On the first Sunday in February this year I found myself surrounded by a black, thick London fog—almost as dense as the blackest midnight, and an overpowering sense of suffocation creeping over me—in the midst of an encampment of Gipsies at Canning Town, and, acting upon their kind invitation, I crept into one of their tents, and there found about a dozen Gipsy men of all sizes, ages, and complexions, squatting upon peg shavings. Some of their faces looked full of intelligence and worthy of a better vocation, and others seemed as if they had had the “cropper” at work round their ears; so short was their hair that any one attempting to “pull it up by the roots” would have a difficult task, unless he set to it with his teeth. They looked to me as if several of them had worn bright steel ornaments round their wrists and had danced at a county ball, and done more stepping upon the wheel of fortune than many people imagine; at any rate, they were quite happy in their way, and seemed prepared for another turn round when needful. Their first salutation was, “Well, governor, how are you? Sit you down and make yourself comfortable, and let’s have a chat. Never mind if it is Sunday, send for some ‘fourpenny’ for us.” I partly did as they bid me, but, owing to the darkness of the tent and the fog, I sat upon a seat that was partly covered with filth, consequently I had an addition to my trousers more than I bargained for. I told them my object was not to come to send for “fourpenny,” but to get a law passed to compel the Gipsy parents to send their children to school, and to have their tents registered and provided with a kind of school pass book; and, before I had well finished my remarks, one of the Gipsies, a good-looking fellow, said, “I say, Bill, that will be a capital thing, won’t it?” “God bless you, man, for it,” was the remark of another, and so the thing went the round among them. By this time there were some score or more Gipsy women and children at the tent door, or, I should rather say, rag coverlet, who heard what had passed, and they thoroughly fell in with the idea. The question next turned upon religion. They said they had heard that there were half-a-dozen different religions, and asked me if it was true. One said he was a Roman Catholic; but did not believe there was a hell. Another said he was a Methodist, but could not agree with their singing and praying, and so it went round till they asked me what religion was. I told them in a way that seemed to satisfy them, and I also told them some of its results. I could not learn that any of these Gipsies had ever been in a place of worship.