Days and Nights in London; Or, Studies in Black and GrayRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
Days and Nights in London; Or, Studies in Black and Gray
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
London (England) -- Social conditions; London (England) -- Social life and customs
We entered, Mr. George Smith and I, and were received as friends. Had I
gone by myself I question whether my reception would have been a pleasant
one. As gipsies pay no taxes they can keep any number of dogs, and these
dogs have a way of sniffing and snarling anything but agreeable to an
unbidden guest. The poor people complained to me that no one ever came
to see them. I should be surprised if anyone did; but Mr. George Smith,
of Coalville, is no common man; and having secured fair-play for the poor
children of the brick-fields—he himself was brought up in a
brick-yard—and for the poor and sadly-neglected inmates of the canal
boats, he has now turned his attention to the gipsies. His idea is—and
it is a good one—that an Act of Parliament should be passed for their
benefit, something similar to that he has been the means of carrying for
the canal and brick-field children. In a paper read before the Social
Science Congress at Manchester, Mr. Smith argued that all tents, shows,
caravans, auctioneer vans, and like places, used as dwellings, should be
registered and numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements, with
sanitary inspectors and School Board officers in every town and village.
Thus in every district the children would have their names and attendance
registered in a book, which they could take with them from place to
place, and, when endorsed by the schoolmaster, it would show that the
children were attending school. In carrying out this idea, it is a pity
that Mr. Smith should have to bear all the burden. As it is, he has
suffered greatly in his pocket by his philanthropic effort. At one time
he had a well-paid situation, which he had to relinquish, as he declined
to keep silence when the wrongs of the children of the brick-yards were
to be proclaimed and redressed. He not only did this, but he parted with
what little property he had rather than the battle should be lost; and I
am glad to see that a George Smith Fund has been formed, of which Lord
Aberdeen is chairman; and as Mr. Smith is now without business or
occupation, or means of livelihood, if I had five pounds to spare—which,
alas! I have not—I know where it would go. As to the gipsies, they
evidently hail Mr. Smith as a friend in need and a friend indeed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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