stered and numbered, the children, whether travelling as Gipsies,
auctioneers, &c., are mostly idle during the day; consequently, a book
similar to the half-time book, in which their names and attendance at
school could be entered, they could take from place to place as they
travel about, and it could be endorsed by the schoolmaster showing that
the child was attending school. The education obtained in this way would
not be of the highest order; but through the kindness of the
schoolmaster--for which extra trouble he should be compensated, as he
ought to be under the Canal Boats Act--and the vigilance of the School
Board visitor, a plain, practical, and sound education could be imparted
to, and obtained by, these poor little Gipsy children and roadside arabs,
who, if we do our duty, will be qualified to fill the places of those of
our best artisans who are leaving the country to seek their fortunes
abroad."

The following is a leading article in the _Birmingham Daily Mail_,
October 8th:--"Mr. George Smith, whose exertions on behalf of the canal
population and the children employed in brick-yards have been accompanied
with so much success, is now turning his attention to the education of
the Gipsies. He read a paper on this subject at the Social Science
Congress, yesterday, suggesting that the same plan of registration which
had proved advantageous in the case of the canal-boatmen and their
families should be adopted for the more nomadic class who roam from place
to place, with no settled home and no local habitation. The Gipsies are
a strange race, with a romantic history, and their vagabond life is
surrounded with enough of the mysterious to give them at all times a
special and curious interest. In the days of our infancy we are
frightened with tales of their child-thieving propensities, and even when
years and reason have asserted their influence we are apt to regard with
a survival of our childish awe the wandering 'diviners and wicked
heathens' who roam about the country, living in a mysterious aloofness
from their fellow-men. Scores of theories have been propounded as to the
origin of the Gipsy race, whence they sprang, and how they came to be so
largely scattered over three of the four quarters of the globe. Opinion,
following in the wake of the learned Rudiger, has finally settled down to
the view that they came from India, but whether they are the Tshandalas
referred to in the laws of Menou, or kinsmen of t