Gipsy Life Part 2

DR. GROSART, "Sunday at Home."

Part II.

Commencement of the Gipsy Crusade.

[Picture: A Gipsy's home for man, wife, and six children, Hackney Wick]

When as a lad I trudged along in the brick-yards, now more than forty years ago, I remember most vividly that the popular song of the _employes_ of that day was

"When lads and la.s.ses in their best Were dress'd from top to toe, In the days we went a-gipsying A long time ago; In the days we went a-gipsying, A long time ago."

Every "brick-yard lad" and "brick-yard wench" who would not join in singing these lines was always looked upon as a "stupid donkey," and the consequence was that upon all occasions, when excitement was needed as a whip, they were "struck up;" especially would it be the case when the limbs of the little brick and clay carrier began to totter and were "f.a.gging up." When the task-master perceived the "gang" had begun to "slinker" he would shout out at the top of his voice, "Now, lads and wenches, strike up with the:

"'In the days we went a-gipsying, a long time ago.'"

And as a result more work was ground out of the little English slave.

Those words made such an impression upon me at the time that I used to wonder what "gipsying" meant. Somehow or other I imagined that it was connected with fortune-telling, thieving and stealing in one form or other, especially as the lads used to sing it with "gusto" when they had been robbing the potato field to have "a potato fuddle," while they were "oven tenting" in the night time. Roasted potatoes and cold turnips were always looked upon as a treat for the "brickies." I have often vowed and said many times that I would, if spared, try to find out what "gipsying"

really was. It was a puzzle I was always anxious to solve. Many times I have been like the horse that shies at them as they camp in the ditch bank, half frightened out of my wits, and felt anxious to know either more or less of them. From the days when carrying clay and loading ca.n.a.l-boats was my toil and "gipsying" my song, scarcely a week has pa.s.sed without the words

"When lads and la.s.ses in their best Were dress'd from top to toe, In the days we went a-gipsying A long time ago,"

ringing in my ears, and at times when busily engaged upon other things, "In the days we went a-gipsying" would be running through my mind. In meditation and solitude; by night and by day; at the top of the hill, and down deep in the dale; in the throng and battle of life; at the deathbed scene; through evil report and good report these words, "In the days we went a-gipsying," were ever and anon at my tongue's end. The other part of the song I quickly forgot, but these words have stuck to me ever since. On purpose to try to find out what fortune-telling was, when in my teens I used to walk after working hours from Tunstall to Fenton, a distance of six miles, to see "old Elijah Cotton," a well-known character in the Potteries, who got his living by it, to ask him all sorts of questions. Sometimes he would look at my hands, at other times he would put my hand into his, and hold it while he was reading out of the Bible, and burning something like brimstone-looking powder-the forefinger of the other hand had to rest upon a particular pa.s.sage or verse; at other times he would give me some of this yellow-looking stuff in a small paper to wear against my left breast, and some I had to burn exactly as the clock struck twelve at night, under the strictest secrecy. The stories this fortune-teller used to relate to me as to his wonderful power over the spirits of the other world were very amusing, aye, and over "the men and women of this generation." He was frequently telling me that he had "fetched men from Manchester in the dead of the night flying through the air in the course of an hour;" and this kind of rubbish he used to relate to those who paid him their shillings and half-crowns to have their fortunes told. My visits lasted for a little time till he told me that he could do nothing more, as I was "not one of his sort." Like Thomas called Didymus, "hard of belief." Except an occasional glance at the Gipsies as I have pa.s.sed them on the road-side, the subject has been allowed to rest until the commencement of last year, when I mentioned the matter to my friends, who, in reply, said I should find it a difficult task; this had the effect of causing a little hesitation to come over my sensibilities, and in this way, between hesitation and doubt, matters went on till one day in July last year, when the voice of Providence and the wretched condition of the Gipsy children seemed to speak to me in language that I thought it would be perilous to disregard. On my return home one evening I found a lot of Gipsies in the streets; it struck me very forcibly that the time for action had now arrived, and with this view in mind I asked Moses Holland-for that was his name, and he was the leader of the gang-to call into my house for some knives which required grinding, and while his mate was grinding the knives, for which I had to pay two shillings, I was getting all the information I could out of him about the Gipsy children-this with some additional information given to me by Mr. Clayton and several other Gipsies at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, together with a Gipsy woman's tale to my wife, mentioned in my "Cry of the Children from the Brick-yards of England," brought forth my first letter upon the condition of the poor Gipsy children as it appeared in the _Standard_, _Daily Chronicle_, and nearly every other daily paper on August 14th of last year:-"Some years since my attention was drawn to the condition of these poor neglected children, of whom there are many families eking out an existence in the Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire lanes. Two years since a pitiful appeal was made in one of our local papers asking me to take up the cause of the poor Gipsy children; but I have deferred doing so till now, hoping that some one with time and money at his disposal would come to the rescue. Sir, a few weeks since our legislators took proper steps to prevent the maiming of the little show children, who are put through excruciating practices to please a British public, and they would have done well at the same time if they had taken steps to prevent the warping influence of a vagrant's life having its full force upon the tribes of little Gipsy children, dwelling in calico tents, within the sound of church bells-if living under the body of an old cart, protected by patched coverlets, can be called living in tents-on the roadside in the midst of gra.s.s, sticks, stones, and mud; and they would have done well also if they had put out their hand to rescue from idleness, ignorance, and heathenism our roadside arabs, _i.e._, the children living in vans, and who attend fairs, wakes, &c. Recently I came across some of these wandering tribes, and the following facts gleaned from them will show that missionaries and schoolmasters have not done much for them. Moses Holland, who has been a Gipsy nearly all his life, says he knows about two hundred and fifty families of Gipsies in ten of the Midland counties and thinks that a similar proportion will be found in the rest of the United Kingdom. He has seen as many as ten tents of Gipsies within a distance of five miles.

