROAD VIEWS.

^147

done if
t, spite
a cun-
idicious
L policy
original
initiate
xrt of a
;o mani-

a Ilalc,
)ri intcr-
was to
10 great
were cut
Most of
to him
pply and
them, as
ith little
iission by

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 im-
perial ornaments of genius ! Just in the same
way does the politician love the policies himself
hath devised, pressing them forward at all liaz-
ards, 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 coun-
tr}^ a really honest statesmanship — an egatistic
tenacity of one's own creature as the best,
which yet is not the criminal selfishness of
ambition. Still that egotism is not seldom dis-
astrous to the people's interestsj While these
statesmen nursed their own bantling 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 Halo
— who is far above these remarks ":enerallv —
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 T do think, neither desired
nor hoped that a!iy man in that island should be

■I

.. *»

148

GINX'S BABY.

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 be-
fore. If these gentlemen do not sacrifice their
pet fancies for the sake of a settlement, what
shall become of St. Helena ?

Just now they are discussing Ginx's Baby.
One thouglit 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 co-
operative 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
ijito sheep-walks and deer-forests ; a sixth main-
tained that there were waste lands in the king-
dom of capacity to support hungry millions. In
fact earth, heaven, and seas were to be regene-
rated by Act of Parliament for the benefit of

VERY BROAD VlfiWB.

149

other
Lnd to
amo a
upon
as bo-
3 their
, what

, Baby.

vvs and
a cuse ;
sorrow
led co-
ggested
chcd in
warmed
parts of
hers for
ould be
a fifth
Scotch
)lo lands
th main-
he king-
lions. In
regene-
icnefit of

Ginx's Baby and the people of England. Sir
Cliarles listened impatiently, and at last burst

forth again.

He said: ^' When you consider it, wliat wo
are trying to do nowadays is — vulgarl}' — to im-
prove 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 genera-
tion ; and one problem is to prevent these de-
preciated people from increasing, or to get them
to increase healthily. I*^o one seems to liave
gone directly to such a problem as that. The
difficulties to be faced arc 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 rajDc, you
may hang him, unless his crime has been so at-
rocious as to attract the benevolent interest of
the Home Secretary; if he commit suicide, you

-i

nil

1 1
' ft

;: 1 :,

: ^: ij

150

GINx's BABY.

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 op-
portunity 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. In-
dustrial schools, reformatories, asylums, hos-
pitals, Peabody-buildings, poor-laws. Every-
body is working to improve the condition of
the poor man. Sanitary administration goes to
his house and makes it habitable."

''Yery," interjected Sir Charles Sterling,
drily. ^

VERY BROAD VIEWS.

151

costs '
him
prove
i like
I or an
th, or
1 op-
What
wild
fetter
icated

ng • to

I'ulent-
)ur lad

;v. In-
5, hos-
Every-
ition of
goes to

terling,

''Factory laws protect and educate factory
children "

''They don'? educate in one ca«o 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 weald
be ridiculous!" replied Sir Charles. '^ do
not say it can be done, but in order to trans-
form 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 1 proposed
that Government should establish music-halls
and gymnasia all over the country; but you,
Mr. Fissure, voted for the Baths and Wash-
houses."

"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

•v.,

152

niNX S BABY.

million of children firo crying to lis to sot them
free from tlie despotism of a crime tmd ignor-
ance 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. Those
words can be used in defence of almost any
injustice and tyranny. Such terms as * political
economy,' ' communism,' ' socialism,' are ban-
died about in the same way. Yet pro])Ositions
coming fairly within these terms are often men-
tioned 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 Commission-
ers is quite as revolutionary as I am. lie 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 depreci-
ated and damned for good citizenship, the State
must rescue him."

*' A paternal and maternal government toge-
ther !" cries Lord Namby— '' a government of

VERY BROAD VIEWS.

