During last June a Gipsy woman, of the name of Bishop, was found in one of the tents, on a common just outside London, with her throat cut and her child lying dead by her side in a pool of blood, and the man with whom she cohabited-true to his Gipsy character-refused to answer any questions concerning this horrible affair. An impression has gone the round for years that the Gipsies are exceedingly kind and affectionate to their children, in some instances it, no doubt, is true, but they are rare indeed if I may judge from appearances. I have yet to learn that starvation, allowing their children to grow up infinitely worse than barbarians, subjecting them to fearful oaths and curses, and inflicting upon the poor children blows with sticks, used with murderous pa.s.sion, to within an inch of their lives, exhibits much of the lamb-like spirit, dove-like innocence, and childish simplicity fiction would picture to our minds concerning these English barbarians as they camp on the mossy banks on a hot summer day. In the presence of myself and a friend one of these lawless fellows very recently hurled a log of wood at a poor Gipsy child's head for an offence which we could not learn, farther than it was for a trifling affair; fortunately, it missed the poor child's head, or death must have been the result. In visiting an encampment last autumn I came across six Gipsy children having their dinner off three small boiled turnips, and drinking the water as broth; the eldest girl, although dressed in rags, was going to sit the same afternoon for a leading artist upon a throne as a Spanish queen. In another part of London-Mary Place-I found a family of Gipsies living under sticks and rags in the most filthy, sickening, and disgusting backyard I have ever been into-to such an extent was the stench that immediately I came out of it I had to get a little brandy or I should have fainted-the eldest girl of whom had her time pretty fully taken up by sitting as an artist's model in the costume of a peasant girl, sometimes gathering b.u.t.tercups and daisies, at other times gathering roses and making b.u.t.ton-holes for gentlemen's coats and placing them there with gentle hands and a smiling face; occasionally she would be painted as a country milk-girl driving the cows to pasture; at other times as a young lady playing at croquet on the lawn and gambolling with children. What a contrast, what a delusion! from rags to silks and satins; from a filthy abode not fit for pigs to a palace; from turnips and diseased bacon to wine and biscuits; from beds of rotten straw to crimson and gold-covered chairs; from trampling among dead cats to a carpet composed of wild flowers; from "Get out you wretch and fetch some money, no matter how," to "Come here, my dear, is there anything I can do for you?" from the stench of a cesspool to the fragrance of the honeysuckle and sweetbriar, in one word, from h.e.l.l to heaven all in an hour-such is one side of Gipsy life among the little Gipsies, not one of whom can read a sentence or write one word, and it is in this way Gipsy girls are found exposing their bodies to keep their big, healthy brothers and fathers at home in idleness and sin. Two such Gipsy girls have come under my own notice, and no doubt there are scores of similar cases.

Gipsy children are fond of a great degree of heat, and sometimes lie so near to the c.o.ke fires as to be in danger of burning. I have seen them with their faces as red as if they were upon the point of being roasted, and yet they can bear to travel in the severest cold bare-headed, with no other covering than some old rags carelessly thrown over them. The cause of their bodily qualities, at least some of them, arises from their education and hardy manner of life. Formerly the Gipsies, when there was less English blood in their veins, could stand the extreme changes and hardships of the English climate much better than now. An Englishman, notwithstanding the fact that he has let go all moral and social respect and restraint over his conduct and joined the Gipsies, does not, and cannot, thrive and look well under their manner of living, and this I see more and more every day. I have been struck very forcibly lately in visiting some of the hordes of Gipsies with the vast number of children the Gipsies bring into the world and the few that are reared. At one encampment there were forty men and women and only about the same number of children to be seen. At another encampment I found double the quant.i.ty of children to adult Gipsies.

