[Picture: Book cover]

 [Picture: Frontispiece: Among the Gipsy children]

 GIPSY LIFE:

 BEING AN ACCOUNT

 OF

 OUR GIPSIES AND THEIR CHILDREN. 

 WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT. 

 BY GEORGE SMITH, OF COALVILLE. 

 * * * * *

 LONDON: HAUGHTON & CO. , 10, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

 * * * * *

 [_All Rights Reserved_. ]

 * * * * *

 1880. 

I give my warmest thanks to W. H. OVEREND, Esq. , for the block formingthe Frontispiece, which he has kindly presented to me on the conditionthat the picture occupies the position it does in this book; and also tothe proprietor of the _Illustrated London News_ for the blocks to helpforward my work, the pictures of which appeared in his journal inNovember and December of last year and January in the present year, asfound herein on pages 42, 48, 66, 76, 96, 108, 118, 122, 174, 192, 236, 283. 

I must at the same time express my heart-felt thanks to the manager andproprietors of the _Graphic_ for the blocks forming the illustrations onpages 1, 132, 170, 222, 228, 248, 272, 277, and which appeared in theirjournal on March 13th in the present year, and which they have kindlypresented to me to help forward my object, connected with which sketches, at the kind request of the Editor, I wrote the article. 

W. H. OVEREND, Esq. , was the artist for the sketches in the _IllustratedLondon News_, and HERBERT JOHNSON, Esq. , was the artist for the sketchesin the _Graphic_. 

I also tender my warmest thanks to the Press generally for the helprendered to me during the crusade so far, without which I should havedone but little. 

TO THE MOST HONOURABLETHE PEERS AND MEMBERSOF THEHIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT. 

I have taken the liberty of humbly dedicating this work to you, theobject of which is not to tickle the critical ears of ethnologists andphilologists, but to touch the hearts of my countrymen on behalf of thepoor Gipsy women and children and other roadside Arabs flitting about inour midst, in such a way as to command attention to these neglected, dark, marshy spots of human life, whose seedlings have been running wildamong us during the last three centuries, spreading their poisonousinfluence abroad, not only detrimental to the growth of Christianity andthe spread of civilisation, but to the present and eternal welfare of thechildren; and, what I ask for is, that the hand of the Schoolmaster maybe extended towards the children; and that the vans and other temporaryand movable abodes in which they live may be brought under the eye andinfluence of the Sanitary Inspector. 

 Very respectfully yours, GEORGE SMITH, _Of Coalville_. 

_April_ 30_th_, 1880. 

INDEX. 

Part I. 

 RAMBLES IN GIPSYDOM. 

 PAGE

Origin of the Gipsies and their Names 1Article in _The Daily News_ 8The Travels of the Gipsies 9Acts of Parliament relating to the Gipsies 16Article in _The Edinburgh Review_ 23, _The Saturday Review_ 25Professor Bott on the Gipsies 29The Changars of India 32The Doms of India 33The Sanseeas of India 35The Nuts of India 36Grellmann on the Gipsies 39Gipsies of Notting Hill 40Rev. Charles Wesley 42The Number of Gipsies 44

Part II. 

 COMMENCEMENT OF THE CRUSADE. 

Work begun 48Letter to _The Standard_ and _Daily Chronicle_ 51Leading Article in _The Standard_ 53Correspondence in _The Standard_ 59Mr. Leland’s Letter, &c. , &c. 60My Reply 66_Leicester Free Press_ 69Article in _The Derby Daily Telegraph_ 70 „ _The Figaro_ 73Letter in _The Daily News_ 75Mr. Gorrie’s Letter 78My Reply 79Leading Article in _The Standard_ 82_May’s Aldershot Advertiser_ 87Article in _Hand and Heart_ 90Article in _The Illustrated London News_ 91Leading Article in _The Daily News_ 92Social Science Congress Paper 95Article in _Birmingham Daily Mail_ 102 „ _The Weekly Dispatch_ 106 „ _The Weekly Times_ 109 „ _The Croydon Chronicle_ 117 „ _Primitive Methodist_ 119 „ _Illustrated London News_ 121 „ _The Quiver_ 126Letter in _Daily News_ and _Chronicle_ 127Article in _Christian World_ 129, _Sunday School Chronicle_ 132 „ _Unitarian Herald_ 134 „ _Weekly Times_ 135

Part III. 

 THE TREATMENT THE GIPSIES HAVE RECEIVED IN THIS COUNTRY. 

The Social History of our Country 142Acts of Parliament concerning the Gipsies 145Treatment of the Gipsies in Scotland, Spain, and Denmark 150Efforts put forth to improve their Condition 155His Majesty George III. And the Dying Gipsy 161Mr. Crabb at Southampton in 1827 164Fiction and the Gipsies 166Hubert Petalengro’s Gipsy Trip to Norway 169Esmeralda’s Song 174George Borrow’s Travels in Spain 177Romance and Poetry about the Gipsies 183Dean Stanley’s Prize Poem 190

Part IV. 

 GIPSY LIFE IN A VARIETY OF ASPECTS. 

Persecution, Missionary Efforts, and Romance 192The Gipsy Contrast and _Punch_ 193Gipsy Slang 195Rees and Borrow’s Description of the Gipsies 199Leland among the Russian Gipsies 201Burning a Russian Fortune-teller 203A Welsh Gipsy’s Letter 208Ryley Bosvil and his Poetry: a Sad Example 213My Visit to Canning Town Gipsies 220Article in _The Weekly Times_ 222My Son’s Visit to Barking Road 227Mrs. Simpson, a Christian Gipsy 228

Part V. 

 THE SAD CONDITION OF THE GIPSIES, WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT. 

Gipsy Beauty and Songsters 237Gipsy Poetry 239Smart and Crofton 239A Little Gipsy Girl’s Letter 242Scotch Gipsies 243Gipsy Trickery 244My Visit to the Gipsies at Kensal Green 248Fortune-telling and other Sins 249Wretched Condition of the Gipsies 254Hungarian Gipsies 259Visit to Cherry Island 260The Cleanliness and Food of the Gipsies 262A Gipsy Woman’s Opinion upon Religion 264Gipsy Faithfulness and Fidelity 264A Visit to Hackney Marshes 266Sickness among the Gipsies 270A Gipsy Woman’s Funeral 271Gipsies and the Workhouse 274Education of the Gipsy Children Sixty Years ago 274Mission Work among the Gipsies 275Gipsy Children upon Turnham Green and Wandsworth Common 276Sad Condition of the Gipsy Children 277The Hardships of the Gipsy Women 281Efforts put forth in Hungary and other Countries 282Things made by the Gipsies 284Pity for the Gipsies 285What the State has done for the Thugs 286The Remedy 287My Reasons for Government Interference 289

Illustrations. 

 PAGE

Frontispiece. Among the Gipsy Children. 

A Gipsy Beauty 1

A Gentleman Gipsy’s Tent and his dog “Grab” 42

A Gipsy’s Home for Man and Wife and Six Children 48

Gipsies Camping among the Heath 66

Gipsy Quarters, Mary Place 76

A Farmer’s Pig that does not like a Gipsy’s Tent 96

Gipsies’ Winter Quarters, Latimer Road 108

A Gipsy Tent for Two Men, their Wives, and Eleven 118Children, and in which “Deliverance” was born

A Gipsy Knife Grinder’s Home 122

A Gipsy Girl Washing Clothes 132

A Respectable Gipsy and his Family “on the Road” 170

A Bachelor Gipsy’s Bed-room 174

A Gipsy’s Van, near Notting Hill 192

A Fortune-telling Gipsy enjoying her Pipe 222

Inside a Christian Gipsy’s Van—Mrs. Simpson’s 228

Inside a Gipsy Fortune-teller’s Van 236

Gipsy Fortune tellers Cooking their Evening Meal 248

Outside a Christian Gipsy’s Van 272

Four Little Gipsies sitting for the Artist 277

A Top Bed-room in a Gipsy’s Van 281

 [Picture: A Gipsy beauty who can neither read nor write]

Part I. —Rambles in Gipsydom. 

The origin of the Gipsies, as to who they are; when they became regardedas a peculiar race of wandering, wastrel, ragamuffin vagabonds; theprimary object they had in view in setting out upon their shuffling, skulking, sneaking, dark pilgrimage; whether they were driven at thepoint of the sword, or allured onwards by the love of gold, designingdark deeds of plunder, cruelty, and murder, or anxious to seek a haven ofrest; the route by which they travelled, whether over hill and dale, bythe side of the river and valley, skirting the edge of forest and dell, delighting in the jungle, or pitching their tent in the desert, followingthe shores of the ocean, or topping the mountains; whether they wereIndians, Persians, Egyptians, Ishmaelites, Roumanians, Peruvians, Turks, Hungarians, Spaniards, or Bohemians; the end of their destination; theirreligious views—if any—their habits and modes of life have been duringthe last three or four centuries wrapped, surrounded, and encircled inmystery, according to some writers who have been studying the Gipsycharacter. They have been a theme upon which a “bookworm” could gloat, achest of secret drawers into which the curious delight to pry, adifficult problem in Euclid for the mathematician to solve; and anunreadable book for the author. A conglomeration of languages for thescholar, a puzzle for the historian, and a subject for the novelist. These are points which it is not the object of this book to attempt toclear up and settle; all it aims at, as in the case of my “Cry of theChildren from the Brick-yards of England, ” and “Our Canal Population, ”is, to tell “A Dark Chapter in the Annals of the Poor, ” little wanderers, houseless, homeless, and friendless in our midst. At the same time itwill be necessary to take a glimpse at some of the leading features ofthe historical part of their lives in order to get, to some extent, aknowledge of the “little ones” whose pitiable case I have ventured totake in hand. 

Paint the words “mystery” and “secrecy” upon any man’s house, and you atonce make him a riddle for the cunning, envious, and crafty to try tosolve; and this has been the case with the Gipsies for generations, andthe consequence has been, they have trotted out kings, queens, princes, bishops, nobles, ladies and gentlemen of all grades, wise men, fools, andfanatics, to fill their coffers, while they have been standing bylaughing in their sleeves at the foolishness of the foolish. 

In Spain they were banished by repeated edicts under the severestpenalties. In Italy they were forbidden to remain more than two nightsin the same place. In Germany they were shot down like wild beasts. InEngland during the reign of Elizabeth, it was felony, without the“benefit of the clergy, ” to be seen in their company. The State ofOrleans decreed that they should be put to death with fire andsword—still they kept coming. 

In the last century, however, a change has come over several of theEuropean Governments. Maria Theresa in 1768, and Charles III. Of Spainin 1783, took measures for the education of these poor outcasts in thehabits of a civilised life with very encouraging results. The experimentis now being tried in Russia with signal success. The emancipation ofthe Wallachian Gipsies is a fact accomplished, and the best results arebeing achieved. 

The Gipsies have various names assigned to them in different countries. The name of Bohemians was given to them by the French, probably onaccount of their coming to France from Bohemia. Some derive the wordBohemians from the old French word “Boëm, ” signifying a sorcerer. TheGermans gave them the name of “Ziegeuner, ” or wanderers. The Portuguesenamed them “Siganos. ” The Dutch called them “Heiden, ” or heathens. TheDanes and Swedes, “Tartars. ” In Italy they are called “Zingari. ” InTurkey and the Levant, “Tschingenes. ” In Spain they are called“Gitanos. ” In Hungary and Transylvania, where they are very numerous, they are called “Pharaoh Nepek, ” or “Pharaoh’s People. ” The notion oftheir being Egyptian is entirely erroneous—their appearance, manners, andlanguage being totally different from those of either the Copts orFellahs; there are many Gipsies now in Egypt, but they are looked upon asstrangers. 

Notwithstanding that edicts have been hurled against them, persecuted andhunted like vermin during the Middle Ages, still they kept coming. Lateron, laws more merciful than in former times have taken a more humane viewof them and been contented by classing them as “vagrants andscoundrels”—still they came. Magistrates, ministers, doctors, andlawyers have spit their spite at them—still they came; frowning looks, sour faces, buttoned-up pockets, poverty and starvation staring them inthe face—still they came. Doors slammed in their faces, dogs set upontheir heels, and ignorant babblers hooting at them—still they came; andthe worst of it is they are reducing our own “riff-raff” to their level. The novelist has written about them; the preacher has preached againstthem; the drunkards have garbled them over in their mouths, and yelpedout “Gipsy, ” and stuttered “scamp” in disgust; the swearer has sworn atthem, and our “gutter-scum gentlemen” have told them to “stand off. ”These “Jack-o’-th’-Lantern, ” “Will-o’-th’-Wisp, ” “Boo-peep, ” “MoonshineVagrants, ” “Ditchbank Sculks, ” “Hedgerow Rodneys, ” of whom there are nota few, are black spots upon our horizon, and are ever and anon flittingbefore our eyes. A motley crowd of half-naked savages, carrion eaters, dressed in rags, tatters, and shreds, usually called men, women, andchildren, some running, walking, loitering, traipsing, shouting, gaping, and staring; the women with children on their backs, and in their arms;old men and women tottering along “leaning upon their staffs;” hordes ofchildren following in the rear; hulking men with lurcher dogs at theirheels, sauntering along in idleness, spotting out their prey; donkeysloaded with sacks, mules with tents and sticks, and their vans andwaggons carrying ill-gotten gain and plunder; and the question arises inthe mind of those who take an interest in this singularly unfortunaterace of beings: From whence came they? How have they travelled? By whatroutes did they travel? What is their condition, past and present? Howare they to be dealt with in any efforts put forth to improve theircondition? These are questions I shall in my feeble way endeavour tosolve; at any rate, the two latter questions; the first questions can bedealt better with by abler hands than mine. 

I would say, in the first place, that it is my decided conviction thatthe Gipsies were neither more nor less, before they set out upon theirpilgrimage, than a pell-mell gathering of many thousands of low-caste, good for nothing, idle Indians from Hindustan—not ashamed to beg, withsome amount of sentiment in their nature, as exhibited in their musicaltendencies and love of gaudy colours, and except in rare instances, without any true religious motives or influences. It may be worth whileto notice that I have come to the conclusion that they were originallyfrom India by observing them entirely in the light given to me years agoof the different characters of human beings both in Asia, Europe, andAfrica. Their habits, manners, and customs, to me, is a sufficient test, without calling in the aid of the philologist to decide the point oftheir originality. I may here remark that in order to get at the realcondition of the Gipsies as they are at the present day in this country, and not to have my mind warped or biassed in any way, I purposely keptmyself in ignorance upon the subject as to what various authors have saideither for or against them until I had made my inquiries and the movementhad been afloat for several months. The first work touching the Gipsyquestion I ever handled was presented to me by one of the authors—Mr. Crofton—at the close of my Social Science Congress paper read atManchester last October, entitled “The Dialect of the English Gipsies, ”which work, without any disrespect to the authors—and I know they willoverlook this want of respect—remained uncut for nearly two months. Withfurther reference to their Indian origin, the following is an extractfrom “Hoyland’s Historical Survey, ” in which the author says:—“TheGipsies have no writing peculiar to themselves in which to give aspecimen of the construction of their dialect. Music is the only sciencein which the Gipsies participate in any considerable degree; theylikewise compose, but it is after the manner of the Eastern people, extempore. ” Grellmann asserts that the Hindustan language has thegreatest affinity with that of the Gipsies. He also infers from thefollowing consideration that Gipsies are of the lowest class of Indians, namely, Parias, or, as they are called in Hindustan, Suders, and goes onto say that the whole great nation of Indians is known to be divided intofour ranks, or stocks, which are called by a Portuguese name, Castes, each of which has its own particular sub-division. Of these castes, theBrahmins is the first; the second contains the Tschechterias, or Setreas;the third consists of the Beis, or Wazziers; the fourth is the caste ofthe above-mentioned Suders, who, upon the peninsula of Malabar, wheretheir condition is the same as in Hindustan, are called Parias andPariers. The first were appointed by Brahma to seek after knowledge, togive instruction, and to take care of religion. The second were to servein war. The third were, as the Brahmins, to cultivate science, butparticularly to attend to the breeding of cattle. The caste of theSuders was to be subservient to the Brahmins, the Tschechterias, and theBeis. These Suders, he goes on to say, are held in disdain, and they areconsidered infamous and unclean from their occupation, and they areabhorred because they eat flesh; the three other castes living entirelyon vegetables. Baldeus says the Parias or Suders are a filthy people andwicked crew. It is related in the “Danish Mission Intelligencer, ” nobodycan deny that the Parias are the dregs and refuse of all the Indians;they are thievish, and have wicked dispositions. Neuhof assures us, “theParias are full of every kind of dishonesty; they do not consider lyingand cheating to be sinful. ” The Gipsy’s solicitude to conceal hislanguage is also a striking Indian trait. Professor Pallas says of theIndians round Astracan, custom has rendered them to the greatest degreesuspicious about their language. Salmon says that the nearest relationscohabit with each other; and as to education, their children grow up inthe most shameful neglect, without either discipline or instruction. Themissionary journal before quoted says with respect to matrimony among theSuders or Gipsies, “they act like beasts, and their children are broughtup without restraint or information. ” “The Suders are fond of horses, soare the Gipsies. ” Grellmann goes on to say “that the Gipsies hunt aftercattle which have died of distempers in order to feed on them, and whenthey can procure more of the flesh than is sufficient for one day’sconsumption, they dry it in the sun. Such is the constant custom withthe Suders in India. ” “That the Gipsies and natives of Hindustanresemble each other in complexion and shape is undeniable. And what isasserted of the young Gipsy girls rambling about with their fathers, whoare musicians, dancing with lascivious and indecent gesture to divert anyperson who is willing to give them a small gratuity for so acting, islikewise perfectly Indian. ” Sonneratt confirms this in the account hegives of the dancing girls of Surat. Fortune-telling is practised allover the East, but the peculiar kind professed by the Gipsies, viz. , chiromancy, constantly referring to whether the parties shall be rich orpoor, happy or unhappy in marriage, &c. , is nowhere met with but inIndia. Sonneratt says:—“The Indian smith carries his tools, his shop, and his forge about with him, and works in any place where he can findemployment. He has a stone instead of an anvil, and his whole apparatusis a pair of tongs, a hammer, a beetle, and a file. This is very muchlike Gipsy tinkers, ” &c. It is usual for Parias, or Suders, in India tohave their huts outside the villages of other castes. This is one of theleading features of the Gipsies of this country. A visit to theoutskirts of London, where the Gipsies encamp, will satisfy any one uponthis point, viz. , that our Gipsies are Indians. In isolated cases astrong religious feeling has manifested itself in certain persons of theBunyan type of character and countenance—a strong frame, with large, square, massive forehead, such as Bunyan possessed; for it should benoted that John Bunyan was a Gipsy tinker, with not an improbable mixtureof the blood of an Englishman in his veins, and, as a rule, persons ofthis mixture become powerful for good or evil. A case in point, viz. , Mrs. Simpson and her family, has come under my own observation lately, which forcibly illustrates my meaning, both as regards the evil Mrs. Simpson did in the former part of her life, and for the last twenty yearsin her efforts to do good among persons of her class, and also amongothers, as she has travelled about the country. The exodus of theGipsies from India may be set down, first, to famine, of which India, aswe all know, suffers so much periodically; second, to the insatiable loveof gold and plunder bound up in the nature of the Gipsies—the West, froman Indian point of view, is always looked upon as a land of gold, flowingwith milk and honey; third, the hatred the Gipsies have for wars, and asin the years of 1408 and 1409, and many years previous to these dates, India experienced some terrible bloody conflicts, when hundreds ofthousands of men, women, and children were butchered by the cruel monsterTimur Beg in cold blood, and during the tenth and eleventh centuries byMahmood the Demon, on purpose to make proselytes to the Mohammedan faith, it is only natural to suppose that under those circumstances the Gipsieswould leave the country to escape the consequences following thosecalamities, over-populated as it was, numbering close upon 200, 000, 000 ofhuman beings. {8} I am inclined to think that it would be hunger andstarvation upon their heels that would be the propelling power to sendthem forward in quest of food. From Attock, Peshawur, Cabul, and Herat, they would tramp through Persia by Teheran, and enter the EuphratesValley at Bagdad. From Calcutta, Madras, Seringapatam, Bangalore, Goa, Poonah, Hydrabad, Aurungabad, Nagpoor, Jabbulpoor, Benares, Allahabad, Surat, Simla, Delhi, Lahore, they would wander along to the mouth of theriver Indus, and commence their journey at Hydrabad, and travelling bythe shores of the Indian Ocean, stragglers coming in from Bunpore, Gombaroon, the commencement of the Persian Gulf, when they would travelby Bushino to Bassora. At this place they would begin to scatterthemselves over some parts of Arabia, making their headquarters nearMolah, Mecca, and other parts of the country, crossing over Suez, andgetting into Egypt in large numbers. Others would take the EuphratesValley route, which, by the way, is the route of the proposed railway toIndia. Tribes branching off at Kurnah, some to Bagdad, following thecourse of the river Tigris to Mosul and Diarbeker, and others would go toJerusalem, Damuscus, and Antioch, till they arrived at Allepo andAlexandretta. Here may be considered the starting-point from which theyspread over Asiatic Turkey in large numbers, till they arrived beforeConstantinople at the commencement of the fourteenth century. 