153

them
gnov-

nir on

Those
t liny
litical
3 ban-
sitions
a men-
la who
Royal
lission-
^e says
I shall
over-
would
nk him
u that
child's
[lanent,
to his
Icpreci-
e State

it toge-
iient of

nurses. You know I should like to stop the pro-
duction of children among the lower orders.
Your propositions are in advance of my radical-
ism. The State must sometimes interfere be-
tween parent and child ; for instance in educa-
tion or 2)rotection from cruelty. But, if I under-
stand 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 kee2:)s 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 men 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 libra-

154

GINX'S BABY.

ries 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 tem-
porary homes for lying-in women; Multiply
your baths and washhouses till there is no ex-
cuse for a dirty person ; Educate ; Provide day
schools for every proj^er child, and industrial or
reformatory schools for every improper one ;
Open advanced High Schools for the bust pupils,
and found Scolarships to the Un versities ; Erect
other schools for technical tri« ning; Oftw* to
teach trades and agriculture to all comers for
nothing — you would soon neutralise your bug-
bear of trades-unionism ; Teach morals, teach
science, teach art, teach them to amuse them-
selves like men and not like brutes, the problem
is not impracticable, though severe. As the end
to be attained is the welfare of future genera-
tions, 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 incu-
bus of an irrational war."

Will any sane political practitioner wonder
to be told that at the end of this harangue the

PARTY TACTICS.

155

,h an
stead
hanta
your
argc ;
, and
I tem-

Itiply

10 ox-

day

•ial or

one ;

)Upil8,

Erect
ff#r to
»r8 for
r bug-
teach
th«m-
.-oblem
me end
enera-
ythcy
: it— a
incu-

Yonder
ue the

smoking-room party broke up, and that some,
as they laughed good-humourodly over Ster-
ling's egregittj recalled the number of glasses of
inspirited seltzer swallowed by the orator. He
was so far in advance of the most radical re-
former 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 pet-
ting of peers, Members of Parliament, and
loungers who swarm therein. Certain gentle-
men of Stock Exchange mannerism and dressi-
ness gave 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 cele-
brated transaction. To foster Ginx's Baby in
the Club, as a recognition of the important
questions surrounding him, though theoe q^ues-

156

GINX'S BABY.

tions involved hundreds of thousands of other
cases, was to them ridiculous. Of far greater
consequence -was it in their eyes to settle a dis-
pute between two extravagant fools at Constan-
tinople 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, favoured with a smile from a Cabi-
net 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 enquiry 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 be occasion-
ally visited them. They treated him kindly
and discussed his condition with earnestness*

PARTY TACTICS.

157

' other
reater
a dis-
tnstan-
shness
nts. I
1 must

Baby's
e times
by the
a Cabi-
with a
I, every
,va8 for
dness of
lis own
) press,
n. The
leans of
irae, but
la.

)pposite,
ing was
politely
)Cca8ion-
1 kindly
aestness*

The leaders of the party debated whether he
might not with advantage be taken out of their
opponents' hands. Some thought that a judi-
cious use of him might win popularity ; but
others objected that it would be perilous for
theiii to mix themselves up with so doubtful 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. lie played
tricks with the Club cutlery, and diverted its
silver to improper uses ; he laid traps for upset-
ting aged and infirm legislators ; he tried the
coolness of the youngest and best-natured Mem-
bers of Parliament by pojiping 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 jiopu-
lar feeling on the disgraceful apathy of the
Radicals in regard to the founciling. They ha4

158

GINX'S BABY.

him waylaid and treated to confectionery by
their emissaries ; and once oi- twice succeeded
in abducting him and sending him down to the
country with their party's candidates, for exhi-
bition at elections.

The Eadicals resented this conduct extremely.
Ginx's Baby was brought back to the Club and
restored to favour. 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, bo benefited by the ex-
traordinary 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 Tim-
buctoo 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
honour was at stake, and the previous Fogey
G^overnment had ordered an expedition to cross
the desert and punish the sheikh. Yon 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

PARTY TACTICS.

