This straightforward speech fell like a new apple of discord in the midst of the committee. Angry knots were formed, and the noble chairman found that he could not restore order. An adjournment was agreed to. Luckily for the body of Ginx's Baby, he had been meanwhile sent to a home where Protestant money secured to him for the time good living, while his benefactors were discussing what to do with his soul.

*****

Surely, it were no impertinence to interrupt this history and advert to the fact, that, in the discussion just related, every one was to some extent right and to some extent agreed.

That religious teaching was due to an immortal spirit—some notion and evidence of the Divine and the Great Hereafter to be conveyed to it—scarce was disputed. Nor was there collision over the necessity of what is called intellectual cultivation. The boy must be taught something of the world in which he was to live; nay, this latter knowledge seemed to be most immediately practical. As each disputant fixed his eye on one or the other aim that end appeared to him to be the most important. Hence, by a natural lapse, they came to treat subjects as antagonistic which were, in fact, parallel and quite consistent. The one called the others godless—the others threw back the aspersion of bigotry. Then came complication. What was "religion?" Intellectual culture they could agree about—it embraced well-known areas; but this religion divided itself into many disputable fields. These brother Protestants were like country neighbors who must encounter each other at fairs, markets, meets, and balls, and smile and greet, though each, at heart, is looking savagely at the other's landmarks, and most are very likely fighting bitter lawsuits all the while. It was because religion meant CREED to most members of the committee, and because it so implies to the vast bodies they represented, that they could not come to terms about Ginx's Baby or any other infantile immortal. Not always, perhaps, but often, they fought for futile distinctions. Had Mahomet's creed consisted of but one article, There is one God, the blood of many nations might never have given testimony against the creed they resented when to it he tacked and Mahomet is His prophet. Could Protestants but consent to agree in their agreement and peacefully differ in their petty differences, how would the aggregated impulse of a simple faith roll down before it all the impediments of error!

When Ginx's Baby had grown to a discretionary age, and was at all able to know truth from error—supposing that to be knowable—there were in the country fifty thousand reverend gentlemen of every tincture of religious opinion who might ply him with their various theories, yet few of these would be contented unless they could seize him while his young nature was plastic, and try to imprint on immortal clay the trade-mark of some human invention.



XII.—No Funds—no Faith, no Works.

The Committee of the Protestant Detectoral Union on Ginx's Baby held twenty-three meetings. They were then as far from unity of purpose as when they set out. Variety was given to the meetings by the changing combinations of members in attendance. The finances were little heeded in the intensity of their zeal for truth. These at length fell altogether into the hands of the association's secretary, and we have seen involved large items of expense. The twenty-three meetings extended over a year. At the end of that time the secretary startled the committee by laying on the table a demand for the board and keep of the Protestant baby for three months, amounting to L 36; and adding that the sum in hand was L 1, 4s. 4 1/2d. In his report he said: "No effort has been spared by means of advertisements, pamphlets, tales, leaders and paragraphs in newspapers and religious journals, together with occasional sermons, to maintain the public interest in this child; but attention has been diverted from him by the great Roman Spozzi case, and the anxiety created throughout the Protestant world by the recent discovery made by Dr. Gooddee, of a solitary survivor of the ancient Church of the Vieuxbois Protestants in a secluded valley of the Pyrenees."

The secretary asked the committee to provide the money to discharge the baby's liabilities; but they instantly adjourned, and no effort could afterwards get a quorum together. When the persons who had charge of the Protestant foundling discovered the state of affairs they began to dun the secretary and to neglect the child, now about thirteen months old and preparing to walk. Since no money appeared they sold whatever clothes had been provided for him, and absconded from the place where they had been farming him for Protestantism. The secretary, by chance hearing of this, was discreet enough to make no inquiries. Ginx's Baby, "as a Protestant question," vanished from the world. I never heard that any one was asked what had been done with the funds; but I have already furnished the account that ought to have been rendered.



XIII.—In transitu.

One night, near twelve o'clock, a shrewd tradesman, looking out of his shopdoor before he turned into bed, heard a cry which proceeded from a bundle on the pavement. This he discovered to be an infant wrapt in a potato-sack. He was quick enough to observe that it had been deftly laid over a line chiselled across the pavement to the corner of his house, which line he knew to be the boundary between his own parish of St. Simon Magus and the adjacent parish of St. Bartimeus. He took note, being a business man, of the exact position of the child's body in relation to this line, and then conveyed it to the workhouse of the other parish.



PART III. WHAT THE PARISH DID WITH HIM.



I.—Parochial Knots—to be untied without prejudice.

The infant borne to the workhouse of St. Bartimeus was Ginx's Baby. When he had been placed on the floor of the matron's room, and examined by the master, that official turned to the unwelcome bearer of the burden.

"Did you find this child?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Lying opposite my shop in Nether Place."

"What's your name?"

"Doll."

"Oh! you're the cheesemonger. Your shop's on the other side of the boundary, in the other parish. The child ought not to come here; it doesn't belong to us."

"Yes it does: it wasn't on my side of the line."

"But it was in front of your house?"

"Well, the line runs crossways: it don't follow the child was in our parish."

"Oh, nonsense! there's no doubt about it! We can't take the child in. You must carry it away again."

Mr. Snigger turned to leave the room.

"Wait a bit, sir," said Mr. Doll; "I shall leave the child here, and you can do as you like with it. It ain't mine, at all events. I say it lay in your parish; and if you don't look after it you may be the worse of it. The coroner's sure to try to earn his fees. Good-night."

He hurried from the room.

"Stop!" shouted the master, "I say: I don't accept the child. You leave it here at your own risk. We keep it without prejudice, remember—without prejudice, sir!—without——"

Mr. Doll was in the street and out of hearing.



II.—A Board of Guardians.

The Guardians of St. Bartimeus met the day after Mr. Doll's clever stratagem. Among other business was a report from the master of the workhouse that a child, name unknown, found by Mr. Doll, cheesemonger, of Nether Place, in the Parish of St. Simon Magus, opposite his shop, and, as he alleged, on the nearer side of the parish boundary, had been left at the workhouse, and was now in the custody of the matron. The Guardians were not accustomed to restrain themselves, and did not withhold the expression of their indignation upon this announcement. As Mr. Doll had himself been a guardian of St. Simon Magus, it was clear to their impartial minds that he was trying by a trick to foist a bastard—perhaps his own—on the wrong parish.

Mr. Cheekey, a licensed victualler, moved that the master's report be put under the table.

Mr. Slinkum, draper, seconded the motion.

Mr. Edge, ironmonger, pointed out that there was no parliamentary precedent for such a disposition of the report, and, further, that such action did not dispose of the baby.

"Well," said Mr. Cheekey, turning painfully red, "no matter how ye put it, I move to get rid of the brat. What's the best form of motion?"