Straggling Gipsies no doubt found their way westward prior to the wars ofTimur Beg, and in this view I am supported by the fact that two of ourown countrymen—Fitz-Simeon and Hugh the Illuminator, holy friars—on theirpilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1322, called at Crete, and there foundsome Gipsies—I am inclined to think only a few sent out as a kind ofadvance-guard or feeler, adopting the plan they have done subsequently inpeopling Europe and England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

Brand, in his observations in “Popular Antiquities, ” is of opinion alsothat the Gipsies fled from Hindustan when Timur Beg ravaged India with aview of making Mohammedans of the heathens, and it is calculated thatduring his deeds of blood he butchered 500, 000 Indians. Some writerssuppose that the Gipsies, in order to escape the sword of this humanmonster, came into Europe through Egypt, and on this account were calledEnglish Gipsies. 

In a paper read by Colonel Herriot before the Royal Asiatic Society, hesays that the Gipsies, or Indians—called by some Suders, by others Nathsor Benia, the first signifying rogue, the second dancer or tumbler—are tobe met in large numbers in that part of Hindustan which is watered by theGanges, as well as the Malwa, Gujerat, and the Deccan. 

The religious crusades to the Holy Land commenced in the year 1095 andlasted to 1270. It was during the latter part of the time of theCrusades, and prior to the commencement of the wars by Timur Beg, thatthe Gipsies flocked by hundreds of thousands to Asiatic Turkey. Whilethe rich merchants and princes were trying to outvie each other in theircostly equipages, grandeur, and display of gold in their pilgrimage tothe Holy Land, and the tremendous death-struggles between Christianity, Idolatry, and Mohammedism, the Gipsies were busily engaged in singingsongs and plundering, and in this work they were encouraged by thePersians as they passed through their territory. The Persians havealways been friendly to these wandering, loafing Indians, for we findthat during the wars of India by Timur Beg, and other monsters previous, they were harbouring 20, 000 of these poor low-caste and outcast Indians;and, in fact, the same thing may be said of the other countries theypassed through on their way westward, for we do not read of their beingpersecuted in these countries to anything like the extent they have beenin Europe. This, no doubt, arises from the affinity there is between theIndian, Persian, and Gipsy races, and the dislike the Europeans havetowards idlers, loafers, liars, and thieves; and especially is this so inEngland. Gipsy life may find favour in the East, but in the West thesystem cannot thrive. A real Englishman hates the man who will not work, scorns the man who would tell him a lie, and would give the thief whoputs his hands into his pocket the cat-o’-nine-tails most unmercifully. The persecutions of the Gipsies in this country from time to time hasbeen brought about, to a great extent, by themselves. John Bull dislikeskeeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. He readily protectsall those who tread upon English soil, but in return for this kindness heexpects them, like bees, to be all workers. Drones, ragamuffins, androdneys cannot grumble if they get kicked out of the hive. If 20, 000Englishmen were to tramp all over India, Turkey, Persia, Hungary, Spain, America, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Germany, or France, inbands of from, say two to fifty men, women, and children, in a mostwretched; miserable condition, doing little else but fiddling upon thenational conscience and sympathies, blood-sucking the hardworkingpopulation, and frittering their time away in idleness, pilfering, andfilth, I expect, and justly so, the inhabitants would begin to “kick, ”and the place would no doubt get rather warm for Mr. John Bull and hismotley flock. If the Gipsies, and others of the same class in thiscountry, will begin to “buckle-to, ” and set themselves out for real hardwork, instead of cadging from door to door, they will find, notwithstanding they are called Gipsies, John Bull extending to them thehand of brotherhood and sympathy, and the days of persecution passed. 

One thing is remarkable concerning the Gipsies—we never hear of theirbeing actually engaged in warfare. They left India for Asiatic Turkeybefore the great and terrible wars broke out during the fourteenthcentury, and before the great religious wars concerning the Mohammedanfaith in Turkey, during the fourteenth century, they fled to WesternEurope. Thus it will be seen that they “would sooner run a mile thanfight a minute. ” The idea of cold steel in open day frightens them outof their wits. Whenever a war is about to take place in the country inwhich they are located they will begin to make themselves scarce; and, onthe other hand, they will not visit a country where war is going on tillafter it is over, and then, vulture-like, they swoop down upon the prey. This feature is one of their leading characteristics; with somehonourable exceptions, they are always looked upon as long-sighted, dark, deep, designing specimens of fallen humanity. For a number of yearsprior to the capture of Constantinople by Mohammed II. In 1453 theGipsies had commenced to wend their way to various parts of Europe. The200, 000 Gipsies who had emigrated to Wallachia and Moldavia, theirfavourite spot and stronghold, saw what was brewing, and had begun todivide themselves into small bands. A band of 300 of these wanderers, calling themselves Secani, appeared in 1417 at Lüneburg, and in 1418 atBasil and Bern in Switzerland. Some were seen at Augsberg on November 1, 1418. Near to Paris there were to be seen numbers of Gipsies in 1424, 1426, and 1427; but it is not likely they remained long in Paris. Lateron we find them at Arnheim in 1429, and at Metz in 1430, Erfurt in 1432, and in Bavaria in 1433. The reason they appeared at these places atthose particular times, was, no doubt, owing to the internal troubles ofFrance; for it was during 1429 that Joan of Arc raised the siege ofOrleans. The Gipsies appearing in small bands in various parts of theContinent at this particular time were, no doubt, as Mr. Groom says inhis article in the “Encyclopædia Britannica, ” sent forward by the mainbody of Gipsies left behind in Asiatic and European Turkey, to spy outthe land whither they were anxious to bend their ways; for it was in theyear 1438, fifteen years before the terrible struggle by the Mohammedansfor Constantinople, that the great exodus of Gipsies from Wallachia, Roumania, and Moldavia, for the golden cities of the West commenced. From the period of 1427 to 1514, a space of about eighty-sevenyears—except spies—they were content to remain on the Continent withoutvisiting our shores; probably from two causes—first, their dislike tocrossing the water; second, the unsettled state of our own country duringthis period. For it should be remembered that the Wars of the Rosescommenced in 1455, Richard III. Was killed at the Battle of BosworthField, and in 1513 the Battle of Flodden took place in Scotland, in whichthe Scots were defeated. The first appearance of the Gipsies in largenumbers in Great Britain was in Scotland in 1514, the year after theBattle of Flodden. Another remarkable coincidence connected with theirappearance in this country came out during my inquiries; but whetherthere is any foundation for it further than it is an idea floating in mybrain I have not yet been able to ascertain, as nothing is mentioned ofit in any of the writings I have perused. It seems reasonable to supposethat the Gipsies, would retain and hand down some of their pleasant, aswell as some of the bitter, recollections of India, which, no doubt, would at this time be mentioned to persons high in position—it should benoted that the Gipsies at this time were favourably received at certainhead-quarters amongst merchants and princes—for we find that withinfourteen years after the landing of the Indians upon our shores attemptswere made to reach India by the North-east and North-west passages, whichproved a disastrous affair. Then, again, in 1579 Sir F. Drake’sexpedition set out for India. In 1589 the Levant Company made a landexpedition, and in all probability followed the track by which theGipsies travelled from India to the Holy Land in the fourteenth century, by the Euphrates valley and Persian Gulf. 

Towards the end of the year 1417, in the Hanseatic towns on the Balticcoast and at the mouth of the Elbe, there appeared before the gates ofLüneburg, and later on at Hamburg, Lübeck, Wirmar, Rostock, andStralsuna, a herd of swarthy and strange specimens of humanity, uncouthin form, hideous in complexion, and their whole exterior shadowed forththe lowest depths of poverty and degradation. A cloak made of thefragments of oriental finery was generally used to disguise the filth andtattered garments of their slight remaining apparel. The women and youngchildren travelled in rude carts drawn by asses or mules; the men trudgedalongside, casting fierce and suspicious glances on those they met, thief-like, from underneath their low, projecting foreheads and eyebrows;the elder children, unkempt and half-clad, swarmed in every direction, calling with shrill cries and monkey-like faces and grimaces to thepassers-by to their feats of jugglery, craft, and deception. Forsakingthe Baltic provinces the dusky band then sought a more friendly refuge incentral Germany—and it was quite time they had begun to make a move, fortheir deeds of darkness had oozed out, and a number of them paid thepenalty upon the gallows, and the rest scampered off to Meissen, Leipsic, and Herse. At these places they were not long in letting the inhabitantsknow, by their depredations, witchcraft, devilry, and other abominations, the class of people they had in their midst, and the result was theirspeedy banishment from Germany; and in 1418, after wandering about for afew months only, they turned their steps towards Switzerland, reachingZurich on August 1st, and encamped during six days before the town, exciting much sympathy by their pious tale and sorrowful appearance. InSwitzerland the inhabitants were more gullible, and the soft parts oftheir nature were easily getatable, and the consequence was the Gipsiesmade a good thing of it for the space of four years. Soon after leavingZurich, according to Dr. Mikliosch, the wanderers divided their forces. One detachment crossed the Botzberg and created quite a panic amongst thepeaceable inhabitants of Sisteron, who, fearing and imagining all sortsof evils from these satanic-looking people, fed them with a hundredloaves, and induced them, for the good of their health, to makethemselves miserably less. We next hear of them in Italy, in 1422. After leaving Asiatic Turkey, and in their wanderings through Russia andGermany, the Asiatic, sanctimonious, religious halo, borrowed from theiridolatrous form and notions of the worship of God in the East, hadsuffered much from exposure to the civilising and Christianisinginfluences of the West; and the result was their leaders decided to makea pilgrimage to Rome to regain, under the cloak of religion, some of theself-imagined lost prestige; and in this they were, at any rate, for atime, successful. On the 11th day of July, 1422, a leader of theGipsies, named Duke Andrew, arrived at Bologna, with men, women andchildren, fully one hundred persons, carrying with them, as they alleged, a decree signed by the King of Hungary, permitting them, owing to theirreturn to the Christian faith—stating at the same time that 4, 000 hadbeen re-baptised—to rob without penalty or hindrance wherever theytravelled during seven years. Here these long-faced, pious hypocriteswere in clover, as a reward for their professed re-embracingChristianity. After the expiration of this term they told theopen-mouthed inhabitants, as a kind of sweetener, that they were topresent themselves to the Pope, and then return to India—aye, with thespoils of their lying campaign, gained by robbing and plundering all theycame in contact with. The result of their deceitful, lying expedition toRome was all they could wish, and they received a fresh passport from . The Pope, asking for alms from his faithful flock on behalf of thesewretches, who have been figuring before western nations of theworld—sometimes as kings, counts, martyrs, prophets, witches, thieves, liars, and murderers; sometimes laying their misfortunes at the door ofthe King of Egypt, the Sultan of Turkey, religious persecution in India, the King of Hungary, and a thousand other Gorgios since them. Sometimesthey would appear as renegade Christians, converted heathens, RomanCatholics, in fact, they have been everything to everybody; and, so longas the “grist was coming to the mill, ” it did not matter how or by whomit came. 

By an ordinance of the State of Orleans in the year 1560 it was enjoinedthat all those impostors and vagabonds who go tramping about under thename of Bohemians and Egyptians should quit the kingdom, on penalty ofthe galleys. Upon this they dispersed into lesser companies, and spreadthemselves over Europe. They were expelled from Spain in 1591. Thefirst time we hear of them in England in the public records was in theyear 1530, when they were described by the statute 22 Hen. VIII. , cap. 10, as “an outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians. Using nocraft nor seat of merchandise, who have come into this realm and gonefrom shire to shire, and place to place, in great company, and used greatsubtile, crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand, thatthey by palmistry could tell men’s and women’s fortunes, and so manytimes by craft and subtilty have deceived the people of their money, andalso have committed many heinous felonies and robberies. Wherefore theyare directed to avoid the realm, and not to return under pain ofimprisonment and forfeiture of their goods and chattels; and upon theirtrials for any felony which they may have committed they shall not beentitled to a jury _de medietate linguæ_. ” As if the above enactment wasnot sufficiently strong to prevent these wretched people multiplying inour midst and carrying on their abominable practices, it was afterwardsenacted by statutes 1 and 2 Ph. , and in c. 4 and 5 Eliz. , cap. 20, “thatif any such person shall be imported into this kingdom, the importershall forfeit £40. And if the Egyptians themselves remain one month inthis kingdom, or if any person being fourteen years old (whethernatural-born subject or stranger), which hath been seen or found in thefellowship of such Egyptians, or which hath disguised him or herself likethem, shall remain in the same one month, or if several times it isfelony, without the benefit of the clergy. ”

Sir Matthew Hale informs us that at the Suffolk Assizes no less thanthirteen Gipsies were executed upon these statutes a few years before theRestoration. But to the honour of our national humanity—which at thetime of these executions could only have been in name and not in reality, for those were the days of bull-fighting, bear-baiting, and like sports, the practice of which in those dark ages was thought to be the highestpitch of culture and refinement—no more instances of this kind werethrown into the balance, for the public conscience had become somewhatawakened; the days of enlightenment had begun to dawn, for by statute 23, George III. , cap. 51, it was enacted that the Act of Eliz. , cap. 20, isrepealed; and the statute 17 George II. , cap. 5, regards them under thedenomination of “rogues and vagabonds;” and such is the title given tothem at the present day by the law of the land—“Rogues and Vagabonds. ”

Borrow, in page 10 of his “Bible in Spain, ” says: “Shortly after theirfirst arrival in England, which is upwards of three centuries since, adreadful persecution was raised against them, the aim of which was theirutter extermination—the being a Gipsy was esteemed a crime worthy ofdeath, and the gibbets of England groaned and creaked beneath the weightof Gipsy carcases, and the miserable survivors were literally obliged tocreep into the earth in order to preserve their lives. But these dayspassed by; their persecutors became weary of persecuting them; theyshowed their heads from the caves where they had hidden themselves; theyventured forth increased in numbers, and each tribe or family choosing aparticular circuit, they fairly divided the land amongst them. 

“In England the male Gipsies are all dealers in horses [this is notexactly the case with the Gipsies of the present day], and sometimesemploy their time in mending the tin and copper utensils of thepeasantry; the females tell fortunes. They generally pitch their tentsin the vicinity of a village or small town, by the roadside, under theshelter of the hedges and trees. The climate of England is well known tobe favourable to beauty, and in no part of the world is the appearance ofthe Gipsies so prepossessing as in that country. Their complexion isdark, but not disagreeably so; their faces are oval, their featuresregular, their foreheads rather low, and their hands and feet small. 