159

ncry by
icceedcd
n to the
for exhi-

tremely.
Club and
it papers
I he was
o declare
jment on
, without
ly the ex-
ing made

iterest in
iding his
the Tim-
chief had
possessed
f danger,
t English
us Fogey
n to cross
ou would
not seen
IS good as
f 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 abori
ginal — a mucurial race, full of fire, quick-witted'
and gifted with the exuberant eloquence of
savages, but deficient in dignity and self-control.
Before any ©ne 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 orilercd all the islanders to worship. This

160

GINX'S BABY.

I i

was at first abomination to the islanders, who
fought like devils whenever they could, and
ended hy 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 con-
fiscated 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 com-
plications 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. They 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 Govern-

PARTY TACTICS.

161

'S, who
d, and
ir foes.
jiDg to
at the
cy con-
ad, and,
among
a new
1 which
see- nor
iin they
;ho com-
es owed
distant
less and
besides,
of hers,
ider the
for her.
eded by
querors,
slanders
J starved
s when a
lmI away
)pcrty to
Govern-

ment 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 thei-e 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 bo
wearisome to recount the absurdities on both
sides : the stupidity or criminal absence of tact
from time to time shown by the Home Govern-
ment — the resolve never to be quiet exliibited
by the natives, under the prompting of their
clerics. Upon

" — that common stage of novelty — "

there were ever springing up fresh difficul-
ties. Secret clubs were formed for murder and
reprisal. A body called " Yellows " had bound
themselves by private oaths to keep u}) the
memory of the religious victories of their pre-
decessors, 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 opport u

162

GINX S BABY.

nity 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 commo-
tion. Still, its general condition improved, its
farms grew prosperous, and a joint-stock com-
pany had built a mill for converting cocoanut
fibre into horse-cloths, which yielded large pro-
fits. The memory of past events might well
have been buried ; but the clerics, in the in-
terest 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 organised 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 chu .ch edifice,
remove some of the graves, and cut off a large
piece of the graveyard. Some were in favour
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 pre-
sent occupiers. These schemes were topics of
high debate, upon them the fortunes of Govern-
jnent rose and fell, and while they were agitated

0-bearers
e island.
Us. The
1 commo-
oved, its
)ck com-
cocoanut
arge pro-
ight well
1 the in-
bers, and
•f parties
lat would
erly folly

to suffer
>qiiabbles
a general
!, and to
asked to
ti edifice,
f a large
in favour
3 country
)y was "to
T the pre-

topics of
■ Govern-
) agitated

Amateur debating.

163

Ginx's Baby could have no chance of a parlia-
mentary 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 Cliarles Sterling thought the
time had come to move on behalf of" Ginx's
Baby and his fellows.

VI.— Amature Debating in a High Legislative Body.

While Sir Charles was trying to get the Gov-
ernment 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'^ho
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 aristo-
cratic sympathy on his behalf. He proposed to
send him to the Antipodes at the expense of the '
nation.

The Minister for the Accidental Accorap

am-

164

GINX S BABY.

ments of the Empire was a clever raan — 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 pro-
positions, %vas as beautiful to an inditlcrent cri-
tic as it was 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 advo-
cate in as pretty a manner the policy he was
dissecting.

Lord Munnibagge, a great authority in econ-
omic 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 labour-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 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 those periods the poorer classes
would suffer ; but trade was elastic ; and even

AMATEUR DEBATING.

1G5

—keen,
ly and
) to lead
flags on
n-illiant
I moved
it staff,
cd him
see him
le air of
3 threw
3 turned
nd's pro-
rent cri-
) had at
minister
nd advo-
Y he was

in econ-
ad never
nd away
expense
rich and
was no
)t starve
nibagge)
starving.
ss as was
re were
ade, and
r classes
and even

if it were granted that the present was a period
when employment had failed, the time was not
far off vviien 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 con-
dition of the poor. He (Lord Munnibagge)
did not credit them. He believed that the
country, though tem])orarily depressed by
tinancial colla2)scs, to be in a niost healthy
state. (Hear, hear.) It was absurd to say
otherwise, when it was shown by the Board of
Trade returir^ 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 plain-
tive outcries. (Cheers and laughter.) That the
population of a country was a great fraction of
its wealth was an elementary principle of poli-
tical economy. He thought, from the high rates
of wages, that there were not too many but too
few labourers in the country. He should oppose
the motion. (Cheers.)

