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.
