“Accept my best thanks for your book, which cannot fail to be most interesting, both on account of the subject and of the writer. Your good works will indeed live after you.
“I remain, faithfully yours,
Stafford H. Northcote.
“George Smith, Esq., of Coalville.”
PREFATORY NOTE.
My strong sympathy with the gipsies and their children would not allow of my following the example of daisy-bank sentimental backwood gipsy writers, whose special qualification is to flatter the gipsies with showers of misleading twaddle to keep them in ignorance; but I have preferred for my country’s welfare the path that has been rough, steep, trying, and somewhat dangerous, and open to the misconception of those little souls who look only at gipsy life through tinted or prismatic spectacles.
I have throughout tried to give both the lights and shades of a gipsy wanderer’s life, and must leave the result for God to work out as He may think well.
There may be within these pages smiles for the simple, sighs for the sad, tears for the sorrowful, joys for the joyous, ideas for the author, simple hints for the thoughtful, problems for the inquisitive, prayers for the prayerful, meditations for the Christian, plans of action for the philanthropist, and suggestions for the statesman and lawgiver.
The Brickyard, Canal, and Gipsy Children—as well as my humble self—will, as they grow up into a better state of things, ever have cause to feel thankful for the kindly help rendered to the cause by the publications of the various sections of the Christian Church, including the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Wesleyans, Congregationalists, Baptists, Primitive Methodists, Unitarians, Methodist Free Churches, Methodist New Connexion, Roman Catholics, The Friends, Bible Christians, The Religious Tract Society, Christian Knowledge Society, Sunday School Union, Messrs. Cassell, and other Publishers, the Weekly and Daily Press throughout the country, almost without exception, together with the various editors and other writers whose name is Legion.
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.
For the additional illustrations in this edition I owe my best thanks to Mr. W. Weblyn, the proprietor and art editor of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News; Mr. A. Watson, the literary editor; and also to the Rev. Edward Weldon, M.A., who accompanied me on one of my visits to the gipsies to take the sketches, which appeared with an encouraging and helpful notice on March 1, 1884.