1. PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM.
I.—Ab initio.
THE name of the father of Ginx's Baby
was Ginx. By a not unexceptional
coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The
gender of Ginx's Baby was masculine.
On the day when our hero was born, Mr.
and Mrs. Ginx were living at Number Five,
Rosemary Street, in the City of Westminster.
The being then and there brought into the
world was not the only human entity to
which the title of "Ginx's Baby'' was or
had been appropriate. Ginx had been married
to Betsy Hicks at St. John's, Westminster,
on the twenty-fifth day of October,
18—, as appears from the "marriage lines''
retained by Betsy Ginx, and carefully collated
by me with the original register. Our
hero was their thirteenth child. Patient
inquiry has enabled me to verify the following
history of their propagations. On July the
twenty-fifth, the year after their marriage,
Mrs. Ginx was safely delivered of a girl. No
announcement of this appeared in the newspapers.
On the tenth of April following, the
whole neighborhood, including Great Smith
Street, Marsham Street, Great and Little
Peter Streets, Regent Street, Horseferry Road,
and Strutton Ground, was convulsed by the
report that a woman named Ginx had given
birth to "a triplet,'' consisting of two girls
and a boy. The news penetrated to Dean's
Yard and the ancient school of Westminster.
The Dean, Who accepted nothing on trust,
sent to verify the report, his messenger bearing
a bundle of baby-clothes from the Dean's
wife, who thought that the mother could
scarcely have provided for so large an addition
to her family. The schoolboys, on their
way to the play-ground at Vincent Square,
slyly diverged to have a look at the curiosity,
paying sixpence a head to Mrs. Ginx's friend
and crony, Mrs. Spittal, who pocketed the
money, and said nothing about it to the sick
woman.
This birth was announced in all the
newspapers throughout the kingdom, with the
further news that Her Majesty the Queen had
been graciously pleased to forward to Mrs.
Ginx the sum of three pounds.
What could have possessed the woman I
can't say, but about a twelvemonth after,
Mrs. Ginx, with the assistance of two doctors
hastily fetched from the hospital by her
frightened husband, nearly perished in a
fresh effort of maternity. This time two sons
and two daughters fell to the lot of the happy
pair. Her Majesty sent four pounds. But
whatever peace there was at home, broils
disturbed the street. The neighbors, who
had sent for the police on the occasion, were
angered by a notoriety which was becoming
uncomfortable to them, and began to testify
their feelings in various rough ways. Ginx
removed his family to Rosemary Street,
where, up to a year before the time when
Ginx's Baby was born, his wife had continued
to add to her offspring until the tale
reached one dozen. It was then that Ginx
affectionately but firmly begged that his wife
would consider her family ways, since, in all
conscience, he had fairly earned the blessedness
of the man who hath his quiver full of
them; and frankly gave her notice that, as
his utmost efforts could scarcely maintain
their existing family, if she ventured to present
him with any more, either single, or
twins, or triplets, or otherwise, he would
most assuredly drown him, or her, or them
in the water-butt, and take the consequences.
II.—Home, sweet Home!
THE day on which Ginx uttered his awful
threat was that next to the one wherein
number twelve had drawn his first breath.
His wife lay on the bed which, at the outset
of wedded life, they had purchased secondhand
in Strutton Ground for the sum of nine
shillings and sixpence. Second-hand! It had
passed through, at least, as many hands
as there were afterwards babies born upon
it. Twelfth or thirteenth hand, a vagabond,
botched bedstead, type of all the furniture
in Ginx's rooms, and in numberless
houses through the vast city. Its dimensions
were 4 feet 6 inches by 6 feet. When Ginx,
who was a stout navvy, and Mrs. Ginx, who
was, you may conceive, a matronly woman,
were in it, there was little vacant space about
them. Yet, as they were forced to find resting-places for all the children, it not seldom
happened that at least one infant was perilously
wedged between the parental bodies;
and latterly they had been so pressed for
room in the household that two younglings
were nestled at the foot of the bed. Without
foot-board or pillows, the lodgment of these
infants was precarious, since any fatuous
movement of Ginx's legs was likely to expel
them head-first. However they were safe,
for they were sure to fall on one or other of
their brothers or sisters.
