Ginx's Baby: his birth and other misfortunes; a satire , livre ebook

Pub One Info - Edward Jenkins

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69 pages

English

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. The name of the father of Ginx's Baby was Ginx. By a not unexceptional coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The gender of Ginx's Baby was masculine.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	27 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819927808
Langue	English

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GINX'S BABY
His Birth and other Misfortunes
A SATIRE
By Edward Jenkins
PREFACE.
CRITIC. — I never read a more improbable story inmy life.
AUTHOR. — Notwithstanding, it may be true.
PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM.
I.—Ab initio.
The name of the father of Ginx's Baby was Ginx. By anot unexceptional coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The genderof Ginx's Baby was masculine.
On the day when our hero was born, Mr. and Mrs. Ginxwere living at Number Five, Rosemary Street, in the City ofWestminster. The being then and there brought into the world wasnot the only human entity to which the title of “Ginx's Baby” wasor had been appropriate. Ginx had been married to Betsy Hicks atSt. John's, Westminster, on the twenty-fifth day of October, 18— ,as appears from the “marriage lines” retained by Betsy Ginx, andcarefully collated by me with the original register. Our hero wastheir thirteenth child. Patient inquiry has enabled me to verifythe following history of their propagations. On July thetwenty-fifth, the year after their marriage, Mrs. Ginx was safelydelivered of a girl. No announcement of this appeared in thenewspapers.
On the tenth of April following, the wholeneighborhood, including Great Smith Street, Marsham Street, Greatand Little Peter Streets, Regent Street, Horseferry Road, andStrutton Ground, was convulsed by the report that a woman namedGinx had given birth to “a triplet, ” consisting of two girls and aboy. The news penetrated to Dean's Yard and the ancient school ofWestminster. The Dean, who accepted nothing on trust, sent toverify the report, his messenger bearing a bundle of baby-clothesfrom the Dean's wife, who thought that the mother could scarcelyhave provided for so large an addition to her family. Theschoolboys, on their way to the play-ground at Vincent Square,slyly diverged to have a look at the curiosity, paying sixpence ahead to Mrs. Ginx's friend and crony, Mrs. Spittal, who pocketedthe money, and said nothing about it to the sick woman. THIS birthwas announced in all the newspapers throughout the kingdom, withthe further news that Her Majesty the Queen had been graciouslypleased to forward to Mrs. Ginx the sum of three pounds.
What could have possessed the woman I can't say, butabout a twelvemonth after, Mrs. Ginx, with the assistance of twodoctors hastily fetched from the hospital by her frightenedhusband, nearly perished in a fresh effort of maternity. This timetwo sons and two daughters fell to the lot of the happy pair. HerMajesty sent four pounds. But whatever peace there was at home,broils disturbed the street. The neighbors, who had sent for thepolice on the occasion, were angered by a notoriety which wasbecoming uncomfortable to them, and began to testify their feelingsin various rough ways. Ginx removed his family to Rosemary Street,where, up to a year before the time when Ginx's Baby was born, hiswife had continued to add to her offspring until the tale reachedone dozen. It was then that Ginx affectionately but firmly beggedthat his wife would consider her family ways, since, in allconscience, he had fairly earned the blessedness of the man whohath his quiver full of them; and frankly gave her notice that, ashis utmost efforts could scarcely maintain their existing family,if she ventured to present him with any more, either single, ortwins, or triplets, or otherwise, he would most assuredly drownhim, or her, or them in the water-butt, and take theconsequences.
II.—Home, sweet Home!
The day on which Ginx uttered his awful threat wasthat next to the one wherein number twelve had drawn his firstbreath. His wife lay on the bed which, at the outset of weddedlife, they had purchased secondhand in Strutton Ground for the sumof nine shillings and sixpence. SECOND-HAND! It had passed through,at least, as many hands as there were afterwards babies born uponit. Twelfth or thirteenth hand, a vagabond, botched bedstead, typeof all the furniture in Ginx's rooms, and in numberless housesthrough the vast city. Its dimensions were 4 feet 6 inches by 6feet. When Ginx, who was a stout navvy, and Mrs. Ginx, who was, youmay conceive, a matronly woman, were in it, there was little vacantspace about them. Yet, as they were forced to find resting-placesfor all the children, it not seldom happened that at least oneinfant was perilously wedged between the parental bodies; andlatterly they had been so pressed for room in the household thattwo younglings were nestled at the foot of the bed. Withoutfoot-board or pillows, the lodgment of these infants wasprecarious, since any fatuous movement of Ginx's legs was likely toexpel them head-first. However they were safe, for they were sureto fall on one or other of their brothers or sisters.