He thinks there will be an average of five children in each tent. He has seen as many as ten or twelve children in some tents, and not many of them able to read or write. His child of six months old-with his wife ill at the same time in the tent-sickened, died, and was 'laid out' by him, and it was also buried out of one of those wretched abodes on the roadside at Barrow-upon-Soar, last January. When the poor thing died he had not sixpence in his pocket. In shaking hands with him as we parted his face beamed with gladness, and he said that I was the first who had held out the hand to him during the last twenty years. At another time later on I came across Bazena Clayton, who said that she had had sixteen children, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in a roadside tent. She says that she was married out of one of these tents; and her brother died and was buried out of a tent at Packington, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. This poor woman knows about three hundred families of Gipsies in eleven of the Midland and Eastern counties, and has herself, so she says, four lots of Gipsies travelling in Lincolnshire at the present time. She said she could not read herself, and thinks that not one Gipsy in twenty can. She has travelled all her life. Her mother, named Smith, of whom there are not a few, is the mother of fifteen children, all of whom were born in a tent. A Gipsy lives, but one can scarcely tell how; they generally locate for a time near hen-roosts, potato-camps, turnip-fields, and game-preserves. They sell a few clothes-lines and clothes-pegs, but they seldom use such things themselves. Washing would destroy their beauty. Telling fortunes to servant girls and old maids is a source of income to some of them. They sleep, but in many instances lie crouched together, like so many dogs, regardless of either s.e.x or age. They have blood, bone, muscle, and brains, which are applied in many instances to wrong purposes. To have between three and four thousand men and women, and fifteen thousand children cla.s.sed in the census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming all over the country, in ignorance and evil training, that carries peril with it, is not a pleasant look-out for the future; and I claim on the grounds of justice and equity, that if these poor children, living in vans and tents and under old carts, are to be allowed to live in these places, they shall be registered in a manner a.n.a.logous to the Ca.n.a.l Boats Act of 1877, so that the children may be brought under the Compulsory Clauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised as other children."

The foregoing letter, as it appeared in the _Standard_, brought forth the following leading article upon the subject the following day, August 15th, in which the writer says:-"We yesterday published a letter from Mr.

George Smith, whose efforts to ameliorate and humanise the floating and transitory population of our ca.n.a.ls and navigable rivers have already borne good fruit, in which he calls attention to the deserted and almost hopeless lot of English Gipsy children. Moses Holland-the Hollands are a Gipsy family almost as old as the Lees or the Stanleys, and a Holland always holds high rank among the 'Romany' folk-a.s.sures Mr. Smith that in ten of the Midland counties he knows some two hundred and fifty families of Gipsies, and that none of their children can read or write. Bazena Clayton, an old lady of caste, almost equal to that of a Lee or a Holland, confirms the story. She has lived in tents all her life. She was born in a tent, married from a tent, has brought up a family of sixteen children, more or less, under the same friendly shelter, and expects to breathe her last in a tent. That she can neither read nor write goes without saying; although doubtless she knows well enough how to 'kair her patteran,' or to make that strange cross in the dust which a true Gipsy alway leaves behind him at his last place of sojourn, as a mark for those of his tribe who may come upon his track. 'Patteran,' it may be remarked, is an almost pure Sanscrit word cognate with our own 'path;' and the least philological raking among the chaff of the Gipsy dialect will show their secret _argot_ to be, as Mr. Leland calls it, 'a curious old tongue, not merely allied to Sanscrit, but perhaps in point of age an elder though vagabond sister or cousin of that ancient language.' No Sanscrit or even Greek scholar can fail to be struck by the fact that, in the Gipsy tongue, a road is a 'drum,' to see is to 'd.i.c.ker,' to get or take to 'lell,' and to go to 'jall;' or, after instances so pregnant, to agree with Professor von Kogalnitschan that 'it is interesting to be able to study a Hindu dialect in the heart of Europe.' Mr. Smith, however, being a philanthropist rather than a philologist, takes another view of the question. His anxiety is to see the Gipsies-and especially the Gipsy children-reclaimed. 'A Gipsy,' he reminds us, 'lives, but one can scarcely tell how; they generally locate for a time near hen-roosts, potato-camps, turnip-fields, and game-preserves. They sell a few clothes-lines and clothes-pegs; but they Seldom use such things themselves. Washing would destroy their beauty . . . To have between three and four thousand men and women, and eight or ten thousand children, cla.s.sed in the census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming all over the country in ignorance and evil training, is not a pleasant look-out for the future; and I claim that if these poor children, living in vans and tents and under old carts, are to be allowed to live in these places, they shall be registered in a manner a.n.a.logous to the Ca.n.a.l Boats Act, so that the children may be brought under the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised.'

