l party in
every possible way. Their pleasure was to go about insanely blowing
rams'-horns, carrying flags and bearing oranges in their hands. The
islanders hated oranges, and at every opportunity cracked the skulls of
the orange-bearers with brutal weapons peculiar to the island. These,
in return, cracked native skulls. The whole island was in a state of
perpetual commotion. Still, its general condition improved, its
farms grew prosperous, and a joint-stock company had built a mill
for converting cocoanut fibre into horse-cloths, which yielded large
profits. The memory of past events might well have been buried; but the
clerics, in the interest of the old woman, fanned the embers, and the
infamous bidding for popularity of parties at home served to keep alive
passions that would naturally have died out. Besides, latterly folly had
been too organized on both sides to suffer oblivion. Everybody was tired
of the squabbles of St. Helena. At length there was a general movement
in the interests of peace, and to pacify the islanders Parliament was
asked to pull down the wings of the old church edifice, remove some of
the graves, and cut off a large piece of the graveyard. Some were
in favor also of dividing all the farms in the country among the
aborigines, but the difficulty was to know how at the same time to
satisfy the present occupiers. These schemes were topics of high debate,
upon them the fortunes of Government rose and fell, and while they were
agitated Ginx's Baby could have no chance of a parliamentary hearing.
Many other matters of singular indifference had eaten up the legislative
time; but at last the increasing number of wretched infants throughout
the country began to alarm the people, and Sir Charles Sterling thought
the time had come to move on behalf of Ginx's Baby and his fellows.

VI.--Amateur Debating in a High Legislative Body.

While Sir Charles was trying to get the Government to "give him a night"
to debate the Ginx's Baby case, and while associations were being formed
in the metropolis for disposing of him by expatriation or otherwise, a
busy peer without notice to anybody, suddenly brought the subject before
the House of Lords. As he had never seen the Baby, and knew nothing or
very little about him, I need scarcely report the elaborate speech in
which he asked for aristocratic sympathy on his behalf. He proposed to
send him to the Antipodes at the expense of the nation.

The Minister for t