Ginxs Baby, A Satire | Page 9

and Chorus, who united in a hearty outburst
of laughter. GINX. Haw, Haw, Haw! How came I to have so many?
Why my old woman's a good un and---- In fact, after searching his
mind for some clever way of putting a comical rejoinder, Ginx laughed
boisterously. There are two aspects of a question. PHILOSOPHER. I
am serious, my friend. Did it never occur to you that you had no right
to bring children into the world unless you could feed and clothe and
educate them? CHORUS. Laws a' mercy! GINX. I'd like to know how I
could help it, naabor. I'm a married man. PHILOSOPHER. Well, I will
go further and say you ought not to have married without a fair
prospect of being able to provide for any contingent increase of family.
CHORUS. Laws a' mercy! PHILOSOPHER (waxing warm). What
right had you to marry a poor woman, and then both of you, with as
little forethought as two--a--dogs, or other brutes--to produce between
you such a multitudinous progeny-- GINX. Civil words, naabor; don't
call my family hard names. PHILOSOPHER. Then let me say, such a
monstrous number of children as thirteen? You knew, as you said just
now, that wages were wages and did not vary much. And yet you have
gone on subdividing your resources by the increase of what must
become a degenerate offspring. (To the Chorus) All you workpeople
are doing it. Is it not time to think about these things and stop the
indiscriminate production of human beings, whose lives you cannot
properly maintain? Ought you not to act more like reflective creatures
and less like brutes? As if breeding were the whole object of life! How
much better for you, my friend, if you had never married at all, than to
have had the worry of a wife and children all these years. The
philosopher had gone too far. There were some angry murmurs among
the women and Ginx's face grew dark. He was thinking of "all those
years" and the poor creature that from morning to night and Sunday to
Sunday, in calm and storm, had clung to his rough affections: and the
bright eyes, and the winding arms so often trellised over his
tremendous form, and the coy tricks and laughter that had cheered so

many tired hours. He may have been much of a brute, but he felt that,
after all, that sort of thing was denied to dogs and pigs. Before he could
translate his thoughts into words or acts a shrewd-looking, curly-haired
stonemason, who stood by with his tin on his arm, cut into the
discussion. STONEMASON. Your doctrines won't go down here, Mr.
Philosopher. I've 'eard of them before. I'd just like to ask you what a
man's to do and what a woman's to do if they don't marry: and if they
do, how can you honestly hinder them from having any children? The
stonemason had rudely struck out the cardinal issues of the question.
PHILOSOPHER. Well, to take the last point first, there are physical
and ethical questions involved in it, which it is hard to discuss before
such an audience as this. STONEMASON. But you must discuss 'em, if
you wish us to change our ways, and stop breeding. PHILOSOPHER.
Very well: perhaps you are right. But, again, I should first have to
establish a basis for my arguments, by showing that the conception of
marriage entertained by you all is a low one. It is not simply a breeding
matter. The beauty and value of the relation lies in its educational
effects--the cultivation of mutual sentiments and refinements of great
importance to a community. STONEMASON. Ay! Very beautiful and
refining to Mr. and Mrs. Philosopher, but I'd like to know where the
country would have been if our fathers had held to that view of
matrimony? Why, ain't it in natur' for all beings to pair, and have young?
an' you say we ain't to do it! I think a statesman ought to make
something out of what's nateral to human beings, and not try to change
their naturs. Besides, ain't there good of another kind to be got out of
the relation of parents and children? Did you ever have a child yourself?
GINX (contemplating the Philosopher's physique). HE have a
youngster! He couldn't. CHORUS. Ha! Ha! Ha! STONEMASON. I
don't believe in yer humbuggin' notions. They lead to lust and
crime;--I'm told they do in France. If you yourself haven't the human
natur in you to know it, I'll tell you, and we can all tell you that as a
rule if the healthy desires of natur ain't satisfied in a honest way, they
will be in another. You can't stop eating by passin' an act of Parleyment
to stop it.