I shall be as particular as a valuer, and
describe what I have seen. The family sleeping-room measured 13 feet 6 inches by 14 feet.
Opening out of this, and again on the landing
of the third-floor, was their kitchen and
sitting-room; it was not quite so large as the
other. This room contained a press, an old
chest of drawers, a wooden box once used for
navvy's tools, three chairs, a stool, and some
cooking utensils. When, therefore, one little
Ginx had curled himself up under a blanket on
the box, and three more had slipped beneath
a tattered piece of carpet under the table,
there still remained five little bodies to be
bedded. For them an old straw mattress,
limp enough to be rolled up and thrust under
the bed, was at night extended on the floor.
With this, and a patchwork quilt, the five
were left to pack themselves together as
best they could. So that, if Ginx, in some
vision of the night, happened to be angered,
and struck out his legs in navvy fashion, it
sometimes came to pass that a couple of
children tumbled upon the mass of infantile
humanity below.
Not to be described are the dinginess of
the walls, the smokiness of the ceilings, the
grimy windows, the heavy, ever-murky
atmosphere of these rooms. They were 8 feet
6 inches in height, and any curious statist
can calculate the number of cubic feet of air
which they afforded to each person.
The other side of the street was 14 feet
distant. Behind, the backs of similar tenements
came up black and cowering over the little
yard of Number Five. As rare, in the well
thus formed, was the circulation of air as that
of coin in the pockets of the inhabitants. I
have seen the yard; let me warn you, if you
are fastidious, not to enter it. Such of the
filth of the house as could not, at night, be
thrown out of the front windows, was there
collected, and seldom, if ever, removed. What
became of it? What becomes of countless
such accretions in like places? Are a large
proportion of these filthy atoms absorbed by
human creatures living and dying, instead of
being carried away by scavengers and inspectors?
The forty-five big and little lodgers in
the house were provided with a single office
in the corner of the yard. It had once been
capped by a cistern, long since rotted away—
* * * * *
The street was at one time the prey of the
gas company; at another, of the drainage
contractors. They seemed to delight in turning
up the fetid soil, cutting deep trenches
through various strata of filth, and piling up
for days or weeks matter that reeked with
vegetable and animal decay. One needs not
affirm that Rosemary Street was not so called
from its fragrance. If the Ginxes and their
neighbors preserved any semblance of health
in this place, the most popular guardian on
the board must own it a miracle. They, poor
people, knew nothing of "sanitary reform,''
"sanitary precautions,'' "zymotics,''
"endemics,'' "epidemics,'' "deodorizers,'' or
"disinfectants.'' They regarded disease with
the apathy of creatures who felt it to be
inseparable from humanity, and with the
fatalism of despair.
Gin was their cardinal prescription, not for
cure, but for oblivion: "Sold everywhere.''
A score of palaces flourished within call of each
other in that dismal district—garish, rich-looking dens, drawing to the support of their
vulgar glory the means, the lives, the eternal
destinies of the wrecked masses about them.
Veritable wreckers they who construct these
haunts, viler than the wretches who place false
beacons and plunder bodies on the beach.
Bring down the real owners of these places, and
show them their deadly work! Some of them
leading Philanthropists, eloquent at Missionary
meetings and Bible Societies, paying tribute
to the Lord out of the pockets of dying
drunkards, fighting glorious battles for slaves,
and manfully upholding popular rights. My
rich publican—forgive the pun—before you pay
tithes of mint and cummin, much more before
you claim to be a disciple of a certain Nazarene,
take a lesson from one who restored
fourfold the money he had wrung from honest
toil, or reflect on the case of the man to whom
it was said, "Go sell all thou hast, and give
to the poor.'' The lips from which that
counsel dropped offered some unpleasant
alternatives, leaving out one, however, which
nowadays may yet reach you—the contempt
of your kind.
III.—Work and Ideas.
I RETURN again to Ginx's menace to his
wife, who was suckling her infant at the time
on the bed. For her he had an animal affection
that preserved her from unkindness, even
in his cups. His hand had never unmanned
itself by striking her, and rarely indeed did it
injure any one else. He wrestled not against
flesh and blood, or powers, or principalities,
or wicked spirits in high places. He struggled
with clods and stones, and primeval chaos.
