the House of Lords or
the House of Commons during the ensuing session; for it actually concerns
the moral and social welfare of more than thirty thousand people in our
own country, which is an interest quite as considerable as that we have
in Natal or the Transvaal, among Zulus and Basutos, and the rest of
Kaffirdom. The sketches we now present in illustration of this subject
are designed to show the squalid and savage aspect of Gipsy habitations
in the suburban districts, at Hackney and Hackney Wick, north-east of
London; where the marsh-meadows of the river Lea, unsuitable for
building-land, seem to forbid the extension of town streets and blocks of
brick or stuccoed terraces; where the pleasant wooded hills of Epping and
Hainault Forest appear in the distance, inviting the jaded townsman, on
summer holidays, to saunter in the Royal Chace of the old English kings
and queens; where genuine ruralities still lie within an hour's walk, of
which the fashionable West-ender knoweth nought. There lurks the free
and fearless Gipsy scamp, if scamp he truly be, with his squaw and his
piccaninnies, in a wigwam hastily constructed of hoops and poles and
blankets, or perhaps, if he be the wealthy sheikh of his wild Bedouin
tribe, in a caravan drawn from place to place by some lost and strayed
plough-horse, the lawful owner of which is a farmer in Northamptonshire.
Far be it from us to say or suspect that the Gipsy stole the horse;
'convey, the wise it call;' and if horse or donkey, dog, or pig, or cow,
if cock and hen, duck or turkey, be permitted to escape from field or
farmyard, these fascinated creatures will sometimes follow the merry
troop of 'Romany Rye' quite of their own accord, such is the magic of
Egyptian craft and the innate superiority of an Oriental race. These
Gipsies, Zingari, Bohemians, whatever they be called in the kingdoms of
Europe, are masters of a secret science of mysterious acquisition, as
remote from proved crime of theft or fraud as from the ways of earning or
winning by ordinary industry and trade. There is many a rich and
splendid establishment at the West-end supported by a different
application of the same mysterious craft. Solicitors and stockbrokers
may have seen it in action. It is that of silently appropriating what no
other person may be quite prepared to claim."

The following remarks appeared in the December number of _The
Quiver_:--"Mr. George Smith, who has earned a much-respected and w