"Mr. Smith, it is to be feared, hardly appreciates the insuperable difficulty of the task he proposes. The true Gipsy is absolutely irreclaimable. He was a wanderer and a vagabond upon the face of the earth before the foundations of Mycenae were laid or the plough drawn to mark out the walls of Rome; and such as he was four thousand years ago or more, such he still remains, speaking the same tongue, leading the same life, cherishing the same habits, entertaining the same wholesome or unwholesome hatred of all civilisation, and now, as then, utterly devoid of even the simplest rudiments of religious belief. His whole att.i.tude of mind is negative. To him all who are not Gipsies, like himself, are 'Gorgios,' and to the true Gipsy a 'Gorgio' is as hateful as is a 'cowan'

to a Freemason. It would be interesting to speculate whether, when the Romany folk first began their wanderings, the 'Gorgios' were not-as the name would seem to indicate-the farmers or permanent population of the earth; and whether the nomad Gipsy may not still hate the 'Gorgio' as much as Cain hated Abel, Ishmael Isaac, and Esau Jacob. Certain in any case it is that the Gipsy, however civilised he may appear, remains, as Mr. Leland describes him, 'a character so entirely strange, so utterly at variance with our ordinary conceptions of humanity, that it is no exaggeration whatever to declare that it would be a very difficult task for the best writer to convey to the most intelligent reader any idea of such a nature.' The true Gipsy is, to begin with, as devoid of superst.i.tion as of religion. He has no belief in another world, no fear of a future state, nor hope for it, no supernatural object of either worship or dread-nothing beyond a few old stories, some Pagan, some Christian, which he has picked up from time to time, and to which he holds-much as a child holds to its fairy tales-uncritically and indifferently. Ethical distinctions are as unknown to him as to a kitten or a magpie. He is kindly by nature, and always anxious to please those who treat him well, and to win their affection. But the distinction between affection and esteem is one which he cannot fathom; and the precise shade of _meum_ and _tuum_ is as absolutely unintelligible to him as was the Hegelian ant.i.thesis between _nichts_ and _seyn_ to the late Mr. John Stuart Mill. To make the true Gipsy we have only to add to this an absolute contempt for all that const.i.tutes civilisation. The Gipsy feels a house, or indeed anything at all approaching to the idea of a permanent dwelling, to amount to a positive restraint upon his liberty.

He can live on hedgehog and acorns-though he may prefer a fowl and potatoes not strictly his own. Wherever a hedge gives shelter he will roll himself up and sleep. And it is possibly because he has no property of his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property in others. But above all, his tongue-the weird, corrupt, barbarous Sanscrit 'patter' or 'jib,' known only to himself and to those of his blood-is the keynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that has been made to fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to 'Gorgios'-a few experts such as Mr. Borrow alone excepted. But wherever the true Gipsy goes he carries his tongue with him, and a Romany from Hungary, ignorant of English as a Chippeway or an Esquimaux, will 'patter'

fluently with a Lee, a Stanley, a Locke, or a Holland, from the English Midlands, and make his 'rukkerben' at once easily understood. Nor is this all, for there are certain strange old Gipsy customs which still const.i.tute a freemasonry. The marriage rites of Gipsies are a definite and very significant ritual. Their funeral ceremonies are equally remarkable. Not being allowed to burn their dead, they still burn the dead man's clothes and all his small property, while they mourn for him by abstaining-often for years-from something of which he was fond, and by taking the strictest care never to even mention his name.

"What are we to do with children in whom these strange habits and beliefs, or rather wants of belief, are as much part of their nature as is their physical organisation? Darwin has told us how, after generations had pa.s.sed, the puppy with a taint of the wolf's blood in it would never come straight to its master's feet, but always approach him in a semicircle. Not Kuhleborhn nor Undine herself is less susceptible of alien culture than the pure-blooded Gipsy. We can domesticate the goose, we can tame the goldfinch and the linnet; but we shall never reclaim the guinea-fowl, or accustom the swallow to a cage. Teach the Gipsy to read, or even to write; he remains a Gipsy still. His love of wandering is as keen as is the instinct of a migratory bird for its annual pa.s.sage; and exactly as the prisoned cuckoo of the first year will beat itself to death against its bars when September draws near, so the Gipsy, even when most prosperous, will never so far forsake the traditions of his tribe as to stay long in any one place. His mind is not as ours. A little of our civilisation we can teach him, and he will learn it, as he may learn to repeat by rote the signs of the zodiac or the multiplication table, or to use a table napkin, or to decorously dispose of the stones in a cherry tart. But the lesson sits lightly on him, and he remains in heart as irreclaimable as ever. Already, indeed, our Gipsies are leaving us. They are not dying out, it is true. They are making their way to the Far West, where land is not yet enclosed, where game is not property, where life is free, and where there is always and everywhere room to 'hatch the tan' or put up the tent. Romany will, in all human probability, be spoken on the other side of the Atlantic years after the last traces of it have vanished from amongst ourselves.

We begin even now to miss the picturesque aspects of Gipsy life-the tent, the strange dress, the nomadic habits. English Gipsies are no longer pure and simple vagrants. They are tinkers, or scissor-grinders, or basket-makers, or travel from fair to fair with knock-'em-downs, or rifle galleries, or itinerant shows. Often they have some ostensible place of residence. But they preserve their inner life as carefully as the Jews in Spain, under the searching persecution of the Inquisition, preserved their faith for generation upon generation; and even now it is a belief that when, for the sake of some small kindness or gratuity, a Gipsy woman has allowed her child to be baptised, she summons her friends, and attempts to undo the effect of the ceremony by subjecting the infant to some weird, horrible incantation of Eastern origin, the original import of which is in all probability a profound mystery to her. There is a quaint story of a Yorkshire Gipsy, a prosperous horse-dealer, who, becoming wealthy, came up to town, and, amongst other sights, was shown a goldsmith's window. His sole remark was that the man must be a big thief indeed to have so many spoons and watches all at once. The expression of opinion was as nave and artless as that of Blucher, when observing that London was a magnificent city 'for to sack.' Mr. Smith's benevolent intentions speak for themselves. But if he hopes to make the Gipsy ever other than a Gipsy, to transform the Romany into a Gorgio, of to alter habits of life and mind which have remained unchanged for centuries, he must be singularly sanguine, and must be somewhat too disposed to overlook the marvellously persistent influences of race and tongue."