[Picture: A top bedroom in a Gipsy's van for man, wife, and three children, the sons and daughters sleeping underneath]

No one can deny the fact that some of the children look well, but, on the other hand, a vast number look quite the reverse of this, pictures of starvation, neglect, bad blood, and cruelty. An Englishman is born for a n.o.bler purpose than to lead a vagabond's life and end his days in scratching among filth and vermin in a Gipsy's wigwam, consequently, upon those of our own countrymen who have forsaken the right path, the sin attending such a course is d.o.g.g.i.ng them at every footstep they take. I don't lay at the door of their wigwam the sin of child-stealing, but this I have seen, _i.e._, many strange-looking children in their tents without the least shadow of a similarity to the adults in either habits, appearance, manner, or conversation. Some of the poor things seemed shy and reserved, and quite out of their element. Sometimes the thought has occurred to me that they were the children of sin, and put out of the way to escape shame being painted upon the back of their parents. Sometimes my pity for the poor things has led me to put a question or two bearing upon the subject to the Gipsies, and the answer has been, "The poor things have lost their father and mother." When I have asked if the fathers and mothers were Gipsies a little hesitation was manifested, and the subject dropped with no satisfactory answer to my mind. I have my own idea about the matter.

The hardships the women have to undergo are most heartrending. The mother, in order to procure a morsel of food, takes her three months' old child either in her arms or on her back, and wanders the streets or lanes in foul or fair weather-in heat or cold. Some of them have told me that they walk on an average over twelves miles a day. They are the bread-winners. I have seen them on their return to their wigwams, in the depth of winter, with six inches of snow on the ground, and scantily clad, and with six little children crying round them for bread. No fire in the tent, and her husband idling about in other tents. In cases of confinements, the men have to do something, or they would all starve.

For a few days they wake up out of their idle dreams. I know of Gipsy women who have trudged along with their loads, and their children at their heels, to within the last five minutes of their confinement. The children were literally born under the hedge bottom, and without any tent or protection whatever. A Gipsy woman told me a week or two since that her mother had told her that she was born under the hedge bottom in Bagworth Lane, in Leicestershire. When I questioned her on the subject, she rather gloried in the fact that they had not time to stick the tent-sticks into the ground. This kind of disgraceful procedure is not far removed from that of animals. I should think that I am speaking within compa.s.s when I state that two-thirds of the Gipsies travelling about the country have been born under what they call the "hedge bottom,"

_i.e._, in tents and like places. The Gipsy women use no cradles; the child, as a rule, sleeps on the ground. When a boy attains three years of age, so says Hoyland, the rags he was wrapped in are thrown on one side, and he is equally exposed with the parents to the severest weather.

He is then put to trial to see how far his legs will carry him. Clayton told me that when he was a boy of about twelve, his father sent him into the town and among the villages-with no other covering upon him only a piece of an old shirt-to bring either bread or money home, no matter how.

Among some of the State projects put forth in Hungary more than a century since to improve the condition of the Gipsies, the following may be mentioned: (1) They were prohibited from dwelling in huts and tents, from wandering up and down the country, from dealing in horses, from eating animals which died of themselves and carrion. (2) They were to be called New Boors instead of Gipsies, and they were not to converse in any other language but that of any of the countries in which they chose to reside.

(3) After some months from the pa.s.sing of the Act, they were to quit their Gipsy manner of life and settle, like the other inhabitants, in cities or villages, and to provide themselves with suitable and proper clothing. (4) No Gipsy was allowed to marry who could not prove himself in a condition to provide for and maintain a wife and children. (5) That from such Gipsies who were married and had families, the children should be taken away by force, removed from their parents, relations, or intercourse with the Gipsy race, and to have a better education given to them. At Fahlendorf, in Schutt, and in the district of Pra.s.sburg, all the children of the New Boors (Gipsies) above five years old were carried away in waggons on the night of the twenty-first of December, 1773, by overseers appointed for that purpose, in order, that, at a distance from their parents or relations, they might be more usefully educated and sent to work. (6) They were to be taught the principles of religion, and their children educated. Their children were prohibited running about their houses, streets, or roads naked, and they were not to be allowed to sleep promiscuously by each other without distinction of s.e.x. (7) They were enjoined to attend church regularly, and to give proof of their Christian disposition, and they were not to wear large cloaks, which were chiefly used to hide the things they had stolen. (8) They were to be kept to agriculture, and were only to be permitted to amuse themselves with music when their day's work was finished. (9) The magistrates at every place were to be very attentive to see that no Gipsy wasted his time in idleness, and whoever was remiss in his work was to be liable to corporal punishment.

