In _May’s Aldershot Advertiser_, September 13th, 1879, the following is a leading article upon the condition of Gipsies:—“The incoming of September reminds us that in the hop districts this is the season of advent of those British nomads—the Gipsies, the only class for whom there is so little legislation, or with whose actions and habits, lawless as they are, the agents of the law so seldom interfere. The miners of the Black Country owe the suppression of juvenile labour and the short time law to the long exertions of the generous-hearted Richard Oastler. The brickmaker may no longer debase and ruin, both morally and physically, his child of the tender age of nine or ten years, by turning it—boy or girl—into the brick-yard to toil, shoeless and ragged, at carrying heavy lumps on its head. The canal population—they who are born and die in the circumscribed hole at the end of a barge, dignified by the name of ‘cabin,’ are just now receiving the special attention of Mr. Smith, of Coalville, and certainly, excepting the section of whom I am writing, there is not to be found in privileged England a people so utterly debased and regardless of the characteristics of civilised life. The Factory Act prevents the employing of boys or girls under a certain age, and secures for those who are legally employed a sufficient time for recreation. But who cares for, or thinks about, the wandering Romany? True, Police-Constable Argus receives authority by which he, _sans cérémonie_, commands them to ‘move on,’ should he come across any by the roadside in his diurnal or nocturnal perambulations. But it often occurs that the object for which they ‘camped’ in the spot has been accomplished. The farmer’s hedge has been made to supply them with fuel for warmth and for culinary purposes; his field has been trespassed upon, and fodder stolen for their overworked and cruelly-treated quadrupeds; so, the ‘move on’ simply means a little inconvenience resulting from their having to transfer their paraphernalia to another ‘camp ground’ not far off. They also enjoy certain immunities which are withheld from other classes. Excepting that some of them pay for a hawker’s licence, they roam about as they list, untaxed and uncontrolled, though the earnings of most of them amount to a considerable sum every year; as they are free from the conventional rule which requires the house-dwelling population, often at great inconvenience, to ‘keep up appearances,’ it often happens that the wearer of the most tattered garments earns the most money. They can and do live sparingly, and spend lavishly. The labour which they choose is the most remunerative kind. Ploughing or stone-breaking is not the employment, which the Gipsy usually seeks! He takes the cream and leaves the skimmed milk for the cottier, and having done all there is to do of the kind he chooses, he is off to some other money-making industry. A Gipsy will make four harvests in one year;