Question 32. “Before we part we should like to ask you what effect legislation would have upon the travellers and gipsies? Would the numbers increase or decrease?”
With the proper carrying out of the education clauses and sanitary plans I propose, wisely and firmly, the number of gipsies would very soon decrease, and the sanitary inspectors and School Board officers would be the instruments for bringing this desirable result about. Persecution, policeman, and the jail will cause gipsyism to grow, while education and sanitation will divert it into healthy channels.
GEORGE SMITH, of Coalville.
Welton Daventry,
December 31, 1882.
APPENDIX B.
LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. EARL ABERDARE.
The following remarks are the substance of a letter I sent to the Right Hon. Earl Aberdare—who has been a friend to the cause I have in hand, and more than kind to myself—on May 24, 1882, in reply to some questions his lordship put to me with reference to some of the details of my plans for properly carrying out the Canal Boats Act of 1877; and as they will apply with equal force to the carrying out of my gipsy plans when my Canal Amending Bill is passed, I deem it right that they should find a place here.
“At the present time there will be, at a rough calculation, nearly 10,000 boats registered. In 1879 there were over 5,000 boats registered, and the number, owing principally to my continued agitation, has kept increasing. Supposing that there are only 10,000 boats registered—with the prospect of another 5,000—this would, if the registration certificates were stamped with a half-crown stamp, as I suggest to be paid by the boatowner, produce an annual amount of £1,250, which would be quite sufficient to cover the expenses of Government supervision, inquiries, and annual reports.
“More than half of the hundred registration authorities throughout the country do not pay any increased salaries to the local registration officers for registering the boats, and the little inspection that has been done by them.
“In some instances £10 per annum has been added to the salaries of the officers. In some cases more than £10, and in other cases less than £10 has been added. In one instance the amount of £1 per boat has been given to the medical officer of health for registering the boats.
“The officers, in my humble opinion, best qualified to see to the inspection and registration of the boats under the Amending Bill are the sanitary officers.