All these suggestions and plans of operation may not suit English life; be that as it may, they were suitable to the condition of the Hungarian Gipsies, and no doubt laid the foundation for the improvement that has taken place among them. The Hungarian Gipsies are educated, and are tillers of the soil. If a plan similar in some respects had been carried out with our Gipsies at the same period, we should not by this time have had a Gipsy-tent in the country, or an uneducated Gipsy in our land.

What a different aspect would have presented itself ere this, if the 5,000 Gipsies among us had been tilling our waste lands and commons for the last century. With proper management, these 5,000 Gipsy men could have bought and kept under cultivation some 20,000 acres of land for the well-being of themselves and for the good of the country. There is neglect, indifference, and apathy somewhere. The blame will lay heavily upon some one when the accounts are made up.

It is appalling and humiliating to think that we, as a Christian nation, should have had in our midst for more than three centuries 15,000 to 20,000 poor ignorant Asiatic heathens, naturally sharp and clever, and next to nothing being done to reclaim them from their worse than midnight darkness. A heavy sin and responsibility lays at our doors. Take away John Bunyan, a few of the Smiths, Palmers, Lovells, Lees, Hearns, Coopers, Simpsons, Boswells, Eastwoods, Careys, Roberts, &c., and what do we find?-a black army of human beings who have done next to nothing-comparatively speaking-for the country's good. They have cadged at our doors, lived on our commons, worn our roads, been fed from our tables, sent their paupers to our workhouses, their idiots to our asylums, and not contributed one farthing to their maintenance and support. Rates and taxes are unknown to them. There is only one instance of them paying rates for their vans, and that is at Blackpool.

It is a black, burning shame and disgrace to see herds of healthy-looking girls and great strapping youths growing up in ignorance and idleness, not so much as exerting themselves to wash the filth off their bodies or make anything better than skewers. Their highest ambition is to learn slang, roll in the ditch, spread small-pox and fevers, threaten vengeance, and carry out revenge upon those who attempt to frustrate their evil designs. Excepting skewers, clothes-pegs, and a few other little things of this kind, they have not manufactured anything; the highest state of perfection they have arrived at is to be able to make and tie up a bundle of skewers, split a clothes-peg, tinker a kettle, mend a chair, see-saw on an old fiddle, rap their knuckles on a tambourine, clatter about with their feet, tickle the guitar, and make a squeaking noise through their teeth, that fiction and romance call singing. The most that can be said in their favour is, that a few of them have become respectable Christians and hard-working men and women, and have done something for the country's good-and whose fault is it that there are not more? They have been the agents of h.e.l.l, working out Satan's designs, and we have stood by laughing and admiring their so-called pretty faces, scarlet cloaks, and "witching eyes." For the life of me I can find no more bewitching beauty among them than can be found in our back slums any day, circ.u.mstances considered-and where does the blame lay?-upon our own shoulders for not paying more attention to the education and welfare of their children. It is truly horrible to think that we have had 15,000 to 20,000 young and old Gipsies at work, carrying out the designs of the infernal regions at the tip end of the roots of our national life, vigour, and Christianity.

Only the other day the country was much shocked, and rightly so, at a hundred poor Russian emigrants landing upon our sh.o.r.es; and yet we have two hundred times this quant.i.ty of Gipsies among us, and we quietly stand by and take no notice of their wretched condition. The time will come, and that speedily, when we shall have the scales taken off our eyes, and the thin, flimsy veil of romance torn to shreds. Sitting by and admiring their "pretty faces" and "witching eyes" will not save their souls, educate their children, or put them in the way of earning an honest livelihood. It is not pity-whining, sycophantic pity-alone that will do them good. The Rev. Mr. Cobbin's Gipsy's pet.i.tion, written fifty years ago,