Rather than the cause of the children should suffer by presenting garbled or one-sided statements, I purpose quoting the letters and articles upon the subject as they have appeared. To do otherwise would not be fair to the authors or just to the cause I have in hand. The flattering allusions and compliments relating to my humble self I am not worthy of, and I beg of those who take an interest in the cause of the little ones, and deem this book worthy of their notice, to pa.s.s over them as though such compliments were not there. The following are some of the letters that have appeared in the _Standard_ in reply to mine of the 14th instant. "B. B." writes on August 16th:-"Would you allow an Irish Gipsy to express his views touching George Smith's letter of this date in your paper? Without in the least desiring to warp his efforts to improve any of his fellow-creatures, it seems to me that the poor Gipsy calls for much less sympathy, as regards his moral and social life, than more favoured cla.s.ses of the community. Living under the body of an old cart, 'within the sound of church bells,' in the midst of gra.s.s, sticks, and stones, by no means argues moral degradation; and if your correspondent looks up our criminal statistics he will not find one Gipsy registered for every five hundred criminals who have not only been within hearing of the church bells but also listening to the preacher's voice. It should be remembered that the poor Gipsy fulfils a work which is a very great convenience to dwellers in out-of-the-way places-brushes, baskets, tubs, clothes-stops, and a host of small commodities, in themselves apparently insignificant, but which enable this tribe to eke out a living which compares very favourably with the hundreds of thousands in our large cities who set the laws of the land as well as the laws of decency at defiance. As to education-well, let them get it, if possible; but it will be found they possess, as a rule, sufficient intelligence to discharge the duties of farm-labourers; and already they are beginning to supply a felt want to the agriculturist whose educated a.s.sistant leaves him to go abroad."

"An Old Woman" writes as follows:-"In the article on Gipsies in the _Standard_ of to-day I was struck with the truth of this; remark-'He is kindly by nature, and always anxious to please those who treat him well, and to win their affections.' I can give you one instance of this in my own family, although it happened long, long ago. The Boswell tribe of Gipsies used to encamp once a year near the village in which my grandfather (my mother's father), who was a miller and farmer, lived; and there grew up a very kindly feeling between the head of the tribe and my grandfather and his family. Some of the Gipsies would often call at my grandfather's house, where they were always received kindly, and oftener still, on business or otherwise, at the mill, to see 'Pe-tee,' as they called my grandfather, whose Christian name was Peter. Once upon a time my grandfather owed a considerable sum of money, and, alas! could not pay it; and his wife and children were much distressed. I believe they feared he would be arrested. Everything is known in a village; and the news of what was feared reached the Gipsies. The idea of their friend Pe-tee being in such trouble was not borne quietly; the chief and one or two more appeared at the farm-house, asking to see my grandmother. They told her they had come to pay my grandfather's debt; 'he should never be distressed for the money,' they said, 'as long as they had any.' I believe some arrangement had been made about the debt, but nevertheless my grandmother felt just as grateful for the kindness. The head of the tribe wore guineas instead of b.u.t.tons to his coat, and when his daughter was married her dowry was measured in guineas, in a pint measure. I suppose, as in the old ballad of 'The Beggar of Bethnal Green,' the suitor would give measure for measure. The villagers all turned out to gaze each year when they heard the 'Boswell gang' were coming down the one long street; the women of the tribe, fine, bold, handsome-looking women, in 'black beaver bonnets, with black feathers and red cloaks,'

sometimes quarrelled, and my mother, then a girl, saw the procession several times stop in the middle of the village, and two women (sometimes more) would fall out of the ranks, hand their bonnets to friends, strip off cloak and gown, and fight in their 'shift' sleeves, using their fists like men. The men of the tribe took no notice, stood quietly about till the fight was over, and then the whole bevy pa.s.sed on to their camping-ground. My grandfather never pa.s.sed the tents without calling in to see his friends, and it would have been an offence indeed if he had not partaken of some refreshment. Two or three times my mother accompanied him, and whenever and wherever they met her they were always very kind and respectful to 'Pe-tee's little girl.' In after years, when visiting her native village, she often inquired if it was known what had become of the tribe; at last she heard from some one it was thought they had settled in Canada: at any rate they had pa.s.sed away for ever from that part of England."

Mr. Leland wrote as follows in the _Standard_, August 19:-"As you have kindly cited my work on the English Gipsies in your article on them, and as many of your readers are giving their opinions on this curious race, perhaps you will permit me to make a few remarks on the subject. Mr.

Smith is one of those honest philanthropists whom it is the duty of every one to honour, and I for one, honour him most sincerely for his kind wishes to the Romany; but, with all my respect, I do not think he understands the travellers, or that they require much aid from the 'Gorgios,' being quite capable of looking out for themselves. A _tacho Rom_, or real Gipsy, who cannot in an emergency find his ten, or even twenty, pounds is a very exceptional character. As I have, even within a few days, been in company, and on very familiar footing with a great number of Romanys of different families of the dark blood who spoke the 'jib' with unusual accuracy, I write under a fresh impression. The Gipsy is almost invariably strong and active, a good rough rider and pedestrian, and knowing how to use his fists. He leads a very hard life, and is proud of his stamina and his pluck. Of late years he _kairs_, or 'houses,' more than of old, particularly during the winter, but his life at best requires great strength and endurance, and this must, of course, be supported by a generous diet. In fact, he lives well, much better than the agricultural labourer. Let me explain how this is generally done. The Gipsy year may be said to begin with the races. Thither the dark children of Chun-Gwin, whether pure blood, _posh an' posh_ (half-and-half), or _churedis_, with hardly a drop of the _kalo-ratt_, flock with their cocoa-nuts and the b.a.l.l.s, which have of late taken the place of the _koshter_, or sticks. With them go the sorceresses, old and young, who pick up money by occasional _dukkerin_, or fortune-telling.

