f human misery in various other
nations, and even to the augmentation of funds for civilizing the natives
of distant regions of the globe. Can we manifest our solicitude for the
improvement of our fellow-creatures separated from us thousands of miles,
whose faces we never saw, and conclude that numbers of persons in our own
country, whose situation is more desperate, have not a peculiar claim on
our consideration?

To reclaim the Indians of North America from their wild and roving course
of life, associations have been formed to give them instructions in
agriculture, and to supply them with implements of husbandry; plans of
education adapted to their untutored state have been arranged, and
persons qualified to carry them into effect, in the establishment of
schools, have gone to their assistance.

Do the numerous Gypsey tribes of England possess any of these advantages?

In the summer of 1814, when the writer of this circular, visited a number
of Gypsey tents in Northamptonshire, as already stated, a woman about 80
years of age, who had forty grand-children, acknowledged, that not one of
them had been taught to read. In this land of Christian benevolence, can
we pronounce a certain proportion of its inhabitants to be wretchedly
depraved, and even a wicked set of people; advertise them as rogues and
vagabonds, and offer a reward for their apprehension, without devising
any means of remedying the defects of their habits, or holding out
encouragement to reformation, in any of them who are disposed to
relinquish their vicious courses?

The associations formed and forming in different parts of the nation for
the prosecution of felons, render the condition of Gypsies every day more
and more deplorable, by their being hunted like beasts of prey from
township to township.

The last winter but one, a company of these houseless wanderers were dug
out of the snow in Ditchford Lane, near Irchester, Northamptonshire, when
it appeared one woman had been lying in, and that an old man was dying.

If those who have been zealous in driving them from their accustomed
haunts, were to place themselves, if but ideally in their situation, can
we believe, that instead of augmenting their sufferings, they would not
be disposed to commiserate their case, and even attend to the precept of
the Christian Legislator: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
do ye even so to them?" It is worse than useless and unavailing to
harrass th