A churchwarden, who happened to be a gentleman, explained that the Board could not dismiss the question in so summary a way. "He could foresee that there might be a nice point of law in the case. They would have to take some legal means of ascertaining their liabilities, and of forcing the other parish to take the child if they ought to do so. They must consult their solicitor." This gentleman was sent for post haste. Meanwhile the baby was ordered to be brought in for inspection. The matron had handed him over to a sort of half-witted inmate of the house, whose wits, however, were strangely about him at the wrong time, to nurse and amuse him. This person brought Ginx's Baby into the Board-room, and placed him on the table. The Board of Guardians took a good look at him. He was not then in fair condition. He was limp, he was dirty, hollow in the cheeks, white, stiff in his limbs, and half-naked—(to be regardless of gender)—

"Pallidula, rigida, nudula."

"Hum!" said Mr. Stink, who was a dog-breeder—"What's his pedigree?"

This brutal joke was well received by some of the Guardians.

"His pedigree," answered the half-wit, gravely, "goes back for three hundred years. Parients unknown by name, but got by Misery out o' Starvashun. The line began with Poverty out o' Laziness in Queen Elizabeth's time. The breed has been a large 'un wotever you thinks of the quality."

This pleasantry was less acceptable to the Board.

"Well," said Mr. Scoop, grocer, a great stickler for parliamentary modes of procedure, "I move it be committed."

"Committed! Where?" said Mr. Stink.

"To Newgate I s'pose," said the half-wit, his eyes twinkling.

"Nonsense, sir,—for consideration. Send that man out," exclaimed Scoop—"clear the room for consultation."

Davus was expelled, and the baby was then formally consigned to the care of a committee. By this time the legal adviser came in. The facts having been stated to him, he said:

"Gentlemen, as at present advised I am of opinion that the parish in which the child was found is bound to maintain him. If Mr. Doll (a highly respectable person, my own cheesemonger) found the child beyond the boundaries of St. Simon Magus—and he will of course swear that he did—you cannot refuse to take it in. However, I had better ascertain the facts from Mr. Doll and take the opinion of counsel. Meanwhile we must beware not to compromise ourselves by admitting anything, or doing anything equivalent to an admission. Let me see—Ah!—yes—a notice to be served on the other parish repudiating the infant; another notice to Mr. Doll to take it away, and that it remains here at his risk and expense—you see, gentlemen, we could hardly venture to return it to Mr. Doll; we should create an unhappy impression in the minds of the public—"

"D—n the public!" said Mr. Stink.

"Quite so, my dear sir," said Mr. Phillpotts, smiling, "quite so, but that is not a legal or in fact practicable mode of discarding them; we must act with public opinion, I fear. Then, to resume, thirdly and to be strictly safe, we must serve a notice on the infant and all whom it may concern. I think I'll draft it at once."

In a few minutes the committee in charge pinned to the only garment of Ginx's Baby a paper in the following form:—

PARISH OF ST. BARTIMEUS.

To —— —— (name unknown), a Foundling, and all other persons interested in the said Foundling.

TAKE NOTICE

That you, or either of you, have no just or lawful claim to have you or the said infant chargeable on the said Parish. And this is to notify that you, the said infant, are retained in the workhouse of the said Parish under protest, and that whatsoever is or may be done or provided for you is at the proper charge of you, and all such persons as are and were by law bound to maintain and keep the same.

WINKLE & PHILLPOTTS, Solicitors for the Board.



III.—"The World is my Parish."

When Mr. Phillpotts called upon Doll, the cheesemonger, the latter straightway gave him the facts as they had occurred. He pointed out the exact spot on which the bundle had lain; he gave an estimate of the number of inches on each side of the line occupied by it, and declared that the head and shoulders of the infant lay in the parish of the solicitor's clients. Ginx's Baby, under the title "Re a Foundling," was once more submitted for the opinion of counsel. They advised the Board that as the child was in both parishes when found, but had been taken up by a ratepayer of St. Simon Magus, the latter parish was bound to support him. Whereupon the Guardians of St. Bartimeus at their next meeting resolved that the Vestry of the other parish should have a written notice to remove the child, failing which application should be made to the Queen's Bench for a mandamus to compel them to do it.

On receiving the challenge the Guardians of St. Simon Magus also took counsel's opinion. They were advised that as the greater part, and especially the head of the infant, was when discovered in the parish of St. Bartimeus, the latter was clearly chargeable. Both parties then proceeded to swear affidavits. The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, the two great law-officers of the crown, were retained on opposite sides, and took fees—not for an Imperial prosecution, but as petty Queen's Counsel in an inter-parochial squabble.



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.



V.-An Ungodly Jungle.

The case of the Guardians of St. Bartimeus against the Guardians of St. Simon Magus was at length reached. The argument lasted for two days. There is a grim work, the short title whereof is "Burns's Justice," in five fat volumes, from which the legal Dryasdust turns aghast. In one of these portentous books, title "Poor," pp. 1200, the inquisitive may find a code unrivalled by the most malignant ingenuity of former or contemporary nations: a code wherein, by gradual accretion, has been framed a system of relief to poverty and distress so impolitic, so unprincipled, that none but the driest, mustiest, most petrified parish official could be expected to lift up his voice to defend it; so complicated that no man under heaven knows its length or breadth or height or depth; yet it stands to this hour a monument of English stolidity—a marvel of lazy or ignorant statesmanship. Imagine, if you please, a Lord Chief Justice and three Puisnes, all keen, practical men, alive to public policy and the common weal, eager to extricate the truth and do the right, plunging into this "ungodly jungle," thwarted at every turn, in search of justice for Ginx's Baby. With all his patient industry and lightning quickness of apprehension, the Chief Justice found it hard to reconcile past and present, or evolve from the vast confusion anything consistent with his moral instincts.—Clear the board, gentlemen. True regenerative legislation will begin by drawing away the rubbish. Reform means more than repair. Mend, patch, take down a little here, prop up some tottering nuisance there, fill in gaping chinks with patent legislative cement, coat old facades with bright paint, hide decay beneath a gloze of novelty, titivate, decorate, furbish—and after all your house is not a new one, but a whited sepulchre shaking to decay. Repair? There is a Repair party, intermediating between Tories and Reformers—Radicals or Rooters let us call these latter if you like—who cling to "vested interests" and all other sorts of antique nuisances, yet say they are willing to improve them. REFORM, which means, Pull down with bold statesman's hand, and with like hand REBUILD, is no darling of your political Repairer. Call the party and the men by their right names: and give me for utility in legislation or administrative action an Old Tory and Obstructive party rather than this middling, meddling, muddling Repairer—

"Eager to change yet fearful to destroy."

Just now all Social Reformation, in its noblest aims and attempts, is fettered by the Repair party. What is termed Sanitary Reform is enfeebled, and the vigor withdrawn from it, by this party. "Vested rights," "the Liberty of the people," "Interference with personal freedom," "EXPENSE,"—these are the watchwords of the Repairer in opposition to him who, pointing to the pallor and fever of a hundred neighborhoods, calls upon a ministry to cleanse them with imperial force.

A comprehensive scheme of National Education is seized and half-throttled by the Repair party. "Oh! utilize what there is; improve on and tack to the denominational system; avail yourself of the jealousy of sects; see what a grand building that has already erected! True, it is not large enough; true, it is badly built; but repair that, and add wings. It will cost you ever so much to rebuild—Repair!"