“The crimes of which these people were originally accused were various, but the principal were theft, sorcery, and causing disease among thecattle; and there is every reason for supposing that in none of thesepoints they were altogether guiltless. 

“With respect to sorcery, a thing in itself impossible, not only theEnglish Gipsies, but the whole race, have ever professed it; therefore, whatever misery they may have suffered on that account they may beconsidered as having called it down upon their own heads. 

“Dabbling in sorcery is in some degree the province of the female Gipsy. She affects to tell the future, and to prepare philters by means of whichlove can be awakened in any individual towards any particular object; andsuch is the credulity of the human race, even in the more enlightenedcountries, that the profits arising from their practices are great. Thefollowing is a case in point:—Two females, neighbours and friends, weretried some years since in England for the murder of their husbands. Itappeared that they were in love with the same individual, and hadconjointly, at various times, paid sums of money to a Gipsy woman to workcharms to captivate his affection. Whatever little effect the charmmight produce, they were successful in their principal object, for theperson in question carried on for some time a criminal intercourse withboth. The matter came to the knowledge of the husbands, who, takingmeans to break off this connection, were respectively poisoned by theirwives. Till the moment of conviction these wretched females betrayedneither emotion nor fear; but then their consternation was indescribable, when they afterwards confessed that the Gipsy who had visited them inprison had promised to shield them from conviction by means of her art. 

“Poisoning cattle is exercised by them in two ways: by one, they merelycause disease in the animals, with the view of receiving money for curingthem upon offering their services. The poison is generally administeredby powders cast at night into the mangers of the animals. This way isonly practised upon the larger cattle, such as horses and cows. By theother, which they practise chiefly on swine, speedy death is almostinvariably produced, the drug administered being of a highly intoxicatingnature, and affecting the brain. Then they apply at the house or farmwhere the disaster has occurred for the carcase of the animal, which isgenerally given them without suspicion, and then they feast on the flesh, which is not injured by the poison, it only affecting the head. ”

In looking at the subject from a plain, practical, common-sense point ofview—divested of “opinions, ” “surmises, ” “technicalities, ”“similarities, ” certain ethnological false shadows and philologicalmystifications, the little glow-worm in the hedge-bottom on a dark night, which our great minds have been running after for generations, and“natural consequences, ” “objects sought, ” and “certain results”—we shallfind that the same thing has happened to the Gipsies, or Indians, centuries ago, that has happened to all nations at one time or other. There can be no doubt but that terrible internal struggles took place, and hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants were butchered in coldblood, in India, during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenthcenturies; there can be no question, also, that the 200, 000, 000inhabitants, in this over-populated country, would suffer, in variousforms, the direst consequences of war, famine, and bloodshed; and, it ismore than probable, that hundreds of thousands of the idle, low-casteIndians, too lazy to work, too cowardly to fight in open day, with nohonourable ambition or true religious instincts in their nature, otherthan to aspire to the position similar to bands of Nihilists, Communists, Socialists, or Fenians of the present day, would emigrate to Wallachia, Roumania, or Moldavia, which countries, at that day, were looked upon asEngland is at the present time. The Gipsies, many centuries ago, as now, did not believe in yokes being placed round their necks. The fact of200, 000 of these emigrants, about whom, after all, there is not muchmystery, emigrating to Wallachia in such large numbers, proves to my mindthat there was a greater power behind them and before them than isusually supposed to be the case, and than that attending wanderingminstrels, impelling them forward. Mohammedism, soldiers, and deathwould not be looked upon by the Gipsies as pleasant companions. Byfleeing for their lives they escaped death, and Wallachia was to theGipsies, for some time, what America has been to the Fenians—an ark ofsafety and the land of Nod. Many of the Gipsies themselves imagine thatthey are the descendants of Ishmael, from the simple fact that it wasdecreed by God, they say, that his descendants should wander about intents, and they were to be against everybody, and everybody against them. This erroneous impression wants removing, or the Gipsies will never risein position. 

In no country in the world is there so much caste feeling, devilishjealousy, and diabolical revenge manifested as in India. These are truetypes and traits of Indian character, especially of the lower orders andthose who have lost caste; the Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Roumanians, Hungarians, and Spaniards sink into insignificance when compared with theAfghans, Hindus, and other inhabitants of some of the worst parts ofIndia. Any one observing the Gipsies closely, as I have been trying todo for some time, outside their mystery boxes, with their thin, flimsyveil of romance and superstitious turn of their faces, will soon discovertheir Indian character. Of course their intermixture with Circassiansand other nations, in the course of their travels from India, during fiveor six centuries, till the time they arrived at our doors, has brought, and is still bringing, to the surface the blighted flowers of humanity, whose ancestral tree derived its nourishment from the soil of Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Roumania, Wallachia, Moldavia, Spain, Hungary, Norway, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, as the muddy stream of Gipsyism has been winding its way forages through various parts of the world; and, I am sorry to say, thislittle dark stream has been casting forth an unpleasant odour and ahorrible stench in our midst, which has so long been fed and augmented bythe dregs of English society from Sunday-schools and the hearthstones ofpious parents. The different nationalities to be seen among the Gipsies, in their camps and tents, may be looked upon as so many bastardoff-shoots from the main trunk of the trees that have been met with intheir wanderings. 

In no part of the globe, owing principally to our isolation, is the oldGipsy character losing itself among the street-gutter rabble as in ourown; notwithstanding this mixture of blood and races, the diabolicalIndian elements are easily recognisable in their wigwams. Then, again, their Indian origin can be traced in many of their social habits; amongothers, they squat upon the ground differently to the Turk, Arab, andother nationalities, who are pointed to by some writers as being theancestors of the Gipsies. Their tramping over the hills and plains ofIndia, and exposure to all the changes of the climate, has no doubtfitted them, physically, for the kind of life they are leading in variousparts of the world. To-day Gipsies are to be found in almost every partof the civilised countries, between the frozen regions of Siberia and theburning sands of Africa, squatting about in their tents. The treatmentof the women and children by the men corresponds exactly with thetreatment the women and children are receiving at the hands of thelow-caste Indians. The Arabian women, the Turkish women, and Egyptianwomen, may be said to be queens when set up in comparison with the poorGipsy woman in this country. In Turkey, Arabia, Egypt, and some otherEastern nations, the women are kept in the background; but among thelow-caste Indians and Gipsies the women are brought to the front divestedof the modesty of those nations who claim to be the primogenitors of theGipsy tribes and races. Among the lower orders of Indians, from whom theGipsies are the outcome, most extraordinary types of characters andcountenances are to be seen. Any one visiting the Gipsy wigwams of thepresent day will soon discover the relationship. 

In early life, as among the Indians, some of the girls are pretty andinteresting, but with exposure, cruelty, immorality, debauchery, idle andloose habits, the pretty, dark-eyed girl soon becomes the coarse, vulgarwoman, with the last trace of virtue blown to the winds. If any one withbut little keen sense of observation will peep into a Gipsy’s tent whenthe man is making pegs and skewers, and contrast him with the low-casteIndian potter at his wheel and the carpenter at his bench—all squattingupon the ground—he will not be long in coming to the conclusion that theyare all pretty much of the same family. 

Ethnologists and philologists may find certain words used by the Gipsiesto correspond with the Indian language, and this adds another proof tothose I have already adduced; but, to my mind, this, after the lapse ofso many centuries, considering all the changes that have taken placesince the Gipsies emigrated, is not the most convincing argument, anymore than our forms of letters, the outcome of hieroglyphics, prove thatwe were once Egyptians. No doubt, there are a certain few words used byall nations which, if their roots and derivations were thoroughly lookedinto, a similarity would be found in them. As America, Australia, NewZealand, and Africa have been fields for emigrants from China and Europeduring the last century, so, in like manner, Europe was the field forcertain low-caste poor emigrants from India during the two precedingcenturies, with this difference—the emigrants from India to Europe wereidlers, loafers who sought to make their fortunes among the Europeans bypractising, without work, the most subtle arts of double-dealing, lying, deception, thieving, and dishonesty, and the fate that attendsindividuals following out such a course as this has attended the Gipsiesin all their wanderings; the consequence has been, the Gipsy emigrants, after their first introduction to the various countries, have, by theiractions, disgusted those whom they wished to cheat and rob, hence thetreatment they have received. This cannot be said of the emigrant fromEngland to America and our own or other colonies. An English emigrant, on account of his open conduct, straightforward character, and industry, has been always respected. In any country an English emigrant enters, owing to his industrious habits, an improvement takes place. In thecountry where an Indian emigrant of the Gipsy tribe enters the tendencyis the reverse of this, so far as their influence is concerned—downwardto the ground and to the dogs they go. In these two cases the differencebetween civilisation and Christianity and heathenism comes out to amarked degree. 

In a leading article in the _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1878, upon theorigin and wanderings of the Gipsies, the following appears:—“We nextencounter them in Corfu, probably before 1346, since there is good reasonto believe them to be indicated under the name of _homines vageniti_ in adocument emanating from the Empress Catharine of Valois, who died in thatyear; certainly, about 1370, when they were settled upon a fiefrecognised as the _feudum Acinganorum_ by the Venetians, who, in 1386, succeeded to the right of the House of Valois in the island. This fiefcontinued to subsist under the lordship of the Barons de Abitabulo and ofthe House of Prosalendi down to the abolition of feudalism in Corfu inthe beginning of the present century. There remain to be noted twoimportant pieces of evidence relating to this period. The first iscontained in a charter of Miracco I. , Waiwode of Wallachia, dated 1387, renewing a grant of forty ‘tents’ of Gipsies, made by his uncle, Ladislaus, to the monastery of St. Anthony of Vodici. Ladislaus began toreign in 1398. The second consists in the confirmation accorded in 1398by the Venetian governor of Nanplion of the privileges extended by hispredecessors to the Acingani dwelling in that district. Thus we findGipsies wandering through Crete in 1322, settled in Corfu from 1346, enslaved in Wallachia about 1370, protected in the Peloponnesus before1398. Nor is there is any reason to believe that their arrival in thosecountries was a recent one. ”

Niebuhr, in his travels through Arabia, met with hordes of thesestrolling Gipsies in the warm district of Yemen, and M. Sauer in likemanner found them established in the frozen regions of Siberia. Hisaccount of them, published in 1802, shows the Gipsy to be the same inNorthern Russia as with us in England. He describes them as follows:—“Iwas surprised at the appearance of detached families throughout theGovernment of Tobolsk, and upon inquiry I learned that several rovingcompanies of these people had strolled into the city of Tobolsk. ” Thegovernor thought of establishing a colony of them, but they were toocunning for the simple Siberian peasant. He placed them on a footingwith the peasants, and allotted a portion of land for cultivation with aview of making them useful members of society. They rejected houses evenin this severe climate, and preferred open tents or sheds. In Hungaryand Transylvania they dwell in tents during the summer, and for theirwinter quarters make holes ten or twelve feet deep in the earth. Thewomen, one writer says, “deal in old clothes, prostitution, wantondances, and fortune-telling, and are indolent beggars and thieves. Theyhave few disorders except the measles and small-pox, and weaknesses intheir eyes caused by the smoke. Their physic is saffron put into theirsoup, with bleeding. ” In Hungary, as with other nations, they have nosense of religion, though with their usual cunning and hypocrisy theyprofess the established faith of every country in which they live. 

The following is an article taken from the _Saturday Review_, December13th, 1879:—“It has been repeated until the remark has become accepted asa sort of truism that the Gipsies are a mysterious race, and that nothingis known of their origin. And a few years ago this was true; but withinthose years so much has been discovered that at present there is reallyno more mystery attached to the beginning of those nomads than ispeculiar to many other peoples. What these discoveries or grounds ofbelief are we shall proceed to give briefly, our limits not permittingthe detailed citation of authorities. First, then, there appears to beevery reason for believing with Captain Richard Burton that the Jats ofNorth-Western India furnished so large a proportion of the emigrants orexiles who, from the tenth century, went out of India westward, thatthere is very little risk in assuming it as an hypothesis, at least, thatthey formed the _Hauptstamm_ of the Gipsies of Europe. What otherelements entered into these, with whom we are all familiar, will beconsidered presently. These Gipsies came from India, where caste isestablished and callings are hereditary even among out-castes. It is notassuming too much to suppose that, as they evinced a marked aptitude forcertain pursuits and an inveterate attachment to certain habits, theirancestors had in these respects resembled them for ages. These pursuitsand habits were, that:—They were tinkers, smiths, and farriers. Theydealt in horses, and were naturally familiar with them. They werewithout religion. They were unscrupulous thieves. Their women werefortune-tellers, especially by chiromancy. They ate without scrupleanimals which had died a natural death, being especially fond of the pig, which, when it has thus been ‘butchered by God, ’ is still regarded evenby the most prosperous Gipsies in England as a delicacy. They flayedanimals, carried corpses, and showed such aptness for these and similardetested callings that in several European countries they longmonopolised them. They made and sold mats, baskets, and small articlesof wood. They have shown great skill as dancers, musicians, singers, acrobats; and it is a rule almost without exception that there is hardlya travelling company of such performers, or a theatre in Europe orAmerica, in which there is not at least one person with some Romanyblood. Their hair remains black to advanced age, and they retain itlonger than do Europeans or ordinary Orientals. They speak an Aryantongue, which agrees in the main with that of the Jats, but whichcontains words gathered from other Indian sources. Admitting these asthe peculiar pursuits of the race, the next step should be to considerwhat are the principal nomadic tribes of Gipsies in India and Persia, andhow far their occupations agree with those of the Romany of Europe. Thatthe Jats probably supplied the main stock has been admitted. This was abold race of North-Western India which at one time had such power as toobtain important victories over the caliphs. They were broken anddispersed in the eleventh century by Mahmoud, many thousands of themwandering to the West. They were without religion, ‘of the horse, horsey, ’ and notorious thieves. In this they agree with the EuropeanGipsy. But they are not habitual eaters of _mullo balor_, or ‘deadpork;’ they do not devour everything like dogs. We cannot ascertain thatthe Jat is specially a musician, a dancer, a mat and basket-maker, arope-dancer, a bear-leader, or a pedlar. We do not know whether they arepeculiar in India among the Indians for keeping their hair unchanged toold age, as do pure-blood English Gipsies. All of these things are, however, markedly characteristic of certain different kinds of wanderers, or Gipsies, in India. From this we conclude—hypothetically—that the Jatwarriors were supplemented by other tribes. 

“Next to the word Rom itself, the most interesting in Romany is Zingan, or Tchenkan, which is used in twenty or thirty different forms by thepeople of every country, except England, to indicate the Gipsy. Anincredible amount of far-fetched erudition has been wasted in pursuingthis philological _ignis-fatuus_. That there are leather-working andsaddle-working Gipsies in Persia who call themselves Zingan is a fairbasis for an origin of the word; but then there are Tchangar Gipsies ofJat affinity in the Punjab. Wonderful it is that in this war of words nophilologist has paid any attention to what the Gipsies themselves sayabout it. What they do say is sufficiently interesting, as it is told inthe form of a legend which is intrinsically curious and probably ancient. It is given as follows in ‘The People of Turkey, ’ by a Consul’s Daughterand Wife, edited by Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, London, 1878:—

 “‘Although the Gipsies are not persecuted in Turkey, the antipathy and disdain felt for them evinces itself in many ways, and appears to be founded upon a strange legend current in the country. This legend says that when the Gipsy nation were driven out of their country and arrived at Mekran, they constructed a wonderful machine to which a wheel was attached. ’ From the context of this imperfectly told story, it would appear as if the Gipsies could not travel further until this wheel should revolve:—‘Nobody appeared to be able to turn it, till in the midst of their vain efforts some evil spirit presented himself under the disguise of a sage, and informed the chief, whose name was Chen, that the wheel would be made to turn only when he had married his sister Guin. The chief accepted the advice, the wheel turned round, and the name of the tribe after this incident became that of the combined names of the brother and sister, Chenguin, the appellation of all the Gipsies of Turkey at the present day. ’ The legend goes on to state that, in consequence of this unnatural marriage, the Gipsies were cursed and condemned by a Mohammedan saint to wander for ever on the face of the earth. The real meaning of the myth—for myth it is—is very apparent. Chen is a Romany word, generally pronounced Chone, meaning the moon, while Guin is almost universally rendered _Gan_ or _Kan_. _Kan_ is given by George Borrow as meaning sun, and we have ourselves heard English Gipsies call it _kan_, although _kam_ is usually assumed to be right. Chen-kan means, therefore, moon-sun. And it may be remarked in this connection that the Roumanian Gipsies have a wild legend stating that the sun was a youth who, having fallen in love with his own sister, was condemned as the sun to wander for ever in pursuit of her turned into the moon. A similar legend exists in Greenland and the island of Borneo, and it was known to the old Irish. It was very natural that the Gipsies, observing that the sun and moon were always apparently wandering, should have identified their own nomadic life with that of these luminaries. It may be objected by those to whom the term ‘solar myth’ is as a red rag that this story, to prove anything, must first be proved itself. This will probably not be far to seek. If it can be found among any of the wanderers in India, it may well be accepted, until something better turns up, as the possible origin of the greatly disputed Zingan. It is quite as plausible as Dr. Mikliosch’s derivation from the Acingani— ̓Ατσίyανοι—‘an unclean, heretical Christian sect, who dwelt in Phrygia and Lycaonia from the seventh till the eleventh century. ’ The mention of Mekran indicates clearly that the moon-sun story came from India before the Romany could have obtained any Greek name. And if the Romany call themselves Jengan, or Chenkan, or Zin-gan, in the East, it is extremely unlikely that they ever received such a name from the Gorgios in Europe. ”

Professor Bott, in his “Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, ” speaks of theGipsies or _Lüry_ as follows:—“In the great Persian epic, the‘Shah-Nameh’—in ‘Book of Kings, ’ Firdusi—relates an historical traditionto the following effect. About the year 420 A. D. , Behrâm Gûr, a wise andbeneficent ruler of the Sassanian dynasty, finding that his poorersubjects languished for lack of recreation, bethought himself of somemeans by which to divert their spirits amid the oppressive cares of alaborious life. For this purpose he sent an embassy to Shankal, King ofCanaj and Maharajah of India, with whom he had entered into a strict bondof amity, requesting him to select from among his subjects and transmitto the dominions of his Persian ally such persons as could by their artshelp to lighten the burden of existence, and lend a charm to the monotonyof toil. The result was the importation of twelve thousand minstrels, male and female, to whom the king assigned certain lands, as well as anample supply of corn and cattle, to the end that, living independently, they might provide his people with gratuitous amusement. But at the endof one year they were found to have neglected agricultural operations, tohave wasted their seed corn, and to be thus destitute of all means ofsubsistence. Then Behrâm Gûr, being angry, commanded them to take theirasses and instruments, and roam through the country, earning a livelihoodby their songs. The poet concludes as follows:—‘The Lüry, agreeably tothis mandate, now wander about the world in search of employment, associating with dogs and wolves, and thieving on the road, by day and bynight. ’” These words were penned nearly nine centuries ago, andcorrectly describe the condition of one of the wandering tribes of Persiaat the present day, and they have been identified by some travellers asmembers of the Gipsy family. 