Two or three noble lords repeated similar
platitudes, guarding themselves as carefully
I'rom any reference to facts, or to the question
whether high rates of wages might not be the
concomitants simply of high prices of necessa-
ries, or to the yet wider question whether colo-
nial development might not have something to
do with progress at home. The noble lord who
had rushed unprej^arcd into the arena was une-
qual to the forces marshalled against him, and
withdrew his motion.

lee

Gmx*S BABT.

Thus the pjrcat 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 proved
the futility of the Ginx's Baby Expatriation
question.

"So able an authority as Lord Munnibaggo
had established that there was no neeessitj^ for
the interference of Government in the case of
Ginx's Baby or any other babies or jiersons.
The lucid and decisive statement of the Secre-
tary 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 endea-
vour to affect the ordinary laws of free move-
ment to the Colonies." v

Surely after this the Expatriation people hid
their lights under a bushel !

The Governnlent 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. Meanwiiile Ginx's Baby once
more decided a turn in his own fate. Tired of the
slow life of the Clubs, and shivering amid the
chill indifference of his patrons, lie borrowed
without leave some clothes from an inmate's
'room, w^ith 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, 1 know not, but no attempt was
made to recover him.

FART V.

) Lords
had 80
on tho
proved
triation

nibaggo
isit}' tor
) case of
persons.
3 Socrc-
is of the
was for
1 a great
to endea-
e move-

ople hid

light for
s' debate
-)n in the
by once
edofthe
mid the
sorrowed
inmate's
rons, and
he Club
to be rid
smpt was

WHAT aiNX'S BABY DID WITH HBISKI.F.

A full-fnrmocl llorso, will in any market, bring from
twenty to a.s high as two liunilrod i'riodriclcs d'»r : auch is
his wortli to tlio world. A fuU-fdnned Man is not only worth
nothing to tho world, but tho world could aflord him a round
sum would ho simply engage to go and hang himself. —
Sautou Ki:sautus.

The Last Chapter.

OUR hero was nearly fifteen years old when
he left the Club to plunge into the world.
He was not k)ng in converting his spoils into
money, and a very short time in spending it.
Then he had to pit bis 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
here were a score kicl

'.y

l.<r

lieels at the rendezvous before him. Did he try
to learn a useful trade, thousands of adepts were
not only road}' to underbid him, but to knock
him on the head for an interloper. Through
his career of penury, ot honest and dishonest
callings, of 'scapes and captures, imprison-
ments and other punishments, a year's reading
of Metro])olitan Police lieports would furnish
the exact counterpart.

I don't know how many years after his flight
from Pall ^lall, one dim midnight, I, returning
from llichmond, lounged over Vauxhall Bridge,
listening to the low taping of the current be-
neatb. the ^rche<^ — looking above to the stars

168

GINX*S BABY.

and along tlio dark polisliod surface that reflected
a thouyand 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 — <[uickly, 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 spread-
ing out into the darkness, instantly to dissipate
and be lost for ever.

I did not then know what torm 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 Yauxhall 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, Philanthrophists, Politicians,
Papists and Protestants, Poor-Law Ministers
and '^arish Officers — while 3^ou have been theo-
nV ' ^ and discussing, debating, wrangling, legis-
la g and administering — Grood God ! gentle-
mv between you all, where has Ginx's Baby
goi a to ? ^ o J ^% >./tr

^^ w*

(

lyy

•cflcctcd
ling tho
hat was
lie hour,
ow, that

ci'OHsed
\y camo
Lood up
mingled
, slight-
i for a
the dull
, belbre
night.
id down
ought I

spread -
lisyipate

^aa that
current.
[ should
I, in the
bad the
Bridge,
s of life
>ver the

iticians,
Ministers
3n theo-
g, legis-
gontle-
s Baby

fTi €

k\J