New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-07-30
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

GINX's BABY HIS BIRTH AND OTHER MISF0R
New-YOrk: Geo. Koutedge d Sons.
We alluded some time ago, to this clever little
satire which has irTitated John Bull more than any
ponderous attack could do very much like the sting
of nette falling the TANKS of an OK. 1t is bold
attempt TO compress the question of p2uperiSn the
most vital problem now submittedto England into
terse, direct nterrogatory, which can be under
stood Of al men, and viii Nv no means suffer itSeh
30 be put aside. The Labor Question is a vague
geerality to be dealt with by Parliament to be met
by Demand and Supply, Rights Of Capital and other
such vague gcneTalities, like itself But "lhN
Baby is live starving fact knocking at the door Oh
every man and woman in the United Kingdom. lis
story. in the telling is real enough. We have 'lc
room in which tins last of thirteen babies Ist 81"
not the licht-but the fog and filth to winch II was
born we have the foul yard and f0uler SueeI
hacked rocking with paupeTs; the stout navy us
father at work by day and drunk 10y mght' the
good citizen whose sole idea of government Is the
police: the good Christian, its dirty oVerworked
mother whose sole idea of religion is to believe III
some Being who sends bread and meat, and to hate
Poperv We are told in clear, Ienchant English,
what GinX senior. starving and lli-pald, without
hone of pleasure or reward in this world the next
beyond his glass of whisky at night, did with this
babv-this human soul in a diseased body-which
TO make Child of God an heir of Christ, and an III
heritor of the kingdom of heaven :" what philoso-
pliers did with it, nuns archbish0pS. priests Presby
terians Poor Law officers, statesmen; and finally
how GinK's Baby took his fate in his own hands, and
went to find God and rest in the filth
Of the Thames. morbid, unhealthy story
enough hut not without its force when
we remember that GinX's baby is meant to
represent million and half of paupers that of all
the children born in England in the last ID years
one-third have been sentenced at BIRTH without
chance of escape to lives of incuTable idleness want
and crime The gradual but steady depression of
trade-the closing of ship-yardS, iron wool, cotton,
and silk factories, have thrown out of employment
this great mass of human material, which has gone
on year by year. increasing seethinc, breeding pois
onous disease within itself while the differing
face of the Government remained all that was fair
and promising. "No revival Of trade viii provide
for this excessive incubus of numbers is the plain
fact that Parliament has TO look in the face.
GinXs Baby, born in the last generation. reared ia
idleneSs and VIC. vet has his right TO live ana IS
strong enough to threaten 10 take his ruler by
the throat to obtain it. Government having been
content to educate him brute, must not he sur
prsed if he acts as a brute. What to do with hun
Irish land-Cuestions church problems foreign policy
all are thrust aside while England looks appalled,,
e
outsde danger she can safely deal; but what shall
deliver her from this body Of death at home which
is a horrible, bestia double of herselff AT
present there seems TO be but one way
found practicable by English statesmen-that is
emigration. The Christian country having done Its
worst to the body. brain. and soul of GinX's Baby,
has no other left open to il than to shift him
over TO some less civilized cline, where he perhaps
may find chance TO grow into the healthy animal
and GOd-fearinc man for which God meant him.
Emigration schemes are howevev, yet principally
carried on by private hands Government sits idly
by and feebly chatters of the revenue of the king
dom its commerce. its outer signs of prosperity and
the gittering upper social strata, forgetting the
Black Hole of Calcutta full of miasma that lies be
meath. Rome, France under Louis XIV, England
herself in her past history, never were more out
wardy rich and powerful, never wore heavier
crowns atop than when the work of disease and dis
indignation had begun al heart. Statements of this
danger at home have grown stale in the House of
Commons lately: statistics are apt 10 become bore
if repeated too often there may, therefore, be
hope that this little book will be of service though
We scarcely hope it. It's least effective portions
those in which the author, forgetting his puppet
show. as your didactic story-teller is apt to do,
comes before the curtain 10 preach in propa persona
When ne j. content to let his story point its
moral, the alegory is effective and the satire not
only rue hut delicate. The holy coddling the
infant Anbrosus till he dcsecrated the chasuble and
altar steps the agent of the Protestant Detectoral
Association; the charitable meeting where G19GO
were contybUtCd for the aid OF the baby and II 252
swallowed up by secretaries committees, and sundry
expenses, ali may lind their Tesembalces on this
side of the Atlantic For other reasons too the book
deserves reading. l. Is us, doubtless that the
weight OF Ginx and his offspring will eventually
l., D. to-
time what. when the day comes are we to do with
Ginxs babyi The dangerous classes are the same in
essence, and in effect in England and here Is hang
ing and drowning Che best use after all that be
made of thcml