Chapter 7
section seven of jinx's baby his birth and other misfortunes by edward jenkins this librivox recording is in the public domain part one chapter seven malthus and man two gentlemen who had been observing the excitement here came forward first gentlemen this is our problem again mr philosopher mr philosopher to jinx you don't know what to do with your infant my friend and you think the state ought to provide for it? I understand you to say this is your thirteenth child. How came you to have so many? This question, though put with profound and even melancholy gravity, disconcerted Jinx, officer, and chorus, who united in a hearty outburst of laughter. Jinx,
Ha ha ha! 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, Jinx 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 of mercy. Jinx.
I'd like to know how I could help it, neighbor. 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 of mercy. Philosopher, waxing warm. What right had you to marry a poor woman, and then both of you, with as little forethought as two dogs or other brutes,
to produce between you such a multitudinous progeny. Jinx. Civil words, neighbor. 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 very 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 work people 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 Jinx'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 heard 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 them, if you wish 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. Stone Mason. Aye, 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 nature for all beings to pair and have young? And you say we ain't to do it. I think a statesman ought to make something out of what's natural to human beings and not try to change their natures. 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? Jinx, contemplating the philosopher's physique. He have a youngster. He couldn't. Chorus. Ha, ha, ha. Stonemason. I don't believe in your humbugging notions. They lead to lust and crime. I'm told they do in France. If you yourself haven't the human nature in you to know it, I'll tell you, we can all tell you, that as a rule, if the healthy desires of Nader ain't satisfied in an honest way, they will be in another.
You can't stop eating by passing an act of parliament to stop it. And as for your edication and cultivation, that makes no difference. We know something here about your edicated men, more than they think. Who is it we meet about the streets late at night, going to the gay houses? Some of them stand near as high as you, but that don't alter their nature.
They have their passions like other men, and education don't keep them down. Well, if that's the case, how can you ask people of our sort to put on the curb or make us do it? Are we to live more like beasts than we are now, or do what's worse than murder? I don't see no other way. Among us, I tell you, sir, three-fourths of our education is education of the heart.
We have to learn to be human, kind, self-denying. And I think this makes better men as a rule than head-larning, though I don't despise that neither. And you don't suppose head-citizens would fight for their country like men with wives and children behind them? Why, they don't even at home work for daily food like a man with wife and babies to provide for. The stonemason was above his class, one of those shrewd men that the people called Methodists get hold of
and use among the lower orders under the name of local preachers, men who learn to think and speak better than their fellows. The philosopher testified some admiration by listening attentively and was about to reply, but the chorus was tired and the women would not hear him. Chorus
Best get out of this. We don't want any of your philosophy. Go and get children of your own, etc., etc. The philosopher and his friend departed, carrying with them unsolved the problem they had brought. End of section 7
