4. PART IV.
WHAT THE CLUBS AND POLITICIANS DID WITH HIM.
I.—Moved on.
GINX'S BABY'S brothers and sisters
would have nothing to say to him. Mrs.
Ginx declared she could see in him no likeness
to her own dear lost one; and her husband
swore that the brat never was his. The couple
had latterly been pinching themselves and
their children to save enough to emigrate.
For this purpose aid and counsel were given to
them by a neighboring curate, whose name,
were my pages destined to immortality,
should be printed here in golden letters.
Rich and full will be his sheaves when many
a statesman reaps tares. Finding that a
thirteenth child was imposed on them by so
superior a force as the law of England the
Ginxes hastened their departure.
Their last night in London, towards the
small hours, Ginx, carrying our hero, went
along Birdcage Walk. He scarcely knew
where he was going, or how he was about
to dispose of his burden, but he meant to
get rid of it. On he went, here and there
met by shadowy creatures who came towards
his footsteps in the uncertain darkness,
and when they could see that he was
no quarry for them flitted away again into
the night.
He passed the dingy houses, since replaced
by the Foreign Office, across the open space
before the Horse Guards, near the house of a
popular Prime Minister, and up the broad
steps till he stood under the York Column.
The shadow of this was an inviting place, but
a policeman turning his lantern suspiciously
on the man walking about at that silent hour
with a child in his arms frustrated his wish.
Slowly Ginx tramped along Pall Mall, with
only one other creature stirring, as it seemed
for the moment—a gentleman who turned up
the steps of a large building. Seating the
child on the bottom step and telling him not
to cry, Ginx instantly crossed the road, turned
into St. James's Square, passed by the rails,
and stealing from corner to corner through
the mazes of that locality, reached home by
way of Piccadilly and Grosvenor Place.
Henceforth this history shall know him no
more.
II.-Club Ideas.
SCARCELY had the shadow of his parent
vanished in the gloom before Ginx's Baby
piped forth a lusty protest: the street rang
again. Ere long the doors at the top of the
steps swung back, and a portly form stood in
the light.
"Halloo! what's the matter?'' (This was a
general observation into space.) "Why, bless
my heart, here's a child crying on the steps!''
Another form appeared.
"Is there nobody with it? Halloo! any one
there?''
No answer came save from poor little Ginx,
but his was decided. The two servants descended
the steps and looked at the miserable
boy without touching him. Then they peered
into the darkness in hope that they might get
a glimpse of his mother or a policeman. A
rapid step sounded on the pavement and a
gentleman came up to the group.
"What have we here?'' he said gently.
"It's a child, Sir Charles, I found crying on
the steps. I expect it's a trick to get rid of
him. We are looking for a policeman to take
him away.''
"Poor little fellow,'' said Sir Charles,
stooping to take a fair look at Ginx's Baby,
"for you and such as you the policeman or
the parish officers are the national guardians,
and the prison or the poor-house the home.
. . . . Bring him into the Club, Smirke.''
The men hesitated a moment before executing
so unwonted a demand, but Sir Charles
Sterling was a man not safely to be thwarted
—a late minister and a member of the committee.
The child being carried into the
magnificent hall of the Club, stood on its
mosaic floor. From above the radiance of the
gas "sunlight'' streamed down over the marble
pillars, and glanced on gilded cornices and
panels of scagliola. A statue of the Queen
looked upon him from the niche that opened
to the dining-room; another of the great
Puritan soldier, statesman, and ruler, with his
stern massive front; and yet another, with
the strong yet gentle features of the champion
Free-Trader, seemed to regard him from their
several corners. On the walls around were
portraits of men who had striven for the
deliverance of the people from ancient yokes
and fetters. Of course Ginx's Baby did not
see all this. He, poor boy, dazed, stood with
a knuckle in his eye, while the porter,
lackeys, Sir Charles Sterling, and others
who strolled out of the reading-room, curiously
regarded him. But any one observing the
scene apart might have contrasted the place
with the child—the principles and the professions
whereof this grandeur was the monument
and consecrated tabernacle, with this solitary
atomic specimen of the material whereon
they were to work. What social utility had
resulted from the great movements initiated
by them who erected and frequented this
place? Ought they to have had, and did they
still need a complement? While wonderful
political changes had been wrought, and
benefits not to be exaggerated won for many
classes, WHAT HAD BEEN DONE FOR GINX'S
BABY?
The query would not have been very ridiculous.
He was an unit of the British Empire
—nothing could blot out that fact before
heaven! Had anything been left undone that
ought to have been done, or done that had
well been left undone, or were better to be
undone now? Of a truth that was worth a
thought.