"Oh! ye who have tasted of mercy and love, And shared in the blessings of pardoning grace, Let us the kind fruits of your tenderness prove, And pity, oh! pity, the poor Gipsy race."

has been little better than beating the air, and it may be repeated a thousand times, but if nothing further is done more than "pity," the Gipsies will be worse off in fifty years hence than they are now, nor will presenting to them bread, cheese, ale, blankets, stockings, and a dry sermon, as Mr. Crabb did half a century ago, render them permanent help. We must do as the eagle does with her young: we must cause a little fl.u.s.ter among them, so that they may begin to flounder for themselves. Take them up, turn them out, and teach them to use their own wings, and the schoolmaster and sanitary officers are the agencies to do it. The men are clever and can get money sufficient to keep their families comfortable even at skewer-making and chair-mending, &c., if they will only work. All the police-officer must do will be to take charge of those who prefer to fall to the ground rather than to struggle for life with its attendant pleasures and enjoyments. The State has taken in hand a more dangerous cla.s.s-perhaps the most dangerous-in India, viz., the Thugs, and is teaching them useful trades and honest industry with most encouraging results. Before the Government tackled them, they were idling, loafing, rambling, and robbing all over the country, alike to our Gipsies; now they have settled down and become useful and good citizens. In Norway the Gipsies are put into prison, and there kept till they have learnt to read and write. In Hungary the Government has appointed a special Minister to look after them, and see that they are being properly educated and brought up. In Russia, the laws pa.s.sed for their imprisonment has had the effect of causing them, to a great extent, to settle down to useful trades, and they are forming themselves into colonies. And so, in like manner, in Spain, Germany, France, and other European countries, steps have been taken to bring about an improvement among them. In these countries nearly the whole of the Gipsies can read and write; and we, of all others, who ought to have set the example a century ago in the way of educating the Gipsy children, have stood by with folded arms, and let them drift into ruin. I claim it to be our duty-and it will be to our shame if we do not-to see to the welfare of the Gipsy children for four reasons. First, that they are Indians, and under the rule of our n.o.ble Queen; second, that they are in our midst, and ought to take their share of the blessings, duties, and responsibilities pertaining to the rest of the community; third, that as a Christian nation, professing to lead the van and to set forth the blessings of Christianity and civilisation; and, fourth, their universal desire for the education of their children, and to contribute their quota, however small, to the country's good, and for the eternal welfare of their own children; and I do not think that there will be any objection on their part to it being brought about on the plan I have briefly sketched out.

I fancy I can hear some of the artists who have been delighted with Gipsy models-the novelists who have hung many a tale upon the skirts of their garments-the dramatists who have trotted them before the curtain to please the public, and some old-fashioned croakers, who delight in allowing things to be as they have always been-the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever-saying, "let everybody look after their own children;" and then, in a plaintive tone, singing-

"Woodman, spare that tree!

Touch not a single bough; In youth it sheltered me, And I'll protect it now."

First,-I would have all movable or temporary habitations, used as dwellings, registered, numbered, and the name and address of the owner or occupier painted in a prominent place on the outside, _i.e._, on all tents, Gipsy vans, auctioneers' vans, showmen's vans, and like places, and under proper sanitary arrangements in a manner a.n.a.logous to the Ca.n.a.l Boats Act of 1877.

Second,-Not less than one hundred cubic feet of s.p.a.ce for each female above the age of twelve, and each male above the age of fourteen; and not less than fifty cubic feet of s.p.a.ce for each female young person under the age of twelve, and for each male under the age of fourteen.

Third,-No male above the age of fourteen, and no female above the age of twelve, should be allowed to sleep in the same tent or van as man and wife, unless separate sleeping accommodation be provided for each male of the age of fourteen, and for each female of the age of twelve; and also with proper regard for part.i.tions and suitable ventilation.

Fourth,-A registration certificate to be obtained, renewable at any of the offices of the Urban or Rural sanitary authorities throughout the country, for which the owner or occupier of the tent or van should pay the sum of ten shillings annually, commencing on the first of January in each year.