His hands were horny with the fight, and his
nature had perhaps caught some of the dull
ruggedness of the things wherewith he battled.
Hard and with a will had he worked through
the years of wedded life, and, to speak him
fair, he had acted honestly, within the limits
of his knowledge and means, for the good of
his family. How narrow were those limits!
Every week he threw into the lap of Mrs.
Ginx the eighteen or twenty shillings which
his strength and temperance enabled him
continuously to earn, less sixpence reserved
for the public-house, whither he retreated
on Sundays after the family dinner. A
dozen children overrunning the space in
his rooms was then a strain beyond the endurance
of Ginx. Nor had he the heart to
try the common plan, and turn his children
out of doors on the chance of their being
picked up in a raid of Sunday School teachers.
So he turned out himself to talk with the
humbler spirits of the "Dragon,'' or listen
sleepily while alehouse demagogues prescribed
remedies for State abuses.
Our friend was nearly as guiltless of
knowledge as if Eve had never rifled the tree
whereon it grew. Vacant of policies were
his thoughts; innocent he of ideas of state-craft. He knew there was a Queen; he had
seen her. Lords and Commons were to him
vague deities possessing strange powers.
Indeed, he had been present when some of
his better-informed companions had recognized
with cheers certain gentlemen,—of
whom Ginx's estimate was expressed by a
reference to his test of superiority to himself
in that which he felt to be greatest within
him—"I could lick 'em with my little finger''
—as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and
the Prime Minister. Little recked he of their
uses or abuses. The functions of Government
were to him Asian mysteries. He only felt
that it ought to have a strong arm, like the
brawny member wherewith he preserved order
in his domestic kingdom, and therefore generally
associated Government with the Police.
In his view these were to clear away evil-doers
and leave every one else alone. The higher
objects of Government were, if at all, outlined
in the shadowiest form in his imagination.
Government imposed taxes—that he was
obliged to know. Government maintained the
parks; for that he thanked it. Government
made laws, but what they were, or with what
aim or effects made, he knew not, save only
that by them something was done to raise or
depress the prices of bread, tea, sugar, and
other necessaries. Why they should do so
he never conceived—I am not sure that he
cared. Legislation sometimes pinched him,
but darkness so hid from him the persons and
objects of the legislators that he could not
criticise the theories which those powerful
beings were subjecting to experiment at
his cost. I must, at any risk, say something
about this in a separate chapter.
IV.—Digressive, and may be skipped without mutilating
the History.
I STOP here to address any of the following
characters, should he perchance read these
memoirs:
-
You, Mr. Statesman—if there be such;
- Mr. Pseudo-Statesman, Placeman, Party
Leader, Wirepuller;
- Mr. Amateur Statesman, Dilettante Lord,
Civil Servant;
- Mr. Clubman, Littérateur, Newspaper
Scribe;
- Mr. People's Candidate, Demagogue,
Fenian Spouter;
or whoever you may be, professing to know
aught or do anything in matters of policy,
consider, what I am sure you have never
fairly weighed, the condition of a man whose
clearest notion of Government is derived from
the Police! Imagine one who had never seen
a polyp trying to construct an ideal of the
animal, from a single tentacle swinging out
from the tangle of weed in which the rest was
wrapped! How then any more can you
fancy that a man to whose sight and knowledge
the only part of government practically
exposed is the strong process of
police, shall form a proper conception of the
functions, reasons, operations, and relations
of Government; or even build up an ideal of
anything but a haughty, unreasonable,
antagonistic, tax-imposing FORCE! And how can
you rule such a being except as you rule a
dog, by that which alone he understands—
the dog-whip of the constable! Given in a
country a majority of creatures like these, and
surely despotism is its properest complement.
But when they exist, as they exist in England
to-day, in hundreds of thousands, in town
and country, think what a complication they
introduce into your theoretic free system of
government. Acts of Parliament passed by
a "freely-elected'' House of Commons, and an
hereditary House—of Lords under the threats
of freely-electing citizens, however pure in
intention and correct in principle, will not
seem to him to be the resultants of every wish
in the community so much as dictations by
superior strength. To these the obedience he
will render will not be the loving assent of his
heart, but a begrudged concession to circumstance.
