ght us face to
face with this unfortunate section of our fellow-creatures, with what
result it is not necessary to say. The sympathies of the public were
effectually roused by the narratives which revealed to us the deplorable
depths of human depravity into which vast numbers of English people had
fallen. The sufferings of the children in the gloomy, pestiferous cabins
used for 'living' purposes especially excited the country's pity. At
this present moment the lot of these poor waifs is far from being
inviting, but it is vastly different from what it was a short time back.
It was only a few days ago that the Duke of Richmond, in reply to no less
a personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that express
arrangements had been made by the Government to meet the educational
requirements of the once helpless and neglected victims.

"Mr. Smith has now embarked upon a fresh crusade against misery and
ignorance. He has turned his attention from the 'water Gipsies' to their
brethren ashore. He has already began to busy himself with the condition
of 'our roadside arabs,' as he calls them. We fear Mr. Smith in
prosecuting this good work of his is doomed to perform a serious act of
disenchantment. The ideal Gipsy is destined to be scattered to the winds
by the unvarnished picture which Mr. Smith will cause to be presented to
our vision. He does not pretend to show us the romantic,
fantastically-dressed creature whose prototypes have long been in the
imaginations of many of us as types of the Gipsy species. Those of our
readers who have formed their notions of Gipsy life upon the strength of
the assurances which have been given them by the late Mr. G. P. R. James
and kindred writers will find it hard to substitute for the joyous scenes
of sunshine and freedom he has associated with the nomadic existence, the
dull, wearisome round of squalor and wretchedness which is found, upon
examination, to constitute the principal condition of the Gipsy tent.
Whether it is that in this awfully prosaic period of the world's history
the picturesque and jovial rascality which novelist and poet have
insisted in connecting with the Ishmaelites is stamped ruthlessly out of
being by force of circumstances, it is barely possible to say. Perhaps
Gipsies, in common with other tribes of the romantic past, have gradually
become denuded of their old attractiveness. It is, we confess, rather
difficult to believe that Bamfylde Moore Carew