Gipsy Life Part 4

The _Sportsman_ of October 16th, 1879, has the following notice:-"Mr.

George Smith, of Coalville, whose philanthropic efforts on behalf of 'our ca.n.a.l-boat population' are well known, has lately turned his attention to the wandering Gipsy tribes who infest the roadside, with the view to procuring at least a modic.u.m of education for their children. He says that the Gipsies are lamentably ignorant, few of them being able even to write their names. By certain proceedings which took place at Christchurch Police-court on Tuesday, it would almost seem that some of the dark-faced wanderers already are educated a little too much. At all events, they occasionally manifest an ability to 'take a stave' out of the rest of the community. At the court in question a Gipsy woman named Emma Barney was brought to task for 'imposing by subtle craft to extort money' from a Bournemouth shopkeeper named Richard Oliver. It seems that Oliver is troubled with pimples on his face, and that Emma Barney-not an inappropriate name, by the way-said she could cure these by means of a certain herb, the name of which she would divulge 'for a consideration.'

Before doing so, however, she required Richard's coat and waistcoat, and some silver to 'steam in hot water,' after which the name of the herb would be given-on the following day. It is needless to say that the coat, waistcoat, and silver did not return to the Oliver home, and that the pimples did not depart from the Oliver face. The 'Gipsy's home' for the next two months will be in the county gaol. It is a curious reflection, however, that such strange credulity as that displayed by the Bournemouth shopkeeper in this case can be found in the present year of grace, with its gigantic machinery for educating the ma.s.ses."

The following leading article, taken from the _Daily Telegraph_, under date October 17th of last year, will show that crime is far from abating among the cla.s.ses of the Gipsy fraternity:-"The melancholy truth that there exists a 'breed' of criminals in all societies was well ill.u.s.trated at Exeter this week. Sir John Duckworth, as Chairman of the Devon Quarter Sessions, in charging the grand jury, had to tell them that the calendar was very heavy, the heaviest, in fact, known for many years.

There were forty-five prisoners for trial, whereas the average number is twenty-five, taking the last five years. Sir John could a.s.sign no particular reason for such a lamentable increase, though he supposed the prevailing depression of trade might have had something to do with it.

But he pointed out a very notable fact indeed, which sprang from an examination of the gaol delivery, and this was that out of the forty-five prisoners twenty had been previously convicted. Such a percentage goes far to prove that the criminal propensity is innate, and to a certain degree ineradicable by punishments; and this only enhances the immense importance of national education, by which alone society can hope to conquer the predatory tendency in certain baser blood, and to supply it with the means and the instincts of industry. In justice, however, to the existing generation of criminals, we ought also to remember that such serious figures further prove the difficulty encountered by released prisoners in living honestly. A rat will not steal where traps are set if it can only find food in the open, and some of these twice-captured vermin of our community might tell a piteous tale of the obstacles that lie in the way of honesty."

The _Weekly Times_, under date October 26th, 1879, has the following article upon the Gipsies near London. The locality described is not one hundred miles from Mary's Place and Notting Hill Potteries. The writer goes on to say that "There are at the present time upwards of two thousand people-men, women, and children, members of the Gipsy tribe-camped in the outlying districts of London. They are settled upon waste places of every kind. Bits of ground that will ere long be occupied by houses, waste corners that seem to be of no good for anything, yards belonging to public-houses, or pieces of 'common' over which no authority claims any rights; or if there are rights, the authority is too obscure to interfere with such poor settlers as Gipsies, who will move away again before an authoritative opinion can be p.r.o.nounced upon any question affecting them. The Gipsies, in the winter, certainly cause very few inconveniences in such places as the metropolis.

They do not cause rents to rise. They are satisfied to put up their tent where a Londoner would only accommodate his pig or his dog, and they certainly do not affect the balance of labour, few of them being ever guilty of robbing a man of an honest day's work. Yet, with all their failings, the Gipsies have always found friends ready to take their part in times of trouble, and crave a sufferance on account of their hard lot, and the scanty measure with which the good things of this life have been, and still are, meted out to them. Constrained by an irresistible force to keep ever moving, they fulfil the fate imposed upon them with a degree of cheerfulness which no other cla.s.s of people would exhibit. As the approach of winter reduces outdoor pursuits to the fewest possible number, the farm labourer finds it difficult to employ the whole of his time profitably, and those who only follow an outdoor life for the pleasures it yields naturally gravitate towards the shelter of large towns in which to spend the winter months of every year. So when the cold winds begin to blow, and the leaves are falling, the Gipsies come to town, and settle upon the odd nooks and corners, and fill up the unused yards, and eat and drink, and bring up children, in the very places where their fathers and grandfathers have done the same before them. The young men get a day's work where they can; the young women hawk wool mats, laces, or other women's vanities; while the more skilful go round with rope mats, and every form of chair or stool that can be made of rushes and canes. The old folks do a little grinding of knives, or tinker pots and pans; and, if a fine day or a pleasure fair calls forth all the useful mouths and hands from their tents and caravans, the babies will take care of themselves in the straw which makes the pony's bed until some member of the camp returns home in the evening. So the winter months pa.s.s away, and in the spring, when the cuckoo begins to call, these restless-footed people, whose origin no man is acquainted with, go forth again, and in the lanes and woods, or on the commons of the country, pa.s.s their summer, earning a precarious subsistance-honestly if they can-content with hard food and poor clothes, so that they may feel the free air of heaven blowing about them night and day, while the sun paints their cheeks the colour of the ancient Egyptians. Our Gipsies have always been a favourite study with ethnological folk; poets have sung their wild, free life, and painters have taken them as types of the happy, if the careless; while philanthropists have occasionally gone amongst them, and told pitiful tales of their degradation, ignorance, and misery. It was not from any feeling of romance or pity that we were induced the other day to accept an invitation from Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, to spend a few hours amongst some of these people. Mr. George Smith's life has been devoted to the amelioration of the condition of many very poor and almost entirely neglected cla.s.ses of the community, and it was pleasant to have the opportunity of going with such a simple-hearted hero amongst those in whom he takes a deep interest.