Other small callings they also have, not by any means generally dishonest. Wherever there is an open pic-nic on the Thames, or a country fair, or a regatta at this season, there are Romanys. Sometimes they appear looking like petty farmers, with a bad, or even a good, horse or two for sale. While summer lasts this is the life of the poorer sort.

"This merry time over, they go to the _Livinengro tem_, or hop-land-_i.e._, Kent. Here they work hard, not neglecting the beer-pot, which goes about gaily. In this life they have great advantages over the tramps and London poor. Hopping over, they go, almost _en ma.s.se_, or within a few days, to London to buy French and German baskets, which they get in Houndsditch. Of late years they send more for the baskets to be delivered at certain stations. Some of them make baskets themselves very well, but, as a rule, they prefer to buy them. While the weather is good they live by selling baskets, brooms, clothes-lines, and other small wares. Most families have their regular 'beats' or rounds, and confine themselves to certain districts. In winter the men begin to _chiv the kosh_, or cut wood-_i.e._, they make butchers' skewers and clothes-pegs.

Even this is not unprofitable, as a family, what between manufacturing and selling them, can earn from twelve to eighteen shillings a week.

With this and begging, and occasional jobs of honest hard work which they pick up here and there, they contrive to feed well, find themselves in beer, and pay, as they now often must, for permission to camp in fields.

Altogether they work hard and retire early.

"Considering the lives they lead, Gipsies are not dishonest. If a Gipsy is camped anywhere, and a hen is missing for miles around, the theft is always at once attributed to him. The result is that, being sharply looked after by everybody, and especially by the police, they cannot act like their ancestors. Their crimes are not generally of a heinous nature. _Chiving a gry_, or stealing a horse, is, I admit, looked upon by them with Yorkshire leniency, nor do they regard stealing wood for fuel as a great sin. In this matter they are subject to great temptation. When the nights are cold-

"Could anything be more alluring Than an old hedge?

"As for Gipsy lying, it is so peculiar that it would be hard to explain.

The American who appreciates the phrase 'to sit down and swap lies' would not be taken in by a Romany _chal_, nor would an old salt who can spin yarns. They enjoy hugely being lied unto, as do all Arabs or Hindus.

Like many naughty children, they like successful efforts of the imagination. The old _dyes_, or mothers, are 'awful beggars,' as much by habit as anything; but they will give as freely as they will take, and their guest will always experience Oriental hospitality. They are very fond of all gentlemen and ladies who take a real interest in them, who understand them, and like them. To such people they are even more honest than they are to one another. But it must be a real _aficion_, not a merely amateur affectation of kindness. Owing to their entire ignorance of ordinary house and home life, they are like children in many respects, though so shrewd in others. Among the Welsh Gipsies, who are the most unsophisticated and the most purely Romany, I have met with touching instances of grat.i.tude and honesty. The child-like ingenuity which some of them manifested in contriving little gratifications for myself and for Professor E. H. Palmer, who had been very kind to them, were as nave as amiable. I have observed that some Gipsies of the more rustic sort loved to listen to stories, but, like children, they preferred those which they had heard several times and learned to like. They knew where the laugh ought to come in. The Gipsy is both bad and good, but neither his faults nor his virtues are exactly what they are supposed to be. He is certainly something of a scamp-and, _nomen est omen_, there is a tribe of Scamps among them-but he is not a bad scamp, and he is certainly a most amusing and eccentric one.

"There is not the least use in trying to ameliorate the condition of the Gipsy while he remains a traveller. He will tell you piteous stories, but he will take care of himself. As Ferdusi sings:

"'Say what you will and do what you can, No washing e'er whitens the black Zingan.'

"The only kindness he requires is a little charity and forgiveness when he steals wood or wires a hare. All wrong doubtless; but something should be allowed to one whose ancestors were called 'dead-meat eaters'

in the Shastras. Should the reader wish to reform a Gipsy, let him explain to the Romany that the days for roaming in England are rapidly pa.s.sing away. Tell him that for his children's sake he had better rent a cheap cottage; that his wife can just as well peddle with her basket from a house as from a waggon, and that he can keep a horse and trap and go to the races or hopping 'genteely.' Point out to him those who have done the same, and stimulate his ambition and pride. As for suffering as a traveller he does not know it. I once asked a Gipsy girl who was sitting as a model if she liked the _drom_ (road) best, or living in a house.

With sparkling eyes and clapping her hands she exclaimed, 'oh, the road!

the road!'"

Mr. Beerbohm writes under date August 19th:-"In reading yesterday's article on the customs and idiosyncrasies of Gipsies I was struck by the similarity they present to many peculiarities I have observed among the Patagonian Indians. To those curious in such matters it may be of interest to know that the custom of burning all the goods and chattels of a deceased member of the tribe prevails among the Patagonians as among the Gipsies; and the ident.i.ty of custom is still further carried out, inasmuch as with the former, as with the latter, the name of the deceased is never uttered, and all allusion to him is strictly avoided. So much so, that in those cases when the deceased has borne some cognomen taken from familiar objects, such as 'Knife,' 'Wool,' 'Flint,' &c., the word is no longer used by the tribe, some other sound being subst.i.tuted instead.

This is one of the reasons why the Tshuelche language is constantly fluctuating, but few of the words expressing a proper meaning, as chronicled by Fitzroy and Darwin (1832), being now in use."

