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1、【国外英文文学】Ginxs BabyGinxs BabyHis Birth and other MisfortunesA SATIRE by Edward Jenkins?CRITIC.-I never read a more improbable story in my life. AUTHOR.-Notwithstanding, it may be true. CONTENTS. - PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM. I. Ab initioII. Home, sweet Home!III. Work and IdeasIV. Digressive, and
2、may be skipped without mutilating the HistoryV. Reasons and Resolves VI. The Antagonism of Law and NecessityVII. Malthus and ManVIII. The Babys First TranslationPART II. WHAT CHARITY AND THE CHURCHES DID WITH HIM. I. The Milk of Human Kindness, Mothers Milk, and the Milk of the Word II. The Protesta
3、nt Detectoral AssociationIII. The Sacrament of BaptismIV. Law on Behalf of GospelV. Magistrates LawVI. Popery and Protestantism in the Queens BenchVII. A Protestor, but not a Protestant VIII. See how these Christians love one anotherIX. Good Samaritans, and Good-Samaritan TwopencesX. The Force-and a
4、 Specimen of its WeaknessXI. The Unity of the Spirit and the Bond of PeaceXII. No Funds-no Faith, no WorksXIII. In transituPART III. WHAT THE PARISH DID WITH HIM. I. Parochial Knots-to be untied without PrejudiceII. A Board of GuardiansIII. The World is my ParishIV. Without Prejudice to any one but
5、the GuardiansV. An Ungodly JungleVI. Parochial Benevolence-and another Translation PART IV. WHAT THE CLUBS AND POLITICIANS DID WITH HIM. I. Moved onII. Club IdeasIII. A thorough-paced Reformer-if not a RevolutionaryIV. Very Broad ViewsV. Party Tactics-and Political Obstructions to Social Reform VI.
6、Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body PART V. WHAT GINXS BABY DID WITH HIMSELF. The Last Chapter PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM. I.-Ab initio. The name of the father of Ginxs Baby was Ginx. By a not unexceptional coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The gender of Ginxs Baby was masculine.On
7、the day when our hero was born, Mr. and Mrs. Ginx were living at Number Five, Rosemary Street, in the City of Westminster. The being then and there brought into the world was not the only human entity to which the title of Ginxs Baby was or had been appropriate. Ginx had been married to Betsy Hicks
8、at St. Johns, Westminster, on the twenty-fifth day of October, 18-, as appears from the marriage lines retained by Betsy Ginx, and carefully collated by me with the original register. Our hero was their thirteenth child. Patient inquiry has enabled me to verify the following history of their propaga
9、tions. On July the twenty-fifth, the year after their marriage, Mrs. Ginx was safely delivered of a girl. No announcement of this appeared in the newspapers. On the tenth of April following, the whole neighborhood, including Great Smith Street, Marsham Street, Great and Little Peter Streets, Regent
10、Street, Horseferry Road, and Strutton Ground, was convulsed by the report that a woman named Ginx had given birth to a triplet, consisting of two girls and a boy. The news penetrated to Deans Yard and the ancient school of Westminster. The Dean, who accepted nothing on trust, sent to verify the repo
11、rt, his messenger bearing a bundle of baby-clothes from the Deans wife, who thought that the mother could scarcely have provided for so large an addition to her family. The schoolboys, on their way to the play-ground at Vincent Square, slyly diverged to have a look at the curiosity, paying sixpence
12、a head to Mrs. Ginxs friend and crony, Mrs. Spittal, who pocketed the money, and said nothing about it to the sick woman. THIS birth was announced in all the newspapers throughout the kingdom, with the further news that Her Majesty the Queen had been graciously pleased to forward to Mrs. Ginx the su
13、m of three pounds. What could have possessed the woman I cant say, but about a twelvemonth after, Mrs. Ginx, with the assistance of two doctors hastily fetched from the hospital by her frightened husband, nearly perished in a fresh effort of maternity. This time two sons and two daughters fell to th
14、e lot of the happy pair. Her Majesty sent four pounds. But whatever peace there was at home, broils disturbed the street. The neighbors, who had sent for the police on the occasion, were angered by a notoriety which was becoming uncomfortable to them, and began to testify their feelings in various r
15、ough ways. Ginx removed his family to Rosemary Street, where, up to a year before the time when Ginxs Baby was born, his wife had continued to add to her offspring until the tale reached one dozen. It was then that Ginx affectionately but firmly begged that his wife would consider her family ways, s