The methods of relief to the Poor are old, cumbrous, unequal, as stupid as those who administer them. Forth steps the Reformer, and cries out—"Clear this wrack away! Get rid of your antiquated Bumbledom, your parochial and non-parochial distinctions, your complicated map of local authorities; re-distribute the kingdom on some more practical system, redress the injustice of unequal rating, improve the machinery and spirit of relief, and so on." You have the Repair party shouting its Non possumus as loudly as any other arch-obstructive: "Heaven forbid! Queen Elizabeth and the Poor Laws for ever! To the rescue of Local Government and Vested Interests! Repair!"

Some one with a long head and a divinely-warmed heart, searching vainly for help to thousands in the packed alleys of his English Home, sends his quick glance across seas to rich lands that daily cry to heaven for strong arms that wield the plough and spade. "Ho!" he shouts, "Labor to Land—starvation to production—death unto life!" and he calls upon every statesman and patriot to help the good work, and give their energies to frame an Emigration Scheme. Then the Repair party foams: "Send away the Labor, the source of our wealth? No. Mend the condition of the laborer; give him the sop of political rights—free breakfasts—the ballot. Give State funds to alter social conditions? No. Improve the methods of local assistance to Emigration; it is a temporary remedy—Repair!"

Thus, according to the gospel of this party, everything must be subject of restoration only. Like antiquarians, they utter groans over the abolition of anything, however ugly it may be, however unfitted for human uses, and with however so elegant a piece of artistry you desire to displace it. For them a Gilbert-Scott politician, reverential restorer of bygone styles, enthusiastic to conserve and amend the grotesque Gothic policies of the past, rather than some Brunel or Stephenson statesman, engineering in novel mastery of circumstances—not fearful to face and conquer even the antique impediments of Nature. Give me a trenchant statesman, or I pray you leave legislation alone. Better things as they are than patched to distraction.

At length, by means of some delicate legal adjustments, the judges saw their way to affirming that Ginx's Baby's parish was that of St. Bartimeus, and refused the rule for a mandamus.



VI.—Parochial Benevolence—and another translation.

The authorities of St. Bartimeus did not take kindly to the charge imposed upon them by the Queen's Bench. Some of the Guardians privately hinted to the master that it was unnecessary to overfeed the infant. They did not burthen him with much clothing, and what he had was shared with many lively companions. When you, good matron, look at your little pink-cheeked daughter, so clean and so cosy in her pretty cot, waking to see the well-faced nurse, or you, still sweeter to her eyes, watching above her dreams, perhaps you ought to stop a moment to contrast the scene with the sad tableaux you may get sight of not far away.

*****

Ginx's Baby was not an ill-favored child. He had inherited his father's frame and strength: these helped him through the changes we are relating. What if these capacities had, by simple nourishing food, cleanly care-taking, and brighter, kindlier associations, been trained into full working order? Left alone or ill-tended they were daily dwindling, and the depreciation was going on not solely at the expense of little Ginx, but of the whole community. To reduce his strength one-half was to reduce one-half his chances of independence, and to multiply the prospects of his continuous application for STATE AID.

The money spent in stopping a hole in a Dutch dyke is doubtless better invested than if it were to be retained until a vast breach had laid half a kingdom under water. Surely your Hollander would agree to be mulcted in one-third of his fortune rather than run the hazard!

Every day through this wealthy country there are men and women busy marring the little images of God, that are by-and-by to be part of its public-shadowing young spirits, repressing their energy, sapping their vigor or failing to make it up, corrupting their nature by foul associations, moral and physical. Some are doing it by special license of the devil, others by Act of Parliament, others by negligence or niggardliness. Could you teach or force these people—many unconsciously engaged in the vile work—to run together, as men alarmed by sudden danger, and throw around a helpless generation influences and a care more akin to your own home ideal, would you not transfigure the next epoch—would not your labor and sacrifice be a GOD-WORK, reaching out weighty, fruit-laden branches far into the grateful future? 'Tis by feeling and enjoining everywhere the need of such a movement as this that you, O all-powerful woman! can carry your will into the play of a great economic and social reform. Society that recognizes not a root-truth like that is sowing the wind—God knows what it will reap.

So the Guardians, keeping carefully within the law, neglected nothing that could sap little Ginx's vitality, deaden his happiest instincts, derange moral action, cause hope to die within his infant breast almost as soon as it were born. Good God!

The items the Board were really entitled to charge the rate-payers as supplied to our hero were—

Dirt,

Fleas,

Foul air,

Chances of catching skin diseases, fevers, &c.,

Vile company,

Neglect,

Occasional cruelty, and

A small supply of bad food and clothing.

Every pauper was to them an obnoxious charge by any and every means to be reduced to a minimum or nil. Ginx's Baby was reduced to a minimum. His constitution enabled him to protest against reduction to nil. But, just after the bills of costs had been taxed, mulcting the rate-payers of St. Bartimeus in a sum of more than L 1,600, the Guardians were made aware of the name and origin of their charge. One of the persons who had deserted him was arrested for theft, and among other articles in her possession were some of the Baby's clothes. She confessed the whole story, and declared that the child left in Nether Place was no other than the Protestant Baby, son of Ginx, about whom so much stir had been made two years before. The Guardians were not long in tracing Ginx, and, at his quarters in Rosemary Street, the hapless changeling was one day delivered by a deputy relieving-officer, with the benediction, by me sadly recorded—

"There he is, d—n him!"

I am sure if the Guardians had been there they would have said:

"Amen."



PART IV. WHAT THE CLUBS AND POLITICIANS DID WITH HIM.



I.—Moved on.

Ginx's Baby's brothers and sisters would have nothing to say to him. Mrs. Ginx declared she could see in him no likeness to her own dear lost one; and her husband swore that the brat never was his. The couple had latterly been pinching themselves and their children to save enough to emigrate. For this purpose aid and counsel were given to them by a neighboring curate, whose name, were my pages destined to immortality, should be printed here in golden letters. Rich and full will be his sheaves when many a statesman reaps tares. Finding that a thirteenth child was imposed on them by so superior a force as the law of England the Ginxes hastened their departure.

Their last night in London, towards the small hours, Ginx, carrying our hero, went along Birdcage Walk. He scarcely knew where he was going, or how he was about to dispose of his burden, but he meant to get rid of it. On he went, here and there met by shadowy creatures who came towards his footsteps in the uncertain darkness, and when they could see that he was no quarry for them flitted away again into the night.

He passed the dingy houses, since replaced by the Foreign Office, across the open space before the Horse Guards, near the house of a popular Prime Minister, and up the broad steps till he stood under the York Column. The shadow of this was an inviting place, but a policeman turning his lantern suspiciously on the man walking about at that silent hour with a child in his arms frustrated his wish. Slowly Ginx tramped along Pall Mall, with only one other creature stirring, as it seemed for the moment—a gentleman who turned up the steps of a large building. Seating the child on the bottom step and telling him not to cry, Ginx instantly crossed the road, turned into St. James's Square, passed by the rails, and stealing from corner to corner through the mazes of that locality, reached home by way of Piccadilly and Grosvenor Place. Henceforth this history shall know him no more.