Having devoted many years of his life to the poor brick-yard children, and afterwards to the children labouring in ca.n.a.l-boats, he has found one more cla.s.s still left outside every Act of Parliament, and beyond every chance of being helped in the right way to earn an honest living and become industrious members of society. These are the Gipsies and their children, who have been let alone so severely by all so-called right-thinking men and women that there is great danger of their becoming a sore evil in our midst. Unable to read or write-their powers of thought thereby cramped-with no one to look after them, separated from the people in whose midst they live, there can be little wonder that they should grow up with certain loose notions about right and wrong, and a manner of life the reverse of that which prevails amongst Christian people; but, now that Mr. George Smith has got his eyes and his heart fixed upon them, there will surely be something done which, in the near future, will redeem these people from many of the disadvantages under which they labour, and add to the body corporate a tribe possessed of many amiable characteristics. Mr. Smith never takes up more than one thing at a time, and upon the accomplishment of it he concentrates all his energies. This attribute is the one which has enabled him to carry to successful conclusions the acts for the relief of the brick-yard and the ca.n.a.l-boat children; but while he is about a work he becomes thoroughly possessed by his subject, and the most important event that may happen for the country, or for the world, loses all value in his eyes unless it bears directly upon the accomplishment of the object in hand.

Thus it happened that, from the time we sallied out together in search of a Gipsy camp, until the moment we parted at night, Mr. Smith thought of nothing, spoke of nothing, remembered nothing, saw nothing, but what had some relation to the Gipsies and their mode of life. The Zulus were to be pitied because theirs was a sort of Gipsy life; and the Gipsies' tents were nothing more than kraals. All his stories were of what Gipsies he had met, and what they had said; and even our fellow-travellers in the train were only noticeable because they looked like some Gipsy man or woman whom he had met elsewhere. We had a short ride by rail, and a tramp through a densely-populated district, and then we came to the camping-ground we wanted. It was a s.p.a.cious yard, entered through a gate, and surrounded with houses, whose back yards formed the enclosure.

There were three caravans and three kraals erected there, and as it was Sunday afternoon nearly all the inhabitants were at home. Those who were absent were a few children able to go to Sunday-school, whither they went of their own free will and with the approval of their parents. The kraals were not all constructed on the same pattern-two were circular in form and the third was square. This was on the right hand at entering, and had at one time been a tumble-down shelter for a calf, who had many years before gone the way of all beef-into a butcher's shop. There were tiles on the low roof-in places-but plenty of openings were left for the rain to come in, and for the smoke from the fire in the bucket to find a way out if it chose. The floor was common earth, and very uneven in places. Alice, the mistress of this abode, was a woman over fifty, with a face the colour of leather, and vigour enough to do any amount of work.

As we entered, she told Mr. Smith a piteous tale of the loss of her spectacles, without which she solemnly declared she could not read a line. She left the spectacles one day when she was going 'hopping,'

hidden under a tile above her head, and when she returned the case was there, but the spectacles were gone. She carried her licence to hawk in her spectacle-case, until the time came when she could happily beg the gift of a pair of new ones. Her husband, a white-haired old man, with a look of innocent wonder in his face, sat on a lump of wood, warming his hands over the fire. He said little-his wife scarcely allowing an opportunity for any one else to speak-but seemed to consider that he was a fortunate man in having such a remarkable wife. There was a handsome young woman sitting in the only chair in the place, daughter of the old couple; and her brother lay extended on a bed made of indescribable things in one portion of the cabin, where the tiles in the roof showed no openings to the sky. His wife, a thoroughbred Gipsy, sat nursing a baby-their first-born-on the edge of the bed. The wood walls were covered with old clothes, sacking, and a variety of odd things, fastened in their places by wooden skewers, and adorned with a few pots and pans used in cooking. Here, for six or seven winters, this family had resided, defying alike the frosts and snows and rains of the most severe winters. Nor could they be made to admit that a cottage would be more comfortable; that hut had served them well enough so many years, and would be good enough as long as they lived. Besides, said Alice, the rent was a consideration, and the whole yard only cost 2s. a week. This woman was the mother of eighteen children, of whom eleven were living.

Drawn up close by was a caravan, in the occupation at the time of two young women, thorough Gipsies in face and tongue, who chaffed us as to the object of our visit, and begged hard for some kind of remembrance to be left with them. But we did not accept their invitation to walk up, but pa.s.sed down the yard, by heaps of manure and refuse of all kinds, by another kraal, where a bucket containing coal was burning, and a young man lay stretched on a dirty mattress, and a little bantam kept watch beside him, to the steps of another caravan, where, from the sounds we heard, high jinks were going on with some children. At the sound of a tap on the door there was an instant hush, and then a girl of nineteen, who had a baby in her arms, asked us to come in. We looked up in amazement; the girl's face appeared like an apparition-so fair, so beautiful, so like some face we had seen elsewhere, that we were confused and puzzled. In a moment the mystery was solved; we had seen that face before in several of the choicest canvases that have hung in recent years upon the walls of the Academy; we had met with the fairest Gipsy model that ever stood before the students of the Academy, the favourite alike of the young artist and the head of his profession. It can only fall to the lot of a few to see Annie, the Gipsy model; but the curious may look upon her counterpart, only of heroic size, in Clytie, at the British Museum. Annie has a face of exquisite Grecian form, and a hand so delicate that it has been painted more than once in the 'portrait of a t.i.tled lady.' When she was a very little girl, she told us, hawking laces in a basket one day, a gentleman met her at the West-end who was a painter, and from that day to the present Annie has earned a living-and at times of great distress maintained all the family-by the fees she received as a model. Her mother had had nine children, of whom eight were living; and three of the family are constantly employed as models.

