organs,"
as they called them, to pipe to popular feeling on the disgraceful
apathy of the Radicals in regard to the foundling. They had him waylaid
and treated to confectionery by their emissaries; and once or twice
succeeded in abducting him and sending him down to the country with
their party's candidates, for exhibition at elections.

The Radicals resented this conduct extremely. Ginx's Baby was brought
back to the Club and restored to favor. The Government papers were
instructed to detail how much he was petted and talked about by the
party; to declare how needless was the popular excitement on his behalf;
and to prove that he must, without any special legislation, be benefited
by the extraordinary organic changes then being made in the constitution
of the country.

Sir Charles Sterling resumed his interest in the boy. He had been
gallantly aiding his party in other questions. There was the Timbuctoo
question. A miserable desert chief had shut up a wandering Englishman,
not possessed of wit enough to keep his head out of danger. There was
a general impression that English honor was at stake, and the previous
Fogey Government had ordered an expedition to cross the desert and
punish the sheikh. You would never believe what it cost if you had
not seen the bill. Ten millions sterling was as good as buried in the
desert, when one-tenth of it would have saved a hundred thousand people
from starvation at home, and one-hundredth part of it would have taken
the fetters off the hapless prisoner's feet.

There was the St. Helena question always brooding over Parliament.
St. Helena was a constituent part of the British Empire. Every patriot
agreed that the Empire without it would be incomplete; and was so far
right that its subtraction would have left the Empire by so much less.
Most of its inhabitants were aboriginal--a mercurial race, full of fire,
quick-witted, and gifted with the exuberant eloquence of savages, but
deficient in dignity and self-control. Before any one else had been
given them by Providence to fight, they slaughtered and ravaged one
another. Our intrusive British ancestors stepped upon the island, and,
being strong men, mowed down the islanders like wheat, and appropriated
the lands their swords had cleared. Still the aborigines held out
in corners, and defied the conquerors. The latter ground them down,
confiscated the property of their half-dozen chiefs, and distributed it
among themselves. By way of sh