To which I said, Amen and Amen. “So mote it be.”
Rambles among the Gipsies upon Wanstead Flats.
Easter Tuesday was cold, disagreeable, and damp. A London fog was hanging overhead as I turned early out of my lodgings to visit Wanstead Flats gipsy fair. Between the black fog and the rays of the sun a struggle seemed to be taking place as to which influence should rule London for the day, by imparting either darkness, gloom, and melancholy, or light, brightness, and cheerfulness to the millions of dwellers and toilers in London streets, shops, offices, garrets, cellars, mansions, and palaces. The struggle did not continue long. Fog and mist had to vanish into thin air at the bidding of the Spring sun’s rays, and black particles of soot had to drop upon the pavement to be swept into the London sewers by scavengers. For my own part I felt heavy all day through fog and sunshine.
I duly arrived at Forest Gate, and began to wander among the gipsies, “taking stock,” and indulging in other preliminaries before making a practical “survey” of the whole.
During my peregrinations among the Wanstead Gonjos, Poshpeérdos, Romani-chals, and Romany Ryes, I came upon a gentleman with whom I had a long interesting conversation about the best means, plans, and modes of dealing with our little street Arabs and other juveniles who have “gone wrong,” or are found in paths leading to it. From my friend I gleaned some interesting information relating to the early steps taken to bring them back into paths of honesty, industry, and uprightness. Mary Carpenter, of Bristol, worked hard, long, and successfully in this direction. Although she has passed away, the fruits of her labour are seen at Bristol and at other places in the country to-day, and will continue green till the last trumpet shall sound, and we are called home to live in an atmosphere where there is no sorrow, crying, wretchedness, poverty, misery, or death, and where gipsy and canal children’s rags will be transformed into angel robes, and their dirt and filth into angel brightness and seraphic splendour.
About a century ago, an institution was set on foot in the Borough of Southwark called the Philanthropic Society, date 1780, which provided a home for the children of prisoners, who would otherwise have been thrown upon the world to beg or steal as best they could. For a period of more than half a century, the benevolent character of the society secured for it a fair share of voluntary support from the public. For many years it gathered together and educated both boys and girls—some of whom were gipsy children. The former were taught trades, such as tailoring, shoe-making, and rope-making. The girls were taught laundry work and the duties of domestic life. It was found, however, by much experience, sometimes painful, that the presence of both sexes, although kept as separate as possible, was not advantageous, and therefore, early in the present century, boys only were received. These were non-criminals themselves—only the offspring of that class, and destitute.
When separate prisons were found necessary for the more successful reclaiming, as it was hoped, of juvenile offenders, Parkhurst prison in the Isle of Wight was used for that class. The experiment of keeping young criminals together and away from older ones was considered so far satisfactory that, in the year 1846, Sir George Grey, as Home Secretary, resolved—no doubt at the instigation of Mary Carpenter, and as the result of her agitation in this direction—on trying the experiment of relieving the pressure arising from increased numbers by drafting those who had the most reliable characters into an institution from which they might hope to have more liberty, and ultimately, by continued good conduct, be placed out in service, and so obtain their freedom. All the inmates of Parkhurst prison were under sentence of seven or ten years’ transportation. The Home Secretary had twenty-five of those young persons selected, and a conditional pardon from the Queen was obtained for each, that they might be placed in circumstances to work their way speedily to freedom. The buildings of the Philanthropic Society in Southwark were selected for the experiment, and those juvenile criminals were introduced to their new liberty, and associated with the non-criminal boys then in the Institution. By that action the society changed its character, and henceforth it became a Reformatory School, still retaining its original name.
The experiment was both bold and wise; and to insure success an entire change of management was required. Up to that time repression and terror were too much exercised by the officials who had the care of the inmates. A much more liberal and enlightened policy was resolved upon, and education and home training were to be the substitutes. A large schoolroom was erected on the premises, which were situated immediately behind the Blind Asylum, and extended from the London Road on the east to St. George’s Road on the west, all enclosed within high walls, having a large chapel on the south-west corner, which served for both the inmates of the institution and the general public. It was of the first importance that in making this experiment properly qualified persons should be placed in command. The Rev. Sydney Turner (the favourite son of Sharon Turner, the historian) was the chaplain. The head master and house superintendent was selected from St. John’s College, Battersea, and Mr. George John Stevenson, M.A., was appointed to the responsible position. Both the chaplain and the head master shared alike the deep sense of the responsibility involved in the undertaking, as any amount of failure would have been a disaster to be deplored in many ways. So that it required a strong resolution on the part of those officials to secure success. Mr. Stevenson had to assume the position of father of the family, superintending the food, clothing, recreation, and education of the inmates. A new and experienced matron took charge of the domestic arrangements, and thus, from the very commencement of the new plans, the inmates were made to share in the comforts designed to improve their moral and social condition. All the old régime was abandoned. It had broken down completely so far as either elevating the inmates or securing public patronage were concerned. The Government paid for each of their boys a fixed sum, which supplied the finances required for working the institution, and a cheerful prospect opened out from the beginning, which was shared alike by the officers and those under their care. That some of the more daring spirits should seek to trespass on the additional liberty thus afforded them was natural; that some few should give evidence of their innate desire for wrong-doing was not surprising. The first who violated their agreement to obedience soon found that the arrangements made with the police authorities were such as effectually broke down all their schemes for hastening their liberty. Five or six of the young rascals who escaped one Sunday evening just before bedtime were speedily brought back either by the police or by the superintendent of the institution early the next day, even when scattered over the metropolis; this had a very deterring effect on such efforts in future. They did not believe in what a writer in “The Christian Life” says—
“Obscured life sets down a type of bliss,
A mind content both crown and kingdom is;”
but rather in what a writer in The Sunday at Home for 1878 says—