Annie is one, the young fellow who was watched over by the bantam was another, and a boy of four was the third. The father is of pure Gipsy blood, but the mother is an Oxfordshire woman, and neither of them possess any striking characteristic in their faces; yet all their girls are singularly beautiful, and their sons handsome fellows. They have got a reputation for beauty now, and ladies have, but without success, tried to negotiate for the possession of the youngest. Never before had we seen such fair faces, such dainty limbs, such exquisite eyes, as were possessed by the Gipsy occupants of that caravan. Annie was as modest and gentle-voiced and mannered as she was beautiful; and there came a flush of trouble over her fair face as she told us that not being able to read or write had 'been against' her all her life. There was more refinement about Annie and her mother than we had discovered amongst others with whom we had conversed. Thus, Annie, speaking of her grandfather, laid great emphasis on the a.s.sertion that he was a fine man.

He lived to be 104, she said, and walked as upright as a young man to his death. He went about crying 'chairs to mend,' in that very locality, up to within a short time of his death, and all the old ladies employed him because he was so handsome. She was playing with a baby girl as she talked with us, and the child fixed her black eyes upon her sister's face, and crooned with baby pleasure. 'What is baby's name,' we asked?

'Comfort,' replied Annie. 'We were hopping one year' said the mother, 'and there was a young woman in the party I took to very much, and her name was Comfort. Coming away from the hop grounds, the caravans had to cross a river, and while we were in the water one day the river suddenly rose, the caravans were upset, and eleven were drowned, Comfort amongst the number. So I christened baby after her in remembrance.' All the family were neatly dressed, and once, when Annie opened the cupboard door for an instant, we caught sight of a dish of small currant puddings."

A visit to a batch of Gipsy wigwams, Wardlow Street, Garrett Lane, Wandsworth, induced me to send the following letter to the London and country daily papers, and it appeared in the _Daily Chronicle_ and _Daily News_, November 20th, as under:-"The following touching incident may slightly show the thorough heartfelt desire there is-but lacking the power-among the Gipsies to be partakers of some of the sanitary and educational advantages the Gorgios or Gentiles are the recipients of. A few days since I wended my way to a large number of Gipsies located in tents, huts, and vans near Wandsworth Common, to behold the pitiable spectacle of some sixty half-naked, poor Gipsy children, and thirty Gipsy men and women, living in a state of indescribable ignorance, dirt, filth, and misery, mostly squatting upon the ground, making their beds upon peg shavings and straw, and divested of the last tinge of romantical nonsense, which is little better in this case-used as a deal of it is-than paper pasted upon the windows, to hide from public view the ma.s.s of human corruption which has been festering in our midst for centuries, breeding all kinds of sin and impurities, except in the eyes of those who see beautiful colours and delights in the aroma of stagnant pools and beauty in the sparkling hues of the gutter, and revel in adding tints and pictures to the life and death of a weasel, lending enchantment to the life of a vagabond, and admire the non-intellectual development of beings many of whom are only one step from that of animals, if I may judge from the amount of good the 20,000 Gipsies have accomplished in the world during the last three or four centuries. Connected with this encampment not more than four or five of the poor creatures could read a sentence or write a letter. In creeping almost upon 'all-fours,' into one of the tents, I came across a real, antiquated, live, good kind of Gipsy woman named Britannia Lee, who boasted that she was a Lee of the fourth generation; and in sitting down upon a seat that brought my knees upon a level with my chin, I entered into conversation with the family about the objects of my inquiries-of which they said they had heard all about-viz., to get all the Gipsy tents, vans, and other movable habitations in the country registered and under proper sanitary arrangements, and the children compelled to attend school wherever they may be temporarily located, and to receive an education which will in some degree help to get these poor unfortunate people out of the heartrending and desponding condition into which they have been allowed to sink. Although Mrs. Lee was ill and poor, her face beamed with gladness to find that I was trying in my humble way to do the Gipsy children good; and in a kind of maternal feeling she said she should be pleased to show her deep interest in my work, and asked me if I would accept all the money she had in the world, viz., one penny and two farthings? With much persuasion and hesitation, and under fear of offending her, I accepted them, which I purpose keeping as a token of a woman's desire to do something towards improving her 'kith and kin.' She said that Providence would see that she was no loser for the mite she had given to me. He once sent her, in her extremity, a shilling in the middle of a potato, which she found when cooking. With many expressions of 'G.o.d bless you in your work among the children! You will be rewarded some day for all your time, trouble, and expense,' we parted."

The London correspondent of the _Croydon Chronicle_ writes as under, on November 22nd, touching a visit we both made to a number of poor Gipsy children squatting about upon Mitcham Common. Among other things he says:-"I have had a day in your neighbourhood with George Smith, of Coalville. He is visiting all the Gipsy grounds he can find and reach, for the purpose of gaining information as to the condition of the swarms of children who live in squalor and ignorance under tents. He is of opinion that he will be able to get them into schools, and do as much for them generally as he has done for the brick-field and ca.n.a.l children; and I have no doubt myself that he will succeed. Well, the other day he asked me to have a run round with him, and we went to Mitcham Common to see some of the families there. He told me that one of the Gipsy women had been confined, and that she wanted him to give the child a name. He did not know what to call it, so we had to put our heads together and settle the matter. After a great deal of careful deliberation he decided that when we reached the common the child should be called 'Deliverance.'

I have been told that this sounds like the name of a new ironclad, and perhaps it would have done as well for one as for the other. The tents were much of a character-some kind of st.i.tched-together rags thrown over sticks. Our visit was made on a fine day, when it was not particularly cold, and the first tent we came to had been opened at the top. We looked over (these tents are only about five feet high), and beheld six children, the eldest being a girl of about eight or ten. The father was anywhere to suit the imagination, and the mother was away hawking. These children, sitting on the ground with a fire in the middle of them, were making clothes-pegs. The process seemed simple. The sticks are chopped into the necessary lengths and put into a pan of hot water. This I suppose swells the wood and loosens the bark. A child on the other side takes out the sticks as they are done and bites off the bark with its teeth. Then there is a boy who puts tin round them, and so the work goes on. When the day is done they look for the mother coming home from hawking with anything she may have picked up. When they have devoured such sc.r.a.ps and pickings as are brought, they lie down where they have worked and as they are, and go to sleep. It is a wonderful and mysterious arrangement of Providence that they can sleep. They have only a rag between them and the snow. A good wind would blow their homes over the trees. I do not wish to make any particularly violent remarks, but I should like some of the comfortable clergymen of your neighbourhood, when they have done buying their toys and presents for young friends at Christmas, to walk to Mitcham Common and see how the children are there.

