X.—The Force—and a Specimen of its Weakness.
GINX'S BABY had been discovered by a
policeman swaddled in a penny paper,
distressingly familiar to metropolitan travellers
by rail. To omit the details of his treatment
at the hands of that great institution, "The
Force,'' would be invidious. The member
thereof who fell in with him was walking a
back street, sighting doors with his bull's-eye.
He was provided with massive boots, so that
a thief could hear him coming a hundred
yards off; he was personally tall and
unwieldy, and a dexterous commissioner had
invented a dress designed to enhance these
qualities—a heavy coat, a cart-horse belt,
and a round cape. He had been carefully
drilled not to walk more than three miles an
hour. He was not a little startled when the
rays of his lamp fell upon a struggling newspaper,
out of which, as from a shell, came
mysterious cries. He took up a corner of
the paper and peeped in upon the face of
Ginx's Baby; then he occupied a quarter of
an hour in embarrassing reflections. A nearly
naked child crying in the cold ought to be
housed as soon as possible, but X 99 was
on
his beat, and those magic words chained him
to certain limits. This, of course, was the rule
under a former commissioner, and every one
knows that such absurd strategy has been
abolished in the existing
régime. At that time,
however, each watchman had his beat, to leave
which was neglect of duty, except with a
prisoner, and then it was neglect of all the
householders within the magic compass.
Had X 99 heard the baby crying across the
street, which was part of the beat of X 101,
he would have passed on with a cheery heart,
for the case would have been beyond his
jurisdiction. Unhappily the baby was on his
beat, and he was delivered from the temptation
of transferring it to the other by the
appearance of X 101's bull's-eye not far off.
What was he to do? The station was a mile
away—the inspector would not arrive for an
hour—and it would be awkward, if not undignified,
to carry on his rounds a shouting baby
wrapped in the largest daily paper. If he
left it where it was, and it perished, he might
be charged with murder. He was at his
wits' end—but having got there, he resolved
on the simplest process, namely to carry it to
the station. No provision was made by the
regulations of the force to protect a beat
casually deserted even for a proper purpose.
Hence, while X 99 was absent on his errand
of mercy, the valuable shop of Messrs. Trinkett
and Blouse, ecclesiastical tailors, was
broken into, and several stoles, chasubles,
altar-cloths and other decorative tapestries
were appropriated to profane uses.
At the station the baby was disposed of
according to rule. Due entry was first made
in the night-book by the superintendent of
all the particulars of his discovery. Some
cold milk was then procured and poured
down the child's throat. Afterwards, wrapped
in a constable's cape, he was placed in a cell
where, when the door was locked, he could
not disturb the guardians of the peace.
The same night, in the next cell, an
innocent gentleman, seized with an apoplexy in
the street but entered in the charge-sheet
as drunk and incapable, died like a dog.
