Caravans will be moving about in our midst with “fat babies,” “wax-work models,” “wonders of the age,” “the greatest giant in the world,” “a living skeleton,” “the smallest man alive,” “menageries,” “wild beast shows,” “rifle galleries,” and like things connected with these caravans; there will be families of children, none of whom, or at any rate but very few of them, are receiving an education and attending any school, and living together regardless of either sex or age, in one small van. In addition to these, we have some 3,000 or 4,000 children of school age “on the road” tramping with their parents, who sleep in common lodging-houses, and who might be brought under educational supervision on the plan I shall suggest later on in this book. Altogether, with the Gipsies, we have a population of over 30,000 outside our educational and sanitary laws, fast drifting into a state of savagery and barbarism, with our hands tied behind us, and unable to render them help. “I was a bruised reed Pluck’d from the common corn, Play’d on, rude-handled, worn, And flung aside, aside.” DR. GROSART, “Sunday at Home.” Part II. Commencement of the Gipsy Crusade. [Picture: A Gipsy’s home for man, wife, and six children, Hackney Wick] When as a lad I trudged along in the brick-yards, now more than forty years ago, I remember most vividly that the popular song of the _employés_ of that day was “When lads and lasses in their best Were dress’d from top to toe, In the days we went a-gipsying A long time ago; In the days we went a-gipsying, A long time ago.” Every “brick-yard lad” and “brick-yard wench” who would not join in singing these lines was always looked upon as a “stupid donkey,” and the consequence was that upon all occasions, when excitement was needed as a whip, they were “struck up;” especially would it be the case when the limbs of the little brick and clay carrier began to totter and were “fagging up.” When the task-master perceived the “gang” had begun to “slinker” he would shout out at the top of his voice, “Now, lads and wenches, strike up with the: “‘In the days we went a-gipsying, a long time ago.’”