Your awe-invested legislature is not
viewed as his friend and brother-helper, but
his tyrant. Therefore the most natural bent
of his workman-statesmanship—a rough,
bungling affair—will be to tame you—you who
ought to be his Counsellor and Friend. When
he finds that your legislative action exerts
upon him a repressive and restraining force
he will curse you as its author, because he
sees not the springs you are working. Should
he even be a little more advanced in knowledge
than our friend Ginx, and learn that he
helps to elect the Parliament to make laws on
behalf of himself and his fellow-citizens, he
will scarce trust the assembly which is supposed
to represent him. Will he, like a good
citizen and a politic, accept with dignity and
self-control the decision of a majority against
his prejudices: or will he not regard the whole
Wittenagemote with suspicion, contempt, or
even hatred? See him rush madly to Trafalgar
Square meetings, Hyde Park demonstrations,
perhaps to Lord George Gordon Riots, as if
there were no less perilous means of publishing
his opinions! There wily men may lead
his unconscious intellect, and stir his passions,
and direct his forces against his own—and his
children's good.
Did it ever occur to you, or any of you, how
many voters cannot read, and how many
more, though they can read, are unable to
apprehend reasons of statesmanship?—that
even newspapers cannot inform them, since
they have not the elementary knowledge
needed for the comprehension of those things
which are discussed in them; nay, that for
want of understanding the same they may
terribly distort political aims and
consequences?
Might it not be worth while for you,
gentlemen—may it not be your duty to devise
ways and means for conveying such elementary
instruction by good street-preachers on
politics and economy, or even political bible-women or colporteurs, and so to make clear to
the understanding of every voter what are the
reasons and aims of every act of Legislation,
Home Administration, and Foreign Policy?
If you do not find out some way to do this he
may turn round upon you—I hope he may—
and insist on annually-elected parliaments,
and thus oblige ambitious state-mongers, in
the rivalry of place, to come to him and
declare more often their wishes and objects.
Other attractions may be found in that solution:
such as the untying of some knots of
electoral difficulty, and removing incitements
to corruption. Ten thousand pounds for one
year's power were a high price even to a
contractor. Think then whether at any cost
some general political education must not be
attempted, since there is a spirit breathing on
the waters, and how it shall convulse them is
no indifferent matter to you or to me. Everywhere
around us are unhewn rocks stirred
with a strange motion. Leave these chaotic
fragments of humanity to be hewn into rough
shape by coarse artists seeking only a petty
profit, unhandy, immeasurably impudent; or
dress them by your teaching—teaching which
is the highest, noblest, purest, most efficient
function of Government, which ought to be the
most lofty ambition of statesmanship—to be
civic corner-stones polished after the
similitude of a palace.
V.—Reasons and Resolves.
GINX has been waiting through three chapters
to explain his truculence upon the birth of
his twelfth child. Much explanation is not
necessary. When he looked round his nest
and saw the many open mouths about him,
he might well be appalled to have another
added to them. His children were not
chameleons, yet they were already forced to
be content with a proportion of air for their
food. And even the air was bad. They
were pallid and pinched. How they were
clad will ever be a mystery, save to the poor
woman who strung the limp rags together
and Him who watched the noble patience
and sacrifice of a daily heroism. Of her own
unsatisfied cravings, and the dense motherly
horrors that sometimes brooded over her
while she nursed these infants, let me refrain
from speaking, since if as vividly depicted
as they were real, you, Madam, could not
endure to read of them. Her poor, unintelligent
mind clung tenaciously to the controverted
aphorism, "Where God sends mouths
he sends food to fill them.'' Believing that
there was a God, and that He must be kind,
she trusted in this as a truth, and perhaps
an all-seeing eye reading some quaint characters
on her simple heart, viewed them not
too nearly, but had regard to their general
import, for, as she expressed it, "Thank
God! they had always been able to get
along.''
In the rush and tumult of the world it is
likely that the summum bonum of nine-tenths
of mankind is embraced in that purely negative
happiness—to get along. Not to perish:
to open eyes, however wearily, on a new
morning: to satisfy with something, no
matter what, a craving appetite: to close
eyes at night under some shadow or shelter:
or, it may be, in certain ranks to walk
another day free from bankruptcy or arrest:
Thank Heaven, they are just able to get along!