II.-Club Ideas.

Scarcely had the shadow of his parent vanished in the gloom before Ginx's Baby piped forth a lusty protest: the street rang again. Ere long the doors at the top of the steps swung back, and a portly form stood in the light.

"Halloo! what's the matter?" (This was a general observation into space.) "Why, bless my heart, here's a child crying on the steps!"

Another form appeared.

"Is there nobody with it? Halloo! any one there?"

No answer came save from poor little Ginx, but his was decided. The two servants descended the steps and looked at the miserable boy without touching him. Then they peered into the darkness in hope that they might get a glimpse of his mother or a policeman. A rapid step sounded on the pavement and a gentleman came up to the group.

"What have we here?" he said gently.

"It's a child, Sir Charles, I found crying on the steps. I expect it's a trick to get rid of him. We are looking for a policeman to take him away."

"Poor little fellow," said Sir Charles, stooping to take a fair look at Ginx's Baby, "for you and such as you the policeman or the parish officers are the national guardians, and the prison or the poor-house the home..... Bring him into the Club, Smirke."

The men hesitated a moment before executing so unwonted a demand, but Sir Charles Sterling was a man not safely to be thwarted—a late minister and a member of the committee. The child being carried into the magnificent hall of the Club, stood on its mosaic floor. From above the radiance of the gas "sunlight" streamed down over the marble pillars, and glanced on gilded cornices and panels of scagliola. A statue of the Queen looked upon him from the niche that opened to the dining-room; another of the great Puritan soldier, statesman, and ruler, with his stern massive front; and yet another, with the strong yet gentle features of the champion Free-Trader, seemed to regard him from their several corners. On the walls around were portraits of men who had striven for the deliverance of the people from ancient yokes and fetters. Of course Ginx's Baby did not see all this. He, poor boy, dazed, stood with a knuckle in his eye, while the porter, lackeys, Sir Charles Sterling, and others who strolled out of the reading-room, curiously regarded him. But any one observing the scene apart might have contrasted the place with the child—the principles and the professions whereof this grandeur was the monument and consecrated tabernacle, with this solitary atomic specimen of the material whereon they were to work. What social utility had resulted from the great movements initiated by them who erected and frequented this place? Ought they to have had, and did they still need a complement? While wonderful political changes had been wrought, and benefits not to be exaggerated won for many classes, WHAT HAD BEEN DONE FOR GINX'S BABY?

The query would not have been very ridiculous. He was an unit of the British Empire—nothing could blot out that fact before heaven! Had anything been left undone that ought to have been done, or done that had well been left undone, or were better to be undone now? Of a truth that was worth a thought.

"What's all this?" said a big Member of Parliament, a minister renowned for economy in matters financial and intellectual. "What are you doing with this youngster? I never saw such an irregularity in a Club in my life."

"If you saw it oftener you would think more about it," said Sir Charles Sterling. "We found him on the steps. I think he was asking for you, Glibton."

This sally turned a laugh against the minister.

"Well," said another, "he has come to the wrong quarter if he wants money."

"I shouldn't wonder," said a third, "if he were one of the new messengers at the Office of Popular Edifices. Glibton is reducing their staff."

"If that's the case I think you have reached the minimum here, Glibton," cried Sir Charles.

"Can't the country afford a livery?"

"Bother you all," replied the Secretary, who was secretly pleased to be quizzed for his peculiarities—"tell us what this means. Whose 'lark' is it?"

"No lark at all," said Sterling. "Here is a problem for you and all of us to solve. This forlorn object is representative, and stands here to-night preaching us a serious sermon. He was deserted on the Club steps—left there, perhaps, as a piece of clever irony; he might be son to some of us. What's your name, my boy?"

Ginx's Baby managed to say "Dunno!"

"Ask him if he has any name?" said an Irish ex-member, with a grave face.

Ginx's Baby to this question responded distinctly "No."

"No name," said the humorist; "then the author of his being must be Wilkie Collins."

Everybody laughed at this indifferent pleasantry but our hero. His bosom began to heave ominously.

"What's to be done with him?"

"Send him to the workhouse."

"Send him to the d——" (there may be brutality among the gods and goddesses).

"Give him to the porter."

"No thank you, sir," said he, promptly.

The gentlemen were turning away, when Sir Charles stopped them.

"Look here!" he said, taking the boy's arm and baring it, "this boy can hardly be called a human being. See what a thin arm he has—how flaccid and colorless the flesh seems—what an old face!—and I can scarcely feel any pulse. Good heavens, get him some wine! A few hours will send him to the d—— sure enough.... What are we to do for him, Glibton? I say again, he is only part of a great problem. There must be hundreds of thousands growing up like this child; and what a generation to contemplate in all its relations and effects!"

The gentlemen were dashed by his earnestness.

"Oh, you're exaggerating," said Glibton; "there can't be such widespread misery. Why, if there were, the people would be wrecking our houses."

"Ah!" replied the other, sadly, "will you wait to be convinced by that sort of thing before you believe in their misery? I assure you what I say is true. I could bring you a hundred clergymen to testify to it to-morrow morning."

"God forbid!" said Glibton. "Good-night."

The right honorable gentleman extinguished the subject in his own little brain with his big hat; but everywhere else the sparks are still aglow, and he, with all like him, may wake up suddenly, as frightened women in the night; to find themselves environed in the red glare of a popular conflagration. Well for them then if they are not in charge of the State machinery. What an hour will that be for hurrying to and fro with water-pipes and buckets, when proper forethought, diligence, and sacrifice would have made the building fireproof.



III.—A thorough-paced Reformer—if not a Revolutionary.

By the kindness and influence of Sir Charles Sterling, Ginx's Baby that night, and long after, found shelter in the Radical Club. He gave rise to a discussion in the smoking-room next evening that ought to be chronicled. Several members of the committee supported his benefactor in urging that the child should be adopted by the Club, as a pledge of their resolve to make the questions of which he seemed to be the embodied emblem subjects of legislative action. Others said that those questions being, in their view, social and not political, were not proper ones to give impulse to a party movement, and that the entertainment in the Club of this foundling would be a gross irregularity: they did not want samples of the material respecting which they were theorizing. To some of the latter Sir Charles had been insisting that, whether they kept the child or not, they could not stifle the questions excited by his condition.

"You may delay, but you cannot dissipate them. We are filling up our sessions with party struggles, theoretic discussions, squabbles about foreign politics, debates on political machinery, while year by year the condition of the people is becoming more invidious and full of peril. Social and political reform ought to be linked; the people on whom you confer new political rights cannot enjoy them without health and well-being."

"But all our legislation is directed to that!" exclaimed Mr. Joshua Hale. "Reform, Free Trade, Free Corn—have these not enhanced the wealth of the people?"

"Partially; yet there are classes unregenerated by their reviving influences. Free trade cannot insure work, nor can free corn provide food for every citizen."

