passes that way in a
carriage, if one of the children would run out and open the gate;
but instead of any one of them running out as soon as they heard the
wheels, which would be quite time enough, what does Giles do, but
set all his ragged brats, with dirty faces, matted locks, and naked
feet and legs, to lie all day upon a sand bank hard by the gate,
waiting for the slender chance of what may be picked up from
travelers. At the sound of a carriage, a whole covey of these little
scare-crows start up, rush to the gate, and all at once thrust out
their hats and aprons; and for fear this, together with the noise of
their clamorous begging, should not sufficiently frighten the
horses, they are very apt to let the gate slap full against you,
before you are half way through, in their eager scuffle to snatch
from each other the halfpence which you have thrown out to them. I
know two ladies who were one day very near being killed by these
abominable tricks.

Thus five or six little idle creatures, who might be earning a
trifle by knitting at home, who might be useful to the public by
working in the field, and who might assist their families by
learning to get their bread twenty honest ways, are suffered to lie
about all day, in the hope of a few chance halfpence, which, after
all, they are by no means sure of getting. Indeed, when the
neighboring gentlemen found out that opening the gate was a family
trade, they soon left off giving any thing. And I myself, though I
used to take out a penny ready to give, had there been only one to
receive it, when I see a whole family established in so beggarly a
trade, quietly put it back again in my pocket, and give nothing at
all. And so few travelers pass that way, that sometimes after the
whole family have lost a day, their gains do not amount to
two-pence.

As Giles had a far greater taste for living by his wits than his
work, he was at one time in hopes that his children might have got a
pretty penny by _tumbling_ for the diversion of travelers, and he
set about training them in that indecent practice; but unluckily the
moors being level, the carriage traveled faster than the children
tumbled. He envied those parents who lived on the London road, over
the Wiltshire downs, which downs being very hilly, it enables the
tumbler to keep pace with the traveler, till he sometimes extorts
from the light and unthinking, a reward instead of a reproof. I beg
leave, however, to put all gentle