University of Virginia Library

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.