They would then find out what humbugs they are, and how it is they do the work of the Master. One tent is very much like another. We visited about half-a-dozen, and we then went to name the child. We stayed in this tent for about ten minutes. It was inhabited by two families, numbering in all about twenty. I talked a little time with the woman lying on the ground, and she uncovered the baby to show it to me. I do not know whether it is a boy or a girl, but 'Deliverance' will do for either one or the other. She asked me to write the name on a piece of paper, and I did so. With a few words, as jolly as we could make them, we crawled out, thanks and blessings following George Smith, as they always do."

[Picture: A Gipsy Tent for Two Men, their Wives, and Eleven Children, and in which "Deliverance" was born]

Leading article in the _Primitive Methodist_, November 27th:-"Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, is endeavouring to do a work for the children of Gipsies similar to that he has done for the children employed in brick-yards and the children of ca.n.a.l-boatmen-that is, bring them under some sort of supervision, so that they may secure at least a small share in the educational advantages of the country. Recently he published an account of a visit to an encampment of the Gipsies near Wandsworth Common, and it is evident that these wanderers without any settled place of abode look on his efforts with some considerable approval. The encampment was made up of a number of tents, huts, and vans, and contained some sixty half-naked poor Gipsy children and thirty Gipsy men and women, living in an indescribable state of ignorance, dirt, filth, and misery, mostly squatting upon the ground, or otherwise making their beds upon peg shavings and straw; and it turned out upon inquiry that not more than four of these poor creatures could read a sentence or write a letter. They are, however, not indisposed to be subject to regulations that will contribute to their partial education, if to nothing more. In pa.s.sing from one of these miserable habitations to another, Mr. Smith found an old Gipsy woman proud of her name and descent, for she was a Lee, and a Lee of the fourth generation. To this old woman he explained his purpose, sitting on a low seat under the cover of the tent with his knees on a level with his chin. He wanted, he said, 'to get all the Gipsy tents and vans, and other movable habitations in the country, registered and under proper sanitary arrangements, and the children compelled to attend school wherever they may be temporarily located, and to receive an education which will in some degree help to get them out of the low, heartrending condition into which they have been allowed to sink.' Mrs. Lee listened with pleasure to this narration of Mr. Smith's purpose, and, though in great poverty, desired to aid this good work.

Her stock of cash amounted to three-halfpence; but this she insisted upon giving, so that she might contribute a little, at any rate, towards the improvement of her people. We hope Mr. Smith may succeed in his work, and succeed speedily, so that these Gipsy children, who are trained up to a vagabond life, may have a chance of learning something better. And evidently, from Mr. Smith's experience, there is no hostility to such a measure as he wishes to have made law among the Gipsies themselves."

Owing to my letters, papers, articles and paragraphs, and efforts in other directions during the last several months, the Gipsy subject might now be fairly considered to have made good headway, consequently the proprietor of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, without any difficulty, was induced-in fact, with pleasure-to have a series of sketches of Gipsy life in his journal, the first appearing November 29th, connected with which was the following notice, and in which he says:-"Our ill.u.s.trations, from a sketch taken by one of our artists in the neighbourhood of Latimer Road, Notting Hill, which is not far from Wormwood Scrubs, show the habits of living folk who are to be found as well in the outskirts of London, where there are many chances of picking up a stray bit of irregular gain, as in more rural parts of the country. The figure of a gentleman introduced into this sketch, who appears to be conversing with the Gipsies in their waggon encampment, is that of Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, the well-known benevolent promoter of social reform and legislative protection for the long-neglected cla.s.s of people employed on ca.n.a.l-barges, whose families, often living on board these vessels, are sadly in want of domestic comfort and of education for the children." The editor also inserted my Congress paper fully. The following week another sketch of Gipsy life appeared in the same journal, connected with which were the following remarks:-"Another sketch of the wild and squalid habits of life still retained by vagrant parties or clans of this singular race of people, often met with in the neighbourhood of suburban villages and other places around London, will be found in our journal. We may again direct the reader's attention to the account of them which was contributed by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, to the late Social Science Congress at Manchester, and which was reprinted in our last week's publication. That well-known advocate of social reform and legal protection for the neglected vagrant cla.s.ses of our population reckons the total number of Gipsies in this country at three or four thousand men and women and ten thousand children. He is now seeking to have all movable habitations-_i.e._, tents, vans, shows, &c.-in which the families live who are earning a living by travelling from place to place, registered and numbered, as in the case of ca.n.a.l-boats, and the parents compelled to send their children to school at the place wherever they may be temporarily located, be it National, British, or Board school. The following is Mr. Smith's note upon what was to be seen in the Gipsies' tent on Mitcham Common:-

"'Inside this tent-with no other home-there were two men, their wives, and about fourteen children of all ages: two or three of these were almost men and women. The wife of one of the men had been confined of a baby the day before I called-her bed consisting of a layer of straw upon the damp ground. Such was the wretched and miserable condition they were in that I could not do otherwise than help the poor woman, and gave her a little money. But, in her feelings of grat.i.tude to me for this simple act of kindness, she said she would name the baby anything I would like to chose; and, knowing that Gipsies are fond of outlandish names, I was in a difficulty. After turning the thing over in my mind for a few hours, I could think of nothing but "Deliverance." This seemed to please the poor woman very much; and the poor child is named Deliverance G---.

Strange to say, the next older child is named "Moses."'"

On December 13th, an additional sketch, showing the inside of a van, was given, to which were added the following remarks:-"Another sketch of the singular habits and rather deplorable condition of these vagrant people, who hang about, as the parasites of civilisation, close on the suburban outskirts of our wealthy metropolis, is presented by our artist, following those which have appeared in the last two weeks. Mr. G. Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, having taken in hand the question of providing due supervision and police regulation for the Gipsies, with compulsory education for their children, we readily dedicate these local ill.u.s.trations to the furtherance of his good work. The ugliest place we know in the neighbourhood of London, the most dismal and forlorn, is not Hackney Marshes, or those of the Lea, beyond Old Ford, at the East-end; but it is the tract of land, half torn up for brick-field clay, half consisting of fields laid waste in expectation of the house-builder, which lies just outside of Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill. There it is that the Gipsy encampment may be found, squatting within an hour's walk of the Royal palaces and of the luxurious town mansions of our n.o.bility and opulent cla.s.ses, to the very west of the fashionable West-end, beyond the gentility of Bayswater and Whiteley's avenue of universal shopping.

