104 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1816. 



into a road which passes by, and 

 instantly made off. 



17. A fatal accident happened 

 by the upsetting of the York 

 mail, which passes through this 

 place to Liverpool. The driver of 

 that coach from Warrington was 

 racing with a horseman upon the 

 road, when the coach, coming to 

 a sharp turn, at the entrance into 

 Prescot, was thrown over, and 

 the passengers, of whom there 

 were four outside, thiown to the 

 giound. Mr. D. Bancroft, of Man- 

 chester, a member of the Society 

 of Friends, who was sitting on 

 the coach-box, received so dread- 

 ful a hurt from the fall, that after 

 languishing in extreme torture 

 till Saturday last, he expired, 

 leaving a widow and six young 

 children to lament his imtimely 

 fate ! Another of the outside pas- 

 sengers, of the name of Master- 

 man, of Runcorn, had his shoukler 

 dislocated ; and Mr. John Ritchie, 

 a merchant at Liverpool, an in- 

 side passenger, though he had no 

 bones broken, received several 

 violent contusions, which disabled 

 him from pursuing his journey. 

 The day after Mr. Bancroft's 

 death, a coroner's inquest was 

 summoned, who returned a ver- 

 dict of Manslaughter, and the 

 coachman is committed to Lan- 

 caster castle to take his trial at 

 the ensuing assizes. — Leeds Mer- 

 cury. 



18. The Gipsies. — Of late years 

 some attempts have been made to 

 reduce the numbers, or at any rate 

 to civilize the habits, of that vaga- 

 bond and useless race, the gipsies. 

 In pursuance of such purpose, a 

 society of gentlemen have been 

 making all the preliminary inqui- 

 ries requisite to a proper under- 



standing of the subject. A series 

 of questions have been proposed to 

 competent persons in the different 

 counties in England and Scot- 

 land. 



Reports in answer to these 

 questions have been received, and 

 their contents are thus briefly 

 stated : 



" 1. All Gipsies suppose the 

 first of them came from Egypt. 



" 2. They cannot form any 

 idea of the number in England. 



"3. The Gipsies of Bedford- 

 shire, Hertfordshire, parts of 

 Buckinghamshire, Cambridge, 

 and Huntingdonshire, are con- 

 nually making revolutions with- 

 in the range of those counties. 



" 4. They are either ignorant 

 of the number of Gipsies in the 

 coxinties through which they tra- 

 vel, or unwilling to disclose their 

 knowledge. 



" 5. The most conunon names 

 are Smith, Cooper, Draper, Tay- 

 lor, Bosswel, Lee, Lovell, Lover- 

 sedge, Allen, Mansfield, Glover, 

 Williams, Carew, Martin, Stan- 

 ley, Buckley, Plunkett, and 

 Corrie. 



" 6 and 7. The gangs in dif- 

 ferent towns have not any regular 

 connexion or organization ; but 

 those who take up their winter- 

 quarters in the same city or town 

 appear to have some knowledge 

 of the different routes each horde 

 wiU pursue ; probably with a de- 

 sign to prevent interference. 



" 8. In the county of Herts it 

 is computed there may be sixty 

 families, having many children. 

 Whether they are quite so nu- 

 merous in Buckinghamshire, Bed- 

 fordshire, and Northamptonshire, 

 the answers are not sufficiently 

 definite to determine. In Cam- 

 bridgeshire, 



