y a social danger. Especially does
this contention apply to the children, of whom Mr. Smith estimates that
there are ten thousand roaming over the face of the country as vagrants
and vagabonds. It is to be hoped many months will not be allowed to
elapse before this difficulty is seriously and successfully grappled
with. Mr. Smith's counsel as to the children is that 'living in vans and
tents and under old carts, if they are to be allowed to live in these
places they should be registered in a manner analogous to the Canal Boats
Act of 1877, so that the children may be brought under the compulsory
clauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised as
other children.' The Duke of Richmond and his department may do much to
facilitate Mr. Smith's crusade without temporising with the prejudices of
red-tapeism."

_Figaro_ writes August 27th:--"Our old friend having successfully tackled
the brick-yard children, and the floating waifs and strays of our barge
population, has now taken the little Gipsies in hand, with a view of
bringing them under the supervision of the School Board system now
general in this country. He is a bold and energetic man, but we are
bound to say we doubt a little whether he will be able to tame the
offspring of the merry Zingara, and pass them all through the regulation
educational standard. Should he succeed, we shall be thenceforth
surprised at nothing, but be quite prepared to hear that Mr. Smith has
become chairman of a society for changing the spots of the leopard, or
honorary director of an association for changing the Ethiopian's skin!"

The following letter from the Rev. J. Finch, a rural dean, appeared in
the _Standard_, August 30th:--"The following facts may not be without
some interest to those who have read the letters which have recently
appeared in the pages of the _Standard_ respecting Gipsies. During the
thirty years I have been rector of this parish, members of the Boswell
family have been almost constantly resident here. I buried the head of
the family in 1874, who died at the age of 87. He was a regular
attendant at the parish church, and failed not to bow his head reverently
when he entered within the House of God. His burial was attended by
several sons resident, as Gipsies, in the Midland counties, and a
headstone marks the grave where his body rests. I never saw, or heard,
any harm of the man. He was a quiet and inoffensive man, and worked
industrio