half-baptizing

Mrs. Piper lives in the court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the plaintive -- so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased -- was reported to have sold himself.

Bleak House Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 1853

Mrs. Piper lives in the court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the plaintive -- so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased -- was reported to have sold himself.

Bleak House Charles Dickens 1841