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
sensitive to the incubus of Ginx's Baby,
especially as the press had been reviewing some
of their recent acts with great bitterness.
The Guardians 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
vanishes 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:—
NOTICE.
DOLL'S FOUNDLING.
Pending the legal inquiry into the facts concerning
the above infant, and a decision as to its settlement,
all officials, assistants, and servants of the workhouse
are forbidden to enter the room in which 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, &c., 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 incredible except in the instance of the
Guardians of St. Bartimeus. There was nothing
they could not do—or leave undone.
Fortunately for Ginx's Baby, the order was
disobeyed. Occasionally lady visitors went
to look at him and give him some food—he
was toddling about the room on unsteady
legs—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 disfavor
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 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 expressed them even if they were
entertained? He took no objection 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,
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
infamy, as he passed down a corridor was
arrested by the notice on the door of our
hero's room. Curiosity took him in, and
horror chained him there for some time.
Had he not entered, Ginx's Baby, spite 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 sensationally 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
the notice. The Guardians were
drubbed in trenchant leaders and indignant
letters. They, instead of bending to the
storm, strove to confront it, and passed angry
resolutions of a childish and grotesque
character. The few of them who possessed any
sense of propriety were railed at in the
meetings till they ceased to attend. The uproar
outside increased. Why did not the President
of the Poor-Law Board interfere? At
last he did interfere: that is, instead of visiting
the scene himself, and satisfying his own
eyes as to the truth of what his ears had
heard, a process that would have taken a
couple of hours, he appointed a gentleman
to hold an inquiry. The Guardians became
furious. The reports of their proceedings
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
appointed to see him fed, and they forwarded
a memorial 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 themselves to see him.
They procured from him a certificate that the
noble busybody 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 inquiry,
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 Guardians, and
the law, and wished them all at Land's End
or beyond it.