Fifth,-The compulsory attendance at school of all travelling children, or others living in temporary or unrateable dwellings, up to the age required by the Elementary Education Acts, which attendance should be facilitated and brought about by means of a school pa.s.s-book, in which the children's names, ages, and grade could be entered, and which pa.s.s-book could be made applicable to children living and working on ca.n.a.l-boats, and also to other wandering children. The pa.s.s-book to be easily procurable at any bookseller's for the sum of one shilling.

Sixth,-The travelling children should be at liberty to go to either National, British, Board, or other schools, under the management of a properly-qualified schoolmaster, and which schoolmaster should sign the children's pa.s.s-book, showing the number of times the children had attended school during their temporary stay.

Seventh,-The cost for the education of these wandering children should be paid by the guardians of the poor out of the poor rates, a proper account being kept by the schoolmaster and delivered to the parochial authorities quarterly.

Eighth,-Power to be given to any properly-qualified sanitary officer, School Board visitor or inspector, to enter the tents, vans, ca.n.a.l-boats, or other movable or temporary habitations, at any time or in any place, and detain, if necessary, for the purpose of seeing that the law was being properly carried out; and any one obstructing such officer in his duty, and not carrying out the law, to be subject to a fine or imprisonment for each offence.

Ninth,-It would be well if arrangements could be made with lords of manors, the Government, or others who are owners of waste lands, to grant those Gipsies who are without vans, and living in tents only, prior to the act coming into force, a long lease at a nominal rent of, say, half an acre or an acre of land, for ninety-nine years, on purpose to encourage them to settle down to the cultivation of it, and to take to honest industry-as many of them are prepared to do. By this means a number of the Gipsies would collect together on the marshes and commons, and no doubt other useful and profitable occupation would be the outcome of the Gipsies being thus localised, and in which their children could and would take an important part; and in addition to these things the social and educational advantages to be reaped by following such a course would be many.

I have not the least doubt in my mind but that if a law be pa.s.sed embodying these brief, but rough, suggestions, on the one hand, and steps are taken to encourage them to settle down, in accordance with the idea thrown out in clause nine, on the other, we shall not have in fifty years hence an uneducated Gipsy in our midst. Many of the Gipsies are anxious, I know, for some steps to be taken for the children to be brought up to work. The operation of the present Hawkers' and Pedlars' Act is acting very detrimental to the interests of the Gipsy children, as none are allowed to carry a licence under the age of sixteen, consequently all Gipsy children, except a few who a.s.sist in making pegs and skewers, are neither going to school nor yet are they learning a trade or in fact work of any kind; they are simply living in idleness, and under the influence of evil training that carries mischief underneath the surface.

It is truly appalling to think that over seven hundred thousand sharp, clever, well-formed human beings, and with plenty of muscular power, have, as I have said before, been roaming about Europe for many centuries with no object before them, and accomplishing nothing. Something like ten millions of Gipsies have been born, lived, died, and gone into the other world since they set foot upon European soil, and what have they done? what work have they accomplished? Alas! alas! worse than a cipher might be written against them. They have lived in the midst of beauty, songsters, romance, and fiction, and they have been surrounded by everything that would help to call forth natural energy, mechanical skill, and ability, but they have been in some senses like children playing in the street gutters. They have the elements of success within them, but no one has taken them by the hand to put them upon the first step, at any rate, so far as England is concerned. It is grievous to think that not one of these ten millions of Gipsies who have gone the way of all flesh has written a book, painted a painting, composed any poetry, worth calling poetry, produced a minister worthy of much note-at least, I can only hear of one or two. They have fine voices as a rule, and except some half-dozen Gipsies no first-rate musicians have sprung from their midst. No engineer, no mechanic-in fact, no nothing. The highest state of their manufacturing skill has been to make a few slippers for the feet, as some of them are doing at Lynn; skewers to stick into meat, for which they have done nothing towards feeding; pegs to hang out other people's linen, some tinkering, chair-bottoming, knife-grinding, and a little light smith work, and a few have made a little money by horse-dealing. There are others clever at "making shifts" and roadside tents, and will put up with almost anything rather than put forth much energy. Since the Gipsies landed in this country more than one hundred and fifty thousand have been born, princ.i.p.ally, as they say, "under the hedge bottom," lived, and died. They are gone "and their works do follow them." Their present degraded condition in this country may be laid upon our backs.