"What's all this?'' said a big Member of
Parliament, a minister renowned for economy
in matters financial and intellectual. "What
are you doing with this youngster? I never
saw such an irregularity in a Club in my
life.''
"If you saw it oftener you would think
more about it,'' said Sir Charles Sterling.
"We found him on the steps. I think he was
asking for you, Glibton.''
This sally turned a laugh against the
minister.
"Well,'' said another, "he has come to the
wrong quarter if he wants money.''
"I shouldn't wonder,'' said a third, "if he
were one of the new messengers at the Office
of Popular Edifices. Glibton is reducing their
staff.''
"If that's the case I think you haved reached
the minimum here, Glibton,'' cried Sir Charles.
"Can't the country afford a livery?''
"Bother you all,'' replied the Secretary,
who was secretly pleased to be quizzed for his
peculiarities—"tell us what this means.
Whose `lark' is it?''
"No lark at all,'' said Sterling. "Here is
a problem for you and all of us to solve.
This forlorn object is representative, and
stands here to-night preaching us a serious
sermon. He was deserted on the Club steps
—left there, perhaps, as a piece of clever
irony; he might be son to some of us.
What's your name, my boy?''
Ginx's Baby managed to say "Dunno!''
"Ask him if he has any name?'' said an
Irish ex-member, with a grave face.
Ginx's Baby to this question responded
distinctly "No.''
"No name,'' said the humorist; "then the
author of his being must be Wilkie Collins.''
Everybody laughed at this indifferent pleasantry
but our hero. His bosom began to
heave ominously.
"What's to be done with him?''
"Send him to the workhouse.''
"Send him to the d—'' (there may be
brutality among the gods and goddesses).
"Give him to the porter.''
"No thank you, sir,'' said he, promptly.
The gentlemen were turning away, when
Sir Charles stopped them.
"Look here!'' he said, taking the boy's
arm and baring it, "this boy can hardly be
called a human being. See what a thin arm
he has—how flaccid and colorless the flesh
seems—what an old face!—and I can scarcely
feel any pulse. Good heavens, get him some
wine! A few hours will send him to the
d— sure enough. . . . . What are we to do
for him, Glibton? I say again, he is only part
of a great problem. There must be hundreds
of thousands growing up like this child; and
what a generation to contemplate in all its
relations and effects!''
The gentlemen were dashed by his earnestness.
"Oh, you're exaggerating,'' said Glibton;
"there can't be such widespread misery.
Why, if there were, the people would be
wrecking our houses.''
"Ah!'' replied the other, sadly, "will you
wait to be convinced by that sort of thing
before you believe in their misery? I assure
you what I say is true. I could bring you a
hundred clergymen to. testify to it to-morrow
morning.''
"God forbid!'' said Glibton. "Good-night.''
The right honorable gentleman extinguished
the subject in his own little brain
with his big hat; but everywhere else the
sparks are still aglow, and he, with all like
him, may wake up suddenly, as frightened
women in the night; to find themselves
environed in the red glare of a popular
conflagration. Well for them then if they are
not in charge of the State machinery. What
an hour will that be for hurrying to and fro
with water-pipes and buckets, when proper
forethought, diligence, and sacrifice would
have made the building fireproof.
III.—A thorough-paced Reformer—if not a Revolutionary.
BY the kindness and influence of Sir Charles
Sterling, Ginx's Baby that night, and long
after, found shelter in the Radical Club. He
gave rise to a discussion in the smoking-room
next evening that ought to be chronicled.
Several members of the committee supported
his benefactor in urging that the child should
be adopted by the Club, as a pledge of their
resolve to make the questions of which he
seemed to be the embodied emblem subjects
of legislative action. Others said that those
questions being, in their view, social and not
political, were not proper ones to give impulse
to a party movement, and that the entertainment
in the Club of this foundling would
be a gross irregularity: they did not want
samples of the material respecting which they
were theorizing. To some of the latter Sir
Charles had been insisting that, whether they
kept the child or not, they could not stifle the
questions excited by his condition.
"You may delay, but you cannot dissipate
them. We are filling up our sessions with
party struggles, theoretic discussions, squabbles
about foreign politics, debates on political
machinery, while year by year the
condition of the people is becoming more
invidious and full of peril. Social and political
reform ought to be linked; the people on
whom you confer new political rights cannot
enjoy them without health and well-being.''
"But all our legislation is directed to
that!'' exclaimed Mr. Joshua Hale. "Reform,
Free Trade, Free Corn—have these not
enhanced the wealth of the people?''
"Partially; yet there are classes unregenerated
by their reviving influences. Free trade
cannot insure work, nor can free corn provide
food for every citizen.''