"Nor any other legislation: let us be practical. I own there is much to be done. I have often stated my 'platform.' We must clip the enormous expenditure on soldiers and ships; reduce our overweening army of diplomatic spies and busybodies; abstain from meddling in everybody's quarrels; redeem from taxation the workman's necessaries—a free breakfast-table; peremptorily legislate against the custom of primogeniture; encourage the distribution and transfer of land; and, under the aegis of the ballot, protect from the tyranny of the landlord and employer their tenants and workmen."

"Very good, perhaps, all of them," replied Sir Charles, "but some not at the moment possible, and all together are not exhaustive. Why do you not go to the bottom of social needs? You say nothing about Health legislation—are you indifferent to the sanitary condition of the people? You have not hinted at Education—Waste Lands—Emigration—"

"Oh! I am opposed to that altogether."

"I forgot, you are a manufacturer; yet the last man of whom I should believe that selfishness had warped the judgment. You have done and endured more than any living statesman for the advantage of your fellow-citizens, so that I will not cast at you the aspersion of class-blindness. Still, I can scarcely think you have looked at this matter in the pure light of patriotism, and not within the narrow scope of trade interests."

"Quite unjust. Our best economists reprehend the policy of depleting our labor-market. Emigration is a timely remedy for adversity and to be very sparingly used. Labor is our richest vein—"

"We may have too much of it. Take it as a fact that you now have more than you can use, and the unemployed part is starving; what will you do with them?"

"That is a mere temporary and casual depression, to which all classes are liable."

"But," said Sir Charles, "which none can so ill bear. Nay—what if it is permanent? You look to increased trade. Do you suppose we are to retain our manufacturing pre-eminence when every country, new and old, is competing with us? Can our trade, I ask you honestly to consider, increase at the rate of our population? Besides, for heaven's sake, look at the thing as a man. Grant that we have a hundred thousand men out of work, and hundreds of thousands more dependent on them—do you think it no small thing that the vast mass should be left for one, two, three years seething in sorrow and distress, while they are waiting for trade! By the time that comes they may have gone beyond the hope of rescue. Ah! if an elastic trade comes back to-morrow, you can never make those people what they were; ought we not to have forecast that they should not be what they are? But I contend that depression has become chronic, the poverty more wide-spread and persistent—how then shall we, who represent these classes among the rest, face the prospect?"

Here interposed a gentleman high in office, a pure, keen, rigid economist of the highest intellectual and political rank.

"My dear Sterling, pardon me if I say you are talking wildly. Perhaps you don't see that you are verging on rank communism. The working of economic laws can be as infallibly projected as a solar eclipse. You can secure no class from periodic calamity, and so regulate laws of supply and demand by guiding-wheels of legislation and taxation as to save every man from penury. You wish us to send away our bone and sinew because we have no present employment for it, and next year, or the year after, under a recovered trade you will be wringing your hands and cursing the folly that prompted you to do it."

"I should be too glad of the opportunity," replied Sir Charles, sturdily, "but in truth there is an incubus of excessive numbers that no revival of trade will provide for, even if it is beyond our extremest hopes, and I for one will not be guilty of the inhumanity of keeping fellow-creatures in misery till we can find a use for them. You have forgotten that there are other economic laws besides those you glance at. Several millions of acres of unoccupied land belonging in a sense to the people of this country are to be kept untilled in defiance of the plainest policy that nature and God have indicated to us, namely, that labor should come in contact with land! For want of this conjunction our colonies are to be checked, while at home miserable millions are gaping for work and food."

"Oh! let them take themselves out. There are too many going already. They will follow natural laws, and where labor is required thither the stream will flow."

"Mere surface talk, my clever friend," replied the other, "the men who are trooping out at their own expense are our most sober, careful, and energetic workmen. Else they could not go. They go because here so many indifferent ones are weighing down their shoulders. And where do most of them go to? Not to strengthen and develop our colonies, but the United States—a not always friendly people, and just now your free-trader's bugbear!"

"Well, well," said the minister, "drop that question. It's utterly impracticable at this time. We couldn't entertain the demand for State-help for an instant. I tell you again you're a Fourierite. You virtually propose to put your hand in the pocket of the upper classes to pay all sorts of expenses for the lower."

"You may call me a communist if you please," replied Sir Charles Sterling; "I do not shrink from shadows. Perhaps I am in favor of something nearer to communism than our present form of society. One thing I am clear about: no state of society is healthy wherein every man does not own himself to be the guardian of the interests of the community as well as his own—does not see that he is bound, morally and as a matter of public policy, to add to his neighbor's well-being as well as his own. Does not society, by its protection and aggregation, make it possible for the rich to grow rich, the genius and the ambitious man to pursue their aims, the merchant to gather his vails, the noble to enjoy his lands? For these privileges there is more or less to pay, and it may be that the proper proportion which the capable classes should be called upon to contribute to the common weal has never been correctly adjusted. The first fruit of practical Christianity was community of goods, and but for human selfishness we might hope for an Eutopian era—when, while it should be ruled that if a man would not work neither should he eat, there should also be brought home to every man the care of his poorer, or weaker, or less competent brother. I never expect to see that. I do hope to see the men of greatest ability pay more generously for the privileges they enjoy. The best policy for them too. The better the condition of the general community the better for themselves. You cannot alarm me with epithets. But these views are happily not essential to the support of the Emigration policy."

"O dear! O dear! mad as a March hare!" cried the minister, as he stumped from the room.

"Sterling is a good fellow," said he to a colleague with whom he walked down Pall Mall, "and a thorough-paced Liberal. Besides, he carries great weight in the House. But he is an enthusiast, and, therefore, not always quite practical."

By PRACTICAL the minister meant, not that which might well and to advantage be done if good and able men would resolve to do it, spite of all hindrances, but that which, upon a cunning review of party balances and a judicious probing of public opinion, seemed to be a policy fit for his party to pursue. The first, original and masterly statesmen are needed to initiate and perform—the other is simply the art of a genius who knows how most adroitly to manipulate people and circumstances.



IV.—Very Broad Views.

Sir Charles Sterling, Mr. Joshua Hale, and others continued the conversation interrupted by the minister's exit. What was to be done with Ginx's Baby? In the great dissected map of society what niches were cut out for him and all like him to fill? Most of the politicians were for leaving that to himself to find out. The term "law of supply and demand" was freely bandied between them, as it is in many journals nowadays, with little object save to shut up avenues of discussion by a high-sounding phrase.