Dr. Von Bott goes on to say this:—“The tradition of the importation ofthe Lüry from India is related by no less than five Persian or Arabwriters: first, about the year 940 by Hamza, an Arab historian, born atIspahan; next, as we have seen, by Firdusi; in the year 1126 by theauthor of the ‘Modjmel-al-Yevaryk;’ in the fifteenth century by Mirkhoud, the historian of the Sassanides. The transplanted musicians are calledby Hamza _Zuth_, and in some manuscripts of Mirkhoud’s history the samename occurs, written, according to the Indian orthography, _Djatt_. These words are undistinguishable when pronounced, and, in fact, may belooked upon as phonetically equivalent, the Arabic _z_ being thelegitimate representative of the Indian _dj_. Now Zuth or Zatt, as it isindifferently written, is one of the designations of the Syrian Gipsies, and Djatt is the tribal appellative of the ancient Indian race stillwidely diffused throughout the Punjab and Beloochistan. Thus we findthat the modern Lüry, who may, without fear of error, be classed asPersian Gipsies, derive a traditional origin from certain Indianminstrels called by an Arab author of the tenth century _Zuth_, and by aPersian historian of the fifteenth, _Djatt_, a name claimed, on the onehand by the Gipsies frequenting the neighbourhood of Damascus, and on theother by a people dwelling in the valley of the Indus. ” The Djatts wereaverse to religious speculation, and rejected all sectarian observances;the Hindu was mystical and meditative, and a slave to the superstitionsof caste. From a remote period there were Djatt settlements along theshores of the Persian Gulf, plainly indicating the route by which theGipsies travelled westward from India, as I have before intimated, ratherthan endure the life of an Indian slave under the Mohammedantask-masters. Liberty! liberty! free and wild as partridges, with nodisposition to earn their bread by the sweat of the brow, ran throughtheir nature like an electric wire, which the chirp of a hedge-sparrow inspring-time would bring into action, and cause them to bound like wildasses to the lanes, commons, and moors. They have always refused tosubmit to the Mohammedan faith: in fact, the Djatts have accepted neitherBrahma nor Budda, and have never adopted any national religion whatever. The church of the Gipsies, according to a popular saying in Hungary, “wasbuilt of bacon, and long ago eaten by the dogs. ” Captain Richard F. Burton wrote in 1849, in his work called the “Sindh, and the Races thatInhabit the Valley of the Indus:”—“It seems probable, from the appearanceand other peculiarities of the race, that the Djatts are connected byconsanguinity with that singular race, the Gipsies. ” Some writers haveendeavoured to prove that the Gipsies were formerly Egyptians; but, fromseveral causes, they have never been able to show conclusively that suchwas the case. The wandering Gipsies in Egypt, at the present day, arenot looked upon by the Egyptians as in any way related to them. Then, again, others have tried to prove that the Gipsies are the descendants ofHagar; but this argument falls to the ground simply because theconnecting links have not been found. The two main reasons alleged byMr. Groom and those who try to establish this theory are, first, that theIshmaelites are wanderers; second, that they are smiths, or workers iniron and brass. The Mohammedans claim Ishmael as their father, andcertainly they would be in a better position to judge upon this pointeleven centuries ago then we possibly can be at this late date. And so, in like manner, where it is alleged that the Gipsies sprang from, Roumania, Wallachia, Moldavia, Spain, and Hungary. 

The following are specimens of Indian characters, taken from “The Peopleof India, ” prepared under the authority of the Indian Government, andedited by Dr. Forbes Watson, M. A. , and Sir John William Kaye, F. R. S. Inspeaking of the Changars, they say that these Indians have an unenviablecharacter for thieving and general dishonesty, and form one of the largeclass of unsettled wanderers which, inadmissible to Hinduism andunconverted to the Mohammedan faith, lives on in a miserable condition oflife as outcasts from the more civilised communities. Changars are, ingeneral, petty thieves and pickpockets, and have no settled vocation. They object to continuous labour. The women make baskets, beg, pilfer, or sift and grind corn. They have no settled places of residence, andlive in small blanket or mat tents, or temporary sheds outside villages. They are professedly Hindus and worshippers of Deree or Bhowanee, butthey make offerings at Mohammedan shrines. They have private ceremonies, separate from those of any professed faith, which are connected with theaboriginal belief that still lingers among the descendants of the mostancient tribes of India, and is chiefly a propitiation of malignantdemons and malicious sprites. They marry exclusively among themselves, and polygamy is common. In appearance, both men and women arerepulsively mean and wretched; the features of the women in particularbeing very ugly, and of a strong aboriginal type. The Changars are oneof the most miserable and useless of the wandering tribes of the upperprovinces. They feed, as it were, on the garbage left by others, neverchanging, never improving, never advancing in the social rank, scale, orutility—outcast and foul parasites from the earliest ages, and they soremain. The Changars, like other vagrants, are of dissolute habits, indulging freely in intoxicating liquors, and smoking ganjia, or curedhemp leaves, to a great extent. Their food can hardly be particularised, and is usually of the meanest description; occasionally, however, thereare assemblies of the caste, when sheep are killed and eaten; and atmarriages and other domestic occurrences feasts are provided, whichusually end in foul orgies. In the clothes and person the Changars aredecidedly unclean, and indeed, in most respects the repulsiveness of thetribes can hardly be exceeded. 

The Doms are a race of Gipsies found from Central India to the farNorthern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appear as theDomarr, and are supposed to be pre-Aryan. In “The People of India, ” weare told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms indicate amarked difference from those who surround them (in Behar). The Hindusadmit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the Shastras isSopuckh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers, they make baskets andmats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending all their earningson it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handlingall dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death, and are particularly fond of pork of this description. “Notwithstandingprofligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; andit is not till sixty or sixty-five that their hair begins to get white. ”The Domarr are a mountain race, nomads, shepherds, and robbers. Travellers speak of them as “Gipsies. ” A specimen which we have of theirlanguage would, with the exception of one word, which is probably anerror of the transcriber, be intelligible to any English Gipsy, and becalled pure Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, hiswife a Domni, and the being a Dom, or the collective Gipsydom, Domnipana. _D_ in Hindustani is found as _r_ in English Gipsy speech—_e. G. _, _doi_, a wooden spoon, is known in Europe as _roi_. Now in common Romany wehave, even in London:—

Rom A Gipsy. 

Romni A Gipsy wife. 

Romnipen Gipsydom. 

Of this word _rom_ we shall more to say. It may be observed that thereare in the Indian _Dom_ certain distinctly-marked and degrading features, characteristic of the European Gipsy, which are out of keeping with thehabits of warriors, and of a daring Aryan race which withstood thecaliphs. Grubbing in filth as if by instinct, handling corpses, makingbaskets, eating carrion, living for drunkenness, does not agree withanything we can learn of the Jats. Yet the European Gipsies are allthis, and at the same time ‘horsey’ like the Jats. Is it not extremelyprobable that during the “out-wandering” the Dom communicated his nameand habits to his fellow-emigrants?

The marked musical talent characteristic of the Slavonian and otherEuropean Gipsies appears to link them with the Lüri of Persia. These aredistinctly Gipsies; that is to say, they are wanderers, thieves, fortune-tellers, and minstrels. The Shah-Nameh of Firdusi tells us thatabout the year 420 A. D. , Shankal, the Maharajah of India, sent to BehramGour, a ruler of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia, ten thousand minstrels, male and female, called _Lüri_. Though lands were allotted to them, withcorn and cattle, they became from the beginning irreclaimable vagabonds. Of their descendants, as they now exist, Sir Henry Pottinger says:—

“They bear a marked affinity to the Gipsies of Europe. ” [“Travels inBeloochistan and Scinde, ” p. 153. ] “They speak a dialect peculiar tothemselves, have a king to each troupe, and are notorious for kidnappingand pilfering. Their principal pastimes are drinking, dancing, andmusic. . . . They are invariably attended by half a dozen of bears andmonkeys that are broken in to perform all manner of grotesque tricks. Ineach company there are always two or three members who profess . . . Modes of divining which procure them a ready admission into everysociety. ” This account, especially with the mention of trained bears andmonkeys, identifies them with the Ricinari, or bear-leading Gipsies ofSyria (also called Nuri), Turkey, and Roumania. A party of these latelycame to England. We have seen these Syrian Ricinari in Egypt. They areunquestionably Gipsies, and it is probable that many of them accompaniedthe early migration of Jats and Doms. 

The following is the description of another low-caste, wandering tribe ofIndians, taken from “The People of India, ” called “Sanseeas, ” vagrants ofno particular creed, and make their head-quarters near Delhi. Theeditor, speaking of this tribe, says that they have been vagrants fromthe earliest periods of Indian history. They may have accompanied Aryanimmigrants or invaders, or they may have risen out of aboriginal tribes;but whatever their origin, they have not altered in any respect, andcontinue to prey upon its population as they have ever done, and willcontinue to do as long as they are in existence, unless they are forciblyrestrained by our Government and converted, as the Thugs have been, intouseful members of society. 

They are essentially outcasts, admitted to no other caste fellowship, ministered to by no priests, without any ostensible calling orprofession, totally ignorant of everything but their hereditary crime, and with no settled place of residence whatever; they wander as theyplease over the land, assuming any disguise they may need, and for everpreying upon the people. When they are not engaged in acts of crime, they are beggars, assuming various religious forms, or affecting the mostabject poverty. The women and children have the true whine of theprofessional mendicant, as they frequent thronged bazaars, receivingcharity and stealing what they can. They sell mock baubles in someinstances, but only as a cloak to other enterprises, and as a pretence ofan honest calling. The men are clever at assuming disguises; and beingoften intelligent and even polite in their demeanour, can becomereligious devotees, travelling merchants, or whatever they need tofurther their ends. They are perfectly unscrupulous and very daring intheir proceedings. The Sanseeas are not only Thugs and Dacoits, butkidnappers of children, and in particular of female children, who arereadily sold even at very tender ages to be brought up as householdslaves, or to be educated by professional classes for the purpose ofprostitution. These crimes are the peculiar offence of the women membersof the tribe. Generally a few families in company wander over the wholeof Northern India, but are also found in the Deccan, sometimes bythemselves, sometimes in association with Khimjurs, or a class ofDacoits, called Mooltanes. It is, perhaps, a difficult question forGovernment to deal with, but it is not impossible, as the Thugs have beenemployed in useful and profitable arts, and thus reclaimed from pursuitsin which they have never known in regard to others the same instincts ofhumanity which exist among ourselves. Sanseeas have as many wives andconcubines as they can support. Some of the women are good-looking, butwith all classes, women and men, exists an appearance of suspicion intheir features which is repulsive. They are, as a class, in a conditionof miserable poverty, living from hand to mouth, idle, disreputable, restless, without any settled homes, and for the most part without evenhabitations. They have no distinct language of their own, but speak adialect of Rajpootana, which is disguised by slang or _argot_ terms oftheir own that is unintelligible to other classes. In “The People ofIndia” mention is made of another class of wandering Indians, calledNuts, or Nâths, who correspond to the European Gipsy tribes, and likethese, have no settled home. They are constant thieves. The men areclever as acrobats. The women attend their performances, and sing orplay on native drums or tambourines. The Nuts do not mix with orintermarry with other tribes. They live for the most part in tents madeof black blanket stuff, and move from village to village through allparts of the country. They are as a marked race, and generallydistrusted wherever they go. 

They are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, fortune-tellers, blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They eat everything, exceptgarlic. There are also in India the Banjari, who are spoken of bytravellers as “Gipsies. ” They are travelling merchants or pedlars. Among all of these wanderers there is a current slang of the roads, as inEngland. This slang extends even into Persia. Each tribe has its own, but the general name for it is _Rom_. 

It has never been pointed out, however, that there is in Northern andCentral India a distinct tribe, which is regarded even by the Nats andDoms and Jats themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly Gipsy. “We havemet, ” says one writer, “in London with a poor Mohammedan Hindu ofCalcutta. This man had in his youth lived with these wanderers, andbeen, in fact, one of them. He had also, as is common with intelligentMohammedans, written his autobiography, embodying in it a vocabulary ofthe Indian Gipsy language. This MS. Had unfortunately been burned by hisEnglish wife, who informed the writer that she had done so ‘because shewas tired of seeing a book lying about which she could not understand. ’With the assistance of an eminent Oriental scholar who is perfectlyfamiliar with both Hindustani and Romany, this man was carefullyexamined. He declared that these were the real Gipsies of India, ‘likeEnglish Gipsies here. ’ ‘People in India called them Trablus or Syrians, a misapplied word, derived from a town in Syria, which in turn bears theArabic name for Tripoli. But they were, as he was certain, pure Hindus, and not Syrian Gipsies. They had a peculiar language, and called boththis tongue and themselves _Rom_. In it bread was called Manro. ’ Manrois all over Europe the Gipsy word for _bread_. In English Romany it issoftened into _maro_ or _morro_. Captain Burton has since informed usthat _manro_ is the Afghan word for bread; but this our ex-Gipsy did notknow. He merely said that he did not know it in any Indian dialectexcept that of the Rom, and that Rom was the general slang of the road, derived, as he supposed, from the Trablus. ”

These are, then, the very Gipsies of Gipsies in India. They are thieves, fortune-tellers, and vagrants. But whether they have or had anyconnection with the migration to the West we cannot establish. Theirlanguage and their name would seem to indicate it; but then it must beborne in mind that the word Rom, like Dom, is one of wide dissemination, Dom being a Syrian Gipsy word for the race. And the very great majorityof even English Gipsy words are Hindu, with an admixture of Persian, andnot belonging to a slang of any kind. As in India, _churi_ is a knife, _nak_, the nose, _balia_, hairs, and so on, with others which would beamong the first to be furnished with slang equivalents. And yet thesevery Gipsies are _Rom_, and the wife is a _Romni_, and they use wordswhich are not Hindu in common with European Gipsies. It is therefore notimprobable that in these Trablus, so called through popular ignorance, asthey are called Tartars in Egypt and Germany, we have a portion at leastof the real stock. It is to be desired that some resident in India wouldinvestigate the Trablus. 

Grellmann in his German treatise on Gipsies, says:—“They are lively, uncommonly loquacious and chattering, fickle in the extreme, consequentlyinconstant in their pursuits, faithless to everybody, even their own kithand kin, void of the least emotion of gratitude, frequently rewardingbenefits with the most insidious malice. Fear makes them slavishlycompliant when under subjection, but having nothing to apprehend, likeother timorous people, they are cruel. Desire of revenge often causesthem to take the most desperate resolutions. To such a degree ofviolence is their fury sometimes excited, that a mother has been known inthe excess of passion to take her small infant by the feet, and therewithstrike the object of her anger. They are so addicted to drinking as tosacrifice what is most necessary to them that they may feast theirpalates with ardent spirits. Nothing can exceed the unrestraineddepravity of manners existing among them. Unchecked by any idea of shamethey give way to every libidinous desire. The mother endeavours by themost scandalous arts to train up her daughter for an offering tosensuality, and she is scarcely grown up before she becomes the seducerof others. Laziness is so prevalent among them that were they to subsistby their own labour only, they would hardly have bread for two of theseven days in the week. This indolence increases their propensity tostealing and cheating. They seek to avail themselves of everyopportunity to satisfy their lawless desires. Their universal badcharacter, therefore, for fickleness, infidelity, ingratitude, revenge, malice, rage, depravity, laziness, knavery, thievishness, and cunning, though not deficient in capacity and cleverness, renders them people ofno use in society. The boys will run like wild things after carrion, letit stink ever so much, and where a mortality happens among the cattle, there these wretched creatures are to be found in the greatest numbers. ”

So devilish are their hearts, deep-rooted their revenge, and violenttheir language under its impulse, that it is woe to the man who comeswithin their clutches, if he does not possess an amount of tactsufficient to cope with them. A man who desires to tackle the Gipsiesmust have his hands out of his pockets, “all his buttons on, ” “his headscrewed upon the right place, ” and no fool, or he will be swamped beforehe leaves the place. This I experienced myself a week or two since. During the months of November and December of last year, my friend, the_Illustrated London News_, had a number of faithful sketches showingGipsy life round London; these, it seems, with the truthful description Ihave given of the Gipsies, in my letters, papers, &c. , encouraged by theuntruthful, silly, and unwise remarks of a clergyman, not overdone withtoo much wisdom and common sense, residing in the neighbourhood of N---Hill, seemed to have raised the ire of the Gipsies in the neighbour hoodof L--- Road (I will not go so far as to say that the minister of ChristChurch did it designedly, if he did, and with the idea of stopping thework of education among the Gipsy children—it is certain that thisfarthing rushlight has mistaken his calling) to such an extent that afriend wrote to me, stating that the next time I went to theneighbourhood of N--- Hill I “must look out for a warm reception, ” towhich I replied, that “the sooner I had it the better, and I would go forit in a day or two;” accordingly I went, believing in the old Book, “Resist the devil and he will flee from thee. ” Upon my first approachtowards them, I was met with sour looks, scowls, and not over politelanguage, but with a little pleasantry, chatting, and a few littlethings, such as Christmas cards, oranges to give to the children, the sunbegan to beam upon their countenances, and all passed off with smiles, good humour, and shakes of the hands, till I came to a man who had thecolour and expression upon his face of his satanic majesty from theregions below. It took me all my time to smile and say kind things whilehe was pacing up and down opposite his tent, with his hands clenched, hiseye like fire, step quick, reminding me of Indian revenge. He wasspeaking out in no unmistakable language, “I should like to see you hunglike a toad by the neck till you are dead, that I should, and I mean itfrom my heart. ” When I asked him to point out anything I had said ordone that was not correct, he was in a fix, and all he could say was, that “I would be likely to stop his game. ” Every now and then he wouldthrust his hands into his pockets, as if feeling for his clasp-knife, andthen again, occasionally, he would give a shrug of the shoulders, as ifhe felt not at all satisfied. I felt in my pocket, and opened my smallpenknife. I thought it might do a little service in case he should“close in upon me. ” Just to feel his pulse, and set his heart a beating, I told him, good-humouredly, that “I was not afraid of half-a-dozenbetter men than he was if they would come one at a time, but did notthink I could tackle them all at once. ” This caused him to open his eyeswider than I had seen them before, as if in wonder and amazement at thekind of fellow he had come in contact with. I told him I was afraid thathe would find me a queer kind of customer. Gipsies as a rule arecowards, and this feature I could see in his actions and countenance. However, after talking matters over for some time we parted friends, feeling thankful that the storm had abated. 

