Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-14
QUEER CANAL FOLK.
Peculiarities of a People Exactly
Like Whom There Is No Other.
GEORGE SMITH AND HIS CRUSADE
In Behalf of a Class Whose Condition He
Has Much Bettered.
THEIR SAGE, PHILOSOPHER AND FRIEND
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH. !


Rugby, lives one of the most noted and GER
tainly one of the worthiest men of England
| am his friend and guest.
1t is an humble abode, three three-cen.
tury old cabins merged into one, with ga.
bled roof, huge fireplaces, loT ceilings, tiny
windows, and all manner of mysterious
cubby-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 love and joy.
1t is not the first time 1 have been here
at Crick- 1t is my only home spot in a
foreign land. When tired of wandering up
and down the face of Britain, here is where
come for rest. There are both rest and
delight 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 worlds activities
never comes; where the old parish church,
the graveyard, the decaved manor houses,
the huge stone doVecotes which house 800
families of doves, the thatched farm labor
ers' cottages, the ivies and mossv walls, and
the simple village folk, all invite to repose:
and Of delight, because, with my host and
friend, George Smith, of Coalville, sage, phil
osopher and philanthropist, we wander
among English lanes, FIND old paths over En-
glish fields, hunt out English antiquities, visit
English battle-grounds, talk of and visit the
Gvpsies and all the other lowlv we both
know and love; and altogether lead life,
for the few days we are happily together,
unmixed with envy, untainted by ambition
and idvllic in the loftiest friendship and
hunlblest content
A True ChiIdren's Friend.
All good men and women who believe in
the bettering of the world through the
saving of its man-forsaken and almost God
forsahen 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. lie was born to a brickworker's
life in 1851 His father before him was a
brickworker. The boy grew up in the mis-
cry and drudgerv of the English brick
wards While still a lad of years, his
labor, like thousands of other brickyard
children, was 20 continually carry 40 pounds
of clay on his head from the brick pile to
the table on which the bricks were made.
Before mis- father had reached Is years of
age he had travelled nearly four times the
distance around the earth in the same toll.
He realized the brutality and misery
which he suffered. and with which all brick
ward children were surrounded. with pur-
pose With every cuff. kick and oath ad-
Ininistered was again clinched determine
zion 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 a few
books. When he had reached mans estate
he became the ''CTeorge Smith, of Coalville," D"
whose name all England now knows almost |
as a household word by securing the man
agement of a small red-brick ward at that |
place. He made the owners rich, but |
eventually lost his position through his |
Ceaseless agitation in behalf of the brick |
yard children.
Grand Battle against Big Odds.
1t is a long, heartbreaking story, that of |
his starvation suffering, contumely and |
sacrifices, until he made all England hear
h m. His grand battle for these helpless
ones was made along all lines in marvellous
and sympathetic simplicity, but with the |
tremendous tor,'e of personal suffering: He
will carry TO his grave the scars of hurt
and wrong that the children for whom he
pleaded were enduring He had something
TO tell Of ongoings in English brick fields
and brick wards; and he ''bulked it out, as
ne himself SAYS in his work, 1.-The Cry of
the Children From the Brickyards of Eng
land, in all Its largeness and shame"
In brief, he found, as a lad Of wears,
so 600 girls and boys, many more youthful
than himself in a condition Of abuse,
horrible slavery, vice, ignorance and
misery impossible for the pen of
even genius to describe He worked,
starved and battIed so years for
these children, and finally on the 10Th
Of August, 1871, heard the voice of the
Speaker Of the House of Commons ring
out: THE ayes have itr' on the passage Of
a bill. which became the fifth clause of the
Factory and Workshops Amendment
Act" gave him the enthusiastic congratu-
latIons of the greatest men OF England; led
Lord SALISBURY 10 exclaim: "Bless God
1or His grace on your efforts;' and had
achieved for him the first great victory of
MS life. Alone and unaided one brickyard
graduate had rescued 10000 fellows from
The slavery and degradation of this incon-
csivably brutal and blighting form Of child
labor; while the actual result was to send,
on January l, 1872, 10000 half-naked chill
dren out of the brick and tile yards to
school, and forever prohibit girls under 16
being employed in this form of labor.
Crusade for Canal-Boat Children.
But George Smith, of Coalville, had only
begun. His second crusade was in behalf
OF the canal-boat children. As boy slave,
he had toiIed in brickyards abuttIng the
canals. In these boats and barges he saw
thousands more children employed in a
drudgery equally murderous, and living in
a condition infinitely more degrading. Per
laps 125, 900 persons, men, women and
were employed in navigating some
-, 600 boats, over nearly 5000 miles of
canals and navigable rivers in England.
They did not throng railway stations. They
were in secluded places and even literature
had woven a poetic glamor about them.
Their poor children had dropped ont Of
sight. They were growing up in the stuffy
cabins almost like wild beasts. Thrashed,
kicked. beaten with ropes, sticks and heavy
iron boots, many became as stupid as the
asses which they drove. Blasphemy,
drunkenness, thieving, incest, and incon-
,eivable degradation among these folk were
This childrens' friend deter
mined to rescue these lost heather as he
bad rescued the canal-boat children.
He wrote thousands of letters and circu-
ars: tramped hundreds of miles along canal
1anks stormed the newspapers and be-
sjeged Parliament; and all the while him
;elf and family were numberless times suf-
ering for bread Finally, in 1875, he man.
,ged to publish his book, sour Canal Pop
Ilation." With this he made England
stand still and listen again. In 1876 he had
in enlisting the government so
ar that it instituted official inquiries and
o0k evidence; and then he was asked to
ramc a bill This was blocked in all
manner of ways in committee, and for q
ime the measure seemed lost; but on the
NAL dav of the session of Parliament in
August 1877, but not until Home Secretary
ross had been called to Osborne House for
a interview concerning the matter with
he Queen, who has always been