KIDNAPPED BY GIPSIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1526, 6 April 1887, Page 3

KIDNAPPED BY GIPSIES.

The last papers from Home contain a most curious aocount of a dear case of child stealing by gipsion. Wainatoad Flats, on the bonders of Epplng Forest m Essex, has always been a favorite holiday resort of Londoners, and m August 1884 a little boy, 10$ years old, named Froderiok liuasell, the eon of parents m a respectable position at Folhiiin, went with some friends to spend the bank holiday. An be did not return at night, and his companions - oonid not pive any account of how they had missed him, eenroh was made for him under the belief that he had lost hltrsaf m the woods or met with some AOniueut. Months piissed away, however, and at last hia parents gave tip all hope cf ever seeing him again. ThVy never did s<»> him again until the Pth of January, 1887, when his father me htm with a band of gipsies at a place called the Freemasons'- rond, somewhere m thu out-kirts of London, Mid took possession of him The bry hnd aotually been beguiled away from Ms putty at Wanstead Flfitg by a g'rß/ woman nara,ed Louisa Gumbroll and her reputed husband, and oiirr.'ed off m a van. Hia adventures during hi* captivity were qnito thrilling. Nobody ever ya,-, was ably to explain satisfactorily why gipsies steal children, and certainly their objeot m this case >■ a completo mystery. It vr*s not a matter of adopting a child for love, for they always treat) d litt'o Freddy Russoll very unkindly . Yet they do not seem to have had any iiea of maicing money by him. They did nothing with him, m faot, except to take him abput with them hopping m Kent, horse couping and carrying on questionable games; at the races at A soot, Hampton, and Ep.iom and wanderiog about the country, picking up a living an best they could. Tne frightened Ind escaped from them once, .but fell into the hands of another band of glpMoa, who aoting on Home peculiar code of honesty, took him baok to his original captorr. One day they returned to Wanstead Flats, and F eddy, recognising the oountry, slipped away and walked to London and on to Fulham, begtjing on tho road. He made for hia homo, hut only to flnd it oooupled by strangers from whom he could get do news of his parents He then got employment from a greengrocer a\ Fulham and shortly afterwards met a Mr Elgar, a misaioiery, who interested himself m him, and got htm admitted into Dr Barnardo's Home for Friend lies 13 yi at Stepney Oausoway. Here ho might have been expaoted to be safe ; but it was not a?. Dr Btrnardo's boys wore allowed occasionally to go out m parties, and one day wben Freddy waß strolling about with a number of his mates near the East India Dockroad, whom should he see but tho gipsy woman, Louisa ! She immediately seiz >d him, scolded him for running away, and carried him off and put him onoe more m tho van. Next day tho bind left London and went to Green lanes, Tottenham. Hero Louisa and her mother had a qaarrel, and the mother got a policemau and pr-intod out Freddy 88 a stolen ohild ; bus Louisa denied It, and tho polloeman wont away. The next mornluK farther police ii quirlej were Instituted, but the family quarrel had been made up, and Freddy was hidden under the bed In the van, both women swearing there was no child there. After that ho might have remained frith the gipsieß ail his life if Mr Russell had not met them hy pure chance and rcoguised his son. The whole story would be qu'te incredible if it were not perfeotly true. If, throws a strange light on tho accuracy of many passages In Dickens' works, for example, whloh have been condemned as unnatura 1 , improbable, and meaningless The per* sistency of Louißa m capturing and recapturing F'oddy Russell affords a striking counter-part to the narrative of N»<rcy and Oliver Twist ; and of the two, perhaps, the adventures of Freddy are tho more bewildering and unacoountable.