Convinced that another infant straw would
break his back, Ginx calmly proposed to
disconcert physical, moral, and legal relations
by drowning the straw Mrs. Ginx
clinging to Number Twelve listened aghast.
If a mother can forget her sucking child she
was not that mother. The stream of her
affections, though divided into twelve rills,
would not have been exhausted in twenty-four, and her soul, forecasting its sorrow,
yearned after that nonentity Number Thirteen.
She pictured to herself the hapless
strangeling borne away from her bosom by
those strong arms, and—in fact she sobbed
so that Ginx grew ashamed, and sought to
comfort her by the suggestion that she could
not have any more. But she knew better.
VI.—The Antagonism of Law and Necessity.
IN eighteen months, notwithstanding
resolves, menaces, and prophecies, GINX'S
BABY was born. The mother hid the impending
event long, from the father. When
he came to know it, he fixed his determination
by much thought and a little extra
drinking. He argued thus: "He wouldn't
go on the parish. He couldn't keep another
youngster to save his life. He had never
taken charity and never would. There was
nothink to do with it but drown it!'' Female
friends of Mrs. Ginx bruited his intentions
about the neighborhood, so that her "time''
was watched for with interest. At last it
came. One afternoon Ginx, lounging home,
saw signs of excitement around his door in
Rosemary Street. A knot of women and
children awaited his coming. Passing through
them he soon learned what had happened.
Poor Mrs. Ginx! Without staying to think
or argue, he took up the little stranger and
bore it from the room—
"O, O, O, Ginx! Ginx!!''
She would have risen, but a strong power
called weakness pulled her back.
* * * *
The man meanwhile had reached the street.
"Here he comes! There's the baby! He's
going to do it, sure enough!'' shrieked the
women. The children stood agape. He
stopped to consider. It is very well to talk
about drowning your baby, but to do it you
need two things, water and opportunity.
Vauxhall Bridge was the nearest way to the
former, and towards it Ginx turned.
"Stop him!''
"Murder!''
"Take the child from him!'
The crowd grew larger, and impeded the
man's progress. Some of his fellow-workmen
stood by regarding the fun.
"Leave us aloan, naabors,'' shouted Ginx;
"this is my own baby, and I'll do wot I
likes with it. I kent keep it; an' if I've got
anythin' I kent keep, it's best to get rid of it,
ain't it? This child's goin' over Wauxhall
Bridge.''
But the women clung to his arms and coattails.
"Hallo! What's all this about?'' said a
sharp, strong man, well-dressed, and in good
condition, coming up to the crowd; "another
foundling! Confound the place, the very
stones produce babies. Where was it found?''
CHORUS (recognizing a deputy-relieving officer).
It warn't found at all; it's Ginx's baby.
OFFICER. Ginx's baby? Who's Ginx?
GINX. I am.
OFFICER. Well?
GINX. Well!
CHORUS. He's goin' to drown it.
OFFICER. Going to drown it? Nonsense.
GINX. I am.
OFFICER. But, bless my heart, that's
murder!
GINX. No 'tain't. I've twelve already at
home. Starvashon's sure to kill this 'un. Best
save it the trouble.
CHORUS. Take it away, Mr. Smug, he'll
kill it if you don't.
OFFICER. Stuff and nonsense! Quite contrary
to law! Why, man, you're bound to
support your child. You can't throw it off in
that way;—nor on the parish neither. Give
me your name. I must get a magistrate's
order. The act of parliament is as clear as
daylight. I had a man up under it last week.
"Whosoever shall unlawfully abandon or
expose any child, being under the age of two
years whereby the life of such child shall be
endangered or the health of such child shall
have been or shall be likely to be permanently
injured (drowning comes under that
I think) shall be
guilty of a MISDEMEANOR
and being convicted thereof shall be liable
at the discretion of the court to be
kept in
PENAL SERVITUDE for the term of three years
or to be imprisoned for any term not
exceeding two years with or without hard
labor.''
Mr. Smug, the officer, rolled out this section
in a sonorous monotone, without stops, like a
clerk of the court. It was his pride to know
by heart all the acts relating to his department,
and to bring them down upon any
obstinate head that he wished to crush.
