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Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 72, 11 March 1880, Page 4

Curious Application.—A novel application was recently made- to the Chairman of the "West Derby Board of Guardians. It ran as follows,;—-“Dr. Sheldon.—Sir, —I write thos& few lines to you in bealf of the widu£ -< who has got two children she,, ia depending on the parish for some assistance. I wishers to take the said widur for my wife it will be taking much expence of the parish to alow me something towares House Keeping.—l remain, yours obediently, . ” The communication was ordered to lie on the table. Gipsy Life around London.—lt. & estimated by Mr. Geo. Smith, of Cbalville, Leicester, who has recently been exploring the queer outcast YN>sh£: of gipsydo m in different parts of England, that some 2,000 people called by- that name, but of very njfxed: KMJS). hiving in the manner Zulu Kaffirs, rather than 'of Europgan, citizens, frequent the neighborhood' of London. They are not all thieves, not even all beggars and impostors, and they escape the law of vagrancy by paying a few shillings of weekly rent for pitching their tents or booths and standing their waggons or wheeled cabins on pieces of waste ground. At Hackney and Hack-ney-wick, north-east of London— where the marsh meadows of the river Lea, unsuitable for building land, seem to forbid the extension of town streets and blocks of brick or stuccoed terraces—where the pleasant wooded hills of Epping and Hainault Forests appear in the distance, inriting the jaded townsman on summer holidays to saunter in the Royal Chace of the old English kings and queens—where genuine ruralities still lie within an hour’s walk, of which the fashionable WestEnder knoweth nought—there lurks the free and fearless gipsy scamp, if scamp he truly be, with his squaw and his piccaninnies, in a wigwam hastily constructed of hoops and poles and blankets, or perhaps if he be the wealthy sheikh of his wild Bedouin tribe, in a caravan drawn from place to place by some lost and strayed plough-horse, the lawful owner of which j is a farmer in Northamptonshire.—“ Illustrated London News.” ■ - - j.