The Rev. Mr. Hewett writes to the _Standard_, under date August 19th, to say that he baptised two Gipsy children in 1871. One might ask, in the language of one of the "Old Book," "What are these among so many?" The following letter from Mr. Harrison upon the subject appeared on August 20th:-"I have just returned from the head-quarters of the Scotch Gipsies-Yetholm (Kirk), a small village nestling at the foot of the Cheviots in Roxburghshire. Here I saw the abode of the Queen, a neat little cottage, with well-trimmed garden in front. Inside all was a perfect pattern of neatness, and the old lady herself was as clean 'as a new pin.' As I pa.s.sed the cottage a carriage and pair drove up, and the occupants, four ladies, alighted and entered the cottage. I was afterwards told that they were much pleased with their visit, and that, in remembrance of it, each of the four promised to send a new frock to the Queen's grandchild. The Queen's son ('the Prince,' as he is called) I saw at St. James's Fair, where he was swaggering about in a drunken state, offering to fight any man. I believe he was subsequently locked up. In the month of August there are few Gipsies resident in Yetholm: they are generally on their travels selling crockeryware (the country people call the Gipsies 'muggers,' from the fact that they sell mugs), baskets made of rushes, and horn spoons, both of which they manufacture themselves. I have a distinct recollection of Will Faa, the then King of the Gipsies. He was 95 when I knew him, and was lithe and strong. He had a keen hawk eye, which was not dimmed at that extreme age. He was considered both a good shot and a famous fisher. There was hardly a trout hole in the Bowmont Water but he knew, and his company used to be eagerly sought by the fly-fishers who came from the South. My opinion of the Gipsies-and I have seen much of them during the last forty years-is that they are a lazy, dissolute set of men and women, preferring to beg, or steal, or poach, to work, and that, although many efforts have been made (more especially by the late Rev. Mr. Baird, of Yetholm), to settle them, they are irreclaimable. There are but two policemen in Yetholm and Kirk Yetholm, but sometimes the a.s.sistance of some of the townsfolk is required to bring about order in that portion of the village in which the Gipsies reside. I may say that the townsfolk do not fraternise with the Gipsies, who are regarded with the greatest suspicion by the former. Ask a townsman of Yetholm what he thinks of the Gipsies, and he will tell you they are simply vagabonds and impostors, who lounge about, and smoke, and drink, and fight. In fact, they are the very sc.u.m of the human race; and, what is more singular, they seem quite satisfied to remain as they are, repudiating every attempt at reformation."

"F. G. S." writes:-"One of your correspondents suggests that the silence of the Gipsies concerning their dead is carried so far as to consign them to nameless graves. In my churchyard there is a headstone, 'to the memory of Mistress Paul Stanley, wife of Mr. Paul Stanley, who died November, 1797,' the said Mistress Stanley having been the Queen of the Stanley tribe. In my childhood I remember that annually some of the members of the tribe used to come and scatter flowers over the grave; and when my father had restored the stone, on its falling into decay, a deputation of the tribe thanked him for so doing. I have reason to think they still visit the spot, to find, I am sorry to say, the stone so decayed now as to be past restoration, and I would much like to see another with the same inscription to mark the resting-place of the head of a leading tribe of these interesting people."

[Picture: Gipsies Camping among the Heath near London]

To these letters I replied as under, on August 21st:-"The numerous correspondents who have taken upon themselves to reply to my letter that appeared in your issue of the 14th inst., and to show up Gipsy life in some of its brightest aspects, have, unwittingly, no doubt, thoroughly substantiated and backed up the cause of my young clients-_i.e._, the poor Gipsy children and our roadside arabs-so far as they have gone, as a reperusal of the letters will show the most casual observer of our hedge-bottom heathens of Christendom. At the same time, I would say the tendency of some of the remarks of your correspondents has special reference to the adult Gipsies, roamers and ramblers, and, consequently, there is a fear that the attention of some of your readers may be drawn from the cause of the poor uneducated children, living in the midst of sticks, stones, ditches, mud, and game, and concentrated upon the 'guinea b.u.t.tons,' 'black-haired Susans,' 'red cloaks,' 'scarlet hoods,' the cunning craft of the old men, the fortune-telling of the old women, the 'sparkling eyes' and 'clapping of hands,' and 'twopenny hops' of the young women, who certainly can take care of themselves, just as other un-Christianised and uncivilised human beings can. I do not profess-at any rate, not for the present-to take up the cause of the men and women ditch-dwelling Gipsies in this matter; I must leave that part of the work to fiction writers, clergymen, and policemen, abler hands than mine. I may not be able, nor do I profess, to understand the singular number of the masculine gender of _dad_, _chavo_, _tikeno_, _moosh_, _gorjo_, _raklo_, _rakli_, _pal palla_; the feminine gender _dei_, _tikeno_, _chabi_, _joovel_, _gairo_, _rakle_, _raklia_, _pen penya_, or the plural of the masculine gender _dada_, _chavi_, and the feminine gender _deia_, _chavo_; but, being a matter of fact kind of man-out of the region of romance, fantastical notions, enrapturing imagery, nicely coloured imagination, clever lying and cleverer deception, beautiful green fields, clear running rivulets, the singing of the wood songster, bullfinch, and wren, in the midst of woodbine, sweetbriar, and roses-with an eye to observe, a heart to feel, and a hand ready to help, I am led to contemplate, aye, and to find out if possible, the remedy, though my friends say it is impossible-just because it is impossible it becomes possible, as in the ca.n.a.l movement-for the wretched condition of some eight to ten thousand little Gipsy children, whose home in the winter is camping half-naked in a hut, so called, in the midst of 'slush' and snow, on the borders of a picturesque ditch and roadside, winterly delights, Sunday and week day alike. The tendency of human nature is to look on the bright side of things; and it is much more pleasant to go to the edge of a large swamp, lie down and bask in the summer's sun, making 'b.u.t.ton-holes' of daisies, b.u.t.tercups, and the like, and return home and extol the fine scenery and praise the richness of the land, than to take the spade, in shirt-sleeves and heavy boots, and drain the poisonous water from the roots of vegetation. Nevertheless, it has to be done, if the 'strong active limbs' and 'bright sparkling eyes' are to be turned to better account than they have been in the past. It is not creditable to us as a Christian nation, in size compared with other nations not much larger than a garden, to have had for centuries these heathenish tribes in our midst. It does not speak very much for the power of the Gospel, the zeal of the ministers of Christ's Church, and the activity of the schoolmaster, to have had these plague spots continually flitting before our eyes without anything being done to effect a cure. It is true something has been done. One clergyman, who has 'had opportunities of observing them,' if not brought in daily contact with them, tells us that some eight or nine years since he publicly baptised two Gipsy children.