"Nor any other legislation: let us be
practical. I own there is much to be done. I
have often stated my `platform.' We must
clip the enormous expenditure on soldiers
and ships; reduce our overweening army of
diplomatic spies and busybodies; abstain
from meddling in everybody's quarrels; redeem
from taxation the workman's necessaries—
a free breakfast-table; peremptorily
legislate against the custom of primogeniture;
encourage the distribution and transfer of
land; and, under the ægis of the ballot,
protect from the tyranny of the landlord and
employer their tenants and workmen.''
"Very good, perhaps, all of them,'' replied
Sir Charles, "but some not at the moment
possible, and all together are not exhaustive.
Why do you not go to the bottom of social
needs? You say nothing about Health legislation—
are you indifferent to the sanitary
condition of the people? You have not hinted
at Education—Waste Lands—Emigration—''
"Oh! I am opposed to that altogether.''
"I forgot, you are a manufacturer; yet
the last man of whom I should believe that
selfishness had warped the judgment. You
have done and endured more than any living
statesman for the advantage of your fellow-citizens, so that I will not cast at you the
aspersion of class-blindness. Still, I can
scarcely think you have looked at this matter
in the pure light of patriotism, and not within
the narrow scope of trade interests.''
"Quite unjust. Our best economists
reprehend the policy of depleting our labor-market.
Emigration is a timely remedy for
adversity and to be very sparingly used.
Labor is our richest vein—''
"We may have too much of it. Take it as
a fact that you now have more than you can
use, and the unemployed part is starving;
what will you do with them?''
"That is a mere temporary and casual
depression, to which all classes are liable.''
"But,'' said Sir Charles, "which none can
so ill bear. Nay—what if it is permanent?
You look to increased trade. Do you suppose
we are to retain our manufacturing
pre-eminence when every country, new and
old, is competing with us? Can our trade,
I ask you honestly to consider, increase at
the rate of our population? Besides, for
heaven's sake, look at the thing as a man.
Grant that we have a hundred thousand men
out of work, and hundreds of thousands more
dependent on them—do you think it no small
thing that the vast mass should be left for
one, two, three years seething in sorrow and
distress, while they are waiting for trade!
By the time that comes they may have gone
beyond the hope of rescue. Ah! if an elastic
trade comes back to-morrow, you can never
make those people what they were; ought
we not to have forecast that they should not
be what they are? But I contend that
depression has become chronic, the poverty
more wide-spread and persistent—how then
shall we, who represent these classes among
the rest, face the prospect?''
Here interposed a gentleman high in office,
a pure, keen, rigid economist of the highest
intellectual and political rank.
"My dear Sterling, pardon me if I say you
are talking wildly. Perhaps you don't see
that you are verging on rank communism.
The working of economic laws can be as
infallibly projected as a solar eclipse. You
can secure no class from periodic calamity,
and so regulate laws of supply and demand
by guiding-wheels of legislation and taxation
as to save every man from penury. You wish
us to send away our bone and sinew because
we have no present employment for it, and
next year, or the year after, under a recovered
trade you will be wringing your hands
and cursing the folly that prompted you to
do it.''
"I should be too glad of the opportunity,''
replied Sir Charles, sturdily, "but in truth
there is an incubus of excessive numbers that
no revival of trade will provide for, even if it
is beyond our extremest hopes, and I for one
will not be guilty of the inhumanity of keeping
fellow-creatures in misery till we can find
a use for them. You have forgotten that
there are other economic laws besides those
you glance at. Several millions of acres of
unoccupied land belonging in a sense to the
people of this country are to be kept untilled
in defiance of the plainest policy that nature
and God have indicated to us, namely, that
labor should come in contact with land!
For want of this conjunction our colonies
are to be checked, while at home miserable
millions are gaping for work and food.''
"Oh! let them take themselves out. There
are too many going already. They will
follow natural laws, and where labor is
required thither the stream will flow.''
"Mere surface talk, my clever friend,''
replied the other, "the men who are trooping
out at their own expense are our most
sober, careful, and energetic workmen. Else
they could not go. They go because here
so many indifferent ones are weighing down
their shoulders. And where do most of them
go to? Not to strengthen and develop our
colonies, but the United States—a not always
friendly people, and just now your free-trader's
bugbear!''