Ginx's head, however, was impervious to an
act of parliament. In his then temper, the
Commination Service or St. Ernulphus's
curse would have been feathers to him. The
only feeling aroused in his mind by the words
of the legislature was one of resentment. To
him they seemed unjust, because they were
hard and fast, and made no allowance for
circumstances. So he said:
GINX. D— the act of parliament! What's
the use of saying I shan't abandon the child,
when I can't keep it alive?
OFFICER. But you re bound by law to keep
it alive.
GINX. Bound to keep it alive? How am I
to do it? There's the rest on 'em there
(nodding towards his house) little better nor
alive now. If that's an act of Parleyment,
why don't the act of Parleyment provide for
'em? You know what wages is, and I can't
get more than is going.
CHORUS. Yes. Why don't Parleyment provide
for 'em? You take the child, Mr. Smug
OFFICER (regardless of grammar). Me take
the child! The parish has enough to do to
take care of foundlings and children whose
parents can't or don't work. You don't
suppose we will look after the children of
those who can?
GINX. Jest so. You'll bring up bastards
and beggars' pups, but you won't help an
honest man to keep his head above water.
This child's head is goin' under water anyhow!''
—and he prepared to bolt, amid fresh
screams from the Chorus.
VII.—Malthus and Man.
TWO gentlemen, who had been observing the
excitement, here came forward.
FIRST GENTLEMAN. This is our problem
again, Mr. Philosopher.
MR. PHILOSOPHER (to Ginx). You don't
know what to do with your infant, my friend,
and you think the State ought to provide for
it? I understand you to say this is your
thirteenth child. How came you to have so
many?
This question, though put with profound
and even melancholy gravity, disconcerted
Ginx, Officer, and Chorus, who united in a
hearty outburst of laughter.
GINX. Haw, Haw, Haw! How came I to
have so many? Why my old woman's a
good un and—
In fact, after searching his mind for some
clever way of putting a comical rejoinder,
Ginx laughed boisterously. There are two
aspects of a question.
PHILOSOPHER. I am serious, my friend.
Did it never occur to you that you had no
right to bring children into the world unless
you could feed and clothe and educate them?
CHORUS. Laws a' mercy!
GINX. I'd like to know how I could help
it, naabor. I'm a married man.
PHILOSOPHER. Well, I will go further and
say you ought not to have married without
a fair prospect of being able to provide for
any contingent increase of family.
CHORUS. Laws a' mercy!
PHILOSOPHER (waxing warm). What right
had you to marry a poor woman, and then
both of you, with as little forethought as
two—a—dogs, or other brutes—to produce
between you such a multitudinous progeny—
GINX. Civil words, naabor; don't call my
family hard names.
PHILOSOPHER. Then let me say, such a
monstrous number of children as thirteen?
You knew, as you said just now, that wages
were wages and did not vary much. And
yet you have gone on subdividing your resources
by the increase of what must become
a degenerate offspring. (To the Chorus) All
you workpeople are doing it. Is it not time
to think about these things and stop the
indiscriminate production of human beings,
whose lives you cannot properly maintain?
Ought you not to act more like reflective
creatures and less like brutes? As if breeding
were the whole object of life! How
much better for you, my friend, if you had
never married at all, than to have had
the worry of a wife and children all these
years.
The philosopher had gone too far. There
were some angry murmurs among the women
and Ginx's face grew dark. He was thinking
of "all those years'' and the poor creature that
from morning to night and Sunday to Sunday,
in calm and storm, had clung to his
rough affections: and the bright eyes, and the
winding arms so often trellised over his
tremendous form, and the coy tricks and laughter
that had cheered so many tired hours. He
may have been much of a brute, but he felt
that, after all, that sort of thing was denied to
dogs and pigs. Before he could translate his
thoughts into words or acts a shrewd-looking,
curly-haired stonemason, who stood by with
his tin on his arm, cut into the discussion.
STONEMASON. Your doctrines won't go
down here, Mr. Philosopher. I've 'eard of
them before. I'd just like to ask you what a
man's to do and what a woman's to do if
they don't marry: and if they do, how can
you honestly hinder them from having any
children?
The stonemason had rudely struck out the
cardinal issues of the question.
