The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-11-22
BRITISH GYPSY
And VAN JEWELLERS.
An Effort That Is Being Made to Bring
Them Out Of Slavery.
The Appalling Degradation Of These People
and Of Their Children-A Description
by George Smith Of Coalville.
Special to THE SUNDAY CALI

CRIcK England Nov. 9. 1s91.-In my
last ar.cle from this quaint old English
village gave brief outline of the work OF
George Smith of Coalville in rescuing the
children Of the brick-yards and canal boats
of England from their former frightful con-
dition of slavery. ignorance and misery.
The half of it all could not be fttingly
told in an entire volume, but when the
social history of England is written this I'M
lettered and furiously persistent phian-
thropist must stand as the greatest and
most practical child-saver of his time. After
between twenty and thirty years of labor,
through penury, soothing and cruel discOur-
agement. with a few later years Of generally
recognized eminence and national respect,
this is the record as it now stands: Alone
md unaided he has emancipated 10000
brick-yaId boys and girls from a condition
revolving beyond contemplation or descrip-
ton, and he has also. alone and unaided,
rescued more than 4O, eco canal boat children
from a life of still more brutal slavery, ill.,
expressible degradation. unnamabe i'm
morality and actual crime.
Hardly had the practical workings of the
enactments regarding the canal children be-
come operative, when George Smith of Coal
vile began storming Parliament in behalf
of another class of semi-savage British chill
dren, In the long nights of his boyhood,
when watching the burning brick kilns, he
had not only seen the slavery of brick-yard
and canal children around him, but he had
stored away grewsome memories of another
host Of miserable beings that skulked in the
shadows about him.
Mr.. Smith has no patience with senti-
nentalsm over English gypsies. He is will
ing TO admit that any tawny friends of the
American roads and waySides, through their
Int ri fa1t far rol 10
true gypsy prosperity and lead the Ro-
many's genuine idyflic life. He simply sees
the appalling degradation of the gypsy and
van jewellers about him. 1t is the helpless,
no peless children OF these he would save.
II believes that il is a social crime that such
menace TO society should exist. and that
society, represented by law, should itself
right that wrong. And it may be depended
on that, as in the case of the brck-yard and
canal boat children, his clarion clsmor will
continue until Britain has rid herself If the
plague-Spot. All his life he has studied their
wanderings and ways, and since 1887 he has
been almost constantly among them. like
his rugged, vigorous description of his
rough experiences with these outcasts, and
feel sure that a few OF them, in his own
language, will be interesting to American
readers:
81 have visited many fairs. feasts, race s,
forests, lanes and wigwams in different
parts of England and Scotland. and h ave
eaten and chatted with the tent and van
jewellers, with the same sOrrowful results
confronting me. In many cases where
parents attend fairs, feasts and races with
cGcoanut-stalls and other initiatory gam
bling amusementS,
THE CHILDREN
Are sent early in the morning to pick up
living in all sorts of questionable ways, and
up TO II or u O'clock at night some of the
children Of both sexes, together with their
nftpp Eauf l.or ~ bra "a
ing, banging and shouting with cocoanuts
and balls in hand, while in many instances
their fathers are drinking in the public
houses, and as reward for their hard DAYS
toiling and trudging, Sunday and weekday,
the poor children ale sent Supperless and
unwashed TO their beds. This is usually on
some old rags, under a street STALL In hail,
rain, snow, frost ard fogs, and in fine
weather with the cleaning moon and
twinkiinG stars Keeping through the torn
apcTtures Of their street curtains and gutter
beds.
- have seen these men, women and
children drunk, ali OF heap like so many
dogs, while there were Others engaged in
the vngaoond'S calling, ashamed OF their
position. who hung down their heads and
bands and went with the tide and pellmell
crowd down to ruin. In many instances |
come upon parents with large families who
have taken the wrong turning through their
dislike OF work, or the hardness of town
life, and are now trampiug the country
lanes, towns aud villages with carts vans
and donkey barrows, hawking, begging.
lying and | an afraid often stealing.
Some time ago | visited with friend
Canning Town and found scores of families
Of gyrSies and other vagahnnd travellers
living in state that would shock the most
hlthy ana degraded Eeathen. More than
thirty children OF school age clustered
around us, not one of whom could tell a
letter. In two small four-rnomed cottages,
into which the gypsies and travellers had
crept for few months in the winter, there
dweit, or pigged, seventeen families Of men,
women ard children. Others were squatting
about IN filthy wgwans among the slush,
filth, rags and straw.
Among these folk, on the outskirts of
London, IN one wigUam | have seen roor
woman dying; in another man who had
taken to gyDsying was gaspiHg for breath :;
! in another tent woman was at deaths
door and al another abode of death, into
which / bad to creep Oh all fours, there sat
AT the entrance, upon brick in the mud,
poor lost present day gypsy girl of seven
years of age. but no heavier than a child of
one year Its legs were no thicker than
drumsucks. II could neither stand, sing
SPEAK, cry, nor hear.
''At crow pie feast near Rngby | saw
In i've vans fifteen children, two of whom
only could read or write a little. During
tie deep snow OF the winter of 1SS7-8S met
with in the old Waiting street, but a mile
or two from our home here, nine men,
women and children cruuched together,
whose only sleeping apartment was under
an old donkey cart. The man mad worked
honorably and well in my neighborhood for
two years. The work gave out and he for
sock his trade to follow hedge bottom creep
ing.
AT Daventry found travelling show
man and his wife and their several children.
Their only hOme and stock and trade con-
sisted of few sticks old rags, knives,
whistles and a cracked drum.
AT A OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES FAIR
found ten vans aud carts and between
thirty and forty children, only one or
two of whom had ever been inside either
Sunday or day schools. In three old tum-
bledown carts, tied together by canvas,
string, straps and pieces of rusty hoop iron,
there were nineteen children and seven
men and women.
Moses Holland, one of my oldest gypsy
friends, knows about $50 families In the
midland counties, and thinks there will be
an average OF five children to each tent OF
van. In some tents he has seen as many
as ten, and in other tents twelve, children.
In his own tent his wife was i'll, and dead
| enid lay by her side which Holland laid
| out himself on few rags and some litter
AT BroomsGrove fair | counted over fifty
| vans and covered cart homes, connected
| with which there were nearly $50 chill.
| dren. But six could read and write In one
| van, eight feet long, five broad and five
| hlgn, there slept eleven men, women and
| children, whose night dresses were satu-
rated wet clothes. Some time ago | visited
flower show at West Haddon and found in
two vans and tumbledown wagon eighteen
children and seven men and women. ONLY
two could read and write