Then of these "statesmen," most clung, if not to self-interest, to personal crotchets. What is more darling to a man than the child of his intellect or fancy? How the poor poetaster hugs his tawdry verses as if they were the imperial ornaments of genius! Just in the same way does the politician love the policies himself hath devised, pressing them forward at all hazards, while he is blind to the utility of others. This is the basis of that aspect of selfishness which often mars in the approbation of a country a really honest statesmanship—an egotistic tenacity of one's own creature as the best, which yet is not the criminal selfishness of ambition. Still that egotism is not seldom disastrous to the people's interests. While these statesmen nursed their own bantlings and held them up to national notice, they were apt to avoid or too lightly regard the views of men as able as themselves. For instance, Joshua Hale—who is far above these remarks generally—had put forth a scheme for the solution of the St. Helena property question—very likely a good one, albeit revolutionary, and nothing would convince him that any other could succeed. He wished every man in St. Helena—a turbulent adjunct of the British Empire—to be a landowner, and I do think, neither desired nor hoped that any man in that island should be happy until he was one. Yet there were other men ready to offer simpler remedies, and to prove that if every man in St. Helena became a landowner it would become a very hell upon earth, and more unmanageable than it was before. If these gentlemen do not sacrifice their pet fancies for the sake of a settlement, what will become of St. Helena?

Just now they were discussing Ginx's Baby. One thought that repeal of the Poor-Laws and a new system of relief would reach his case; another saw the root of the Baby's sorrow in Trades' Unions; a third propounded cooperative manufactures; a fourth suggested that a vast source of income lay untouched in the seas about the kingdom, which swarmed with porpoises, and showed how certain parts of these animals were available for food, others for leather, others for a delicious oil that would be sweeter and more pleasant than butter; a fifth desired a law to repress the tendency of Scotch peers to evict tenants and convert arable lands into sheep-walks and deer-forests; a sixth maintained that there were waste lands in the kingdom of capacity to support hungry millions. In fact earth, heaven, and seas were to be regenerated by Act of Parliament for the benefit of Ginx's Baby and the people of England. Sir Charles listened impatiently, and at last burst forth again.

He said: "When you consider it, what we are all trying to do nowadays is—vulgarly—to improve the breed; but we go to work in a round-about way. At the outset we are met by the depreciated state of part of the existing generation; and one problem is to prevent these depreciated people from increasing, or to get them to increase healthily. No one seems to have gone directly to such a problem as that. The difficulties to be faced are tremendous. Your dirtiest British youngster is hedged round with principles of an inviolable liberty and rights of Habeas Corpus. You let his father and mother, or any one who will save you the trouble of looking after him, mould him in his years of tenderness as they please. If they happen to leave him a walking invalid, you take him into the poorhouse; if they bring him up a thief, you whip him and keep him at high cost at Millbank or Dartmoor; if his passions, never controlled, break out into murder and rape, you may hang him, unless his crime has been so atrocious as to attract the benevolent interest of the Home Secretary; if he commit suicide, you hold a coroner's inquest, which also costs money; and however he dies you give him a deal coffin and bury him. Yet I may prove to you that this being, whom you treat like a dog at a fair, never had a day's—no, nor an hour's—contact with goodness, purity, truth, or even human kindness; never had an opportunity of learning anything better. What right have you then to hunt him like a wild beast, and kick him and whip him, and fetter him and hang him by expensive complicated machinery, when you have done nothing to teach him any of the duties of a citizen?"

"Stop, stop, Sir Charles! you are too virulent. There are endless means of improving your lad—charities without number——"

"Yes, that will never reach him."

"Never mind, they may, you know. Industrial schools, reformatories, asylums, hospitals, Peabody-buildings, poor-laws. Everybody is working to improve the condition of the poor man. Sanitary administration goes to his house and makes it habitable."

"Very," interjected Sir Charles Sterling, dryly.

"Factory laws protect and educate factory children——"

"They don't educate in one case out of ten. They don't feed them, clothe them, give them amusement and cultivation, do they?"

"Certainly not—that would be ridiculous."

"Why, the question is whether that would be ridiculous!" replied Sir Charles. "I do not say it can be done, but in order to transform the next generation, what we should aim at is to provide substitutes for bad homes, evil training, unhealthy air, food and dulness, and terrible ignorance, in happier scenes, better teaching, proper conditions of physical life, sane amusements, and a higher cultivation. I dare say you would think me a lunatic if I proposed that Government should establish music-halls and gymnasia all over the country; but you, Mr. Fissure, voted for the Baths and Washhouses."

"Who's to pay for all this?" asked Mr. Fissure, pertinently.

"The State, which means society, the whole of which is directly interested. I tell you a million of children are crying to us to set them free from the despotism of a crime and ignorance protected by law."

"That is striking; but you are treading on delicate ground. The liberty of the subject——"

"Exactly what I expected you to say. These words can be used in defence of almost any injustice and tyranny. Such terms as 'political economy,' 'communism,' 'socialism,' are bandied about in the same way. Yet propositions coming fairly within these terms are often mentioned with approval by the very persons who cast them at you. In a report of a recent Royal Commission I find that one of the Commissioners is quite as revolutionary as I am. He says it is right by law to secure that no child shall be cruelly treated or mentally neglected, over-worked or under-educated. Some people would call that communism, I fancy. But I think him to be correct as a political economist in that broad proposition. Why? Because a child's relation to the State is wider, more permanent, and more important than his relation to his parents. If he is in danger of being depreciated and damned for good citizenship, the State must rescue him."

"A paternal and maternal government together!" cries Lord Namby—"a government of nurses. You know I should like to stop the production of children among the lower orders. Your propositions are far in advance of my radicalism. The State must sometimes interfere between parent and child; for instance, in education or protection from cruelty. But, if I understand you, you actually contemplate a general refining and elevation of the working class by legislative means."

"Assuredly: I should aim to cultivate their morals, refine their tastes, manners, habits. I wish to lift from them that ever-depressing sense of hopelessness which keeps them in the dust."

"So do most men; but you must do that by personal and private influences, not by State enactments. How would you do it?"

"How? I think I could draw up a programme. For instance: Expatriate a million to reduce the competition that keeps poor devils on half-rations or sends them to the poorhouse; Take all the sick, maimed, old, and incapable poor into workhouses managed by humane men and not by ghouls; Forbid such people to marry and propagate weakness; Legislate for compulsory improvements of workmen's dwellings, and, if needful, lend the money to execute it; Extend and enforce the health laws; Open free libraries and places of rational amusement with an imperial bounty through the country; Instead of spending thousands on dilettanti sycophants at one end of the metropolis, distribute your art and amusement to the kingdom at large; The rich have their museums, libraries, and clubs, provide them for the poor; Establish temporary homes for lying-in women; Multiply your baths and washhouses till there is no excuse for a dirty person; Educate; Provide day schools for every proper child, and industrial or reformatory schools for every improper one; Open advanced High Schools for the best pupils, and found Scholarships to the Universities; Erect other schools for technical training; Offer to teach trades and agriculture to all comers for nothing—you would soon neutralize your bugbear of trades-unionism; Teach morals, teach science, teach art, teach them to amuse themselves like men and not like brutes. In a land so wealthy the programme is not impracticable, though severe. As the end to be attained is the welfare of future generations, no good reason could be urged why they should not contribute towards the cost of it—a better debt to leave to posterity than the incubus of an irrational war."

Will any sane political practitioner wonder to be told that at the end of this harangue the smoking-room party broke up, and that some, as they laughed good-humoredly over Sterling's egregia, recalled the number of glasses of inspirited seltzer swallowed by the orator? He was so far in advance of the most radical reformer that there was no hope of overtaking him for an era or two: so they determined to fancy they had left him behind.



