Ginx's Baby [14]
most convenient to insert the report of the Daily Electric Meteor:-- "WESTMINSTER. "Mr. Dignam Bailey, Q.C., (with whom was Mr. Adolphus Stigma), applied for a summons against Mary Dens, commonly called Sister Suspiciosa, of the convent of the Sisters of Misery, in Winkle Street, for abducting and detaining a male child of John Ginx and Mary his wife. "Mr. D'ACERBITY. On whose behalf do you apply? "The learned counsel stated that he was instructed by the Protestant Detectoral Association to apply on behalf of the mother. The case was also watched by the solicitors of the Society for Preventing the Suppression of Women and Children. "Mr. D'ACERBITY. Does the father join in the application? "Mr. BAILEY. No, sir. "Mr. D'ACERBITY. Why? He ought to be joined if living. "Mr. BAILEY. Perhaps you will allow me, sir, to state the case. The circumstances are peculiar. The fact is---- "Mr. D'ACERBITY. I cannot understand why the father should not be represented if the child has been abducted. Where was it taken from? "Mr. Bailey proceeded to state that the child had been taken by a nun from No. 5, Rosemary Street, without the mother's consent, and was now imprisoned in the convent. The father appeared to be indifferent, or to have given a sort of general acquiescence. This was Mrs. Ginx's thirteenth child, around whom gathered the concentrated affections "Mr. D'ACERBITY (interrupting the learned gentleman). We have no time for sentiment here, Mr. Bailey. If the father consented, can you call it abduction? It looks like reduction. (Laughter.) "Mr. Bailey called attention to the consolidated statutes of criminal law, and said he was going for illegal detention rather than abduction, and argued at great length from section 56. At the conclusion of the argument, after refusing to hear Mr. Stigma, "Mr. D'Acerbity said that the case clearly did not come within the section, and he was afraid the learned counsel knew it. The father had been a consenting party, on the counsel's own statement, to the child's removal, and no suggestion had been made that he had withdrawn his consent. He should refuse a summons. "Mr. Bailey endeavored to address the magistrate but was stopped. "Mr. D'ACERBITY. I have no more to say. You can apply to the Queen's Bench. I have no sympathy with you whatever." Mr. D'Acerbity's law was good, but--what has justice to do with "sympathies?" Surely the day after this report appeared the magistrate must have had a letter from the Home Secretary? VI-Popery and Protestantism in the Queen's Bench. The application to the magistrate was far from satisfactory. There had not even been an exposure, and the Windmill Bulletin gayly bantered the Detectoral Association. Meanwhile had happened the grand christening, of which a circumstantial account was in the hands of the council of the Detectoral Association shortly after the ceremony had been performed. Here was a monstrous indignity to a Protestant child! The account was at once printed, together with a verbatim report of the application to the magistrate as well as one of "a conversation held with the mother by an agent of the Association." Board-men paraded the great thoroughfares carrying this appeal:-- PROTESTANT DETECTORAL ASSOCIATION. -------- NO POPERY! Abduction Of an Infant! Assault on the Liberty of the Subject! Mysterious and Awful Proceedings! Baptism of a Protestant Child in a Convent! OUTRAGE Upon the Nation by Foreign Mercenaries! ---------------- Every Father and Mother is Invited to Co-operate in Maintaining the PROTESTANT RELIGION, The Sanctity of Home, and the Inviolability of BRITISH FREEDOM! -------- NO SURRENDER! If there was no coherency in this production, it should be noted how little that is of the essence of popular appeal. The metropolis was in an uproar. Meetings were held, subscriptions poured in, dangerous crowds collected in Winkle Street. When Mr. Dignam Bailey, Q. C., went down to Westminster, to move the Court of Queen's Bench,