e 12,000. Supposing
two-thirds of these to be under twelve years of age, there would be 8,000
to educate. Reckoning half that number to be girls, 4,000 boys would be
to be apprenticed after leaving school. And if these, after their
apprenticeship, married Gypsey girls, who had been brought up to service
in families, twenty thousand useful subjects might be calculated upon as
gained to the State in the first generation.

Should the efforts of individuals, require assistance from the State, to
render their plans effectual; surely they may depend on the co-operation
of a British legislature, to promote the cause in which they would
embark! On this point may be adduced the judicious observation of
Grellmann: "If the Gypsey knows not how to make use of the faculties with
which nature has intrusted him, let the State teach him, and keep him in
leading strings till the end is attained. Care being taken to improve
their understandings, and to amend their hearts, they might become useful
citizens; for observe them at whatever employment you may, there always
appear sparks of genius."

Every well-wisher to his country must be gratified in observing, that as
soon as the conflicting tumult of nations is calmed, and the
precipitations attendant on military supplies have subsided, the
attention of the Legislature is turned to the investigation of some of
the causes of human misery at home; and to the means of increasing the
social comforts of a considerable portion of British population in the
metropolis of the kingdom. This recommencement of operations, directed
to the important object for which Governments have been instituted,--the
good of the people,--encourages the hope, that the most neglected and
destitute of all persons in this country, whose cause we have been
pleading, will not be suffered to remain much longer unnoticed and
disregarded.

When at length the veil that has obscured them is once drawn aside, can
British benevolence withhold its exertions, to elevate the moral tone of
this degraded eastern race, and to call forth the dignity of the human
character, in exchange for the strange torpor and vileness in which this
people are involved. Here an occasion presents for the display of a
temper truly Christian, and for the erection of a standard to surrounding
kingdoms, in which also these outcasts of society are dispersed, of that
philanthropy and sound policy which are worthy of a great nation.

Such an experi