The Gipsies plan of attacking a house, town, city, or country for thesake of pillage, plunder, and gain remains the same to-day as it dideight centuries ago. They do not generally resort to open violence asthe brigands of Spain, Turkey and other parts of the East. They followout an organised system, at least, they go to work upon different lines. In the first place, they send a kind of advance-guard to find out wherethe loot and soft hearts lay and the weaknesses of those who hold them, and when this has been done they bring all the arts their evildisposition can devise to bear upon the weak points till they aresuccessful. When Mahmood was returning with his victorious army from thewar in the eleventh century with the spoils and plunder of war upon theirbacks, and while the soldiers were either lain down to rest or alluredaway with the Gipsy girls’ “witching eyes, ” the old Gipsies, numberingsome hundreds, who where camping in the neighbourhood, bolted off withtheir war prizes; this so enraged Mahmood, after finding out that he hadbeen sold by a lot of low-caste Indians or Gipsies, that he sent his armyafter them and slew the whole band of these wandering Indians. 

[Picture: A gentleman gipsy’s tent, and his dog, “Grab, ” Hackney Marshes]

Sometimes they will put on a hypocritical air of religious sanctity; atother times they will dress their prettiest girls in Oriental finery andgaudy colours on purpose to catch the unwary; at other times they willtry to lay hold of the sympathic by sending out their old women andtottering men dressed in rags; and at other times they will endeavour tolay hold of the benevolent by sending out women heavily laden withbabies, and in this way they have Gipsyised and are still Gipsyising ourown country from the time they landed in Scotland in the year 1514, untilthey besieged London now more than two centuries ago, planting theirencampments in the most degraded parts on the outskirts of our greatcity; and this holds good of them even to this day. They are never to beseen living in the throng of a town or in the thick of a fight. Insketching the plan of campaigning for the day, the girls with pretty“everlasting flowers” go in one direction, the women with babies tacklethe tradesmen and householders by selling skewers, clothes-pegs, andother useful things, but in reality to beg, and the old women with theassistance of the servant girls face the brass knockers through the backkitchen. The men are all this time either loitering about the tents orskulking down the lanes spotting out their game for the night, with theirlurcher dogs at their heels. Thus the Gipsy lives and thus the Gipsydies, and is buried like a dog; his tent destroyed, and his soul flown toanother world to await the reckoning day. He can truthfully say as heleaves his tenement of clay behind, “No man careth for my soul. ” CharlesWesley, no doubt, in his day, had seen vast numbers of these wanderingEnglish heathens in various parts of the country as he travelled about onhis missionary tour, and it is not at all improbable but that they werein his mind when those soul-inspiring, elevating, and tear-fetching lineswere penned by him in 1748, and first published by subscription in his“Hymns and Sacred Poems, ” 2 vols. , 1749, the profits of which enabled himto get a wife and set up housekeeping on his own account at Bristol. They are words that have healed thousands of broken hearts, fixed thehopes of the downcast on heaven, and sent the sorrowful on his wayrejoicing; and they are words that will live as long as there is aMethodist family upon earth to lisp its song of triumph. 

 “Come on, my partners in distress, My comrades through the wilderness, Who still your bodies feel; A while forget your griefs and fears, And look beyond this vale of tears, To that celestial hill. 

 “Beyond the bounds of time and space, Look forward to that heavenly place, The saints’ secure abode; On faith’s strong eagle-pinions rise, And force your passage to the skies, And scale the mount of God. 

 “Who suffer with our Master here, We shall before His face appear, And by His side sit down; To patient faith the prize is sure; And all that to the end endure The cross, shall wear the crown. ”

It is impossible to give anything like a correct number of Gipsies thatare outside Europe. Many travellers have attempted to form some idea ofthe number, and have come to the conclusion that there were not less than3, 000 families in Persia in 1856, and in 1871 there were not less than67, 000 Gipsies in Armenia and Asiatic Turkey. In Egypt of one tribe onlythere are 16, 000. With regard to the number of Gipsies there are inAmerica no one has been able to compute; but by this time the number mustbe considerable, for stragglers have been wending their way there fromEngland, Europe, and other parts of the world for some time. 

Mikliosch, in 1878, stated that there are not less than 700, 000 inEurope. Turkey, previous to the war with Russia, 104, 750, Bosnia andHerzegovina in 1874 contained 9, 537. Servia in 1874 had 24, 691; in 1873Montenegro had 500, and in Roumania there are at the present time from200, 000 to 300, 000. According to various official estimates in Austriathere are about 10, 000, and in 1846 Bohemia contained 13, 500, and Hungary159, 000. In Transylvania in 1850 there were 78, 923, and in Hungaryproper there were in 1864, 36, 842. In Spain there are 40, 000; in Francefrom 3, 000 to 6, 000; in Germany and Italy, 34, 000; Scandinavia, 1, 500; inRussia they numbered in 1834, 48, 247, exclusive of Polish Gipsies. Tenyears later they numbered 1, 427, 539, and in 1877 the number is given as11, 654. It seems somewhat strange that the number of Gipsies should bein 1844, 1, 427, 539, and thirty-five years later the number should havebeen reduced to 11, 654. Presuming these figures to be correct, thequestion arises, What has become of the 1, 415, 885 during the lastthirty-five years?

As regards the number of Gipsies in England, Hoyland in his day, 1816, calculated that there were between 15, 000 and 18, 000, and goes on to saythis:—“It has come to the knowledge of the writer what foundation therehas been for the report commonly circulated that a member of Parliamenthad stated in the House of Commons, when speaking on some questionrelating to Ireland, that there were not less than 36, 000 Gipsies inGreat Britain. 

“To make up such an aggregate the numerous hordes must have been includedwho traverse most of the nation with carts and asses for the sale ofearthenware, and live out of doors great part of the year, after themanner of the Gipsies. These potters, as they are commonly called, acknowledge that Gipsies have intermingled with them, and their habitsare very similar. They take their children along with them on travel, and, like the Gipsies, regret that they are without education. ” Mr. Hoyland says that he endeavoured to obtain the number of pot-hawkingfamilies of this description who visited the earthenware manufactories atTunstall, Burslem, Longport, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Fenton, Longton, andother places in Staffordshire, but without success. 

Borrow, in his time, 1843, put the number as upwards of 10, 000. The lastcensus shows that there were under 4, 000; but then it should be borne inmind that the Gipsies decidedly objected to their numbers being taken. Their reason for taking this step and putting obstacles in the way of thecensus-takers has never been stated, except that they looked upon it witha superstitious regard and dislike, the same as they look uponphotographers, painters, and artists, as kind of _Bengaw_, for whom Gipsymodels will sit for _soonakei_, _Roopeno_, or even a _posh-hovi_. Theytold me that during the day the census was taken they made it a point toalways be upon the move, and skulking about in the dark. The censusreturns for the number of canal-boatmen gives under 12, 000. The Duke ofRichmond stated in the House of Lords, August 8, 1877, that there werebetween 29, 000 and 80, 000 canal boatmen. The number I published in thedaily papers in 1873, viz. , 100, 000 men, women, and children is beingverified as the Canal Boats Act is being put into operation. 

At a pretty good rough estimate I reckon there are at least from 15, 000to 20, 000 Gipsies in the United Kingdom. Apart from London, if I maytake ten of the Midland counties as a fair average, there are close upon3, 000 Gipsy families living in tents and vans in the by-lanes, andattending fairs, shows, &c. ; and providing there are only man, wife, andfour children connected with each charmless, cheerless, wretched abodescalled domiciles, this would show us 18, 000; and judging from my owninquiries and observation, and also from the reliable statements ofothers who have mixed among them, there are not less than 2, 000 on theoutskirts of London in various nooks, corners, and patches of openspaces. Thus it will be seen, according to this statement, we shall have1, 000 Gipsies for every 1, 750, 000 of the inhabitants in our great London;and this proportion will be fully borne out throughout the rest of thecountry; so taking either the Midland counties or London as an average, we arrive at pretty much the same number—_i. E. _, 15, 000 to 20, 000 in ourmidst, and moving about from place to place. Upon Leicester Race Course, at the last races, I counted upwards of ninety tents, vans, and shows;connected with each there would be an average of man, woman, and threechildren. A considerable number of Gipsies would also be at Nottingham, for the Goose Fair was on about the same time. One gentleman tells methat he has seen as many as 5, 000 Gipsies collected together at one timein the North of England. 

Of this 20, 000, 19, 500 cannot read a sentence and write a letter. Thehighest state of their education is to make crosses, signs, and symbols, and to ask people to tell them the names of the streets, and read themile-posts for them. The full value of money they know perfectly well. Out of this 20, 000 there will be 8, 000 children of school age loiteringabout the tents and camps, and not learning a single letter in thealphabet. The others mostly will tell you that they have “finished theireducation, ” and when questioned on the point and asked to put threeletters together, you put them into a corner, and they are as dumb asmutes. Of the whole number of Gipsy children probably a few hundredsmight be attending Sunday-schools, and picking up a few crumbs ofeducation in this way. Then, again, we have some 1, 500 to 2, 000 familiesof our own countrymen travelling about the country with their familiesselling hardware and other goods, from Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, the Staffordshire potteries, and other manufacturingtowns, from London, Liverpool, Nottingham, and other places, the childrenrunning wild and forgetting in the summer, as a show-woman told me, thelittle education they receive in the winter. 

Caravans will be moving about in our midst with “fat babies, ” “wax-workmodels, ” “wonders of the age, ” “the greatest giant in the world, ” “aliving skeleton, ” “the smallest man alive, ” “menageries, ” “wild beastshows, ” “rifle galleries, ” and like things connected with these caravans;there will be families of children, none of whom, or at any rate but veryfew of them, are receiving an education and attending any school, andliving together regardless of either sex or age, in one small van. Inaddition to these, we have some 3, 000 or 4, 000 children of school age “onthe road” tramping with their parents, who sleep in commonlodging-houses, and who might be brought under educational supervision onthe plan I shall suggest later on in this book. Altogether, with theGipsies, we have a population of over 30, 000 outside our educational andsanitary laws, fast drifting into a state of savagery and barbarism, withour hands tied behind us, and unable to render them help. 

 “I was a bruised reed Pluck’d from the common corn, Play’d on, rude-handled, worn, And flung aside, aside. ”

 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 fortyyears ago, I remember most vividly that the popular song of the_employés_ of that day was

 “When lads and lasses 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 insinging these lines was always looked upon as a “stupid donkey, ” and theconsequence was that upon all occasions, when excitement was needed as awhip, they were “struck up;” especially would it be the case when thelimbs of the little brick and clay carrier began to totter and were“fagging up. ” When the task-master perceived the “gang” had begun to“slinker” he would shout out at the top of his voice, “Now, lads andwenches, 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 towonder what “gipsying” meant. Somehow or other I imagined that it wasconnected with fortune-telling, thieving and stealing in one form orother, especially as the lads used to sing it with “gusto” when they hadbeen robbing the potato field to have “a potato fuddle, ” while they were“oven tenting” in the night time. Roasted potatoes and cold turnips werealways looked upon as a treat for the “brickies. ” I have often vowed andsaid 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 Ihave been like the horse that shies at them as they camp in the ditchbank, half frightened out of my wits, and felt anxious to know eithermore or less of them. From the days when carrying clay and loadingcanal-boats was my toil and “gipsying” my song, scarcely a week haspassed without the words

 “When lads and lasses 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. Inmeditation and solitude; by night and by day; at the top of the hill, anddown deep in the dale; in the throng and battle of life; at the deathbedscene; through evil report and good report these words, “In the days wewent a-gipsying, ” were ever and anon at my tongue’s end. The other partof the song I quickly forgot, but these words have stuck to me eversince. On purpose to try to find out what fortune-telling was, when inmy teens I used to walk after working hours from Tunstall to Fenton, adistance of six miles, to see “old Elijah Cotton, ” a well-known characterin the Potteries, who got his living by it, to ask him all sorts ofquestions. Sometimes he would look at my hands, at other times he wouldput 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 theother hand had to rest upon a particular passage or verse; at other timeshe would give me some of this yellow-looking stuff in a small paper towear against my left breast, and some I had to burn exactly as the clockstruck twelve at night, under the strictest secrecy. The stories thisfortune-teller used to relate to me as to his wonderful power over thespirits of the other world were very amusing, aye, and over “the men andwomen of this generation. ” He was frequently telling me that he had“fetched men from Manchester in the dead of the night flying through theair in the course of an hour;” and this kind of rubbish he used to relateto those who paid him their shillings and half-crowns to have theirfortunes told. My visits lasted for a little time till he told me thathe could do nothing more, as I was “not one of his sort. ” Like Thomascalled Didymus, “hard of belief. ” Except an occasional glance at theGipsies as I have passed them on the road-side, the subject has beenallowed to rest until the commencement of last year, when I mentioned thematter to my friends, who, in reply, said I should find it a difficulttask; this had the effect of causing a little hesitation to come over mysensibilities, and in this way, between hesitation and doubt, matterswent on till one day in July last year, when the voice of Providence andthe wretched condition of the Gipsy children seemed to speak to me inlanguage that I thought it would be perilous to disregard. On my returnhome one evening I found a lot of Gipsies in the streets; it struck mevery forcibly that the time for action had now arrived, and with thisview in mind I asked Moses Holland—for that was his name, and he was theleader of the gang—to call into my house for some knives which requiredgrinding, and while his mate was grinding the knives, for which I had topay two shillings, I was getting all the information I could out of himabout the Gipsy children—this with some additional information given tome 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 ofthe Children from the Brick-yards of England, ” brought forth my firstletter upon the condition of the poor Gipsy children as it appeared inthe _Standard_, _Daily Chronicle_, and nearly every other daily paper onAugust 14th of last year:—“Some years since my attention was drawn to thecondition of these poor neglected children, of whom there are manyfamilies eking out an existence in the Leicestershire, Derbyshire, andStaffordshire lanes. Two years since a pitiful appeal was made in one ofour local papers asking me to take up the cause of the poor Gipsychildren; but I have deferred doing so till now, hoping that some onewith time and money at his disposal would come to the rescue. Sir, a fewweeks since our legislators took proper steps to prevent the maiming ofthe little show children, who are put through excruciating practices toplease a British public, and they would have done well at the same timeif they had taken steps to prevent the warping influence of a vagrant’slife having its full force upon the tribes of little Gipsy children, dwelling in calico tents, within the sound of church bells—if livingunder the body of an old cart, protected by patched coverlets, can becalled living in tents—on the roadside in the midst of grass, sticks, stones, and mud; and they would have done well also if they had put outtheir hand to rescue from idleness, ignorance, and heathenism ourroadside arabs, _i. E. _, the children living in vans, and who attendfairs, wakes, &c. Recently I came across some of these wandering tribes, and the following facts gleaned from them will show that missionaries andschoolmasters have not done much for them. Moses Holland, who has been aGipsy nearly all his life, says he knows about two hundred and fiftyfamilies of Gipsies in ten of the Midland counties and thinks that asimilar proportion will be found in the rest of the United Kingdom. Hehas 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 hasseen as many as ten or twelve children in some tents, and not many ofthem able to read or write. His child of six months old—with his wifeill at the same time in the tent—sickened, died, and was ‘laid out’ byhim, and it was also buried out of one of those wretched abodes on theroadside at Barrow-upon-Soar, last January. When the poor thing died hehad not sixpence in his pocket. In shaking hands with him as we partedhis face beamed with gladness, and he said that I was the first who hadheld out the hand to him during the last twenty years. At another timelater on I came across Bazena Clayton, who said that she had had sixteenchildren, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in aroadside 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, nearAshby-de-la-Zouch. This poor woman knows about three hundred families ofGipsies in eleven of the Midland and Eastern counties, and has herself, so she says, four lots of Gipsies travelling in Lincolnshire at thepresent time. She said she could not read herself, and thinks that notone 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 fifteenchildren, all of whom were born in a tent. A Gipsy lives, but one canscarcely tell how; they generally locate for a time near hen-roosts, potato-camps, turnip-fields, and game-preserves. They sell a fewclothes-lines and clothes-pegs, but they seldom use such thingsthemselves. Washing would destroy their beauty. Telling fortunes toservant girls and old maids is a source of income to some of them. Theysleep, but in many instances lie crouched together, like so many dogs, regardless of either sex or age. They have blood, bone, muscle, andbrains, which are applied in many instances to wrong purposes. To havebetween three and four thousand men and women, and fifteen thousandchildren classed in the census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming allover the country, in ignorance and evil training, that carries peril withit, is not a pleasant look-out for the future; and I claim on the groundsof justice and equity, that if these poor children, living in vans andtents and under old carts, are to be allowed to live in these places, they shall be registered in a manner analogous to the Canal Boats Act of1877, so that the children may be brought under the Compulsory Clauses ofthe Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised as otherchildren. ”

