ebase and ruin, both morally and
physically, his child of the tender age of nine or ten years, by turning
it--boy or girl--into the brick-yard to toil, shoeless and ragged, at
carrying heavy lumps on its head. The canal population--they who are
born and die in the circumscribed hole at the end of a barge, dignified
by the name of 'cabin,' are just now receiving the special attention of
Mr. Smith, of Coalville, and certainly, excepting the section of whom I
am writing, there is not to be found in privileged England a people so
utterly debased and regardless of the characteristics of civilised life.
The Factory Act prevents the employing of boys or girls under a certain
age, and secures for those who are legally employed a sufficient time for
recreation. But who cares for, or thinks about, the wandering Romany?
True, Police-Constable Argus receives authority by which he, _sans
ceremonie_, commands them to 'move on,' should he come across any by the
roadside in his diurnal or nocturnal perambulations. But it often occurs
that the object for which they 'camped' in the spot has been
accomplished. The farmer's hedge has been made to supply them with fuel
for warmth and for culinary purposes; his field has been trespassed upon,
and fodder stolen for their overworked and cruelly-treated quadrupeds;
so, the 'move on' simply means a little inconvenience resulting from
their having to transfer their paraphernalia to another 'camp ground' not
far off. They also enjoy certain immunities which are withheld from
other classes. Excepting that some of them pay for a hawker's licence,
they roam about as they list, untaxed and uncontrolled, though the
earnings of most of them amount to a considerable sum every year; as they
are free from the conventional rule which requires the house-dwelling
population, often at great inconvenience, to 'keep up appearances,' it
often happens that the wearer of the most tattered garments earns the
most money. They can and do live sparingly, and spend lavishly. The
labour which they choose is the most remunerative kind. Ploughing or
stone-breaking is not the employment, which the Gipsy usually seeks! He
takes the cream and leaves the skimmed milk for the cottier, and having
done all there is to do of the kind he chooses, he is off to some other
money-making industry. A Gipsy will make four harvests in one year;
first he goes 'up the country,' as he calls going into Middlesex, for
'peas-hacking.'