This book, with its many faults and few virtues, is my own as in the case of my others, and all may be laid upon my back; and my object in saying hard and unpalatable things about the poor, ignorant Gipsy wanderers in our midst is not to expose them to ridicule, or to cause the finger of scorn to be pointed at them or to any one connected with them, but to try to influence the hearts of my countrymen to extend the hand of practical sympathy, and help to rescue the poor Gipsy children from dropping into the vortex of ruin, as so many thousands have done before. It is not unlikely but that I shall, in saying plain things about the Gipsies, expose myself to some inconvenience, misrepresentation, malice, and spite from those who would keep the Gipsies in ignorance, and also from shadow philanthropists, who are always on the look out for other people's brains; but these things, so long as G.o.d gives me strength, will not deter me from doing what I consider to be right in the interest of the children, so long as I can see the finger of Providence pointing the way, and it is to Him I must look for the reward, "Well done," which will more than repay me for all the inconvenience I have undergone, or may have still to undergo, in the cause of the "little ones." That man is no real friend to the Gipsies who seeks to improve them by flattery and deception. A Gipsy, with all his faults, likes to be dealt fairly and openly with-a little praise but no flattery suits him. They can practise cunning, but they do not care to have any one practising it upon them.

I dare not be sanguine enough to hope that I shall be successful, but I have tried thus far to show, first, the past and present condition of the Gipsies; second, the little we, as a nation, have done to reclaim them; and, third, what we ought to do to improve them in the future, so as to remove the stigma from our shoulders of having 20,000 to 30,000 Gipsies, show people, and others living in vans, &c., in our midst, fast drifting into heathenism and barbarism, not five per cent. of whom can read and write, at least, so far as the Gipsies are concerned; and those children travelling with "gingerbread" stalls, rifle galleries, and auctioneers are but little better, for all the parents tell me their children lose in the summer what little they learn at school in the winter, for the want of means being adopted whereby their children could go to school during the daytime as they are travelling through the country with their wares, _i.e._, at their halting-places.

In bringing this book to a close, I would say, in the name of all that is just, fair, honourable, and reasonable, in the name of science, religion, philosophy, and humanity, and in the name of all that is Christ-like, G.o.d-like, and heavenly, I ask, nay I claim, the attention of our n.o.ble Queen-whose deep interest in the children of the labouring population is unbounded-statesmen, Christians, and my countrymen to the condition of the Gipsies and their children, whose condition is herein feebly described, and whose cause I have ventured to take in hand, praying them to adopt measures and to pa.s.s such laws that will wipe out the disgrace of having so many thousands of poor, ignorant, uneducated, wretched, and lost Gipsy children in our midst, who cannot read and write, on the following grounds-

First. Their Indian origin, which I venture to think has been satisfactorily proved, and over which country our Queen is the Empress; consequently, our Gipsies ought and have as much need to be taken in hand and their condition improved by the State as the Thugs in India have been, with such beneficial results, a cla.s.s similar in many respects to our Gipsies.

Second. As the Government in 1877 pa.s.sed an act, called "The Ca.n.a.l Boats Act," dealing pretty much with the same cla.s.s of people as the Gipsies and other travelling children, they ought, in all fairness, to extend the principle to those living in tents and vans.

Third. As small-pox, fevers, and other infectious diseases are at times very prevalent among them-a medical officer being called in only under the rarest occasion-and as the tents and vans are not under any sanitary arrangements, there is, therefore, urgent need for some sort of sanitary supervision and control to be exercised over their wretched habitations to prevent the spread of disease in such a stealthy manner.