It is a curious spectacle in that situation, and might suggest a few serious reflections upon social contrasts at the centre and capital of the mighty British nation, which takes upon itself the correction of every savage tribe in South and West Africa and Central Asia. The encampment is usually formed of two or three vans and a rude cabin or a tent, placed on some piece of waste ground, for which the Gipsy party have to pay a few shillings a week of rent. This may be situated at the back of a row of respectable houses, and in full view of their bedroom or parlour windows, not much to the satisfaction of the quiet inhabitants.

The interior of one of the vans, furnished as a dwelling-room, which is shown in our artist's sketch, does not look very miserable; but Mr. Smith informs us that these receptacles of vagabond humanity are often sadly overcrowded. Besides a man, his wife, and their own children, the little ones stowed in bunks or cupboards, there will be several adult persons taken in as lodgers. The total number of Gipsies now estimated to be living in the metropolitan district is not less than 2,000. Among these are doubtless not a small proportion of idle runaways or 'losels' from the more settled cla.s.ses of our people. It would seem to be the duty of somebody at the Home Office, for the sake of public health and good order, to call upon some local authorities of the county or the parish to look after these eccentricities of Gipsy life."

On January 3rd, 1880, additional ill.u.s.trations were given in the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_. 1. Tent at Hackney; 2. Tent at Hackney; 3.

Sketch near Latimer Road, Notting Hill; 4. A Bachelor's Bedroom, Mitcham Common; 5. Encampment at Mitcham Common; 6. A Knife-grinder at Hackney Wick; 7. A Tent at Hackney Marshes. "A few additional sketches, continuing those of this subject which have appeared in our journal, are engraved for the present number. It is estimated by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, who has recently been exploring the queer outcast world of Gipsydom in different parts of England, that some 2,000 people called by that name, but of very mixed race, living in the manner of Zulu Kaffirs rather than of European citizens, frequent the neighbourhood 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. The western side of Notting Hill, where the railway pa.s.senger going to Shepherd's Bush or Hammersmith sees a vast quant.i.ty of family linen hung out to dry in the gardens and courtyards of small dwelling-houses, bordered towards Wormwood Scrubs by a dismal expanse of brick-fields, might tempt the Gipsies so inclined to take a clean shirt or petticoat-certainly not for their own wearing. But we are not aware that the police inspectors and magistrates of that district have found such charges more numerous in their official record than has been experienced in other quarters of London; and it is possible that honest men and women, though of irregular and slovenly habits, may exist among this odd fragment of our motley population. It is for the sake of their children, who ought to be, at least equally with those of the English labouring cla.s.ses, since they cannot get it from their parents, provided with means of decent Christian education, that Mr.

George Smith has brought this subject under public notice. 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. We hope to see the matter discussed in the House of Lords or the House of Commons during the ensuing session; for it actually concerns the moral and social welfare of more than thirty thousand people in our own country, which is an interest quite as considerable as that we have in Natal or the Transvaal, among Zulus and Basutos, and the rest of Kaffirdom. The sketches we now present in ill.u.s.tration of this subject are designed to show the squalid and savage aspect of Gipsy habitations in the suburban districts, at Hackney and Hackney 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 Forest appear in the distance, inviting 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 West-ender 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 is a farmer in Northamptonshire.

Far be it from us to say or suspect that the Gipsy stole the horse; 'convey, the wise it call;' and if horse or donkey, dog, or pig, or cow, if c.o.c.k and hen, duck or turkey, be permitted to escape from field or farmyard, these fascinated creatures will sometimes follow the merry troop of 'Romany Rye' quite of their own accord, such is the magic of Egyptian craft and the innate superiority of an Oriental race. These Gipsies, Zingari, Bohemians, whatever they be called in the kingdoms of Europe, are masters of a secret science of mysterious acquisition, as remote from proved crime of theft or fraud as from the ways of earning or winning by ordinary industry and trade. There is many a rich and splendid establishment at the West-end supported by a different application of the same mysterious craft. Solicitors and stockbrokers may have seen it in action. It is that of silently appropriating what no other person may be quite prepared to claim."

The following remarks appeared in the December number of _The Quiver_:-"Mr. George Smith, who has earned a much-respected and worthy name by his interest in and persevering efforts for the well-being of our ca.n.a.l population, is bent on doing similar service for the Gipsy children and roadside arabs, who are sadly too numerous in the suburban and rural districts of the land. By securing the registration of ca.n.a.l-boats as human domiciles, he has brought quite a host of poor little outcasts within the pale of society and the beneficent influence of the various educational machineries of the age. By bringing the mult.i.tudinous tents, vans, shows, and their peripatetic lodgers under some similar arrangements, he hopes to put civilisation, education, and Christianity within reach, of the thousand ragged Ishmaelites who are at present left to grow up in ignorance and degradation. These vagrant juveniles are growing up to strengthen the ranks of the unproductive and criminal cla.s.ses; and policy, philanthropy, and Christianity alike demand that the nomadic waifs should be encircled by the arms of an ameliorating law which will give them a chance of escaping from the life of semi-barbarity to which untoward circ.u.mstances have consigned them, and to place them in a position to make something better of the life that now is, and to secure some fitting preparation for the life that is to come. It is evidently high time that something should be done, otherwise we must sooner or later be faced with more serious difficulties than even now exist. Our sympathies are strongly with the warm-hearted philanthropist; and we trust that in taking to this new field of effort he will win all needful aid, and that his endeavours to rescue from a life of crime and vagabondage these hitherto much-neglected little ones will be crowned with success.

"'The glories of our mortal state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate- Death lays its icy hands on kings: Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade: Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.'-_Shirley_."