The foregoing letter, as it appeared in the _Standard_, brought forth thefollowing leading article upon the subject the following day, August15th, in which the writer says:—“We yesterday published a letter from Mr. George Smith, whose efforts to ameliorate and humanise the floating andtransitory population of our canals and navigable rivers have alreadyborne good fruit, in which he calls attention to the deserted and almosthopeless lot of English Gipsy children. Moses Holland—the Hollands are aGipsy family almost as old as the Lees or the Stanleys, and a Hollandalways holds high rank among the ‘Romany’ folk—assures Mr. Smith that inten of the Midland counties he knows some two hundred and fifty familiesof Gipsies, and that none of their children can read or write. BazenaClayton, an old lady of caste, almost equal to that of a Lee or aHolland, confirms the story. She has lived in tents all her life. Shewas born in a tent, married from a tent, has brought up a family ofsixteen children, more or less, under the same friendly shelter, andexpects to breathe her last in a tent. That she can neither read norwrite goes without saying; although doubtless she knows well enough howto ‘kair her patteran, ’ or to make that strange cross in the dust which atrue Gipsy alway leaves behind him at his last place of sojourn, as amark for those of his tribe who may come upon his track. ‘Patteran, ’ itmay be remarked, is an almost pure Sanscrit word cognate with our own‘path;’ and the least philological raking among the chaff of the Gipsydialect will show their secret _argot_ to be, as Mr. Leland calls it, ‘acurious old tongue, not merely allied to Sanscrit, but perhaps in pointof age an elder though vagabond sister or cousin of that ancientlanguage. ’ No Sanscrit or even Greek scholar can fail to be struck bythe fact that, in the Gipsy tongue, a road is a ‘drum, ’ to see is to‘dicker, ’ to get or take to ‘lell, ’ and to go to ‘jall;’ or, afterinstances so pregnant, to agree with Professor von Kogalnitschan that ‘itis interesting to be able to study a Hindu dialect in the heart ofEurope. ’ Mr. Smith, however, being a philanthropist rather than aphilologist, takes another view of the question. His anxiety is to seethe Gipsies—and especially the Gipsy children—reclaimed. ‘A Gipsy, ’ hereminds us, ‘lives, but one can scarcely tell how; they generally locatefor a time near hen-roosts, potato-camps, turnip-fields, andgame-preserves. They sell a few clothes-lines and clothes-pegs; but theySeldom use such things themselves. Washing would destroy their beauty. . . To have between three and four thousand men and women, and eight orten thousand children, classed in the census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming all over the country in ignorance and evil training, is not apleasant look-out for the future; and I claim that if these poorchildren, living in vans and tents and under old carts, are to be allowedto live in these places, they shall be registered in a manner analogousto the Canal Boats Act, so that the children may be brought under theEducation Acts, and become Christianised and civilised. ’

“Mr. Smith, it is to be feared, hardly appreciates the insuperabledifficulty of the task he proposes. The true Gipsy is absolutelyirreclaimable. He was a wanderer and a vagabond upon the face of theearth before the foundations of Mycenæ were laid or the plough drawn tomark out the walls of Rome; and such as he was four thousand years ago ormore, such he still remains, speaking the same tongue, leading the samelife, cherishing the same habits, entertaining the same wholesome orunwholesome hatred of all civilisation, and now, as then, utterly devoidof even the simplest rudiments of religious belief. His whole attitudeof 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 theRomany folk first began their wanderings, the ‘Gorgios’ were not—as thename would seem to indicate—the farmers or permanent population of theearth; and whether the nomad Gipsy may not still hate the ‘Gorgio’ asmuch as Cain hated Abel, Ishmael Isaac, and Esau Jacob. Certain in anycase it is that the Gipsy, however civilised he may appear, remains, asMr. Leland describes him, ‘a character so entirely strange, so utterly atvariance with our ordinary conceptions of humanity, that it is noexaggeration whatever to declare that it would be a very difficult taskfor the best writer to convey to the most intelligent reader any idea ofsuch a nature. ’ The true Gipsy is, to begin with, as devoid ofsuperstition as of religion. He has no belief in another world, no fearof a future state, nor hope for it, no supernatural object of eitherworship or dread—nothing beyond a few old stories, some Pagan, someChristian, which he has picked up from time to time, and to which heholds—much as a child holds to its fairy tales—uncritically andindifferently. Ethical distinctions are as unknown to him as to a kittenor a magpie. He is kindly by nature, and always anxious to please thosewho treat him well, and to win their affection. But the distinctionbetween affection and esteem is one which he cannot fathom; and theprecise shade of _meum_ and _tuum_ is as absolutely unintelligible to himas was the Hegelian antithesis between _nichts_ and _seyn_ to the lateMr. John Stuart Mill. To make the true Gipsy we have only to add to thisan absolute contempt for all that constitutes civilisation. The Gipsyfeels a house, or indeed anything at all approaching to the idea of apermanent dwelling, to amount to a positive restraint upon his liberty. He can live on hedgehog and acorns—though he may prefer a fowl andpotatoes not strictly his own. Wherever a hedge gives shelter he willroll himself up and sleep. And it is possibly because he has no propertyof his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property inothers. But above all, his tongue—the weird, corrupt, barbarous Sanscrit‘patter’ or ‘jib, ’ known only to himself and to those of his blood—is thekeynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that has been madeto fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to ‘Gorgios’—afew experts such as Mr. Borrow alone excepted. But wherever the trueGipsy 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 EnglishMidlands, and make his ‘rukkerben’ at once easily understood. Nor isthis all, for there are certain strange old Gipsy customs which stillconstitute a freemasonry. The marriage rites of Gipsies are a definiteand very significant ritual. Their funeral ceremonies are equallyremarkable. Not being allowed to burn their dead, they still burn thedead man’s clothes and all his small property, while they mourn for himby abstaining—often for years—from something of which he was fond, and bytaking the strictest care never to even mention his name. 

“What are we to do with children in whom these strange habits andbeliefs, or rather wants of belief, are as much part of their nature asis their physical organisation? Darwin has told us how, aftergenerations had passed, the puppy with a taint of the wolf’s blood in itwould never come straight to its master’s feet, but always approach himin a semicircle. Not Kuhleborhn nor Undine herself is less susceptibleof alien culture than the pure-blooded Gipsy. We can domesticate thegoose, we can tame the goldfinch and the linnet; but we shall neverreclaim the guinea-fowl, or accustom the swallow to a cage. Teach theGipsy to read, or even to write; he remains a Gipsy still. His love ofwandering is as keen as is the instinct of a migratory bird for itsannual passage; and exactly as the prisoned cuckoo of the first year willbeat itself to death against its bars when September draws near, so theGipsy, even when most prosperous, will never so far forsake thetraditions of his tribe as to stay long in any one place. His mind isnot as ours. A little of our civilisation we can teach him, and he willlearn it, as he may learn to repeat by rote the signs of the zodiac orthe multiplication table, or to use a table napkin, or to decorouslydispose of the stones in a cherry tart. But the lesson sits lightly onhim, and he remains in heart as irreclaimable as ever. Already, indeed, our Gipsies are leaving us. They are not dying out, it is true. Theyare 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 alwaysand 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 Atlanticyears 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 longerpure and simple vagrants. They are tinkers, or scissor-grinders, orbasket-makers, or travel from fair to fair with knock-’em-downs, or riflegalleries, or itinerant shows. Often they have some ostensible place ofresidence. But they preserve their inner life as carefully as the Jewsin Spain, under the searching persecution of the Inquisition, preservedtheir faith for generation upon generation; and even now it is a beliefthat when, for the sake of some small kindness or gratuity, a Gipsy womanhas allowed her child to be baptised, she summons her friends, andattempts to undo the effect of the ceremony by subjecting the infant tosome weird, horrible incantation of Eastern origin, the original importof which is in all probability a profound mystery to her. There is aquaint story of a Yorkshire Gipsy, a prosperous horse-dealer, who, becoming wealthy, came up to town, and, amongst other sights, was shown agoldsmith’s window. His sole remark was that the man must be a big thiefindeed to have so many spoons and watches all at once. The expression ofopinion was as naïve and artless as that of Blucher, when observing thatLondon was a magnificent city ‘for to sack. ’ Mr. Smith’s benevolentintentions speak for themselves. But if he hopes to make the Gipsy everother than a Gipsy, to transform the Romany into a Gorgio, of to alterhabits of life and mind which have remained unchanged for centuries, hemust be singularly sanguine, and must be somewhat too disposed tooverlook the marvellously persistent influences of race and tongue. ”

Rather than the cause of the children should suffer by presenting garbledor one-sided statements, I purpose quoting the letters and articles uponthe subject as they have appeared. To do otherwise would not be fair tothe authors or just to the cause I have in hand. The flatteringallusions 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 pass over them as thoughsuch compliments were not there. The following are some of the lettersthat have appeared in the _Standard_ in reply to mine of the 14thinstant. “B. B. ” writes on August 16th:—“Would you allow an Irish Gipsyto express his views touching George Smith’s letter of this date in yourpaper? Without in the least desiring to warp his efforts to improve anyof his fellow-creatures, it seems to me that the poor Gipsy calls formuch less sympathy, as regards his moral and social life, than morefavoured classes of the community. Living under the body of an old cart, ‘within the sound of church bells, ’ in the midst of grass, sticks, andstones, by no means argues moral degradation; and if your correspondentlooks up our criminal statistics he will not find one Gipsy registeredfor every five hundred criminals who have not only been within hearing ofthe church bells but also listening to the preacher’s voice. It shouldbe remembered that the poor Gipsy fulfils a work which is a very greatconvenience to dwellers in out-of-the-way places—brushes, baskets, tubs, clothes-stops, and a host of small commodities, in themselves apparentlyinsignificant, but which enable this tribe to eke out a living whichcompares very favourably with the hundreds of thousands in our largecities who set the laws of the land as well as the laws of decency atdefiance. As to education—well, let them get it, if possible; but itwill be found they possess, as a rule, sufficient intelligence todischarge the duties of farm-labourers; and already they are beginning tosupply a felt want to the agriculturist whose educated assistant leaveshim 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 iskindly 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 myown family, although it happened long, long ago. The Boswell tribe ofGipsies used to encamp once a year near the village in which mygrandfather (my mother’s father), who was a miller and farmer, lived; andthere grew up a very kindly feeling between the head of the tribe and mygrandfather and his family. Some of the Gipsies would often call at mygrandfather’s house, where they were always received kindly, and oftenerstill, on business or otherwise, at the mill, to see ‘Pe-tee, ’ as theycalled my grandfather, whose Christian name was Peter. Once upon a timemy grandfather owed a considerable sum of money, and, alas! could not payit; and his wife and children were much distressed. I believe theyfeared he would be arrested. Everything is known in a village; and thenews of what was feared reached the Gipsies. The idea of their friendPe-tee being in such trouble was not borne quietly; the chief and one ortwo more appeared at the farm-house, asking to see my grandmother. Theytold her they had come to pay my grandfather’s debt; ‘he should never bedistressed for the money, ’ they said, ‘as long as they had any. ’ Ibelieve some arrangement had been made about the debt, but neverthelessmy grandmother felt just as grateful for the kindness. The head of thetribe wore guineas instead of buttons to his coat, and when his daughterwas married her dowry was measured in guineas, in a pint measure. Isuppose, as in the old ballad of ‘The Beggar of Bethnal Green, ’ thesuitor would give measure for measure. The villagers all turned out togaze each year when they heard the ‘Boswell gang’ were coming down theone long street; the women of the tribe, fine, bold, handsome-lookingwomen, in ‘black beaver bonnets, with black feathers and red cloaks, ’sometimes quarrelled, and my mother, then a girl, saw the processionseveral times stop in the middle of the village, and two women (sometimesmore) would fall out of the ranks, hand their bonnets to friends, stripoff cloak and gown, and fight in their ‘shift’ sleeves, using their fistslike men. The men of the tribe took no notice, stood quietly about tillthe fight was over, and then the whole bevy passed on to theircamping-ground. My grandfather never passed the tents without calling into see his friends, and it would have been an offence indeed if he hadnot partaken of some refreshment. Two or three times my motheraccompanied him, and whenever and wherever they met her they were alwaysvery kind and respectful to ‘Pe-tee’s little girl. ’ In after years, whenvisiting her native village, she often inquired if it was known what hadbecome of the tribe; at last she heard from some one it was thought theyhad settled in Canada: at any rate they had passed away for ever fromthat part of England. ”

Mr. Leland wrote as follows in the _Standard_, August 19:—“As you havekindly cited my work on the English Gipsies in your article on them, andas 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 everyone to honour, and I for one, honour him most sincerely for his kindwishes to the Romany; but, with all my respect, I do not think heunderstands the travellers, or that they require much aid from the‘Gorgios, ’ being quite capable of looking out for themselves. A _tachoRom_, or real Gipsy, who cannot in an emergency find his ten, or eventwenty, pounds is a very exceptional character. As I have, even within afew days, been in company, and on very familiar footing with a greatnumber of Romanys of different families of the dark blood who spoke the‘jib’ with unusual accuracy, I write under a fresh impression. The Gipsyis almost invariably strong and active, a good rough rider andpedestrian, 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 lifeat best requires great strength and endurance, and this must, of course, be supported by a generous diet. In fact, he lives well, much betterthan the agricultural labourer. Let me explain how this is generallydone. The Gipsy year may be said to begin with the races. Thither thedark 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 balls, which have of late taken theplace of the _koshter_, or sticks. With them go the sorceresses, old andyoung, who pick up money by occasional _dukkerin_, or fortune-telling. Other small callings they also have, not by any means generallydishonest. Wherever there is an open pic-nic on the Thames, or a countryfair, or a regatta at this season, there are Romanys. Sometimes theyappear looking like petty farmers, with a bad, or even a good, horse ortwo for sale. While summer lasts this is the life of the poorer sort. 

“This merry time over, they go to the _Livinengro tem_, orhop-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 thetramps and London poor. Hopping over, they go, almost _en masse_, orwithin a few days, to London to buy French and German baskets, which theyget in Houndsditch. Of late years they send more for the baskets to bedelivered at certain stations. Some of them make baskets themselves verywell, but, as a rule, they prefer to buy them. While the weather is goodthey live by selling baskets, brooms, clothes-lines, and other smallwares. Most families have their regular ‘beats’ or rounds, and confinethemselves to certain districts. In winter the men begin to _chiv thekosh_, or cut wood—_i. E. _, they make butchers’ skewers and clothes-pegs. Even this is not unprofitable, as a family, what between manufacturingand selling them, can earn from twelve to eighteen shillings a week. With this and begging, and occasional jobs of honest hard work which theypick up here and there, they contrive to feed well, find themselves inbeer, 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 Gipsyis camped anywhere, and a hen is missing for miles around, the theft isalways at once attributed to him. The result is that, being sharplylooked after by everybody, and especially by the police, they cannot actlike their ancestors. Their crimes are not generally of a heinousnature. _Chiving a gry_, or stealing a horse, is, I admit, looked uponby them with Yorkshire leniency, nor do they regard stealing wood forfuel as a great sin. In this matter they are subject to greattemptation. 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’ wouldnot be taken in by a Romany _chal_, nor would an old salt who can spinyarns. They enjoy hugely being lied unto, as do all Arabs or Hindus. Like many naughty children, they like successful efforts of theimagination. The old _dyes_, or mothers, are ‘awful beggars, ’ as much byhabit as anything; but they will give as freely as they will take, andtheir guest will always experience Oriental hospitality. They are veryfond of all gentlemen and ladies who take a real interest in them, whounderstand them, and like them. To such people they are even more honestthan they are to one another. But it must be a real _aficion_, not amerely amateur affectation of kindness. Owing to their entire ignoranceof ordinary house and home life, they are like children in many respects, though so shrewd in others. Among the Welsh Gipsies, who are the mostunsophisticated and the most purely Romany, I have met with touchinginstances of gratitude and honesty. The child-like ingenuity which someof them manifested in contriving little gratifications for myself and forProfessor E. H. Palmer, who had been very kind to them, were as naïve asamiable. I have observed that some Gipsies of the more rustic sort lovedto listen to stories, but, like children, they preferred those which theyhad heard several times and learned to like. They knew where the laughought to come in. The Gipsy is both bad and good, but neither his faultsnor his virtues are exactly what they are supposed to be. He iscertainly something of a scamp—and, _nomen est omen_, there is a tribe ofScamps among them—but he is not a bad scamp, and he is certainly a mostamusing and eccentric one. 

