to township in
England; and it has been ascertained, that in some places they are
routed, as it is termed, by order of magistrates, whenever they appear,
and sent to prison on the vagrant act, without so much as a charge of
depredation upon property. "This is to make their persons, an object of
persecution, instead of the protection of our laws."

For the credit of our country it may be hoped, that instances of this
sort, respecting Gypsies, are not very numerous; seeing all writers
concur in stating, every attempt by coercive means to alter the peculiar
habits of this people, have had a tendency to alienate them still more
from civil associations, and directly to defeat the end proposed. It is
time therefore that a better and a more enlightened policy should be
adopted in Europe, towards a race of human beings, under so many
hereditary disadvantages as are the helpless, the rude, the uninstructed
Gypsies.

In the decision on the vagrant case, in Crabbe's "Hall of Justice,"
{231a} and in the treatment of Gypsies on Knoland-Green, {231b} a temper
is displayed so truly Christian, and so different from what is just
alluded to, that in consulting the best feelings of human nature, it adds
dignity to magistracy.

Sir Frederick Morton Eden, in his first volume on the State of the Poor,
p. 306, refers to an Act passed in 1741, respecting that class of the
poor, who are considered by the Legislature as the outcasts of society,
namely rogues, vagabonds, &c.; and he remarks: "From perusing the
catalogue of actions which denominate a man, a disorderly person, a
vagabond, or incorrigible rogue, the reader may perhaps incline to think
that many of the offences specified in this Act, and in subsequent
statutes, on the same subject, are of a very dubious nature, and that it
must require nice legal acumen, to distinguish whether a person incurs
any, and what, penalty, under the vagrant laws."

In support of this opinion, and of the indefinite and unjustifiable
latitude of those statutes, a late decision at Maidstone, in the action
of Robins, v. Boyce, affords a striking demonstration.

If the statutes do not admit of any construction in favor of Gypsies, but
enjoin rigorous treatment of them, merely for wandering, it may become a
question whether the peculiar circumstances of their case, might not
constitute an exception to the general rule.

However wholesome and salutary vagrant Acts may be, to deter persons from
quitting t