Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-15
THE CANAL FOLK.
How They Lived In Degrade.
ton Years Ago.
GEORGE SMITH OF COALVILLE.
The Philanthropist and His Noble Work
For These At One Time English
Heathen-The Cry of the
Children of England.
lCopyrighted.1

ICopyrightedl
Special Correspondence Of the Gazette.
CRICK, ENGLAND, Nov. 2.-Here in this
little ancient English village, six miles of
sunny way from the noble school-town of
Rugby, lives one of the most noted and GER
tainly one of the worthiest men of England.
l am his friend and guest.
1t is an humble abode. three three-century
old cabins merged into one, with gabled
roof, huge fireplaces, low ceilings, tiny
windows and ali manner of mysterious
cuby-holes, hooks and passages; and with
three of the sweetest women in England,
mother and two lovely maidens, to give the
quaint old place unceasing light and Joy.
1t is not the first time l have been here at
Crick. 1t is my only home-spot ID a foreign
land. When tired of wandering up and
down the face of Britain, here is where 1
come for rest. There are both rest and de-
light in old, old Crick: rest, because it is
one of the few of English villages which
stands just as it always stood; where the
roar of the workaday world activities never
comes; where the old parish church, the
graveyard, the decayed maDor-house, the
huge stone dove-cotes which house 500
families of doves, the matched farm labor
ers' cottages, the ivies and messy walls,
and the simple village folk, all invite to
repose; and of delight because, with my
host and friend. George Smith of Coalville,
sage, philosopher and philanthropist, we
wander among English lanes, find
hunt out English antiquities, visit
English battle grounds, talk of and visit the
Gypsies and ali the other lowly we both
know and love, and altogether lead life,
for the few days we are happily together,
unmixed with envy, untained by ambition
and idyllic in the loftiest friendship and
humbleSt content.
md on will ho1iar, II,
the lettering Of the world through the saw
ing of its man-forsaken and almost God
forsaken children, should know something
of this man, George Smith OF Coalville,
as he is everywhere in England called
No other Englishman, perhaps no other
man, ever accomplished SO much for
helpless children. He was born to brick
workers life in 1881. His father before him
was brickworker. The boy grew up in
the misery and drudgery of the English
brickyards. While still lad of seven
years, his labor like thousands of other
brickyard children, was to continually carry
forty pounds of clay on his head from the
brick-pile to the table on which the bricks
were made. Before his father had reached
eighteen years of age he had travelled nearly
four times the distance around the earth in
the same toll G
He realized the brutality and misery
which he suffered, and with which all
brickyard children We're surrounded, with
a purpose. With every cuff, kick and oath
administered vas again ciinched deterIni-
nation TO emancipate himself and his kind
From the extra fee secured by watching
the brick-kilns two nights of each week, he
got four years of night schooling and few
books. When he had reached mans estSte
he became the
GEORGE SMITH OF coALvILLE,n
whose name all England now knows al