Fourth. As the Government took steps some three centuries ago to cla.s.s the Gipsies as rogues and vagabonds, but took no steps at the same time to improve their condition or even to encourage them to get upon the right paths for leading an honourable and industrious life, the time has now come, I think, both in justice and equity, for the Government to adopt some means to catch the young hedge-bottom "Bob Rats," and to deal out to them measures that will Christianise and civilise them to such an extent that the Gipsies will not in the future be deserving of the epithets pa.s.sed upon them by the Government for their sins of omission and commission.

Fifth. By pa.s.sing an Act of Parliament, as I suggest, or amending the Ca.n.a.l Boats Act, in accordance with the plan I have laid down, and embodying the suggestions herein contained, the Government will complete the educational system and bring under the educational and sanitary laws the lowest dregs of society, which have hitherto been left out in the cold, to grope about in the dark as their inclinations might lead them.

Sixth. The families who are seeking a living as hawkers, show people, &c., apart from the Gipsies, are on the increase. By travelling up and down the country in this way they not only escape rates and taxes, but their children are going without education, as no provision is made in the education acts to meet cases of this kind. By bringing the Gipsy children under the influence of the schoolmaster our law-makers will be adding the last stroke to the system of compulsory education introduced and carried into law through its first difficult and intricate phases by the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M.P., when he was at the head of the Education Department under the Liberal Government, and through its second stages by the Right Hon. Lord Sandon, M.P., when he was at the head of the Education Department under the Conservative Government.

Seventh. There is an universal desire among people of the cla.s.ses I have before referred to for the education of their children, in fact, I have not met with one exception during my inquiries, and the Gipsies will be glad to make some sacrifices to carry it out if the Government will do their part in the matter.

Eighth. The Gipsies and other travellers of the same kind use our roads, locate on our commons, live in our lanes, and send their poor, halt, maimed, and blind to our workhouses, infirmaries, and asylums, towards the support of which they do not contribute one farthing.

Ninth. As a Christian nation professing to send the Gospel all over the world, to preach glad tidings, peace upon earth and good-will towards men everywhere, to take steps for the conversion of the Gipsies in India, the African, the Chinese, the South Sea Islander, the Turk, the black, the white, the bond, the free, in fact everywhere where an Englishman goes the Gospel is supposed to go too, and yet-and it is with sadness, sorrow, and shame I relate it-we have had on an average during the last three hundred and sixty-five years not less than 15,000 Gipsies moving among us, and not less than 150,000 have died and been buried, either under water, in the ditches, or on the roadside, on the commons, or in the cemeteries or churchyards, and we, as Christians of Christian England, have not spent 150,000 pence to reclaim the adult Gipsies, or to educate their children.

Tenth. As a civilised country we are supposed to lead the van in civilising the world by pa.s.sing the most humane, righteous, just, and liberal laws, carrying them out on the plan of tempering justice with mercy; but in matters concerning the interests and welfare of the Gipsies we are, as I have shown previously, a long way in the rear. We have pa.s.sed laws to improve the condition of the agricultural labourer's child, children working in mines, children working in factories, performing boys, climbing boys, children working in brick-yards, children working and living on ca.n.a.l-boats, and a thousand others; but we have done nothing for the poor Gipsy child or its home. In things pertaining to their present and eternal welfare they have asked for bread and we have given them a stone; and they have asked for fish and we have given them a serpent. We have allowed them to wander and lose themselves in the dark wilds of sin and iniquity without shedding upon their path the light of Gospel truths or the blessings of education; and to-day the Gipsy children are dying, where thousands have died before, among the brambles and in the thicket of bad example, ignorance, and evil training, into which we have allowed them to stray blinded by the evil a.s.sociations of Gipsy life.

"An aged woman walks along, Her piercing scream is on the air, Her head and streaming locks are bare, She sadly sobs 'My child, my child!'"

A faint voice is heard in the distance calling out-

"My dying daughter, where art thou?

Call on our G.o.ds and they shall come."

"So mote it be."

London: Printed by HAUGHTON & CO., 10, Paternoster Row, E.C.

WORKS PUBLISHED BY HAUGHTON & CO., 10, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.