lf-time book into the hands of the
bargee and compelled him, by the Canal Boats Act of 1877, to soap his
infants' faces and put primers in their way. With Smith of Coalville,
therefore, it may be expected that each juvenile of the wharves and locks
now associates his most unhappy moments. The half-time book of the act
comes between him and the blessed state of his previous ignorance.
Registered and numbered, supervised and inspected, he has been put on the
road to know things that must necessarily disillusionise him of the black
enchantments of life on the water highway. It is allowable to hope,
however, that having recovered from the first discomforts of civilising
soap and primers, he will yet live to appreciate Mr. Smith's name as one
associated with kindly intent and generous aspirations in his behalf. A
generation of bargemen who had a less uncompromising vocabulary of oaths,
who could beguile some of the tedium of their voyaging with reading, and
who in other important respects showed the influences of half-time, would
be a smiling reward of philanthropy and an important addition to our
civilisation. That Mr. Smith anticipates some such reward is evident
from the eagerness with which he has been pushing the principle in
another quarter. At the Social Science Congress he has just propounded a
scheme of educational annexation for Gipsy children similar in every
respect to that applied to the occupants of the canal-boats. That is, he
would have every tent and van numbered and furnished with a half-time
book, and he would ordain it as the duty of School Board visitors to see
that the Gipsies render their children amenable to the terms of the act
to the extent of their wandering ability, under threat of the usual
penalties. The prospect which he foresees from such treatment is that a
body of wanderers numbering not much below 20,000 will be rescued from a
position which, he says, would at present shock South African savages,
and will thus be brought in to honest industry and 'qualified to fill the
places of our best artisans, who are leaving the country to seek their
fortunes abroad.' It is impossible not to wish Mr. Smith's scheme well,
especially as he contends that the Gipsies themselves are not averse to
having their children educated; but it is equally impossible to be
sanguine as to results. The true Gipsy, who is not to be confounded with
the desultory hawker of English origin, has many arteries of untame