“There is not the least use in trying to ameliorate the condition of theGipsy 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 whenhe steals wood or wires a hare. All wrong doubtless; but somethingshould be allowed to one whose ancestors were called ‘dead-meat eaters’in the Shastras. Should the reader wish to reform a Gipsy, let himexplain to the Romany that the days for roaming in England are rapidlypassing away. Tell him that for his children’s sake he had better rent acheap cottage; that his wife can just as well peddle with her basket froma house as from a waggon, and that he can keep a horse and trap and go tothe races or hopping ‘genteely. ’ Point out to him those who have donethe same, and stimulate his ambition and pride. As for suffering as atraveller he does not know it. I once asked a Gipsy girl who was sittingas 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’sarticle on the customs and idiosyncrasies of Gipsies I was struck by thesimilarity they present to many peculiarities I have observed among thePatagonian Indians. To those curious in such matters it may be ofinterest to know that the custom of burning all the goods and chattels ofa deceased member of the tribe prevails among the Patagonians as amongthe Gipsies; and the identity of custom is still further carried out, inasmuch as with the former, as with the latter, the name of the deceasedis never uttered, and all allusion to him is strictly avoided. So muchso, that in those cases when the deceased has borne some cognomen takenfrom familiar objects, such as ‘Knife, ’ ‘Wool, ’ ‘Flint, ’ &c. , the word isno longer used by the tribe, some other sound being substituted instead. This is one of the reasons why the Tshuelche language is constantlyfluctuating, but few of the words expressing a proper meaning, aschronicled by Fitzroy and Darwin (1832), being now in use. ”

The Rev. Mr. Hewett writes to the _Standard_, under date August 19th, tosay that he baptised two Gipsy children in 1871. One might ask, in thelanguage of one of the “Old Book, ” “What are these among so many?” Thefollowing letter from Mr. Harrison upon the subject appeared on August20th:—“I have just returned from the head-quarters of the ScotchGipsies—Yetholm (Kirk), a small village nestling at the foot of theCheviots in Roxburghshire. Here I saw the abode of the Queen, a neatlittle cottage, with well-trimmed garden in front. Inside all was aperfect pattern of neatness, and the old lady herself was as clean ‘as anew pin. ’ As I passed the cottage a carriage and pair drove up, and theoccupants, four ladies, alighted and entered the cottage. I wasafterwards 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 tothe 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 drunkenstate, offering to fight any man. I believe he was subsequently lockedup. In the month of August there are few Gipsies resident in Yetholm:they are generally on their travels selling crockeryware (the countrypeople call the Gipsies ‘muggers, ’ from the fact that they sell mugs), baskets made of rushes, and horn spoons, both of which they manufacturethemselves. I have a distinct recollection of Will Faa, the then King ofthe Gipsies. He was 95 when I knew him, and was lithe and strong. Hehad a keen hawk eye, which was not dimmed at that extreme age. He wasconsidered both a good shot and a famous fisher. There was hardly atrout hole in the Bowmont Water but he knew, and his company used to beeagerly sought by the fly-fishers who came from the South. My opinion ofthe Gipsies—and I have seen much of them during the last forty years—isthat 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 beenmade (more especially by the late Rev. Mr. Baird, of Yetholm), to settlethem, they are irreclaimable. There are but two policemen in Yetholm andKirk Yetholm, but sometimes the assistance of some of the townsfolk isrequired to bring about order in that portion of the village in which theGipsies reside. I may say that the townsfolk do not fraternise with theGipsies, who are regarded with the greatest suspicion by the former. Aska townsman of Yetholm what he thinks of the Gipsies, and he will tell youthey are simply vagabonds and impostors, who lounge about, and smoke, anddrink, and fight. In fact, they are the very scum of the human race;and, what is more singular, they seem quite satisfied to remain as theyare, repudiating every attempt at reformation. ”

“F. G. S. ” writes:—“One of your correspondents suggests that the silenceof the Gipsies concerning their dead is carried so far as to consign themto nameless graves. In my churchyard there is a headstone, ‘to thememory of Mistress Paul Stanley, wife of Mr. Paul Stanley, who diedNovember, 1797, ’ the said Mistress Stanley having been the Queen of theStanley tribe. In my childhood I remember that annually some of themembers of the tribe used to come and scatter flowers over the grave; andwhen my father had restored the stone, on its falling into decay, adeputation of the tribe thanked him for so doing. I have reason to thinkthey still visit the spot, to find, I am sorry to say, the stone sodecayed now as to be past restoration, and I would much like to seeanother with the same inscription to mark the resting-place of the headof 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 numerouscorrespondents who have taken upon themselves to reply to my letter thatappeared in your issue of the 14th inst. , and to show up Gipsy life insome of its brightest aspects, have, unwittingly, no doubt, thoroughlysubstantiated and backed up the cause of my young clients—_i. E. _, thepoor Gipsy children and our roadside arabs—so far as they have gone, as areperusal of the letters will show the most casual observer of ourhedge-bottom heathens of Christendom. At the same time, I would say thetendency of some of the remarks of your correspondents has specialreference to the adult Gipsies, roamers and ramblers, and, consequently, there is a fear that the attention of some of your readers may be drawnfrom the cause of the poor uneducated children, living in the midst ofsticks, stones, ditches, mud, and game, and concentrated upon the ‘guineabuttons, ’ ‘black-haired Susans, ’ ‘red cloaks, ’ ‘scarlet hoods, ’ thecunning craft of the old men, the fortune-telling of the old women, the‘sparkling eyes’ and ‘clapping of hands, ’ and ‘twopenny hops’ of theyoung women, who certainly can take care of themselves, just as otherun-Christianised and uncivilised human beings can. I do not profess—atany rate, not for the present—to take up the cause of the men and womenditch-dwelling Gipsies in this matter; I must leave that part of the workto fiction writers, clergymen, and policemen, abler hands than mine. Imay not be able, nor do I profess, to understand the singular number ofthe 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 pluralof the masculine gender _dada_, _chavi_, and the feminine gender _deia_, _chavo_; but, being a matter of fact kind of man—out of the region ofromance, fantastical notions, enrapturing imagery, nicely colouredimagination, clever lying and cleverer deception, beautiful green fields, clear running rivulets, the singing of the wood songster, bullfinch, andwren, in the midst of woodbine, sweetbriar, and roses—with an eye toobserve, a heart to feel, and a hand ready to help, I am led tocontemplate, aye, and to find out if possible, the remedy, though myfriends say it is impossible—just because it is impossible it becomespossible, as in the canal movement—for the wretched condition of someeight to ten thousand little Gipsy children, whose home in the winter iscamping 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 onthe bright side of things; and it is much more pleasant to go to the edgeof a large swamp, lie down and bask in the summer’s sun, making‘button-holes’ of daisies, buttercups, and the like, and return home andextol the fine scenery and praise the richness of the land, than to takethe spade, in shirt-sleeves and heavy boots, and drain the poisonouswater from the roots of vegetation. Nevertheless, it has to be done, ifthe ‘strong active limbs’ and ‘bright sparkling eyes’ are to be turned tobetter account than they have been in the past. It is not creditable tous as a Christian nation, in size compared with other nations not muchlarger than a garden, to have had for centuries these heathenish tribesin 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 theschoolmaster, to have had these plague spots continually flitting beforeour eyes without anything being done to effect a cure. It is truesomething has been done. One clergyman, who has ‘had opportunities ofobserving them, ’ if not brought in daily contact with them, tells us thatsome eight or nine years since he publicly baptised two Gipsy children. Another tells us that some time since he baptised many Gipsy children, asif baptism was the only thing required of the poor children for theduties and responsibilities of life and a future state. Better athousand times have told us how many poor roadside arabs and Gipsychildren they have taken by the hand to educate and train them, so as tobe able to earn an honest livelihood, instead of ‘cadging’ from door todoor, and telling all sorts of silly stories and lies. How many poorchildren’s lives have been sacrificed at the hands of cruelty, starvation, and neglect, and buried under a clod without the shedding ofa tear, it is fearful to contemplate. The idlers, loafers, rodneys, mongrels, gorgios, and Gipsies are increasing, and will increase, in ourmidst, unless we put our hand upon the system, from the simple fact thatby packing up with wife and children and ‘taking to the road, ’ he thusescapes 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 inany other light. The sooner we get the ideal, fanciful, and romanticside of a vagrant’s and vagabond’s life removed from our vision, and seethings as they really are, the better it will be for us. For the life ofme I cannot see anything romantic in dirt, squalor, ignorance, andmisery. 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 dotheir part in reclaiming these wandering tribes, and this can only bedone 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 title of the Children’sFriend. His ‘Cry of the Brick-yard Children’ rang through England, andissued in measures being adopted for their protection. His descriptionof the canal-boat children has also resulted in legislation for theirrelief. 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 thiscounty. I do not think the number is at all exaggerated. A few days agowhile driving down a rural lane in the country I ‘interviewed’ one ofthese children, who had run some hundreds of yards ahead, in order toopen a gate. At first the young, dark-eyed, swarthy damsel declared shedid not know how many brothers and sisters she had, but on being asked tomention their names she rattled them over, in quick succession, giving toeach Christian name the surname of Smith—thus, Charley Smith, Emma Smith, Fanny Smith, Bill Smith, and the like, till she had enumerated eitherthirteen or fifteen juvenile Smiths, all of whom lived with their parentsin a tent which was pitched not far from the side of the lane. Ofeducation the child had had none, but she said she went to church on aSunday with her sister. This is a sample of the kind of thing whichprevails, and in his last generous movement Mr. Smith, of Coalville, willbe acting a good part to numerous children who, although unable to claimrelationship, rejoice in the same patronymic as himself. ”

In the _Derby Daily Telegraph_, under date August 16th, the followingleading article was published:—“When the social history of the presentgeneration comes to be written a prominent place among the list ofpractical philanthropists will be assigned to George Smith, of Coalville. The man is a humanitarian to the manner born. His character and laboursserve to remind us of the broad line which separates the real apostle ofbenevolence from what may be termed the ‘professional’ sample. GeorgeSmith goes about for the purpose of doing good, and—he does it. He doesnot content himself with glibly talking of what needs to be done, andwhat ought to be done. He prefers to act upon the spirit of Mr. WackfordSqueers’ celebrated educational principle. Having discovered a sphere ofChristian duty he goes and ‘works’ it. Few more splendid monuments ofpractical charity have been reared than the amelioration of the socialstate of our canal population—an achievement which has mainly beenbrought about by Mr. Smith’s indomitable perseverance and self-denial. Afew years ago we were accustomed to speak of the dwellers in thesefloating hovels as beings who dragged out a degraded existence in afar-off land. We were gloomily told that they could not be reached. Orators at fashionable missionary-meetings were wont to speak of them asirreclaimable heathens who bid defiance to civilising influences fromimpenetrable fastnesses. Mr. George Smith may be credited with havingbroken down this discreditable state of things. He brought us face toface with this unfortunate section of our fellow-creatures, with whatresult it is not necessary to say. The sympathies of the public wereeffectually roused by the narratives which revealed to us the deplorabledepths of human depravity into which vast numbers of English people hadfallen. The sufferings of the children in the gloomy, pestiferous cabinsused for ‘living’ purposes especially excited the country’s pity. Atthis present moment the lot of these poor waifs is far from beinginviting, 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 lessa personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that expressarrangements had been made by the Government to meet the educationalrequirements of the once helpless and neglected victims. 

“Mr. Smith has now embarked upon a fresh crusade against misery andignorance. He has turned his attention from the ‘water Gipsies’ to theirbrethren ashore. He has already began to busy himself with the conditionof ‘our roadside arabs, ’ as he calls them. We fear Mr. Smith inprosecuting this good work of his is doomed to perform a serious act ofdisenchantment. The ideal Gipsy is destined to be scattered to the windsby the unvarnished picture which Mr. Smith will cause to be presented toour vision. He does not pretend to show us the romantic, fantastically-dressed creature whose prototypes have long been in theimaginations of many of us as types of the Gipsy species. Those of ourreaders who have formed their notions of Gipsy life upon the strength ofthe assurances which have been given them by the late Mr. G. P. R. Jamesand kindred writers will find it hard to substitute for the joyous scenesof sunshine and freedom he has associated with the nomadic existence, thedull, wearisome round of squalor and wretchedness which is found, uponexamination, to constitute the principal condition of the Gipsy tent. Whether it is that in this awfully prosaic period of the world’s historythe picturesque and jovial rascality which novelist and poet haveinsisted in connecting with the Ishmaelites is stamped ruthlessly out ofbeing by force of circumstances, it is barely possible to say. PerhapsGipsies, in common with other tribes of the romantic past, have graduallybecome denuded of their old attractiveness. It is, we confess, ratherdifficult to believe that Bamfylde Moore Carew (wild, restless fellowthough he was) would persistently have linked his lot with that of thepoor, degraded, poverty-stricken wretches whom Mr. Smith has taken inhand. Perchance it happens that our old heroes of song and story have, so far as England is concerned, deteriorated as a consequence of themoney-making, business-like atmosphere that they are compelled tobreathe, and that with more favoured climes they are to be seen in muchof their primitive glory. In Hungary, for instance, it is declared thatGipsy life is pretty much what it is represented to be in our own glowingpages of fiction. The late Major Whyte-Melville, in a modern storydeclared to be founded on fact, introduces us to a company of thesecontinental wanderers who, with their beautiful Queen, seem to invest thescenes from our old friend, ‘The Bohemian Girl, ’ with something akin toprobability. But there is, of course, a limit to even Mr. Smith’slabours. Hungary is beyond his jurisdiction. He does not pretend tocarry his experience of the Gipsies further than the Midlands. Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and our neighbouring counties have offered himthe examples he requires with his new campaign. The lot of the roamerswho eke out a living in the adjacent lanes and roadways is, he explainsto us, as pitiful as anything of the sort well could be. The tent of theGipsy he finds to be as filthy and as repulsive as the cabin of thecanal-boat. Human beings of both sexes and of all ages are huddledtogether without regard to comfort. As a necessary sequence the womenand children are the chief sufferers in a social evil of this sort. Themen are able to rough it, but the weaker sex and their little charges arereduced to the lowest paths of misery. Children are born, suffer fromdisease, and die in the canvas hovels; and are committed to the dust bythe roadside. One old woman told Mr. Smith ‘that she had had sixteenchildren, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in aroadside 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, nearAshby-de-la-Zouch. ’ The experience of this old crone is akin to that ofmost of her class. She also tells Mr. Smith that she could not readherself, and she did not believe one in twenty could. Morally, as wellas from a sanitary point of view, Gipsy life, as it really exists, is asocial plague-spot, and consequently a social danger. Especially doesthis contention apply to the children, of whom Mr. Smith estimates thatthere are ten thousand roaming over the face of the country as vagrantsand vagabonds. It is to be hoped many months will not be allowed toelapse before this difficulty is seriously and successfully grappledwith. Mr. Smith’s counsel as to the children is that ‘living in vans andtents and under old carts, if they are to be allowed to live in theseplaces they should be registered in a manner analogous to the Canal BoatsAct of 1877, so that the children may be brought under the compulsoryclauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised asother children. ’ The Duke of Richmond and his department may do much tofacilitate Mr. Smith’s crusade without temporising with the prejudices ofred-tapeism. ”

_Figaro_ writes August 27th:—“Our old friend having successfully tackledthe brick-yard children, and the floating waifs and strays of our bargepopulation, has now taken the little Gipsies in hand, with a view ofbringing them under the supervision of the School Board system nowgeneral in this country. He is a bold and energetic man, but we arebound to say we doubt a little whether he will be able to tame theoffspring of the merry Zingara, and pass them all through the regulationeducational standard. Should he succeed, we shall be thenceforthsurprised at nothing, but be quite prepared to hear that Mr. Smith hasbecome chairman of a society for changing the spots of the leopard, orhonorary director of an association for changing the Ethiopian’s skin!”

The following letter from the Rev. J. Finch, a rural dean, appeared inthe _Standard_, August 30th:—“The following facts may not be without someinterest to those who have read the letters which have recently appearedin the pages of the _Standard_ respecting Gipsies. During the thirtyyears I have been rector of this parish, members of the Boswell familyhave been almost constantly resident here. I buried the head of thefamily in 1874, who died at the age of 87. He was a regular attendant atthe parish church, and failed not to bow his head reverently when heentered within the House of God. His burial was attended by several sonsresident, as Gipsies, in the Midland counties, and a headstone marks thegrave 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 tinmanwithin a short time of his death. If he had rather a sharp eye for alittle gift, that is a trait of character by no means confined toGipsies. One of his daughters was married here to a member of theBoswell tribe, and another, who rejoiced in the name of Britannia, Iburied in her father’s grave two years ago. After his death she and hermother removed to an adjoining parish, where she was confirmed by BishopSelwyn in 1876. Regular as was the old man at church, I never couldpersuade his wife to come. In 1859 I baptized, privately, an infant ofthe same tribe, whose parents were travelling through the parish, andwhose mother was named Elvira. Great was the admiration of my domesticsat the sight of the beautiful lace which ornamented the robe in which thechild was brought to my house. Clearly there are Gipsies, and those of awell-known tribe, glad to receive the ministrations of the Church. ”

