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?