Another tells us that some time since he baptised many Gipsy children, as if baptism was the only thing required of the poor children for the duties and responsibilities of life and a future state. Better a thousand times have told us how many poor roadside arabs and Gipsy children they have taken by the hand to educate and train them, so as to be able to earn an honest livelihood, instead of 'cadging' from door to door, and telling all sorts of silly stories and lies. How many poor children's lives have been sacrificed at the hands of cruelty, starvation, and neglect, and buried under a clod without the shedding of a tear, it is fearful to contemplate. The idlers, loafers, rodneys, mongrels, gorgios, and Gipsies are increasing, and will increase, in our midst, unless we put our hand upon the system, from the simple fact that by packing up with wife and children and 'taking to the road,' he thus escapes taxes, rent, and the School-board officer. This they see, and a 'few kind words' and 'gentle touches' will never cause them to see it in any other light. The sooner we get the ideal, fanciful, and romantic side of a vagrant's and vagabond's life removed from our vision, and see things as they really are, the better it will be for us. For the life of me I cannot see anything romantic in dirt, squalor, ignorance, and misery. Ministers and missionaries have completely failed in the work, for the simple reason that they have never begun it in earnest; consequently, the schoolmaster and School-board officer must begin to do their part in reclaiming these wandering tribes, and this can only be done in the manner stated by me in my previous letter."

In the _Leicester Free Press_ the following appeared on August 16th:-"Mr.

George Smith, of Coalville, is earning the t.i.tle of the Children's Friend. His 'Cry of the Brick-yard Children' rang through England, and issued in measures being adopted for their protection. His description of the ca.n.a.l-boat children has also resulted in legislation for their relief. Now I see Mr. Smith has put in a good word for Gipsy children.

It will surprise a good many who seldom see or hear of these Gipsies, except perhaps at the races, to find how numerous they are even in this county. I do not think the number is at all exaggerated. A few days ago while driving down a rural lane in the country I 'interviewed' one of these children, who had run some hundreds of yards ahead, in order to open a gate. At first the young, dark-eyed, swarthy damsel declared she did not know how many brothers and sisters she had, but on being asked to mention their names she rattled them over, in quick succession, giving to each Christian name the surname of Smith-thus, Charley Smith, Emma Smith, f.a.n.n.y Smith, Bill Smith, and the like, till she had enumerated either thirteen or fifteen juvenile Smiths, all of whom lived with their parents in a tent which was pitched not far from the side of the lane. Of education the child had had none, but she said she went to church on a Sunday with her sister. This is a sample of the kind of thing which prevails, and in his last generous movement Mr. Smith, of Coalville, will be acting a good part to numerous children who, although unable to claim relationship, rejoice in the same patronymic as himself."

In the _Derby Daily Telegraph_, under date August 16th, the following leading article was published:-"When the social history of the present generation comes to be written a prominent place among the list of practical philanthropists will be a.s.signed to George Smith, of Coalville.

The man is a humanitarian to the manner born. His character and labours serve to remind us of the broad line which separates the real apostle of benevolence from what may be termed the 'professional' sample. George Smith goes about for the purpose of doing good, and-he does it. He does not content himself with glibly talking of what needs to be done, and what ought to be done. He prefers to act upon the spirit of Mr. Wackford Squeers' celebrated educational principle. Having discovered a sphere of Christian duty he goes and 'works' it. Few more splendid monuments of practical charity have been reared than the amelioration of the social state of our ca.n.a.l population-an achievement which has mainly been brought about by Mr. Smith's indomitable perseverance and self-denial. A few years ago we were accustomed to speak of the dwellers in these floating hovels as beings who dragged out a degraded existence in a far-off land. We were gloomily told that they could not be reached.

Orators at fashionable missionary-meetings were wont to speak of them as irreclaimable heathens who bid defiance to civilising influences from impenetrable fastnesses. Mr. George Smith may be credited with having broken down this discreditable state of things. He brought us face to face with this unfortunate section of our fellow-creatures, with what result it is not necessary to say. The sympathies of the public were effectually roused by the narratives which revealed to us the deplorable depths of human depravity into which vast numbers of English people had fallen. The sufferings of the children in the gloomy, pestiferous cabins used for 'living' purposes especially excited the country's pity. At this present moment the lot of these poor waifs is far from being inviting, but it is vastly different from what it was a short time back.

It was only a few days ago that the Duke of Richmond, in reply to no less a personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that express arrangements had been made by the Government to meet the educational requirements of the once helpless and neglected victims.