"Well, well,'' said the minister, "drop that
question. It's utterly impracticable at this
time. We couldn't entertain the demand for
State-help for an instant. I tell you again
you're a Fourierite. You virtually propose
to put your hand in the pocket of the upper
classes to pay all sorts of expenses for the
lower, ''
"You may call me a communist if you
please,'' replied Sir Charles Sterling; "I do
not shrink from shadows. Perhaps I am in
favor of something nearer to communism
than our present form of society. One thing
I am clear about: no state of society is
healthy wherein every man does not own
himself to be the guardian of the interests of
the community as well as his own—does not
see that he is bound, morally and as a matter
of public policy, to add to his neighbor's
well-being as well as his own. Does not society,
by its protection and aggregation, make
it possible for the rich to grow rich, the
genius and the ambitious man to pursue their
aims, the merchant to gather his vails, the
noble to enjoy his lands? For these privileges
there is more or less to pay, and it may be
that the proper proportion which the capable
classes should be called upon to contribute to
the common weal has never been correctly
adjusted. The first fruit of practical
Christianity was community of goods, and but for
human selfishness we might hope for an
Eutopian era—when, while it should be ruled
that if a man would not work neither should
he eat, there should also be brought home to
every man the care of his poorer, or weaker,
or less competent brother. I never expect to
see that. I do hope to see the men of greatest
ability pay more generously for the privileges
they enjoy. The best policy for them too.
The better the condition of the general community
the better for themselves. You cannot
alarm me with epithets. But these views are
happily not essential to the support of the
Emigration policy.''
"O dear! O dear! mad as a March hare!''
cried the minister, as he stumped from the
room.
"Sterling is a good fellow,'' said he to a
colleague with whom he walked down Pall
Mall, "and a thorough-paced Liberal. Besides,
he carries great weight in the House.
But he is an enthusiast, and, therefore, not
always quite practical.''
By practical the minister meant, not that
which might well and to advantage be done if
good and able men would resolve to do it,
spite of all hindrances, but that which, upon
a cunning review of party balances and a
judicious probing of public opinion, seemed
to be a policy fit for his party to pursue.
The first, original and masterly statesmen
are needed to initiate and perform—the other
is simply the art of a genius who knows how
most adroitly to manipulate people and
circumstances.
IV.—Very Broad Views.
SIR CHARLES STERLING, Mr. Joshua Hale,
and others continued the conversation interrupted
by the minister's exit. What was to
be done with Ginx's Baby? In the great
dissected map of society what niches were cut
out for him and all like him to fill? Most of
the politicians were for leaving that to himself
to find out. The term "law of supply and
demand'' was freely bandied between them,
as it is in many journals nowadays, with little
object save to shut up avenues of discussion
by a high-sounding phrase.
Then of these "statesmen,'' most clung, if
not to self-interest, to personal crotchets.
What is more darling to a man than the child
of his intellect or fancy? How the poor
poetaster hugs his tawdry verses as if they
were the imperial ornaments of genius! Just
in the same way does the politician love the
policies himself hath devised, pressing them
forward at all hazards, while he is blind to the
utility of others. This is the basis of that
aspect of selfishness which often mars in the
approbation of a country a really honest
statesmanship—an egotistic tenacity of one's
own creature as the best, which yet is not
the criminal selfishness of ambition. Still
that egotism is not seldom disastrous to the
people's interests. While these statesmen
nursed their own bantlings and held them up
to national notice, they were apt to avoid or
too lightly regard the views of men as able
as themselves. For instance, Joshua Hale—
who is far above these remarks generally—
had put forth a scheme for the solution of the
St. Helena property question—very likely a
good one, albeit revolutionary, and nothing
would convince him that any other could
succeed. He wished every man in St. Helena
—a turbulent adjunct of the British Empire—
to be a landowner, and I do think, neither
desired nor hoped that any man in that island
should be happy until he was one. Yet there
were other men ready to offer simpler remedies,
and to prove that if every man in St.
Helena became a landowner it would become
a very hell upon earth, and more unmanageable
than it was before. If these gentlemen do
not sacrifice their pet fancies for the sake of a
settlement, what will become of St. Helena?
Just now they were discussing Ginx's Baby.
One thought that repeal of the Poor-Laws and
a new system of relief would reach his case
another saw the root of the Baby's sorrow
in Trades' Unions; a third propounded coöperative
manufactures; a fourth suggested
that a vast source of income lay untouched in
the seas about the kingdom, which swarmed
with porpoises, and showed how certain parts
of these animals were available for food,
others for leather, others for a delicious oil
that would be sweeter and more pleasant
than butter; a fifth desired a law to repress
the tendency of Scotch peers to evict tenants
and convert arable lands into sheep-walks
and deer-forests; a sixth maintained that
there were waste lands in the kingdom of
capacity to support hungry millions. In fact
earth, heaven, and seas were to be regenerated
by Act of Parliament for the benefit
of Ginx's Baby and the people of England.