V.—Party Tactics—and Political Obstructions to Social Reform.

In the Club our hero revelled awhile under the protection of Sir Charles Sterling, and the petting of peers, Members of Parliament, and loungers who swarm therein. Certain gentlemen of Stock Exchange mannerism and dressiness gave the protege the go-by, and even sneered at those who noticed him with kindness. But then these are of the men with whom every question is checked by money, and is balanced on the pivot of profit and loss. I dare say some of them thought the worse of Judas only because he had made so small a gain out of his celebrated transaction. To foster Ginx's Baby in the Club, as a recognition of the important questions surrounding him, though these questions involved hundreds of thousands of other cases, was to them ridiculous. Of far greater consequence was it in their eyes to settle a dispute between two extravagant fools at Constantinople and Cairo, and quicken the sluggishness of Turkish consols or Egyptian 9 per cents. I do not cast stones at them; every man must look at a thing with his own eyes.

But it was curious to note how the Baby's fortunes shifted in the Club. There were times—when he was a pet chucked under chin by the elder stagers, favored with a smile from a Cabinet Minister, and now and then blessed with a nod from Mr. Joshua Hale. Then, again, every one seemed to forget him, and he was for months left unnoticed to the chance kindness of the menials until some case similar to his own happening to evoke discussion in the press, there would be a general inquiry for him. The porter, Mr. Smirke, had succeeded, by means of a detective, in discovering the boy's name, but his parents were then half-way to Canada.

The members of the Fogey Club opposite, hearing that so interesting a foundling was being cherished by their opponents, politely asked leave to examine him, and he occasionally visited them. They treated him kindly and discussed his condition with earnestness. The leaders of the party debated whether he might not with advantage be taken out of their opponents' hands. Some thought that a judicious use of him might win popularity; but others objected that it would be perilous for them to mix themselves up with so doleful an interest. In the result the Fogies tipped young Ginx, but did not commit themselves for or against him. Thus a long time elapsed, and our hero had grown old enough to be a page. He had received food, clothing, and goodwill, but no one had thought of giving him an education. Sometimes he became obstreperous. He played tricks with the Club cutlery, and diverted its silver to improper uses; he laid traps for upsetting aged and infirm legislators; he tried the coolness of the youngest and best-natured Members of Parliament by popping up in strange places and exhibiting unseemly attitudes. At length, by unanimous consent, he was decreed to be a nuisance, and a few days would have revoked his license at the Club.

No sooner did the Fogies get wind of this than they manoeuvred to get Ginx's Baby under their own management. They instructed their "organs," as they called them, to pipe to popular feeling on the disgraceful apathy of the Radicals in regard to the foundling. They had him waylaid and treated to confectionery by their emissaries; and once or twice succeeded in abducting him and sending him down to the country with their party's candidates, for exhibition at elections.

The Radicals resented this conduct extremely. Ginx's Baby was brought back to the Club and restored to favor. The Government papers were instructed to detail how much he was petted and talked about by the party; to declare how needless was the popular excitement on his behalf; and to prove that he must, without any special legislation, be benefited by the extraordinary organic changes then being made in the constitution of the country.

Sir Charles Sterling resumed his interest in the boy. He had been gallantly aiding his party in other questions. There was the Timbuctoo question. A miserable desert chief had shut up a wandering Englishman, not possessed of wit enough to keep his head out of danger. There was a general impression that English honor was at stake, and the previous Fogey Government had ordered an expedition to cross the desert and punish the sheikh. You would never believe what it cost if you had not seen the bill. Ten millions sterling was as good as buried in the desert, when one-tenth of it would have saved a hundred thousand people from starvation at home, and one-hundredth part of it would have taken the fetters off the hapless prisoner's feet.

There was the St. Helena question always brooding over Parliament. St. Helena was a constituent part of the British Empire. Every patriot agreed that the Empire without it would be incomplete; and was so far right that its subtraction would have left the Empire by so much less. Most of its inhabitants were aboriginal—a mercurial race, full of fire, quick-witted, and gifted with the exuberant eloquence of savages, but deficient in dignity and self-control. Before any one else had been given them by Providence to fight, they slaughtered and ravaged one another. Our intrusive British ancestors stepped upon the island, and, being strong men, mowed down the islanders like wheat, and appropriated the lands their swords had cleared. Still the aborigines held out in corners, and defied the conquerors. The latter ground them down, confiscated the property of their half-dozen chiefs, and distributed it among themselves. By way of showing their imperial imperiousness, they built over some ruins left by their devastations a great church, in which they ordered all the islanders to worship. This was at first abomination to the islanders, who fought like devils whenever they could, and ended by accepting the religion of their foes. But the conquerors, afterwards choosing to change their own faith, resolved that the islanders should do so too. Forthwith they confiscated the big church and burying-ground, and, distributing part of the land and spoils among their most prominent scamps, erected a new edifice of quite a different character, in which the natives swore they could neither see nor hear, and their own clerics warned them they would certainly be damned. To make the complications more intricate, these clerics owed allegiance to an ancient woman in a distant country, who had all the meddlesomeness and petty jealousy of her sex, and was, besides, much attached to some clever wooers of hers, wily sinners who covered their aims under the semblance of ultra-extreme passion for her. The prominent scamps died, to be succeeded by their children, or other of the hated conquerors, from generation to generation. The islanders went on increasing and protesting. T hey starved upon the lands, and shot the landlords when a few gave them the chance, for most lived away in their own country, and left the property to be administered by agents. The Home Government had again and again been obliged to assist these people with soldiers, to provide an armed police, to shoot down mobs, to catch a ringleader here or there and send him to Fernando Po, or to deprive whole villages of ordinary civil rights. Then the yam crop failed, and nearly half the people left the island and crossed the seas, where they continued to hate and to plot against those whose misfortune it had been to get a legacy of the island from their fathers. It would be wearisome to recount the absurdities on both sides: the stupidity or criminal absence of tact from time to time shown by the Home Government—the resolve never to be quiet exhibited by the natives, under the prompting of their clerics. Upon

"—that common stage of novelty—"

there were ever springing up fresh difficulties. Secret clubs were formed for murder and reprisal. A body called the "Yellows" had bound themselves by private oaths to keep up the memory of the religious victories of their predecessors, and to worry the clerical party in every possible way. Their pleasure was to go about insanely blowing rams'-horns, carrying flags and bearing oranges in their hands. The islanders hated oranges, and at every opportunity cracked the skulls of the orange-bearers with brutal weapons peculiar to the island. These, in return, cracked native skulls. The whole island was in a state of perpetual commotion. Still, its general condition improved, its farms grew prosperous, and a joint-stock company had built a mill for converting cocoanut fibre into horse-cloths, which yielded large profits. The memory of past events might well have been buried; but the clerics, in the interest of the old woman, fanned the embers, and the infamous bidding for popularity of parties at home served to keep alive passions that would naturally have died out. Besides, latterly folly had been too organized on both sides to suffer oblivion. Everybody was tired of the squabbles of St. Helena. At length there was a general movement in the interests of peace, and to pacify the islanders Parliament was asked to pull down the wings of the old church edifice, remove some of the graves, and cut off a large piece of the graveyard. Some were in favor also of dividing all the farms in the country among the aborigines, but the difficulty was to know how at the same time to satisfy the present occupiers. These schemes were topics of high debate, upon them the fortunes of Government rose and fell, and while they were agitated Ginx's Baby could have no chance of a parliamentary hearing. Many other matters of singular indifference had eaten up the legislative time; but at last the increasing number of wretched infants throughout the country began to alarm the people, and Sir Charles Sterling thought the time had come to move on behalf of Ginx's Baby and his fellows.