PHILOSOPHER. Well, to take the last point
first, there are physical and ethical questions
involved in it, which it is hard to discuss
before such an audience as this.
STONEMASON. But you must discuss 'em,
if you wish us to change our ways, and stop
breeding.
PHILOSOPHER. Very well: perhaps you are
right. But, again, I should first have to
establish a basis for my arguments, by
showing that the conception of marriage
entertained by you all is a low one. It is not
simply a breeding matter. The beauty and
value of the relation lies in its educational
effects—the cultivation of mutual sentiments
and refinements of great importance to a
community.
STONEMASON. Ay! Very beautiful and
refining to Mr. and Mrs. Philosopher, but
I'd like to know where the country would
have been if our fathers had held to that
view of matrimony? why, ain't it in natur'
for all beings to pair, and have young? an'
you say we ain't to do it! I think a statesman
ought to make something out of what's
nateral to human beings, and not try to
change their naturs. Besides, ain't there
good of another kind to be got out of the
relation of parents and children? Did you
ever have a child yourself?
GINX (contemplating the Philosopher's physique).
He have a youngster! He couldn't.
CHORUS. Ha! Ha! Ha!
STONEMASON. I don't believe in yer
humbuggin' notions. They lead to lust and
crime;—I'm told they do in France. If you
yourself haven't the human natur in you to
know it, I'll tell you, and we can all tell you
that as a rule if the healthy desires of natur
ain't satisfied in a honest way, they will be in
another. You can't stop eating by passin' an
act of Parleyment to stop it. And as for yer
eddication and cultivation, that makes no
difference. We know something here about
yer eddicated men;—more than they think.
Who is it we meet about the streets late at
night, goin' to the gay houses? Some of 'em
stand near as high as you, but that don't alter
their natur. They have their passions like
other men; and eddication don't keep 'em
down. Well, if that's the case, how can you ask
people of our sort to put on the curb, or make
us do it? Are we to live more like beasts
than we are now, or do what's worse than
murder? I don't see no other way. Among
us I tell you, sir, three-fourths of our
eddication, is eddication of the heart. We have
to learn to be human, kind, self-denyin', and
I think this makes better men, as a rule,
than head-larnin'; tho' I don't despise that,
neither. But you don't suppose head-citizens
would fight for their country like men with
wives and children behind 'em; why they
don't even at home work for daily food like a
man with wife and babies to provide for!
The stonemason was above his class—one
of those shrewd men that "the people called
Methodists'' get hold of, and use among the
lower orders, under the name of "local
preachers;'' men who learn to think and
speak better than their fellows. The Philosopher
testified some admiration by listening
attentively, and was about to reply, but the
Chorus was tired, and the women would not
hear him.
CHORUS. Best get out o' this. We don't
want any o' yer filhosophy. Go and get
childer' of yer own, &c., &c.
The Philosopher and his friend departed,
carrying with them unsolved the problem
they had brought.
VIII.—The Baby's First Translation.
THE stonemason had been the hero of the
moment; now attention centred on our own hero.
Ginx hurried off again, but as the crowd opened
before him, he was met, and his mad career
stayed, by a slight figure, feminine, draped in
black to the feet, wearing a curiously framed
white-winged hood above her pale face, and a
large cross suspended from her girdle. He
could not run her down.
NUN. Stop, MAN! Are you mad? Give
me the child.
He placed the little bundle in her arms.
She uncovered the queer, ruby face, and
kissed it. Ginx had not looked at the face
before, but after seeing it, and the act of
this woman, he could not have touched a
hair of his child's head. His purpose died
from that moment, though his perplexity was
still alive.
NUN. Let me have it. I will take it to the
Sisters' Home, and it shall live there. Your
wife may come and nurse it. We will take
charge of it.
GINX. And you won't send it back again?
You'll take it for good and all?
NUN. O, yes.
GINX. Good. Give us yer hand.
A little white hand came out from under
her burthen, and was at once half-crushed in
Ginx's elephantine grasp.
GINX. Done. Thank'ee, missus. Come,
mates, I'll stand a drink.
A few minutes after, the woman of the
cross, who had been up to comfort the poor
mother, fluttered with her white wings down
Rosemary Street, carrying in her arms Ginx's
Baby.