Sir Charles listened impatiently, and at last
burst forth again.
He said: "When you consider it, what
we are all trying to do nowadays is—vulgarly—
to improve the breed; but we go to
work in a round-about way. At the outset
we are met by the depreciated state of part
of the existing generation; and one problem
is to prevent these depreciated people
from increasing, or to get them to increase
healthily. No one seems to have gone
directly to such a problem as that. The
difficulties to be faced are tremendous. Your
dirtiest British youngster is hedged round
with principles of an inviolable liberty and
rights of Habeas Corpus. You let his father
and mother, or any one who will save you
the trouble of looking after him, mould him
in his years of tenderness as they please.
If they happen to leave him a walking invalid,
you take him into the poorhouse; if
they bring him up a thief, you whip him
and keep him at high cost at Millbank or
Dartmoor; if his passions, never controlled,
break out into murder and rape, you may
hang him, unless his crime has been so
atrocious as to attract the benevolent interest
of the Home Secretary; if he commit
suicide, you hold a coroner's inquest, which
also costs money; and however he dies you
give him a deal coffin and bury him. Yet
I may prove to you that this being, whom
you treat like a dog at a fair, never had
a day's—no, nor an hour's—contact with
goodness, purity, truth, or even human
kindness; never had an opportunity of
learning anything better. What right have
you then to hunt him like a wild beast,
and kick him and whip him, and fetter
him and hang him by expensive complicated
machinery, when you have done
nothing to teach him any of the duties of
a citizen?''
"Stop, stop, Sir Charles! you are too
virulent. There are endless means of improving
your lad—charities without number—''
"Yes, that will never reach him.''
"Never mind, they may, you know. Industrial
schools, reformatories, asylums, hospitals,
Peabody-buildings, poor-laws. Everybody
is working to improve the condition of
the poor man. Sanitary administration goes
to his house and makes it habitable.''
"Very,'' interjected Sir Charles Sterling,
dryly.
"Factory laws protect and educate factory
children—''
"They don't educate in one case out of
ten. They don't feed them, clothe them,
give them amusement and cultivation, do
they?''
"Certainly not—that would be ridiculous.''
"Why, the question is whether that would
be ridiculous!'' replied Sir Charles. "I do
not say it can be done, but in order to transform
the next generation, what we should
aim at is to provide substitutes for bad
homes, evil training, unhealthy air, food and
dulness, and terrible ignorance, in happier
scenes, better teaching, proper conditions
of physical life, sane amusements, and a
higher cultivation. I dare say you would
think me a lunatic if I proposed that Government
should establish music-halls and gymnasia
all over the country; but you, Mr.
Fissure, voted for the Baths and Washhouses.''
"Who's to pay for all this?'' asked Mr.
Fissure, pertinently.
"The State, which means society, the
whole of which is directly interested. I tell
you a million of children are crying to us
to set them free from the despotism of a
crime and ignorance protected by law.''
"That is striking; but you are treading
on delicate ground. The liberty of the
subject—''
"Exactly what I expected you to say.
These words can be used in defence of
almost any injustice and tyranny. Such
terms as `political economy,' `communism,'
`socialism,' are bandied about in the same
way. Yet propositions coming fairly within
these terms are often mentioned with approval
by the very persons who cast them
at you. In a report of a recent Royal Commission
I find that one of the Commissioners
is quite as revolutionary as I am. He says
it is right by law to secure that no
child shall be cruelly treated or mentally
neglected, over-worked or under-educated.
Some people would call that communism, I
fancy. But I think him to be correct as a
political economist in that broad proposition.
Why? Because a child's relation to the State
is wider, more permanent, and more important
than his relation to his parents. If he is
in danger of being depreciated and damned
for good citizenship, the State must rescue
him.''
"A paternal and maternal government
together!'' cries Lord Namby—"a government
of nurses. You know I should like to
stop the production of children among the
lower orders. Your propositions are far in
advance of my radicalism. The State must
sometimes interfere between parent and child;
for instance, in education or protection from
cruelty. But, if I understand you, you actually
contemplate a general refining and
elevation of the working class by legislative
means.''
"Assuredly: I should aim to cultivate their
morals, refine their tastes, manners, habits.
I wish to lift from them that ever-depressing
sense of hopelessness which keeps them in the
dust.''
"So do most men; but you must do that
by personal and private influences, not by
State enactments. How would you do it?''
"How? I think I could draw up a programme.
