The Tragedy of the Chain Pier | Page 8

its grave."
"You are very good, sir," said the superintendent, and the pitiful
woman cried out:
"Heaven bless you, sir! I would do the same thing myself if I could
afford it."
"There must be an inquest," said some one in the crowd; "we ought to
know whether the child was dead before it was thrown into the water."
"I hope to Heaven it was!" cried the woman.
And I said to myself that, if that were the case, it would not be
murder--not murder, but some mad, miserable mother's way out of
some dreadful difficulty.
Surely on the beautiful, despairing face I had not seen the brand of
murder. If the little one had been dead, that would lessen the degree of
wickedness so greatly.
The woman who had dried and kissed the tiny waxen face bent over it
now.
"I am sure," she said, "that the child was alive when it touched the
water."
"How do you know?" asked the superintendent, curiously.
"Look at the face, sir, and you will see."
"I see nothing," he replied.
"I do," she said. "I see just what you would see on the face of a baby
suddenly plunged into cold water. I see the signs of faint, baby surprise.
Look at the baby brows and the little hand spread wide open. It was
living when it touched the water, I am sure of that."

"A doctor will soon settle that question," said the superintendent.
Then the little one was carried by rough but not ungentle hands to the
dead-house on the hill. I went with it. I overheard the superintendent
tell the master of the work-house that I was a rich man--an invalid--and
that I passed a great deal of my time at Brighton. In a lowered voice he
added that I was very eccentric, and that happening to be on the Chain
Pier that morning, I had insisted upon paying the expenses of the little
funeral.
"A kind, Christian gentlemen," the master said. "I am glad to hear it."
I shall never forget the pitiful sight of that tiny white form laid on the
table alone--quite alone--I could not forget it. The matron had found a
little white dress to wrap it in, and with kindly thought had laid some
white chrysanthemums on the little, innocent breast. Whenever I see a
chrysanthemum now it brings back to my mind the whole scene--the
bare, white walls, the clean wooden floor, the black tressels, and the
table whereon the fair, tender little body lay--all alone.

CHAPTER IV.
Our little life in this world seems of little count. Throw a stone into the
sea--it makes a splash that lasts for one second, then it is all over; the
waves roll on just as though it had not been dropped.
The death of this one little child, whom no one knew and for whom no
one cared, was of less than no account; it made a small paragraph in the
newspapers--it had caused some little commotion on the pier--just a
little hurry at the work-house, and then it was forgotten. What was such
a little waif and stray--such a small, fair, tender little creature to the gay
crowd?
"A child found drowned by the Chain Pier." Kind-hearted, motherly
women shrugged their shoulders with a sigh. The finding or the death
of such hapless little ones is, alas! not rare. I do not think of the

hundreds who carelessly heard the words that morning there was one
who stopped to think of the possible suffering of the child. It is a wide
step from the warmth of a mother's arms to the chill of the deep-sea
water. The gay tide of fashion ebbed and flowed just the same; the band
played on the Chain Pier the morning following; the sunbeams danced
on the water--there was nothing to remind one of the little life so
suddenly and terribly closed.
There was not much more to tell. There was an inquest, but it was not
of much use. Every one knew that the child had been drowned; the
doctor thought it had been drugged before it was drowned; there was
very little to be said about it. Jim, the boatman, proved the finding of it.
The coroner said a few civil words when he heard that one of the
visitors of the town, out of sheer pity, had offered to defray the
expenses of the little funeral.
The little unknown babe, who had spent the night in the deep sea, was
buried in the cemetery on the Lewes Road. I bought a grave for her
under the spreading boughs of a tree; she had a white pall and a
quantity of white flowers. The matron from the work-house went, and
it was not at all like a pauper's