Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-21
CHILDREN OF THE VAN
Thousands of Wandering, Wretched,
British Vagabonds.
0UTCASTS, IN MISERY AND WANT.
Great Philanthropic Work of George Smith,
of C0alville.
EFFORTS TO BETTER THEIR CONDITION

|
CR1CK, ENGLAND, Nov. 9.-In my last
article from this quaint old English village,
I gave brief outline of the work Of George
Smith, of Coalville, in rescuing the chill
dren of the brick yards and canal boats OF
England from their former frightful condi-
tion of slavery, ignorance and misery.
The half of it all could not be tittingly
told in an entire volume. But when the
social history of England is written, this
unlettered and furiously persistent philan-
thropist must stand as the greatest and
most practical child-saver of his time.
After between 20 and 80 years of labor
through penury, scofing and cruel dscour-
agement, with few later years of generally
recognised eminence and national respect,
this is the record as it now stands. Alone
and unaided he has emancipated $4,000
brickyard boys and girls from a condition
revolving beyond contemplation or descrip-
tion; and he has also, alone and unaided,
rescued more than 40, 900 canal boat children
from life of still more brutal slavery, mex
pressible degradation, unnamable immor-
| ality and actual crime
This has been accomplished, he believes,
through divine aid, guidance and strength.
But I find there has been in and through 1t
all, the most practical and sensible methods
ever persistently utilized in any great phil
anthropic work. There have been no COM
mittees, bureaus canting officials or titles.
Thirty Thousand Placed in School.
The consistent and sequential character of
his work has been remarkable. Scarcely
had he succeeded in placing, on January 1,
1872, 10000 of the 80, 900 of the brickyard
little ones in the public schools, than he be-
| gan his crusade against the iniquities of
child life in the $4,000 canal boats of
England As a boy slave in the English
brickyards he had worked where the yards
| abutted the canals. His own ewes saw the
horrors of their experiences and surround
ings. In August, 1877, he had SO thrilled
England with his picturing of these out
RACES, that Parliament finally gave him all
he had asked. Tie bill provided for the
registration of all canal boats by the sani-
tary authorities; abolish the disease breed
| ing and carrying character of these craft
| limited their number Of occupants, brought
| every boat under surveillance and inspee-
| tion, placed three-fourths of the canal popu-
lation in homes and brought every one of
the little child beasts into the public
schools.
Hardly had the practical workings of the
enactfnents regarding the canal children be-
come operative, when George Smith, of
Coalville, began storming Parliament in
behalf of another class of semi-savage
British children. In the long nights of his
boyhood, when watching the burning brick
kilns, he had not only seen the slavefy of
brickyard 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. More
lost than all were these, the half wild
children of the Gipsies and other tent and
van dwellers of the English highways
Related by Blood to the Romany.
While our own country has for more than
100 years been depicting the ranks of En-
glish and Scottish Gipsies, Mr.. Smith esti
mates their present number to be about
100000 souls. These are comprised in
nearly 20, 600 families. About 40 per cent
are of Scottish and the remainder of En-
glish descent In my own Judgment, based
upon personal acquaintance with British
Gipsies in nearly every county and shire
in England and Scotland, his estimate is
far too small. I should unhesitatingly
say there were more than twice that num-
ber.
However this may be, there are as many
more humans who are not gipsies, standing
in precisely their relation to the British
public. These have, perhaps, intermarried
with the real Romany, or possessing no
relationship of blood or marriage, have fully
acquired the most Objectionable traits and
customs of British gipsy vagabondism" be-
cause the average gipsy family among the
thousands I personally know in our own
country, is no more like the average gipsy
family of England than is the Americanized
English, Scottish or Irish immigrant like
the cringing, covering and often squalid
personality he left on the Liverpool,
Greenock or Queenstown docks behind him
Mr.. Smith has no patience with sent-
mentalism over English gipsies. He is
willing to admit that my tawny friends of
the American roads and waysldes, through
their infinitely more favorable conditions,
enjoy true gypsy prosperity and lead the
Romany's genuine idylljc life. He simply
sees the appalling degradation of the gipsy
and van dwellers about him. 1t is the help
less, hopeless children of these he would
save.
Experiences With British Outcasts.
like his rugged, vigorous description of
his rough experiences with these outcasts,
and feel sure that few of them, in his own
language, will be interesting to American
readers:
81 have visited many fairs, feasts, races
forests, lanes and wigwams in different
parts of England and Scotland, and have
dwellers, with the same sorrowful results
confronting me. In many cases where
parents attend fairs, feasts and races with
cocoanut 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 IL o'clock at night some of the
children of both sexes, together with their
mothers, are often kept hard at work
brawling, banging and shouting with CO.
coanuts and balls in hand, while in many
instances their fathers are drinking in the
public houses, and, as a reward for their |
hard days toiling and trudging, Sunday and
week day, the poor children are sent supper
less and unwashed to their bed. This is
usually on some old rags, under a street
stall, in hail, rain, snow, frost and fogs, and
in fine weather, with the cleaning moon
and twinkling stars peeping through the
torn apertures of their street curtains and
gutter beds.
81 have seen these men, women and chill
dren drunk, all of heap like so many
dogs, while there were others, engaged in
the vagabond's calling, ashamed of their
position, who hung down their heads and
hands and went with the tide and pellmell
crowd down to ruin.
Misery In the Gipsy wigwams.
"Among these folk, on the outskirts of
London, in one wigwam have seen q poor |
woman dying; in another man who had |
taken to gipsying was gasping for breath; |
in another tent q woman was at deaths |
door, and at another abode of death. into |
which had to creep on all fours,' there sat |
at the entrance, upon a brick in the mud a |
poor lost, present day Gipsy girl of z wears |