The following is my letter, relating to the poor little Gipsy children's homes, as it appeared in the _Daily News_, _Daily Chronicle_, and other London and country daily papers, December 2nd:-"Amongst some of the sorrowful features of Gipsy life I have noticed lately, none call more loudly for Government help, a.s.sistance, and supervision than the wretched little rag and stick hovels, scarcely large enough to hold a costermonger's wheelbarrow, in which the poor Gipsy women and children are born, pig, and die-aye, and men too, if they can be called Gipsies, with three-fourths, excepting the faintest cheering tint, of the blood of English scamps and vagabonds in their reins, and the remainder consisting of the blood of the vilest rascals from India and other nations. A real Gipsy of the old type, of which there are but few, will tell you a lie and look straight at you with a chuckle and grin; the so-called Gipsy now will tell you a lie and look a thousand other ways while doing so. In their own interest, and without mincing matters, it is time the plain facts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that the brightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Bible may have their influence upon the character of the little ones about to become in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside their hovels or sack huts, poetically called 'tents' and 'encampments,' but in reality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies,-sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, paint immorality with Asiatic ideas, notions, and hues, and put a pleasant and cheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be seen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant and wretched Gipsy children, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside their sack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of all ages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon a bed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little better than a manure-heap, in fact sometimes completely rotten, and as a Gipsy woman told me last week, 'it is not fit to be handled with the hands.' In noticing that many of the Gipsy children have a kind of eye-disease, I am told by the women that it is owing to the sulphur arising from the c.o.ke fire they have upon the ground in their midst, and which at times also causes the children to turn pale and sickly. The sulphur affects the men and women in various ways, sometimes causing a kind of stupor to come over them. I have noticed farther that many of the adults are much pitted with small-pox. It is a wonder to me that there is not more disease among them than there appears to be, considering that they are huddled together, regardless of s.e.x or age, in the midst of a damp atmosphere rising out of the ground, and impregnated with the sulphur of their c.o.ke fires. Probably their flitting habits prevent detection. My plan to improve their condition is not by prosecuting them and breaking up their tents and vans and turning them into the roads pell-mell, but to bring their habitations under the sanitary officers and their children under the schoolmaster in a manner a.n.a.logous to the Ca.n.a.l Boats Act, and it has the approval of these wandering herds. The process will be slow but effective, and without much inconvenience. Unless something be done for them in the way I have indicated, they will drift into a state similar to Darwin's forefathers and prove to the world that civilisation and Christianity are a failure."

The following article appears in the _Christian World_, December 19th, by Christopher Crayon (J. Ewing Ritchie), in which he says:-"The other day I was witness to a spectacle which made me feel a doubt as to whether I was living in the nineteenth century. I was, as it were, within the shadow of that mighty London where Royalty resides, where the richest Church in Christendom rejoices in its Abbey and Cathedral, and its hundreds of churches, where an enlightened and energetic Dissent has not only planted its temples in every district, but has sent forth its missionary agents into every land, where the fierce light of public opinion, aided by a Press which never slumbers, is a terror to them that do evil, and a praise to them that do well; a city which we love to boast heads the onward march of man; and yet the scene before me was as intensely that of savage life, as if I had been in a Zulu kraal, and savage life dest.i.tute of all that lends it picturesque attractions, or ideal charms. I was standing in the midst of some twenty tents and vans, inhabited by that wandering race of whose origin we know so little, and of whose future we know less. The snow was on the ground, there was frost in the very air.

Within a few yards was a great Board school; close by were factories and workshops, and the other concomitants of organised industrial life. Yet in that small area the Gipsies held undisputed sway. In or about London there are, it is calculated, some two thousand of these dwellers in tents. In all England there are some twenty thousand of these sons of Ishmael, with hands against every one, or, perhaps to put it more truly, with every one's hands against them. In summer-time their lot is by no means to be envied; in winter their state is deplorable indeed.

"We entered, Mr. George Smith and I, and were received as friends. Had I gone by myself, I question whether my reception would have been a pleasant one. As Gipsies pay no taxes, they can keep any number of dogs, and these dogs have a way of sniffing and snarling, anything but agreeable to an unbidden guest. The poor people complained to me no one ever came to see them. I should be surprised if any one did; but Mr.

George Smith, of Coalville, is no common man, and having secured fair play for the poor children of the brick-fields-he himself was brought up in a brick-yard-and for the poor, and sadly-neglected, inmates of the ca.n.a.l-boats, he has now turned his attention to the Gipsies. His idea is-and it is a good one-that an Act of Parliament should be pa.s.sed for their benefit-something similar to that he has been the means of carrying for the ca.n.a.l and brick-field children. In a paper read before the Social Science Congress at Manchester, Mr. Smith argued that all tents, shows, caravans, auctioneer vans, and like places used as dwellings should be registered and numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements, with sanitary inspectors and School Board officers, in every town and village. Thus in every district the children would have their names and attendance registered in a book, which they could take with them from place to place, and when endorsed by the schoolmaster, it would show that the children were attending school. In carrying out this idea, it is a pity that Mr. Smith should have to bear all the burden. As it is, he has suffered greatly in his pocket by his philanthropic effort.

