ll not like that. However, just now, by means of
letters in the newspapers, and engravings in the illustrated journals, a
good deal of attention is paid to the Gipsies, and if they can be
reclaimed and turned into decent men and women a good many farmers' wives
will sleep comfortably at night, especially when geese and turkeys are
being fattened for Christmas fare; and a desirable impulse will be given
to the trade in soap."

[Picture: A Gipsy girl washing clothes]

In the _Sunday School Chronicle_, December 19th, the kind-hearted editor
makes the following allusions:--"Mr. George Smith stirs every feeling of
pity and compassion in our hearts by his descriptions of the Gipsy
Children's Homes. It is one of the curious things of English life that
the distinct Gipsy race should dwell among us, and, neither socially nor
politically, nor religiously, do we take any notice of them. No portion
of our population may so earnestly plead, 'No man careth for our souls.'
The chief interest of them, to many of us, is that they are used to give
point, and plot, to novels. But can nothing be done for the Gipsy
_children_? Christian enterprise is seldom found wanting when a sphere
is suggested for it; and those who live in the neighbourhood of Gipsy
haunts should be especially concerned for their well-being. What must
the children be, morally and religiously, who _bide_, we cannot say
_dwell_, in such homes as Mr. George Smith describes?

"'In their own interest, and without mincing matters, it is time the
plain facts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that the
brightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Bible
may have their influence upon the character of the little ones about to
become in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside their
hovels or sack huts, poetically called "tents" and "encampments," but in
reality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies,
sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, and put a pleasant and
cheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be
seen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant, and wretched Gipsy
children, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside their
sack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of all
ages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon a
bed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little b