"Mr. Smith has now embarked upon a fresh crusade against misery and ignorance. He has turned his attention from the 'water Gipsies' to their brethren ash.o.r.e. He has already began to busy himself with the condition of 'our roadside arabs,' as he calls them. We fear Mr. Smith in prosecuting this good work of his is doomed to perform a serious act of disenchantment. The ideal Gipsy is destined to be scattered to the winds by the unvarnished picture which Mr. Smith will cause to be presented to our vision. He does not pretend to show us the romantic, fantastically-dressed creature whose prototypes have long been in the imaginations of many of us as types of the Gipsy species. Those of our readers who have formed their notions of Gipsy life upon the strength of the a.s.surances which have been given them by the late Mr. G. P. R. James and kindred writers will find it hard to subst.i.tute for the joyous scenes of sunshine and freedom he has a.s.sociated with the nomadic existence, the dull, wearisome round of squalor and wretchedness which is found, upon examination, to const.i.tute the princ.i.p.al condition of the Gipsy tent.

Whether it is that in this awfully prosaic period of the world's history the picturesque and jovial rascality which novelist and poet have insisted in connecting with the Ishmaelites is stamped ruthlessly out of being by force of circ.u.mstances, it is barely possible to say. Perhaps Gipsies, in common with other tribes of the romantic past, have gradually become denuded of their old attractiveness. It is, we confess, rather difficult to believe that Bamfylde Moore Carew (wild, restless fellow though he was) would persistently have linked his lot with that of the poor, degraded, poverty-stricken wretches whom Mr. Smith has taken in hand. Perchance it happens that our old heroes of song and story have, so far as England is concerned, deteriorated as a consequence of the money-making, business-like atmosphere that they are compelled to breathe, and that with more favoured climes they are to be seen in much of their primitive glory. In Hungary, for instance, it is declared that Gipsy life is pretty much what it is represented to be in our own glowing pages of fiction. The late Major Whyte-Melville, in a modern story declared to be founded on fact, introduces us to a company of these continental wanderers who, with their beautiful Queen, seem to invest the scenes from our old friend, 'The Bohemian Girl,' with something akin to probability. But there is, of course, a limit to even Mr. Smith's labours. Hungary is beyond his jurisdiction. He does not pretend to carry his experience of the Gipsies further than the Midlands.

Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and our neighbouring counties have offered him the examples he requires with his new campaign. The lot of the roamers who eke out a living in the adjacent lanes and roadways is, he explains to us, as pitiful as anything of the sort well could be. The tent of the Gipsy he finds to be as filthy and as repulsive as the cabin of the ca.n.a.l-boat. Human beings of both s.e.xes and of all ages are huddled together without regard to comfort. As a necessary sequence the women and children are the chief sufferers in a social evil of this sort. The men are able to rough it, but the weaker s.e.x and their little charges are reduced to the lowest paths of misery. Children are born, suffer from disease, and die in the canvas hovels; and are committed to the dust by the roadside. One old woman told Mr. Smith 'that she had had sixteen children, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in a roadside tent. She says that she was married out of one of these tents; and her brother died and was buried out of a tent at Packington, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch.' The experience of this old crone is akin to that of most of her cla.s.s. She also tells Mr. Smith that she could not read herself, and she did not believe one in twenty could. Morally, as well as from a sanitary point of view, Gipsy life, as it really exists, is a social plague-spot, and consequently a social danger. Especially does this contention apply to the children, of whom Mr. Smith estimates that there are ten thousand roaming over the face of the country as vagrants and vagabonds. It is to be hoped many months will not be allowed to elapse before this difficulty is seriously and successfully grappled with. Mr. Smith's counsel as to the children is that 'living in vans and tents and under old carts, if they are to be allowed to live in these places they should be registered in a manner a.n.a.logous to the Ca.n.a.l Boats Act of 1877, so that the children may be brought under the compulsory clauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised as other children.' The Duke of Richmond and his department may do much to facilitate Mr. Smith's crusade without temporising with the prejudices of red-tapeism."

_Figaro_ writes August 27th:-"Our old friend having successfully tackled the brick-yard children, and the floating waifs and strays of our barge population, has now taken the little Gipsies in hand, with a view of bringing them under the supervision of the School Board system now general in this country. He is a bold and energetic man, but we are bound to say we doubt a little whether he will be able to tame the offspring of the merry Zingara, and pa.s.s them all through the regulation educational standard. Should he succeed, we shall be thenceforth surprised at nothing, but be quite prepared to hear that Mr. Smith has become chairman of a society for changing the spots of the leopard, or honorary director of an a.s.sociation for changing the Ethiopian's skin!"

The following letter from the Rev. J. Finch, a rural dean, appeared in the _Standard_, August 30th:-"The following facts may not be without some interest to those who have read the letters which have recently appeared in the pages of the _Standard_ respecting Gipsies. During the thirty years I have been rector of this parish, members of the Boswell family have been almost constantly resident here. I buried the head of the family in 1874, who died at the age of 87. He was a regular attendant at the parish church, and failed not to bow his head reverently when he entered within the House of G.o.d. His burial was attended by several sons resident, as Gipsies, in the Midland counties, and a headstone marks the grave where his body rests. I never saw, or heard, any harm of the man.

He was a quiet and inoffensive man, and worked industriously as a tinman within a short time of his death. If he had rather a sharp eye for a little gift, that is a trait of character by no means confined to Gipsies. One of his daughters was married here to a member of the Boswell tribe, and another, who rejoiced in the name of Britannia, I buried in her father's grave two years ago. After his death she and her mother removed to an adjoining parish, where she was confirmed by Bishop Selwyn in 1876. Regular as was the old man at church, I never could persuade his wife to come. In 1859 I baptized, privately, an infant of the same tribe, whose parents were travelling through the parish, and whose mother was named Elvira. Great was the admiration of my domestics at the sight of the beautiful lace which ornamented the robe in which the child was brought to my house. Clearly there are Gipsies, and those of a well-known tribe, glad to receive the ministrations of the Church."