The account of the sufferings of Gypsies in winter, having been confirmed by many concurring testimonies, from the inhabitants of Northamptonshire, the following Circular was sent into most of the Counties of England, with a view to ascertain their state in other parts of the nation.
CIRCULAR.
When it is considered how much the exertions of the wise, the philanthropic, and the good, in all parts of the nation, have been directed to advancing the morals and religious instruction of the lower orders of the community, it appears almost incredible that one description of British subjects, and of all others the most abject and depraved, should have been either entirely overlooked or neglected. The Gypsies, to whom this applies, are a people which, more than any other, it might have been considered the interest of society to reclaim, because of the depredations they commit upon it.
The efforts of the good, and of the great, have not been confined to meliorating the condition of the inhabitants of this country only, they have been directed to the alleviation of human misery in various other nations, and even to the augmentation of funds for civilizing the natives of distant regions of the globe.
Can we manifest our solicitude for the improvement of our fellow-creatures separated from us thousands of miles, whose faces we never saw, and conclude that numbers of persons in our own country, whose situation is more desperate, have not a peculiar claim on our consideration?
To reclaim the Indians of North America from their wild and roving course of life, associations have been formed to give them instructions in agriculture, and to supply them with implements of husbandry; plans of education adapted to their untutored state have been arranged, and persons qualified to carry them into effect, in the establishment of schools, have gone to their assistance.
Do the numerous Gypsey tribes of England possess any of these advantages?
In the summer of 1814, when the writer of this circular, visited a number of Gypsey tents in Northamptonshire, as already stated, a woman about 80 years of age, who had forty grand-children, acknowledged, that not one of them had been taught to read. In this land
of Christian benevolence, can we pronounce a certain proportion of its inhabitants to be wretchedly depraved, and even a wicked set of people; advertise them as rogues and vagabonds, and offer a reward for their apprehension, without devising any means of remedying the defects of their habits, or holding out encouragement to reformation, in any of them who are disposed to relinquish their vicious courses?
The associations formed and forming in different parts of the nation for the prosecution of felons, render the condition of Gypsies every day more and more deplorable, by their being hunted like beasts of prey from township to township.