“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.