16、ince, in all conscience, he had fairly earned the blessedness of the man who hath his quiver full of them; and frankly gave her notice that, as his utmost efforts could scarcely maintain their existing family, if she ventured to present him with any more, either single, or twins, or triplets, or oth
17、erwise, he would most assuredly drown him, or her, or them in the water-butt, and take the consequences. II.-Home, sweet Home! The day on which Ginx uttered his awful threat was that next to the one wherein number twelve had drawn his first breath. His wife lay on the bed which, at the outset of wed
18、ded life, they had purchased secondhand in Strutton Ground for the sum of nine shillings and sixpence. SECOND-HAND! It had passed through, at least, as many hands as there were afterwards babies born upon it. Twelfth or thirteenth hand, a vagabond, botched bedstead, type of all the furniture in Ginx
19、s rooms, and in numberless houses through the vast city. Its dimensions were 4 feet 6 inches by 6 feet. When Ginx, who was a stout navvy, and Mrs. Ginx, who was, you may conceive, a matronly woman, were in it, there was little vacant space about them. Yet, as they were forced to find resting-places
20、for all the children, it not seldom happened that at least one infant was perilously wedged between the parental bodies; and latterly they had been so pressed for room in the household that two younglings were nestled at the foot of the bed. Without foot-board or pillows, the lodgment of these infan
21、ts was precarious, since any fatuous movement of Ginxs legs was likely to expel them head-first. However they were safe, for they were sure to fall on one or other of their brothers or sisters. I shall be as particular as a valuer, and describe what I have seen. The family sleeping-room measured 13
22、feet 6 inches by 14 feet. Opening out of this, and again on the landing of the third-floor, was their kitchen and sitting-room; it was not quite so large as the other. This room contained a press, an old chest of drawers, a wooden box once used for navvys tools, three chairs, a stool, and some cooki
23、ng utensils. When, therefore, one little Ginx had curled himself up under a blanket on the box, and three more had slipped beneath a tattered piece of carpet under the table, there still remained five little bodies to be bedded. For them an old straw mattress, limp enough to be rolled up and thrust
24、under the bed, was at night extended on the floor. With this, and a patchwork quilt, the five were left to pack themselves together as best 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 co
25、uple of children tumbled upon the 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 in height, and any curious statist can calculate the nu
26、mber of cubic feet 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 cowering over the little yard of Number Five. As rare, in the well thus formed, was the circulation of air as that of coin in the p
27、ockets of the inhabitants. I have seen the yard; let me warn you, if you are fastidious, not to enter it. Such of the filth of the house as could not, at night, be thrown out of the front windows, was there collected, and seldom, if ever, removed. What became of it? What becomes of countless such ac
28、cretions in like places? Are a large proportion of these filthy atoms absorbed by human creatures living and dying, instead of being carried away by scavengers and inspectors? The forty-five big and little lodgers in the house were provided with a single office in the corner of the yard. It had once
29、 been capped by a cistern, long since rotted away- * * * * * The street was at one time the prey of the gas company; at another, of the drainage contractors. They seemed to delight in turning up the fetid soil, cutting deep trenches through various strata of filth, and piling up for days or weeks ma
30、tter that reeked with vegetable and animal decay. One needs not affirm that Rosemary Street was not so called from its fragrance. If the Ginxes and their neighbors preserved any semblance of health in this place, the most popular guardian on the board must own it a miracle. They, poor people, knew n
31、othing of sanitary reform, sanitary precautions, zymotics, endemics, epidemics, deodorizers, or disinfectants. They regarded disease with the apathy 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
32、oblivion: Sold everywhere. A score of palaces flourished within call of each other in that dismal district-garish, rich- looking dens, drawing to the support of their vulgar glory the means, the lives, the eternal destinies of the wrecked masses about them. Veritable wreckers they who construct thes
33、e haunts, viler than the wretches who place false beacons and plunder bodies on the beach. Bring down the real owners of these places, and show them their deadly work! Some of them leading Philanthropists, eloquent at Missionary meetings and Bible Societies, paying tribute to the Lord out of the poc