"It is no joke going into a Gipsy yard, and it is still less so when you go down on your hands and knees, and crawl into the Gipsy's wigwam; but the worst of it is, when you have done so, there is little to see after all. In the middle, on a few bricks, is a stove or fireplace of some kind. On the ground is a floor of wood-chips, or straw, or shavings, and on this squat some two or three big, burly men, who make linen-pegs and skewers, and mend chairs and various articles, the tribe, as they wander along, seek to sell. The women are away, for it is they who bring the grist to the mill, as they tell fortunes, or sell their wares, or follow their doubtful trade; but the place swarms with children; and it was wonderful to see with what avidity they stretched out the dirtiest little hand imaginable as Mr. Smith prepared to distribute some sweets he had brought with him for that purpose. As we entered, all the vans were shut up, and the tents only were occupied, the vans being apparently deserted but presently a door was opened half-way, and out popped a little Gipsy head, with sparkling eyes and curly hair; and then another door opened, and a similar spectacle was to be seen. Let us look into the van, about the size of a tiny cabin, and chock full, in the first place, with a cooking-stove; and then with shelves, with curtains and some kind of bedding, apparently not very clean, on which the family repose. It is a piteous life, even at the best, in that van; even when the cooking pot is filled with something more savoury than cabbages or potatoes; the usual fare; but the children seem happy, nevertheless, in their dirty rags, and with their luxurious heads of curly hair. All of them are as ignorant as Hottentots, and lead a life horrible to think of. I only saw one woman in the camp, and I only saw her by uncovering the top and looking into the tent in which she resides. She is terribly poor, she says, and pleads earnestly for a few coppers; and I can well believe she wants them, for in this England of ours, and especially in the outskirts of London, the Gipsy is not a little out of place. Around us are some strapping girls, one with a wonderfully sweet smile on her face, who, if they could be trained to domestic service, would have a far happier life than they can ever hope to lead. The cold and wet seem to affect them not, nor the poor diet, nor the smoke and bad air of their cabins, in which they crowd, while the men lazily work, and the mothers are far away. The leading lady in this camp is absent on business; but she is a firm adherent of Mr. George Smith, and wishes to see the children educated; and as she is a Lee, and as a Lee in Gipsy annals take the same rank as a Norfolk Howard in aristocratic circles, that says a good deal; but, then, if you educate a Gipsy girl, she will want to have her hands and face, at any rate, clean; and a Gipsy boy, when he learns to read, will feel that he is born for a n.o.bler end than to dwell in a stinking wigwam, to lead a lawless life, to herd with questionable characters, and to pick up a precarious existence at fairs and races; and our poets and novelists and artists will not like that. However, just now, by means of letters in the newspapers, and engravings in the ill.u.s.trated journals, a good deal of attention is paid to the Gipsies, and if they can be reclaimed and turned into decent men and women a good many farmers' wives will sleep comfortably at night, especially when geese and turkeys are being fattened for Christmas fare; and a desirable impulse will be given to the trade in soap."

[Picture: A Gipsy girl washing clothes]

In the _Sunday School Chronicle_, December 19th, the kind-hearted editor makes the following allusions:-"Mr. George Smith stirs every feeling of pity and compa.s.sion in our hearts by his descriptions of the Gipsy Children's Homes. It is one of the curious things of English life that the distinct Gipsy race should dwell among us, and, neither socially nor politically, nor religiously, do we take any notice of them. No portion of our population may so earnestly plead, 'No man careth for our souls.'

The chief interest of them, to many of us, is that they are used to give point, and plot, to novels. But can nothing be done for the Gipsy _children_? Christian enterprise is seldom found wanting when a sphere is suggested for it; and those who live in the neighbourhood of Gipsy haunts should be especially concerned for their well-being. What must the children be, morally and religiously, who _bide_, we cannot say _dwell_, in such homes as Mr. George Smith describes?

"'In their own interest, and without mincing matters, it is time the plain facts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that the brightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Bible may have their influence upon the character of the little ones about to become in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside their hovels or sack huts, poetically called "tents" and "encampments," but in reality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies, sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, and put a pleasant and cheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be seen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant, and wretched Gipsy children, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside their sack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of all ages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon a bed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little better than a manure-heap, in fact sometimes it is completely rotten, and as a Gipsy woman told me last week, "it is not fit to be handled with the hands."

In noticing that many of the Gipsy children have a kind of eye disease, I am told by the women that it is owing to the sulphur arising from the c.o.ke fire they have upon the ground in their midst, and which at times also causes the children to turn pale and sickly.'"

The following brief account of the Hungarian Gipsies of the present day, as seen by a writer under the initials "A. C.," who visited the Unitarian Synod in Hungary last summer, is taken from the _Unitarian Herald_, bearing date January 9th, 1880, and in which the author says:-"Not far from Rugonfalva we came on a colony of exceedingly squalid Gipsies, living in huts which a respectable Zulu would utterly despise. Their appearance reminded me of Cowper's graphic sketch, which I am tempted to quote:-

"'I see a column of slow-rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.

A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle, flung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel-flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of c.o.c.k purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race, They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unqueuched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the livery they claim.'

"Transylvania is one great museum of human as well as natural products, and this singular race forms an interesting element of its motley population. It is supposed that the tribe found its way to Hungary in the beginning of the fifteenth century, having fled from Central Asia or India during the Mongol reign of terror. About the close of last century Pastor Benedict, of Debreczin, mastered their language, and on visiting England found that the Gipsies in this country understood him very well.

There are now about eighty thousand of them in Transylvania, but three-fourths of this number have settled homes, and caste distinctions are so strong that the higher grades would not drink from a cup used by one of their half-savage brethren. On reaching the mansion of Mr.

Jakabhazi, at Simenfalva, who employs about one hundred and forty civilised Gipsies on his estate, we had an opportunity after dinner of seeing them return in a long procession from the fields. Some of the women carried small brown babies, that appeared able to find footing anywhere on their mothers' shoulders, backs, or b.r.e.a.s.t.s. These labourers are almost entirely paid in food and other necessaries, and if kindly treated are very honourable towards their master, and generally adopt his religion. When smarting under any grievance, they, on the contrary, sometimes change their faith _en ma.s.se_, and when conciliated undergo as speedy a re-conversion. The women are, as a rule, very fond of ornaments, and the men are, above all things, proud of a horse or a pair of scarlet breeches. Of late years they have in a few districts began to intermarry with the Wallachs, and the sharp distinction between them and the other races in Hungary will, no doubt, gradually disappear."

The _Weekly Times_ again takes up the subject, and the following appears on January 9th, 1880:-"We made a second expedition, with Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, on Sunday, in search of a Gipsy encampment; and though the way was long and tedious, and we were both lamed with walking before we returned at night, yet we had not gone one step out of our way.

