The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
The bill of costs against St. Bartemeus was 1,600 pounds. Just as
it was taxed, one of the persons who had deserted Ginx's Baby was
arrested for theft. The Baby's clothes, given by the Duchess,
were found in this person's possession. She confessed all about
the Baby, and so the guardians traced the Baby's father and
delivered to Ginx, through an agent, the famous child, with the
benediction--"There he is; damn him!"
Mrs. Ginx couldn't recognize the Baby. His brothers and sisters
would have nothing to do with him. Ginx took the Baby out one
night, left it on the steps of a large building in Pall Mall, and
slunk away out of the pages of "this strange, eventful history."
The Baby piped. The door of the house, a club, opened and the
baby was taken in. It was the Radical Club, but it was as
conservative as it could be in its reception of the waif, and it
was only in perfunctory kindness that the Club gave him shelter.
The Fogey Club heard of the Baby and bethought itself of making
campaign material of him. The Fogies instructed their "organs" to
dilate upon the disgraceful apathy of the Radicals toward the
foundling. The Fogies kidnapped the Baby; the Radicals stole him
back. The Baby was again a great "question." However, other
questions supervened, although it was understood that Sir Charles
Sterling was "to get a night" to bring up the case of Ginx's Baby
in Parliament. Associations were formed in the metropolis for
disposing of Ginx's Baby by expatriation or otherwise. A peer
suddenly sprung the matter by proposing to send the Baby to the
Antipodes at the expense of the nation. The question was debated
with elaborate stilted stultitude and the noble lord withdrew his
motion.
The Baby tired of life at the clubs. He borrowed some clothes,
some forks, some spoons, without leave, and then took his leave.
No attempt was made to recover him. He was fifteen. "He pitted
his wits against starvation." He found the world terribly full
everywhere he went. He went through a career of penury, of honest
and dishonest callings, of 'scapes and captures, imprisonments
and other punishments.
Midnight on Vauxhall Bridge! The form of a man emerged from the
dark and outlined itself against the haze of sky. There was a
dull flash of a face in the gloom. The shadow leaped far out into
the night. Splash! "Society, which, in the sacred names of Law
and Charity, forbade the father to throw his child over Vauxhall
Bridge, at a time when he was alike unconscious of life and
death, has at last driven him over the parapet into the greedy
waters."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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