[104]. Turgot (1727-1781) was one of the Ministers of Finance under Louis XVI.
All things considered, this seems to me a better method than the cannon-ball plan.
§14
In the year 1836 a strolling tribe of gipsies came to Vyatka and encamped there. These people wandered at times as far as Tobolsk and Irbit, carrying on from time immemorial their roving life of freedom, accompanied of course by a bear that had been taught to dance and children that had been taught nothing; they lived by doctoring horses, telling fortunes, and petty theft. At Vyatka they went on singing their songs and stealing chickens, till the Governor suddenly received instructions, that, if the gipsies turned out to have no passports—no gipsy was ever known to possess one—a certain interval should be allowed them, within which they must register themselves as members of the village communities where they happened to be at the time.
If they failed to do so by the date mentioned, then all who were fit for military service were to be sent to the colours, the rest to be banished from the country, and all their male children to be taken from them.
Tufáyev himself was taken aback by this decree. He gave notice of it to the gipsies, but he reported to Petersburg that it could not be complied with. The registration would cost money; the consent of the communities must be obtained, and they would want money for admitting the gipsies. After taking everything into consideration, Tufáyev proposed to the Minister—and he must get due credit for the proposal—that the gipsies should be treated leniently and given an extension of time.
In reply the Minister ordered him to carry out the original instructions when the time had expired. The Governor hardened his heart and sent a detachment to surround the gipsy encampment; when that was done, the police brought up a militia battalion, and scenes that beggar description are said to have followed—women, with their hair flying loose, ran frantically to and fro, shrieking and sobbing, while white-haired old women clutched hold of their sons. But order triumphed, and the police-inspector secured all the boys and the recruits, and the rest were marched off by stages to their place of exile.
But a question now arose: where were the kidnapped children to be put, and at whose cost were they to be maintained?
In former days there had been schools for foundlings which cost the Crown nothing; but these had been abolished, as productive of immorality. The Governor advanced the money from his own pocket and consulted the Minister. The Minister replied that, until further orders, the children were to be looked after by the old people in the alms-house.
To make little children live with dying old men and women, and to force them to breathe the atmosphere of death; and on the other hand, to force the aged and worn-out to look after the children for nothing—that was a real inspiration!