he present day Gipsies
generally locate in the neighbourhood of brick-yards and low, swampy
marshes, or by the side of rivers or canals. It was begun on a small
scale, but increased till the number of scholars amounted to forty.

"During the winter a family of Gipsies, of the name of Cooper, obtained
lodgings at a house opposite the school. Trinity Cooper, a daughter of
the Gipsy family, who was about thirteen years of age, applied to be
instructed at the school; but in consequence of the obloquy affixed to
that description of persons she was repeatedly refused. She nevertheless
persevered in her importunity, till she obtained admission for herself
and two of her brothers. Thomas Howard says, surrounded as he was by
ragged children, without shoes and stockings, the first lesson he taught
them was silence and submission. They acquired habits of subordination
and became tractable and docile; and of all his scholars there were not
any more attentive and affectionate than these; and when the Gipsies
broke up in the spring, to make their usual excursions, the children
expressed much regret at leaving school. This account was confirmed by
Thomas Jackson, of Brixton Row, minister of Stockwell Chapel, who
said:--Since the above experiment, several Gipsies had been admitted to a
Sabbath-school under the direction of his congregation. At their
introduction, he compared them to birds when first put into the cage,
which flew against the sides of it, having no idea of restraint; but by a
steady, even care over them, and the influence of the example of other
children, they soon become settled and fell into their ranks." The next
step taken to let daylight upon the Gipsy and his dark doings in the dark
ages was by means of letters to the Press, and what surprises me is that
this step, the most important of all, was not taken before.

In a letter addressed to the _Christian Observer_, vol. vii., p. 91, in
the year about 1809, "Nil" writes:--"As the divine spirit of Christianity
deems no object, however uncouth or insignificant, beneath her notice, I
venture to apply to you on behalf of a race, the outcasts of society, of
whose pitiable condition, among the many forms of human misery which have
engaged your efforts, I do not recollect to have seen any notice in the
pages of your excellent miscellany. I allude to the deplorable state of
the Gipsies, on whose behalf I beg leave to solicit your good offices
with the public. Lying