I shall be as particular as a valuer, and describewhat I have seen. The family sleeping-room measured 13 feet 6inches by 14 feet.
Opening out of this, and again on the landing of thethird-floor, was their kitchen and sitting-room; it was not quiteso large as the other. This room contained a press, an old chest ofdrawers, a wooden box once used for navvy's tools, three chairs, astool, and some cooking utensils. When, therefore, one little Ginxhad curled himself up under a blanket on the box, and three morehad slipped beneath a tattered piece of carpet under the table,there still remained five little bodies to be bedded. For them anold straw mattress, limp enough to be rolled up and thrust underthe bed, was at night extended on the floor. With this, and apatchwork quilt, the five were left to pack themselves together asbest they could. So that, if Ginx, in some vision of the night,happened to be angered, and struck out his legs in navvy fashion,it sometimes came to pass that a couple of children tumbled uponthe mass of infantile humanity below.
Not to be described are the dinginess of the walls,the smokiness of the ceilings, the grimy windows, the heavy,ever-murky atmosphere of these rooms. They were 8 feet 6 inches inheight, and any curious statist can calculate the number of cubicfeet of air which they afforded to each person.
The other side of the street was 14 feet distant.Behind, the backs of similar tenements came up black and coweringover the little yard of Number Five. As rare, in the well thusformed, was the circulation of air as that of coin in the pocketsof the inhabitants. I have seen the yard; let me warn you, if youare fastidious, not to enter it. Such of the filth of the house ascould not, at night, be thrown out of the front windows, was therecollected, and seldom, if ever, removed. What became of it? Whatbecomes of countless such accretions in like places? Are a largeproportion of these filthy atoms absorbed by human creatures livingand dying, instead of being carried away by scavengers andinspectors? The forty-five big and little lodgers in the house wereprovided with a single office in the corner of the yard. It hadonce been capped by a cistern, long since rotted away—
The street was at one time the prey of the gascompany; at another, of the drainage contractors. They seemed todelight in turning up the fetid soil, cutting deep trenches throughvarious strata of filth, and piling up for days or weeks matterthat reeked with vegetable and animal decay. One needs not affirmthat Rosemary Street was not so called from its fragrance. If theGinxes and their neighbors preserved any semblance of health inthis place, the most popular guardian on the board must own it amiracle. They, poor people, knew nothing of “sanitary reform, ”“sanitary precautions, ” “zymotics, ” “endemics, ” “epidemics, ”“deodorizers, ” or “disinfectants. ” They regarded disease with theapathy of creatures who felt it to be inseparable from humanity,and with the fatalism of despair.
Gin was their cardinal prescription, not for cure,but for oblivion: “Sold everywhere. ” A score of palaces flourishedwithin call of each other in that dismal district— garish,rich-looking dens, drawing to the support of their vulgar glory themeans, the lives, the eternal destinies of the wrecked masses aboutthem. Veritable wreckers they who construct these haunts, vilerthan the wretches who place false beacons and plunder bodies on thebeach. Bring down the real owners of these places, and show themtheir deadly work! Some of them leading Philanthropists, eloquentat Missionary meetings and Bible Societies, paying tribute to theLord out of the pockets of dying drunkards, fighting gloriousbattles for slaves, and manfully upholding popular rights. My richpublican— forgive the pun— before you pay tithes of mint andcummin, much more before you claim to be a disciple of a certainNazarene, take a lesson from one who restored fourfold the money hehad wrung from honest toil, or reflect on the case of the man towhom it was said, “Go sell all thou hast, and give to the poor. ”The lips from which that counsel dropped offered some unpleasantalternatives, leaving out one, however, which nowadays may yetreach you— the contempt of your kind.
III.—Work and Ideas.
I return again to Ginx's menace to his wife, who wassuckling her infant at the time on the bed. For her he had ananimal affection that preserved her from unkindness, even in hiscups. His hand had never unmanned itself by striking her, andrarely indeed did it injure any one else. He wrestled not againstflesh and blood, or powers, or principalities, or wicked spirits inhigh places. He struggled with clods and stones, and primevalchaos. His hands were horny with the fight, and his nature hadperhaps caught some of the dull ruggedness of the things wherewithhe battled. Hard and with a will had he worked through the years ofwedded life, and, to speak him fair, he had acted honestly, withinthe limits of his knowledge and means, for the good of his family.How narrow were those limits! Every week he threw into the lap ofMrs. Ginx the eighteen or twenty shillings which his strength andtemperance enabled him continuously to earn, less sixpence reservedfor the publi