For instance: Expatriate a million
to reduce the competition that keeps poor
devils on half-rations or sends them to the
poorhouse; Take all the sick, maimed, old, and
incapable poor into workhouses managed by
humane men and not by ghouls; Forbid such
people to marry and propagate weakness;
Legislate for compulsory improvements of
workmen's dwellings, and, if needful, lend
the money to execute it; Extend and enforce
the health laws; Open free libraries and places
of rational amusement with an imperial
bounty through the country; Instead of
spending thousands on
dilettanti sycophants
at one end of the metropolis, distribute your
art and amusement to the kingdom at large;
The rich have their museums, libraries, and
clubs, provide them for the poor; Establish
temporary homes for lying-in women; Multiply
your baths and washhouses till there is
no excuse for a dirty person; Educate; Provide
day schools for every proper child, and
industrial or reformatory schools for every
improper one; Open advanced High Schools
for the best pupils, and found Scholarships
to the Universities; Erect other
schools for technical training; Offer to teach
trades and agriculture to all comers for nothing—
you would soon neutralize your bugbear
of trades-unionism; Teach morals, teach
science, teach art, teach them to amuse themselves
like men and not like brutes. In a
land so wealthy the programme is not
impracticable, though severe. As the end to be
attained is the welfare of future generations,
no good reason could be urged why they
should not contribute towards the cost of it
—a better debt to leave to posterity than the
incubus of an irrational war.''
Will any sane political practitioner wonder
to be told that at the end of this harangue
the smoking-room party broke up, and that
some, as they laughed good-humoredly over
Sterling's
egregia, recalled the number of
glasses of inspirited seltzer swallowed by the
orator? He was so far in advance of the most
radical reformer that there was no hope of
overtaking him for an era or two: so they
determined to fancy they had left him behind.
V.—Party Tactics—and Political Obstructions to Social
Reform.
IN the Club our hero revelled awhile under
the protection of Sir Charles Sterling, and the
petting of peers, Members of Parliament, and
loungers who swarm therein. Certain gentlemen
of Stock Exchange mannerism and
dressiness gave the protégé the go-by, and
even sneered at those who noticed him with
kindness. But then these are of the men with
whom every question is checked by money,
and is balanced on the pivot of profit and
loss. I dare say some of them thought the
worse of Judas only because he had made so
small a gain out of his celebrated transaction.
To foster Ginx's Baby in the Club, as a recognition
of the important questions surrounding
him, though these questions involved hundreds
of thousands of other cases, was to them
ridiculous. Of far greater consequence was
it in their eyes to settle a dispute between
two extravagant fools at Constantinople
and Cairo, and quicken the sluggishness of
Turkish consols or Egyptian 9 per cents. I
do not cast stones at them; every man must
look at a thing with his own eyes.
But it was curious to note how the Baby's
fortunes shifted in the Club. There were times
—when he was a pet chucked under chin by the
elder stagers, favored with a smile from a
Cabinet Minister, and now and then blessed
with a nod from Mr. Joshua Hale. Then,
again, every one seemed to forget him, and he
was for months left unnoticed to the chance
kindness of the menials until some case
similar to his own happening to evoke discussion
in the press, there would be a general
inquiry for him. The porter, Mr. Smirke,
had succeeded, by means of a detective, in
discovering the boy's name, but his parents
were then half-way to Canada.
The members of the Fogey Club opposite,
hearing that so interesting a foundling was
being cherished by their opponents, politely
asked leave to examine him, and he occasionally
visited them. They treated him kindly
and discussed his condition with earnestness.
The leaders of the party debated whether he
might not with advantage be taken out of
their opponents' hands. Some thought that
a judicious use of him might win popularity;
but others objected that it would be perilous
for them to mix themselves up with so doleful
an interest. In the result the Fogies tipped
young Ginx, but did not commit themselves
for or against him. Thus a long time elapsed,
and our hero had grown old enough to be a
page. He had received food, clothing, and
goodwill, but no one had thought of giving
him an education. Sometimes he became
obstreperous. He played tricks with the
Club cutlery, and diverted its silver to
improper uses; he laid traps for upsetting
aged and infirm legislators; he tried the
coolness of the youngest and best-natured
Members of Parliament by popping up in
strange places and exhibiting unseemly
attitudes. At length, by unanimous consent,
he was decreed to be a nuisance, and a few
days would have revoked his license at the
Club.
No sooner did the Fogies get wind of
this than they manœuvred to get Ginx's
Baby under their own management. They
instructed their "organs,'' as they called them,
to pipe to popular feeling on the disgraceful
apathy of the Radicals in regard to the
foundling. They had him waylaid and treated
to confectionery by their emissaries; and once
or twice succeeded in abducting him and
sending him down to the country with their
party's candidates, for exhibition at elections.