VI.—Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body.

While Sir Charles was trying to get the Government to "give him a night" to debate the Ginx's Baby case, and while associations were being formed in the metropolis for disposing of him by expatriation or otherwise, a busy peer without notice to anybody, suddenly brought the subject before the House of Lords. As he had never seen the Baby, and knew nothing or very little about him, I need scarcely report the elaborate speech in which he asked for aristocratic sympathy on his behalf. He proposed to send him to the Antipodes at the expense of the nation.

The Minister for the Accidental Accompaniments of the Empire was a clever man—keen, genial, subtle, two-edged, a gentlemanly and not thorough disciple of Machiavel; able to lead parliamentary forlorn hopes and plant flags on breaches, or to cover retreats with brilliant skirmishing; deft, but never deep; much moved too by the opinions of his permanent staff. These on the night in question had plied him well with hackneyed objections; but to see him get up and relieve himself of them—the air of originality, the really original air he threw around them; the absurd light which he turned full on the weaknesses of his noble friend's propositions, was as beautiful to an indifferent critic as it as saddening to the man who had at heart the sorrows of his kind. If that minister lived long he would be forced to adopt and advocate in as pretty a manner the policy he was dissecting. Lord Munnibagge, a great authority in economic matters, said that a weaker case had never been presented to Parliament. To send away Ginx's Baby to a colony at imperial expense was at once to rob the pockets of the rich and to decrease our labor-power. There was no necessity for it. Ginx's Baby could not starve in a country like this. He (Lord Munnibagge) had never heard of a case of a baby starving. There was no such wide-spread distress as was represented by the noble lord. There were occasional periods of stagnation in trade, and no doubt in these periods the poorer classes would suffer; but trade was elastic; and even if it were granted that the present was a period when employment had failed, the time was not far off when trade would recuperate. (Cheers.) Ginx's Baby and all other babies would not then wish to go away. People were always making exaggerated statements about the condition of the poor. He (Lord Munnibagge) did not credit them. He believed the country, though temporarily depressed by financial collapses, to be in a most healthy state. (Hear, hear.) It was absurd to say otherwise, when it was shown by the Board of Trade returns that we were growing richer every day. (Cheers.) Of course Ginx's Baby must be growing richer with the rest. Was not that a complete answer to the noble lord's plaintive outcries? (Cheers and laughter.) That the population of a country was a great fraction of its wealth was an elementary principle of political economy. He thought, from the high rates of wages, that there were not too many but too few laborers in the country. He should oppose the motion. (Cheers.)

Two or three noble lords repeated similar platitudes, guarding themselves as carefully from any reference to facts, or to the question whether high rates of wages might not be the concomitants simply of high prices of necessaries, or to the yet wider question whether colonial development might not have something to do with progress at home. The noble lord who had rushed unprepared into the arena was unequal to the forces marshalled against him, and withdrew his motion. Thus the great debate collapsed. The Lords were relieved that an awkward question had so easily been shifted. The newspapers on the ministerial side declared that this debate had proved the futility of the Ginx's Baby Expatriation question. "So able an authority as Lord Munnibagge had established that there was no necessity for the interference of Government in the case of Ginx's Baby or any other babies or persons. The lucid and decisive statement of the Secretary for the Accidental Accompaniments of the Empire had shown how impossible it was for the Imperial Government to take part in a great scheme of Expatriation; how impolitic to endeavor to affect the ordinary laws of free movement to the Colonies." Surely after this the Expatriation people hid their lights under a bushel! The Government refused to find a night for Sir Charles Sterling, and after the Lords' debate he did not see his way to force a motion in the Lower House. Meanwhile Ginx's Baby once more decided a turn in his own fate. Tired of the slow life of the Club, and shivering amid the chill indifference of his patrons, he borrowed without leave some clothes from an inmate's room, with a few silver forks and spoons, and decamped. Whether the baronet and the Club were bashful of public ridicule or glad to be rid of the charge, I know not, but no attempt was made to recover him.



PART V. WHAT GINX'S BABY DID WITH HIMSELF.

A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high as two hundred Friedrichs d'or: such is his worth to the world. A full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world could afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang himself.—SARTOR RESARTUS.



The Last Chapter.

Our hero was nearly fifteen years old when he left the Club to plunge into the world. He was not long in converting his spoils into money, and a very short time in spending it. Then he had to pit his wits against starvation, and some of his throws were desperate. Wherever he went the world seemed terribly full. If he answered an advertisement for an errand-boy, there were a score kicking their heels at the rendezvous before him. Did he try to learn a useful trade, thousands of adepts were not only ready to underbid him, but to knock him on the head for an interloper. Even the thieves, to whom he gravitated, were jealous of his accession, because there were too many competitors already in their department. Through his career of penury, of honest and dishonest callings, of 'scapes and captures, imprisonments and other punishments, a year's reading of Metropolitan Police Reports would furnish the exact counterpart.

*****

I don't know how many years after his flight from Pall Mall, one dim midnight, I, returning from Richmond, lounged over Vauxhall Bridge, listening to the low lapping of the current beneath the arches—looking above to the stars and along the dark polished surface that reflected a thousand lights in its undulations,—feeling the awfulness of the dense, suppressed life that was wrapt within the gloom and calm of the hour. I suddenly saw a shadow, a human shadow, that at the sound of my footstep quickly crossed my dreamy vision—quickly, noiselessly came and went before my eyes until it stood up high and outlined against the strangely-mingled haze. It looked like the ghost of a slight-formed man, hatless and coatless, and for a moment I saw at its upper extremity the dull flash as of a human face in the gloom, before the shadow leaped out far into the night. Splash! When my startled eyes looked down upon the glancing, waving ebony, I thought I could trace a white coruscation of foam spreading out into the darkness, instantly to dissipate and be lost for ever. I did not then know what form it was that swilled down below the glistening current. Had I known that it was Ginx's Baby I should perhaps have thought "Society, which, in the sacred names of Law and Charity, forbad the father to throw his child over Vauxhall Bridge, at a time when he was alike unconscious of life and death, has at last itself driven him over the parapet into the greedy waters"——

Philosophers, Philanthropists, Politicians, Papists and Protestants, Poor-Law Ministers and Parish Officers—while you have been theorizing and discussing, debating, wrangling, legislating and administering—Good God! gentlemen, between you all, where has Ginx's Baby gone to?

THE END