imagination, clever lying and cleverer deception, beautiful green fields, clear running rivulets, the singing of the wood songster, bullfinch, and wren, in the midst of woodbine, sweetbriar, and roses—with an eye to observe, a heart to feel, and a hand ready to help, I am led to contemplate, aye, and to find out if possible, the remedy, though my friends say it is impossible—just because it is impossible it becomes possible, as in the canal movement—for the wretched condition of some eight to ten thousand little Gipsy children, whose home in the winter is camping half-naked in a hut, so called, in the midst of ‘slush’ and snow, on the borders of a picturesque ditch and roadside, winterly delights, Sunday and week day alike. The tendency of human nature is to look on the bright side of things; and it is much more pleasant to go to the edge of a large swamp, lie down and bask in the summer’s sun, making ‘button-holes’ of daisies, buttercups, and the like, and return home and extol the fine scenery and praise the richness of the land, than to take the spade, in shirt-sleeves and heavy boots, and drain the poisonous water from the roots of vegetation. Nevertheless, it has to be done, if the ‘strong active limbs’ and ‘bright sparkling eyes’ are to be turned to better account than they have been in the past. It is not creditable to us as a Christian nation, in size compared with other nations not much larger than a garden, to have had for centuries these heathenish tribes in our midst. It does not speak very much for the power of the Gospel, the zeal of the ministers of Christ’s Church, and the activity of the schoolmaster, to have had these plague spots continually flitting before our eyes without anything being done to effect a cure. It is true something has been done. One clergyman, who has ‘had opportunities of observing them,’ if not brought in daily contact with them, tells us that some eight or nine years since he publicly baptised two Gipsy children. Another tells us that some time since he baptised many Gipsy children, as if baptism was the only thing required of the poor children for the duties and responsibilities of life and a future state. Better a thousand times have told us how many poor roadside arabs and Gipsy children they have taken by the hand to educate and train them, so as to be able to earn an honest livelihood, instead of ‘cadging’ from door to door, and telling all sorts of silly stories and lies. How many poor children’s lives have been sacrificed at the hands of cruelty, starvation, and neglect, and buried under a clod without the shedding of a tear, it is fearful to contemplate. The idlers, loafers, rodneys, mongrels, gorgios, and Gipsies are increasing, and will increase, in our midst, unless we put our hand upon the system, from the simple fact that by packing up with wife and children and ‘taking to the road,’ he thus escapes taxes, rent, and the School-board officer. This they see, and a