The Radicals resented this conduct
extremely. Ginx's Baby was brought back to
the Club and restored to favor. The Government
papers were instructed to detail how
much he was petted and talked about by the
party; to declare how needless was the
popular excitement on his behalf; and to
prove that he must, without any special
legislation, be benefited by the extraordinary
organic changes then being made in the
constitution of the country.
Sir Charles Sterling resumed his interest in
the boy. He had been gallantly aiding his
party in other questions. There was the
Timbuctoo question. A miserable desert
chief had shut up a wandering Englishman,
not possessed of wit enough to keep his
head out of danger. There was a general
impression that English honor was at stake,
and the previous Fogey Government had
ordered an expedition to cross the desert and
punish the sheikh. You would never believe
what it cost if you had not seen the bill. Ten
millions sterling was as good as buried in
the desert, when one-tenth of it would have
saved a hundred thousand people from starvation
at home, and one-hundredth part of
it would have taken the fetters off the hapless
prisoner's feet.
There was the St. Helena question always
brooding over Parliament. St. Helena was
a constituent part of the British Empire.
Every patriot agreed that the Empire without
it would be incomplete; and was so far
right that its subtraction would have left the
Empire by so much less. Most of its inhabitants
were aboriginal—a mercurial race,
full of fire, quick-witted, and gifted with the
exuberant eloquence of savages, but deficient
in dignity and self-control. Before any one
else had been given them by Providence to
fight, they slaughtered and ravaged one another.
Our intrusive British ancestors stepped
upon the island, and, being strong men,
mowed down the islanders like wheat, and
appropriated the lands their swords had
cleared. Still the aborigines held out in
corners, and defied the conquerors. The
latter ground them down, confiscated the
property of their half-dozen chiefs, and
distributed it among themselves. By way of
showing their imperial imperiousness, they
built over some ruins left by their devastations
a great church, in which they ordered
all the islanders to worship. This was at
first abomination to the islanders, who fought
like devils whenever they could, and ended by
accepting the religion of their foes. But the
conquerors, afterwards choosing to change
their own faith, resolved that the islanders
should do so too. Forthwith they confiscated
the big church and burying-ground,
and, distributing part of the land and
spoils among their most prominent scamps,
erected a new edifice of quite a different
character, in which the natives swore they
could neither see nor hear, and their own
clerics warned them they would certainly be
damned. To make the complications more
intricate, these clerics owed allegiance to an
ancient woman in a distant country, who had
all the meddlesomeness and petty jealousy of
her sex, and was, besides, much attached to
some clever wooers of hers, wily sinners who
covered their aims under the semblance of
ultra-extreme passion for her. The prominent
scamps died, to be succeeded by their children,
or other of the hated conquerors, from
generation to generation. The islanders went
on increasing and protesting. 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 Government had again and again been
obliged to assist these people with soldiers,
to provide an armed police, to shoot down
mobs, to catch a ringleader here or there and
send him to Fernando Po, or to deprive whole
villages of ordinary civil rights. Then the
yam crop failed, and nearly half the people
left the island and crossed the seas, where
they continued to hate and to plot against
those whose misfortune it had been to get a
legacy of the island from their fathers. It
would be wearisome to recount the absurdities
on both sides: the stupidity or criminal absence
of tact from time to time shown by the
Home Government—the resolve never to be
quiet exhibited by the natives, under the
prompting of their clerics. Upon
"—that common stage of novelty—''
there were ever springing up fresh difficulties.
Secret clubs were formed for murder and
reprisal. A body called the "Yellows'' had
bound themselves by private oaths to keep
up the memory of the religious victories of
their predecessors, and to worry the clerical
party in every possible way. Their pleasure
was to go about insanely blowing rams'-horns, carrying flags and bearing oranges in
their hands. The islanders hated oranges,
and at every opportunity cracked the skulls
of the orange-bearers with brutal weapons
peculiar to the island. These, in return,
cracked native skulls. The whole island was
in a state of perpetual commotion. Still,
its general condition improved, its farms
grew prosperous, and a joint-stock company
had built a mill for converting cocoanut
fibre into horse-cloths, which yielded
large profits. The memory of past events
might well have been buried; but the clerics,
in the interest of the old woman, fanned the
embers, and the infamous bidding for popularity
of parties at home served to keep alive
passions that would naturally have died out.
Besides, latterly folly had been too organized
on both sides to suffer oblivion. Everybody
was tired of the squabbles of St.
Helena. At length there was a general
movement in the interests of peace, and to
pacify the islanders Parliament was asked to
pull down the wings of the old church edifice,
remove some of the graves, and cut off a large
piece of the graveyard. Some were in favor
also of dividing all the farms in the country
among the aborigines, but the difficulty was
to know how at the same time to satisfy the
present occupiers. These schemes were topics
of high debate, upon them the fortunes of
Government rose and fell, and while they
were agitated Ginx's Baby could have no
chance of a parliamentary hearing.