There is no encampment of these ancient and interesting people in the neighbourhood of the hundred odd square miles which composes the site of the metropolis, with which Mr. Smith is not acquainted, and to which we verily believe he could lead a friend if he was blindfolded. The way we went must remain somewhat of a secret, because the Gipsies do not care to see many visitors on the only day of the week which is one of absolute rest to them. All that we shall disclose about the way is, that we skirted Mount Nod, and for a short distance looked upon the face of an ancient river, then up-hill we clambered for many longish miles, until we turned out of a certain lane into the encampment. There was a rude picturesqueness in the gaping of the vans and tents. In the foreground were the vans, to the rear the cloth kraals, with their smoky coverings stretched over poles; from a hole in the centre the smoke ascended, furnishing evidence that the open brazier was burning within. The vans protected the approach to the camp, just in the same way that artillery are planted to keep the road to a military encampment. Mr. Smith's face seemed to be well known to these strange people, and we no sooner appeared in sight than the swinging door of every van was edged with faces, and forth from the strange kraals there crept child and woman, youth and dog, to say a kindly word, or bark a welcome to the visitors.

But for the Gipsies' welcome we might have had an unpleasant reception from the dogs. They were evidently dubious as to our character, their training inclining them to bite, if they get a chance, any leg wearing black cloth, but to give the ragged-trousered visitors a fawning welcome; so they sniffed again and again, and growled, until driven away by the voices of their owners. Perchance, during the remainder of the day, they were revolving in their intelligent minds how it had come to pa.s.s that the black cloth legs were received with evident marks of favour. Nor were they able to settle the point easily, for whenever we happened to look round the encampment during the afternoon, from the raised door-way of a kraal where we happened to be couched, we noticed the eyes of one or other of the four-footed guardians fixed intently on us. There were about twenty vans and tents in all; and each paid one shilling a week to the ground landlord. That money, with whatever else was required for food, was obtained by hawking at this season of the year, and trade was very bad. Winter must be a fearful experience for these children of the air, and the field, the summer sun, the wild flowers, and the fruits of harvest. Such rains as have descended, such snows as have been falling, such cold winds as have been blowing, must discount fearfully the joys of the three happier seasons of the year.

"Invitations to stoop and enter any 'tent' were freely tendered, and 'peeps' were indulged in with regard to a few. In one, a closed cauldron covered the brazier fire, and two men and a dog watched with unceasing vigilance. We tried to make friends here, but failed. There was a steamy exudation from the cauldron which filled the air with fragrance, and our curiosity overcame our prudence, but with no satisfactory result.

'A stew,' we suggested. 'Yes! it was summut stewing.' 'Couldn't we guess what it was?' 'Not soon,' was the reply; 'a few bones and a potato or two; perhaps a bit of something green. At such hard times they were mostly glad to get anything.' But nothing more could be gleaned, and the two men and the dog never lost sight of the cauldron while the visitors remained. In a few cases the tents were pegged down all round, and across the top, upon a stout line, there hung a few articles fresh from the wash. The pegged cloth indicated that the female occupants were within, but 'not at home,' nor would they be visible until the wind had dried the garments that fluttered overhead. We tarried, and were made quite at home in another kraal, where we gleaned many interesting particulars of Gipsy life; and here we held a sort of smoking _levee_, and were honoured by the company of many distinguished residents in camp.

We lay upon a bed of straw, which covered the whole of the interior, save a little s.p.a.ce filled with the brazier, in which a fire of c.o.ke was burning; above was a hole, out of which the smoke pa.s.sed. The straw had been stamped into consistency by the feet of the family; there was no odour from it, and in that particular was an improvement on the rush and straw floors in the English houses of which Erasmus made such great complaint. There was no chair, stool, or box on which to sit, and all of us reclined Eastern fashion in the posture that was most convenient. The owner of the kraal and his wife were very interesting people: the mother's hair descended by little steps from the crown of her head, until it stuck out like a bush, in a line with the nape of her neck, a dense dead-black ma.s.s of hair. She had been a model for painters many a time, she said, before small-pox marked her; and, since, the back of her head had often been drawn to fit somebody else's face.

"'When I come again what shall I bring you?' said Mr. Smith, in most reckless fashion, to the Egyptian Queen. 'Well,' said she, without a moment's hesitation, 'if there is one thing more than another that I do want, it's a silk handkercher for my head-a real Bandana.' The request was characteristic. Of the tales we heard one or two were curious, one positively laughable, and one related to a deed of blood. Mr. Smith, going into a tent, found an aged Gipsy woman, to whom he told the object of his visiting the Gipsies, and what he hoped to accomplish for the children, and she forwith handed him a money gift. On more than one occasion a well-polished silver coin of small value, a penny, or a farthing has been quietly put into Mr. Smith's hands, in furtherance of his work, by some poor Gipsy woman. The story which made us laugh was of a Gipsy marriage. It is one of the unwritten laws of Gipsy life that the wife works while the husband idles about the tent. The wife hawks with the basket or the cart and sells, while the husband loiters about the encampment or cooks the evening meal. But one young Gipsy fell in love with an Irish girl named Kathleen, and from the day of their marriage Tom never had an idle moment. In vain did he plead the usages of Gipsy married life. Kathleen was deaf to all such modes of argument, and drove her husband forth from tent and encampment, by voice or by stake, until she completely cured him of his idleness, and she remained mistress of the field. Whenever a young Gipsy is supposed to be courting a stranger, the fate of Tom at the hands of Kathleen is told him as a warning.

During the afternoon we were continually exhorted to see 'Granny' before we left. Every one spoke of her with respect, and when we were about to leave, Patience offered to show us 'Granny's tent.' Repentance joined her sister, and before we were up and out of the tent opening, we saw Patience at a tent not far off; she dived head and shoulders through an opening she made, and then appeared to be pulling vigorously. Her activity was soon explained. We thrust our heads through the opening, and were face to face with a shrivelled-faced old woman, whose cheeks were like discoloured parchment, and whose hands and arms appeared to be mere bones. But her eye was bright, and her tongue proved her to be in possession of most of her faculties. She could not stand or walk, nor could she sit up for many minutes at a time, and the action of Patience was caused by her hastily seizing the old woman by her arms as she lay on her straw floor, and dragging her into a sitting position. If the old dame had been asleep, Patience had thoroughly aroused her. She greeted us with