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.”