Many other matters of singular indifference
had eaten up the legislative time; but at last
the increasing number of wretched infants
throughout the country began to alarm the
people, and Sir Charles Sterling thought the
time had come to move on behalf of Ginx's
Baby and his fellows.
VI.—Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body.
WHILE Sir Charles was trying to get the
Government to "give him a night'' to debate
the Ginx's Baby case, and while associations
were being formed in the metropolis for
disposing of him by expatriation or otherwise,
a busy peer, without notice to anybody,
suddenly brought the subject before the
House of Lords. As he had never seen the
Baby, and knew nothing or very little about
him, I need scarcely report the elaborate
speech in which he asked for aristocratic
sympathy on his behalf. He proposed to
send him to the Antipodes at the expense
of the nation.
The Minister for the Accidental
Accompaniments of the Empire was a clever man
—keen, genial, subtle, two-edged, a gentlemanly
and not thorough disciple of Machiavel;
able to lead parliamentary forlorn hopes and
plant flags on breaches, or to cover retreats
with brilliant skirmishing; deft, but never
deep; much moved too by the opinions of his
permanent staff. These on the night in question
had plied him well with hackneyed objections;
but to see him get up and relieve
himself of them—the air of originality, the
really original air he threw around them;
the absurd light which he turned full on the
weaknesses of his noble friend's propositions,
was as beautiful to an indifferent critic as it
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
advocate in as pretty a manner the policy
he was dissecting.
Lord Munnibagge, a great authority in
economic matters, said that a weaker case
had never been presented to Parliament.
To send away Ginx's Baby to a colony at
imperial expense was at once to rob the
pockets of the rich and to decrease our
labor-power. There was no necessity for
it. Ginx's Baby could not starve in a
country like this. He (Lord Munnibagge)
had never heard of a case of a baby starving.
There was no such wide-spread distress as
was represented by the noble lord. There
were occasional periods of stagnation in
trade, and no doubt in these periods the
poorer classes would suffer; but trade was
elastic; and even if it were granted that
the present was a period when employment
had failed, the time was not far off when
trade would recuperate. (Cheers.) Ginx's
Baby and all other babies would not then
wish to go away. People were always
making exaggerated statements about the
condition of the poor. He (Lord Munnibagge)
did not credit them. He believed
the country, though temporarily depressed
by financial collapses, to be in a most healthy
state. (Hear, hear.) It was absurd to say
otherwise, when it was shown by the Board
of Trade returns that we were growing richer
every day. (Cheers.) Of course Ginx's Baby
must be growing richer with the rest. Was
not that a complete answer to the noble lord's
plaintive outcries? (Cheers and laughter.)
That the population of a country was a great
fraction of its wealth was an elementary principle
of political economy. He thought, from
the high rates of wages, that there were not
too many but too few laborers in the country.
He should oppose the motion. (Cheers.)
Two or three noble lords repeated similar
platitudes, guarding themselves as carefully
from any reference to facts, or to the question
whether high rates of wages might not
be the concomitants simply of high prices
of necessaries, or to the yet wider question
whether colonial development might not have
something to do with progress at home. The
noble lord who had rushed unprepared into
the arena was unequal to the forces marshalled
against him, and withdrew his motion.
Thus the great debate collapsed. The
Lords were relieved that an awkward question
had so easily been shifted. The newspapers
on the ministerial side declared that
this debate had proved the futility of the
Ginx's Baby Expatriation question.
"So able an authority as Lord Munnibagge
had established that there was no
necessity for the interference of Government
in the case of Ginx's Baby or any other
babies or persons. The lucid and decisive
statement of the Secretary for the Accidental
Accompaniments of the Empire had shown
how impossible it was for the Imperial
Government to take part in a great scheme
of Expatriation; how impolitic to endeavor
to affect the ordinary laws of free movement
to the Colonies.''
Surely after this the Expatriation people
hid their lights under a bushel!
The Government refused to find a night for
Sir Charles Sterling, and after the Lords'
debate he did not see his way to force a
motion in the Lower House. Meanwhile
Ginx's Baby once more decided a turn in his
own fate. Tired of the slow life of the Club,
and shivering amid the chill indifference
of his patrons, he borrowed without leave
some clothes from an inmate's room, with a
few silver forks and spoons, and decamped.
Whether the baronet and the Club were bashful
of public ridicule or glad to be rid of the
charge, I know not, but no attempt was made
to recover him.