Morning journal and courier., 1891-11-21

Van Dwellera-Mr. George Smiths Efforts in Behalf of Another Class of British Outcasts-Various Phases of Outcast-Life-Onlya a Few Able to Read and Write-An Byesore to Good Peeple-Movable Dwellings Bin.
 CRIcK, England, Nov. g. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER.
 In my last article from this quaint old English village gave a 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 condition of slavery, ig- norance and misery.
 The half of it all could not be fittingly told in an entire volume. But when the social history of England is written this unlettered and furiously persistent philan- most practical child-saver of his time. After between twenty and thirty years of labor through penury, scofing and cruel Encouragement, with a few later years of generally recognized eminence and nation al respect, this is the record as it now sLduos AlOhr hl0 uuhloc0 Ac Ad5 SiuHl- cipated thirty thousand briok-yard boys and girls from condition revolting be- yond contemplation or description; and he has also, alone and unaided, rescued more than forty thousand canal-boat chill dren from life of still more brutal slave ry, inexpressible degradation, unnamsble immortality and actual crime.
 This has been accomplished, he believes, through divine aid, guidance and strength. But find there has been in and through it all the most practical and sensible meth ods ever consistently utilized in any great philanthropic work. There have been no committees, bureaus, canting officials or titles. There have been simply the ever lasting presentation and iteration of enor nous human wrong with the most direct and effective way of fighting that wrong going along with it. Possibly no man ever lived in England who has been so helped by the English press. The reason for this is that this George Smith of Coalville first finds genuine evil to be abolished, but never clamors for its remedy until he has also found practical, and in the end ac- ceptable, method of applying that remedy.
 His career is the best illustration I have ever come upon of the splendid willing ness of the press of any country to ham mer the proposed remedies of genuine philanthropists into the public's head and heart, and compel adequate legislation to render them permanently effective. Be- sides, if this man cannot get all he wants for his cause, he takes all he can get, thanking God, the press, parliament and the people; meanwhile pushing right on for what he has failed to secure; and he never ceases labor and clamor until he gets it. All of which as policy is worth con- sidering by social philanthropists every where. It is particularly worth the thought of those well-meaning but impla- tionists of our own very much irritated country.
 The consistent and sequential character of his work has been remarkable. Scarce ly had he succeeded in placing, on January 1, 1872, twenty thousand of the thirty thousand of the brick-yard little ones in the public schools, than he began his cru sade against the iniquities of child-life in the twenty-five thousand canal-boats of
 
 brick-yards he had worked where the yards abutted the canals. His own eyes saw the horrors of their experiences and surround ings. In August, 1887, he had so thrilled England with his picturing of these out rages that parliament finally gave him all he had asked. The bill provided for the registration of all cansl-boats by the sani- tary authorities; abolished the disease breeding and carrying character of these craft; limited their number of occupants, brought every boat under surveillance and inspection, placed three-fourths of the ca nal population in homes and brought eve " one of the little child beasts into the public schools.
 Hardly had the practical workings of the enactments regarding the canal chil- dren become 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 | slavery of brick-yard and canal children | around him, but he had stored away grew | some memories of another host of misera- | ble 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 Eng fish highways.
 The first book he ever possessed-OliveI | Goldsmith's "Natural History"-wss stol- | en from him by these little foxes as he nodded by the kilns at night They stole his clothing; they stole his scant food; they even stole the drinking water from his delft jug. For years these dreary nights were ceaseless efforts to outwit the swsrthy outcasts in their offerings and wonderful devices to supply their OWL | T-x I.Aa La | bered only their houselessnes, hopeless ness and utter wretchedness. The brick yard and canal-boat children once safe | within humanizing influences, he began his last and most difficult struggle, that oi molding public opinion to the point of Sc curing laws which at one stroke should rescue the children of British gipsies anC all British vagabond folk from their pres ent squalor and wretchedness. Perhap, this is an impossible task. It is the pres ent heroic work of this English philsn
 thropist.
 While our own country has for nor, than one hundred years been depicting th' ranks of English and Scottish gipsies. MT Smith estimates their present number tH be about one hundred thousand souls
 These are comprised in nearly twenty
 thousand families. About forty per cent
 are of Scottish and the remainded of Eng
 fish descent. In my own judgment, based
 upon personal acquaintance with British
 gipsies in nearly every county and shire 1T
 England and Scotland, his estimate is fal
 too small. I should unhesitatingly sa.
 there were more than twice that number.
 However this may be, there are as man.
 more humans who are not gipsies standing
 in precisely their relation to the Britisl
 public. These have, perhaps, intermar
 ried with the real Romany, or, possessinl
 no relationship of blood or marriage, hav
 fully acquired the most objectionsbl
 traits and customs of British gipsy vsga
 bondism. I use the expression "Britisl
 eipsy vagabondism" because the averag
 gipsy family among the thousands I per sonally know in our own country is n more like the average gipsy family of Eng
 land than is the Americanized English
 Scottish or Irish immigrant like the cring
 ing, covering and often squalid personali ty he left on the Liverpool, Greenock o
 Queenstown docks behind him.
 Mir. Smith has no patience with senti
 mentalism over English gipsies. He
 willing to admit that my tawny friends c the American roads and waysides, throug their infinitely more favorable conditions
 enjoy true gipsy prosperity and lead th
 Romany's genuine idyllic life. He simpl sees the appalling degradation of the gips and van dwellers about him. It is th helpless, hopeless children of these b would save. He believes that it is 8 socis I s1 1