down to the present time, but little seems to have
been done for the Gipsies. With Crabb died all real interest in the
welfare of these poor unfortunate people. The difficulties he had
encountered seemed to have had a deterrent effect upon others.
Missionary zeal, without moral force of law and the schoolmaster, will
accomplish but little for the Gipsies at our doors; and it may be said
with special emphasis as regards the improvement of the Gipsy children.
From the days of the relentless, cruel, and merciless persecution the
Gipsies received under the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, down to
the present time, nothing has been done by law to reclaim these Indian
outcasts and Asiatic emigrants. The case of the Gipsies shows us plainly
that hunting the women and children with bloodhounds, and dragging the
Gipsy leaders to the gallows, will neither stamp them out nor improve
their character and habits; and, on the other hand, it appears that the
love-like gentleness, child-like simplicity, and religious fervour of the
circumscribed influence of Crabb and others, about this time, did but
little for these poor, little, dark-eyed, wandering brethren of ours from
afar. The next agents that appeared upon the scene to try to elevate the
Gipsies into something like a respectable position in society were the
dramatists and novelists. These flickering lights of the night have met
with no better success, in fact, their efforts, in the way they have been
put forth, have, as a rule, exhibited Gipsy life in a variety of false
colours and shades, which exhibition has turned out to be a failure in
accomplishing the object the authors had in view, other than to fill
their coffers and mislead the public as to the real character of a Gipsy
vagabond's life; and thus it will be seen, I think, that the Gipsies and
their children of to-day present to us the miserable failure, of bitter
persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the efforts of
Christianity alone at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and more
recently the novelist and dramatist as a means in themselves, separately,
to effect a reformation in the habits and character of the Gipsy children
and their parents.

If the Gipsy and other tramping, travelling "rob rats" of to-day are to
become honest, industrious, and useful citizens of the future, it must be
by the influence of the schoolmaster and the sanitary officer, coming to
a great extent as they do betw