3-052-355 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches of gipsy life round London - a bachelor's bed-room, Mitcham Common, 1880. 'The gipsies, so long as they refrain from picking and stealing, and do not obstruct the highways, should not be persecuted; for they are a less active nuisance than the Italian organ-grinders in our city streets, whose tormenting presence we are content to suffer, to the sore interruption both of our daily work and our repose. But it is expedient that there should be an Act of Parliament, if the Home Secretary has not already sufficient legal powers, to establish compulsory registration of the travelling gipsy families, and a strict licensing system, with constant police supervision, for their temporary encampments, while their children should be looked after by the local School Board. These measures, combined with judicious offers of industrial help for the adults and industrial training for the juniors, with the special exercise of Poor-Law Guardian administration, and some parochial or missionary religious efforts, might put an end to vagabond Gipsy life in England before the commencement of the twentieth century, or within one generation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.