Ginx's Baby [29]
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
* * * 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