34、kets of dying drunkards, fighting glorious battles for slaves, and manfully upholding popular rights. My rich publican-forgive the pun-before you pay tithes of mint and cummin, much more before you claim to be a disciple of a certain Nazarene, take a lesson from one who restored fourfold the money h
35、e had wrung from honest toil, or reflect on the case of the man to whom it was said, Go sell all thou hast, and give to the poor. The lips from which that counsel dropped offered some unpleasant alternatives, leaving out one, however, which nowadays may yet reach you-the contempt of your kind. III.-
36、Work and Ideas. I return again to Ginxs menace to his wife, who was suckling her infant at the time on the bed. For her he had an animal affection that preserved her from unkindness, even in his cups. His hand had never unmanned itself by striking her, and rarely indeed did it injure any one else. H
37、e wrestled not against flesh and blood, or powers, or principalities, or wicked spirits in high places. He struggled with clods and stones, and primeval chaos. His hands were horny with the fight, and his nature had perhaps caught some of the dull ruggedness of the things wherewith he battled. Hard
38、and with a will had he worked through the years of wedded life, and, to speak him fair, he had acted honestly, within the limits of his knowledge and means, for the good of his family. How narrow were those limits! Every week he threw into the lap of Mrs. Ginx the eighteen or twenty shillings which
39、his strength and temperance enabled him continuously to earn, less sixpence reserved for the public-house, whither he retreated on Sundays after the family dinner. A dozen children overrunning the space in his rooms was then a strain beyond the endurance of Ginx. Nor had he the heart to try the comm
40、on plan, and turn his children out of doors on the chance of their being picked up in a raid of Sunday School teachers. So he turned out himself to talk with the humbler spirits of the Dragon, or listen sleepily while alehouse demagogues prescribed remedies for State abuses. Our friend was nearly as
41、 guiltless of knowledge as if Eve had never rifled the tree whereon it grew. Vacant of policies were his thoughts; innocent he of ideas of state-craft. He knew there was a Queen; he had seen her. Lords and Commons were to him vague deities possessing strange powers. Indeed, he had been present when
42、some of his better-informed companions had recognized with cheers certain gentlemen,-of whom Ginxs estimate was expressed by a reference to his test of superiority to himself in that which he felt to be greatest within him-I could lick em with my little finger -as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and
43、 the Prime Minister. Little recked he of their uses or abuses. The functions of Government were to him Asian mysteries. He only felt that it ought to have a strong arm, like the brawny member wherewith he preserved order in his domestic kingdom, and therefore generally associated Government with the
44、 Police. In his view these were to clear away evil-doers and leave every one else alone. The higher objects of Government were, if at all, outlined in the shadowiest form in his imagination. Government imposed taxes-that he was obliged to know. Government maintained the parks; for that he thanked it
45、. Government made laws, but what they were, or with what aim or effects made, he knew not, save only that by them something was done to raise or depress the prices of bread, tea, sugar, and other necessaries. Why they should do so he never conceived-I am not sure that he cared. Legislation sometimes
46、 pinched him, but darkness so hid from him the persons and objects of the legislators that he could not criticise the theories which those powerful beings were subjecting to experiment at his cost. I must, at any risk, say something about this in a separate chapter. IV.-Digressive, and may be skippe
47、d without mutilating the History. I stop here to address any of the following characters, should he perchance read these memoirs: You, Mr. Statesman-if there be such; Mr. Pseudo-Statesman, Placeman, Party Leader, Wirepuller; Mr. Amateur Statesman, Dilettante Lord, Civil Servant; Mr. Clubman, Littera
48、teur, Newspaper Scribe; Mr. Peoples Candidate, Demagogue, Fenian Spouter; or whoever you may be, professing to know aught or do anything in matters of policy, consider, what I am sure you have never fairly weighed, the condition of a man whose clearest notion of Government is derived from the Police! Imagine one who had never seen a polyp trying to construct an ideal of the animal, from a single tentacle swinging out from the tangle of weed in which the rest was wrapped! How then any more can you fancy