I next turned my steps towards London, having heard that Gipsies were tobe found in the outskirts of this Babylon. I set off early one morningin quest of them from my lodgings, not knowing whither; but my earliestassociation came to my relief. Knowing that Gipsies are generally to befound in the neighbourhood of brick-yards, I took the ’bus to NottingHill, and after asking the policeman, for neither clergyman or otherministers could tell me where they were to be found, I wended my way toWormwood Scrubs, and the following letter, which appeared in the _DailyNews_, September 6th of last year, is the outcome of that “run out, ” andis as follows:—“It has been the custom for years—I might almost saycenturies—when speaking of the Gipsies, to introduce in one form or otherduring the conversation either ‘the King of the Gipsies, ’ ‘the Queen, ’ orsome other member of ‘the Royal Family. ’ It may surprise many of yourreaders who cling to the romantic side of a Gipsy’s life, and shut theireyes to the fearful amount of ignorance, wretchedness, and misery thereis amongst them, to say that this extraordinary being is nothing but amythological jack-o’-th’-lantern, phantom of the brain, illusion, thecreation of lying tongues practising the art of deception among some ofthe ‘green horns’ in the country lanes, or on the village greens. It istrue there are some ‘horse-leeches’ among the Gipsies who have got fatout of their less fortunate hedge-bottom brethren and the British public, who delight in calling them either ‘the King, ’ ‘Queen, ’ ‘Prince, ’ or‘Princess. ’ It is true also that there are vast numbers of the Gipsieswho, with a chuckle, tongue in cheek, wink of the eye, side grin and asneer, say they have these important personages amongst them; and if anylittle extra stir is being made at a fair-time in the country lanes, inthe neighbourhood of straw-yards, they will be sure to tell them thateither the ‘king, ’ ‘queen, ’ or some member of the ‘royal family’ is beingmarried or visiting them; and nothing pleases the poor, ignorant Gipsiesbetter than to get the bystanders, with mouths open, to believe theirtales and lies. I should think that there is scarcely a county inEngland but what a Gipsy king’s or queen’s wedding has not taken placethere within the last twenty years. There was one in Bedfordshire notlong since; another at Epping Forest; and the last I heard of thiswonderful airy being was that he had taken up his head-quarters at theRoyal Hotel, Liverpool, and a carriage with eight wheels and six piebaldhorses had been presented to him as a wedding present from the Gipsies. Gipsy ‘kings, ’ ‘queens, ’ and ‘princes, ’ their marriages and deaths, areinnumerable among the ‘royal family. ’ It is equally believing inmoonshine and air-bubbles to believe that the Gipsies never speak oftheir dead. There is a beautiful headstone put in a little churchyardabout two and a half miles from Barnet in memory of the Brinkly family, and it is carefully looked after by members of the family; one of theLees has a tombstone erected to his memory in Hanwell Cemetery; and suchsilly nonsense is put out by the cunning, crafty Gipsies as ‘dazzlers, ’to enable them more readily to practise the art of lying and deceptionupon their gullible listeners. Then again, with reference to the Gipsieshaving a religion of their own. There is not a word of truth in thisimaginative notion prevalent in the minds or some who have been trying tostudy their habits. Excepting the language of some of the old-fashionedreal Gipsies, and a few other little peculiarities, any one studying thereal hard facts of a Gipsy’s life with reference to the amount ofignorance, and everything that is bad among them, will come to theconclusion that there is much among them to compare very unfavourablywith the most neglected in our back streets and slums. Of course, thereare some good among them, as with other ‘ragamuffin’ ramblers. Thefollowing particulars, related to me by a well-known Gipsy woman in theneighbourhood of ‘Wormwood Scrubs’ and the ‘North Pole, ’ remarkable forher truthfulness, honesty, and uprightness, will tend to show that myprevious statement as regards the amount of ignorance prevalent among thepoor Gipsy children has not been over-stated. She has had six brothersand one sister, all born in a tent, and only one of the eight could reada little. She has had nine children born in a tent, four of whom arealive, and only one could read and write a little. She has seventeengrandchildren, and only two of them can read and write a little, andthinks this a fair average of other Gipsy children. She tells me thatshe got a most fat living for more than twenty years by telling lies andfortunes to servant-girls, old maids, and young men, mostly out of a bookof which she could not read a sentence, or tell a letter. She said shehad heard that I had taken up the cause of the poor Gipsy children to getthem educated, and, with hands uplifted and tears in her eyes, which leftno doubt of her meaning, said, ‘I do hope from the bottom of my heartthat God will bless and prosper you in the work till a law is passed, andthe poor Gipsy children are brought under the School Board, and theirparents compelled to send them to school as other people are. The poorGipsy children are poor, ignorant things, I can assure you. ’ She alsosaid ‘Does the Queen wish all our poor Gipsy children to be educated?’ Itold her that the Queen took special interest in the children of theworking-classes, and was always pleased to hear of their welfare. Again, with tears trickling down her face, she said, ‘I do thank the Lord forsuch a good Queen, and for such a noble-hearted woman. I do bless her. Do Thou, ‘Lord, bless her!’ After some further conversation, and takingdinner with her in her humble way in the van, she said she hoped I wouldnot be insulted if she offered me, as from a poor Gipsy woman, a shillingto help me in the work of getting a law passed to compel the Gipsies tosend their children to school. I took the shilling, and, after makingher a present of a copy of the new edition of my ‘Cry of the Childrenfrom the Brick-yards of England, ’ which she wrapped in a beautiful whitecloth, and after a shake of the hand, we parted, hoping to meet again onsome future day. ”

The foregoing letter brought forth the following letter from Mr. DanielGorrie, and appeared in the _Daily News_ under date September 13th, asunder:—“Mr. George Smith, Coalville, Leicester, whose letter on the abovesubject appears in your impression to-day, succeeded so well in hisefforts on behalf of the poor slave-children of the Midland brick-yards, that it is to be hoped he will attain equal success in drawing attentionto the pitiful condition of the Gipsy children, who are allowed to growup as ignorant as savages that never saw the face nor heard the voice ofa Christian missionary. In one of the late Thomas Aird’s poems, entitled‘A Summer Day, ’ there are some lines which, with your permission, Ishould like to quote, that are in perfect accord with Mr. Smith’s wiseand kindly suggestion. The lines are these:—

 “‘In yonder sheltered nook of nibbled sward, Beside the wood, a Gipsy band are camped; And there they’ll sleep the summer night away. By stealthy holes their ragged, brawny brood Creep through the hedges, in their pilfering quest Of sticks and pales to make their evening fire. Untutored things scarce brought beneath the laws And meek provisions of this ancient State. Yet is it wise, with wealth and power like hers, To let so many of her sons grow up In untaught darkness and consecutive vice? True, we are jealous, free, and hate constraint And every cognisance, o’er private life; Yet, not to name a higher principle, ’Twere but an institute of wise police That every child, neglected of its own, State claimed should be, State seized and taught and trained To social duty and to Christian life. Our liberties have limbs, manifold; So let the national will, which makes restraint Part of its freedom, oft the soundest part, Power-arm the State to do the large design. ’

“The above lines, I may add, were written by the poet (in losing whom Mr. Thomas Carlyle lost one of his oldest and most valued friends) many, manyyears before the Education Acts now in force came into existence. Asmany parents might not like the idea of Gipsy children attending the sameBoard schools as their own, would it not be possible to establish specialschools in those parts of the Midland counties where Gipsies ‘most docongregate’?”

To which I replied as under, in the _Daily News_ bearing date September13th:—“In reply to Mr. Gorrie’s letter which appears in your issue ofthis morning, I consider that it would be unwise and impracticable tobuild separate schools for either the brick-yard, canal-boat, Gipsy, orother children moving about the country, in tents, vans, &c. , for theiruse solely; especially would it be so in the case of Gipsy children androadside arabs. What I have been and am still aiming at is the educationof these children, not by isolating them from otherworking-classes—colliers, potters, ironworkers, factory hands, tradesmen, &c. —but by bringing them in daily contact with the children of theseparents, and also under some of the influences of our little missionarycivilisers who are brought up and receiving some of their education indrawing-rooms, and whose parents cannot afford to send them toboarding-schools, colleges, &c. , and have to content themselves by havingtheir children educated at either the national, British, or Boardschools. I confess that it is not pleasant to hear that our childrenhave picked up vulgar words at school; and it requires patience, care, and watchfulness on the part of parents to counteract some of thedownward tendencies resulting from an uneven mixing of children broughtup and educated under such influences. Better by far put up with theselittle ills than others we know not of, the outcome of ignorance. On theother hand, it is pleasing to note how glad the parents of Gipsy, canal-boat, and brick-yard children are when their children pick up ‘finewords’ and become more ‘gentlerified’ by mixing with children higher upthe social scale. Bad habits, words, and actions are generally picked upbetween school times. It would be well for us to rub down class feelingamong children as much as possible as regards their education. Thechildren of brick-makers, canal-boatmen, and Gipsies are of us and withus, and must be taken hold of, educated, and elevated in thingspertaining to their future welfare. The ‘turning up of the nose, ’ bythose whose duty, education, and privilege should have taught them betterthings, at these poor children has had more to do in bringing about theirpitiable and ignorant condition than can be imagined. The Canal BoatsAct, if wisely carried out, will before long bring about the education ofthe canal-boat children; and in order to bring the Gipsy children, showchildren, and other roadside arabs under the Education Acts, I am seekingto have all movable habitations, _i. E. _, tents, vans, shows, &c. , inwhich the families live who are earning a living by travelling from placeto place, registered and numbered, as in the case of canal-boats, and theparents compelled ‘by hook or by crook’ to send their children to schoolat the place wherever they may be temporarily located, be it national, British, or Board school. The education of these children should bebrought about at all risks and inconveniences, or we may expect a blackerpage in the social history of this country opening to our view than wehave seen for many a long day. ”

The following leading article upon Gipsies and other tramps of a similarclass appeared in the _Standard_, September 10th, 1879, and as it relatesto the subject I have in hand I quote it in full:—“Not only in his‘Uncommercial Traveller, ’ but in many other scattered passages of hisworks, Dickens, who for many years lived in Kent, has described theintolerable nuisance inflicted by tramps upon residents in the homecounties, and has sketched the natural history of the sturdy vagabond whoinfests our roads and highways from early spring to late autumn, with aminuteness and power of detail worthy of a Burton. The subject ofvagabondage is not, however, confined in its interest to the Metropolisand its adjacent parts. In the United States the habitual beggar hasbecome as serious a nuisance, and, indeed, source of positive danger, ashe was once amongst ourselves; and in the State of Pennsylvania moreespecially it has been found necessary to pass what may be described asan Habitual Vagrants Act for his suppression. That the terms of thisenactment should be excessively severe is hardly matter of astonishment, when we bear in mind the fate of little Charley Ross. Early in the year1874 a couple of men who were travelling up and down the country in awaggon stole from the home of his parents in Germantown, Pennsylvania, aboy of some seven years named Charley Ross. They then sent lettersdemanding a large sum of money for his restoration. The ransomincreased, until no less than twenty thousand dollars was insisted upon. While the parents, on the one hand, were attempting to raise the money, and while the police were endeavouring to arrest the kidnappers, allnegotiations fell through. The two men believed to have been concernedin the abduction were shot down in the act of committing a burglary onRhode Island, and from that day to this the fate of Charley Ross hasremained a mystery. Under these circumstances, public opinion hasnaturally run high, and it has been provided that any habitual trampmaking his way from place to place, without earning an honest livelihood, shall be liable to imprisonment with hard labour for a period of twelvemonths; and that tramps who enter dwellings without permission, who carryfire-arms, or other weapons, or who threaten to injure either persons orproperty, shall be put to work in the common penitentiary for a period ofthree years. Pennsylvania in this is but reverting to the old law ofEngland in the Tudor days. In the time of Henry VIII. Vagrants werewhipped at the cart’s tail, without distinction of either sex or age. The whipping-post, together with the stocks, was a conspicuous ornamentof every parish green, and it was not until the year 1791 that thewhipping of women was expressly forbidden by statute. There were otherenactments even more severe. By an act of Elizabeth idle soldiers andmarines, or persons pretending to be soldiers or marines, wandering aboutthe realm, were held _ipso facto_ guilty of felony, and hundreds of suchoffenders were publicly executed. Another act of the same kind wasdirected against Gipsies, by which any Gipsy, or any person over fourteenwho had been seen or found in their fellowship, was guilty of felony ifhe remained a month in the kingdom; and in Hale’s ‘Pleas of the Crown’ welearn that at one Suffolk Assizes no less than thirteen Gipsies wereexecuted on the strength of this barbarous act, and without any otherreason or cause whatever. 

“The ancient severity of our Statute Book has long since been modified, and the worst that can now befall ‘idle persons and vagabonds, such aswake on the night and sleep on the day, and haunt customable taverns andale-houses, and routs about; and no man wot from whence they come newhither they go, ’ is a brief period of hard labour under the provisionsof the Vagrant Act. Under this comprehensive statute are swept togetheras into one common net a vast variety of petty offenders, of whom someare deemed ‘idle and disorderly persons, ’ other ‘rogues and vagabonds, ’and others again ‘incorrigible rogues. ’ Under one or other of theseheads are unlicensed hawkers or pedlars; persons wandering abroad to begor causing any child to beg; persons lodging in any outhouse or in theopen air, not having any visible means of subsistence, and not giving agood account of themselves; persons playing or betting in the publicstreet; and notorious thieves loitering about with intent to commit afelony. At the present period of the year the country in theneighbourhood not of the Metropolis alone, but of all large towns, isfilled with offenders of this kind. Indeed, the sturdy tramp renders thecountry to a very great extent unsafe for ladies who have ventured to goabout without protection. Ostensibly he is a vendor of combs, orbootlaces, or buttons, or is in quest of a hop-picking job, or is adischarged soldier or sailor, or a labourer out of employment. Butwhatever may be his pretence, his mode of procedure is more or less thesame. If he can come upon a roadside cottage left in the charge of awoman, or possibly only of a young girl, he will demand food and money, and if the demand be not instantly complied with will never hesitate atviolence. Indeed, when we remember how many horrible outrages havewithin the last few years been committed by ruffians of this kind, it isquite easy to understand the severity necessary in less civilised times. Only recently the Spaniard Garcia murdered an entire family in Wales; andsome few years ago, at Denham, near Uxbridge, a small household wasbutchered for the sake of a few shillings and such little plunder as thehumble cottage afforded. And although grave crimes of this kind arehappily rare, and tend to become rarer, petty violence is far fromuncommon. Many ladies resident in the country can tell how they havebeen beset upon the highway by sturdy tramps of forbidding aspect, towhom, in despair, they have given alms to an amount which practicallymade the solicitation an act of brigandage. The farmer’s wife and thebailiff tell us how haystacks are converted into temporarylodging-houses, chickens stolen, and outbuildings plundered. Only toooften the rogues are in direct league with the worst offenders in London. Whitechapel supplies a large contingent of the Kentish hop-pickers, andthe ‘traveller’ who is ostensibly in search of a haymaking or hopping jobis, as often as not, spying out the land, and planning profitableburglaries to be carried out in winter with the aid of his colleagues. 

“There is, no doubt, much about the tramp that is picturesque. Aromantic imagination pictures him as a sort of peripatetic philosopher, with more of Jacques in him than of Autolycus; living in constantcommunion with Nature; sleeping in the open air; subsisting on thescantiest fare; slaking his thirst at the running brook; and only beggingto be allowed to live his own childlike and innocent life, as purposelessas the butterflies, as happy as the swallows, as destitute of all worldlyends and aims as are the very violets of the hedge-row. Æstheticenthusiasm of this kind is apt to be severely checked by the prosaicrealities of actual existence. The tramp, like the noble savage, is arelic of uncivilised life with which we can very well afford to dispense. There is no appreciation of the country about him; no love of Nature forits own sake. In winter he becomes an inmate of the workhouse, where healmost always proves himself turbulent and disorderly. As soon as itbecomes warm enough to sleep in a haystack, or under a hedge, or in athick clump of furze and bracken, he discharges himself from ‘the Union’and takes to ‘the roads. ’ From town to town he begs or steals his way, safe in the assurance that should things go amiss the nearest workhousemust always provide him with gratuitous board and lodging. Work of anykind, although he vigorously pretends to be in ‘want of a job, ’ isutterly abhorrent to him. Home county farmers, led by that unerringinstinct which is the unconscious result of long experience, know thetramp at once, and can immediately distinguish him from the _bonâ-fide_‘harvester, ’ in quest of honest employment. The tramp, indeed, is thesturdy idler of the roads—a cousin-german of the ‘beach-comber, ’ who isthe plague of consuls and aversion of merchant skippers. In almost everyport of any size the harbour is beset by a gang of idle fellows, whosepretence is that they are anxious to sign articles for a voyage, but whoare, in reality, living from hand to mouth. Captains know only too wellthat the true ‘beach-comber’ is always incompetent, often physicallyunfit for work, and constitutionally mutinous. When his other resourcesfail, he throws himself upon the nearest consul of the nation to which hemay claim to belong, and a very considerable sum is yearly wasted inproviding such ramblers with free passages to what they please to assertis the land of their birth. Harbour-masters and port authoritiesgenerally are apt to treat notorious offenders of this kind somewhatsummarily, and our local police and poor-law officers are ill-advised ifthey do not follow the good example thus set, and show the tramp aslittle mercy as possible. Leniency, indeed, of any kind he simplyregards as weakness. He would be a highwayman if the existing conditionsof society allowed it, and if he had the necessary personal courage. Asit is, he is a blot upon our country life, and an eyesore on our roads. Vagabondage is not a heritage with him, as it is with the genuineGipsies. He has taken to it from choice, and the true-bred Romany willalways regard him with contempt, as a mere migratory gaol bird, who knowsno tongue of the roads beyond the cant or ‘kennick’ of thieves—aWhitechapel _argot_, familiarity with which at once tells its own tale. Fortunately, our existing law is sufficient to keep the nuisance incheck, if only it be resolutely administered. The tramp, however, tradesupon spurious sympathy. There will always be weak-minded folk to pitythe poor man whom the hard-hearted magistrates have sent to gaol forsleeping under a haystack—forgetting that this interesting offender is, as a rule, no better than a common thief at large, who will stealwhatever he can lay his hands on, and who makes our lanes and pleasantcountry byways unpleasant, if not actually dangerous. ”

The foregoing article upon Gipsies and tramps brought from acorrespondent in the _Standard_, under date September 12th, the followingletter:—“I have just been reading the article in your paper on thesubject of tramps. If you could stand at my gate for one day, you wouldbe astonished to see the number of tramps passing through our village, which is on the high road between two of the principal towns in SouthYorkshire; and the same may be said of any place in England situated onthe main road, or what was formerly the coach road. We seldom meettramps in town, except towards evening, when they come in for the casualward. They spend their day in the country, passing from one town toanother, and to those who reside near the high road, as I do, they are anintolerable nuisance. A tramp in a ten mile journey, which occupies himall day, will frequently make 1s. 6d. Or 2s. A day, besides beingsupplied with food, and the more miserable and wretched he can makehimself appear, the more sympathy he will get, and if he is lucky enoughto meet a benevolent old lady out for her afternoon drive he will get 6d. Or 1s. From her. She will say ‘Poor man, ’ and then go home thinking howshe has helped ‘that poor, wretched man’ on his way. Tramps are a classof people who never have worked, and who never will, except it be inprison, and, as long as they can get a living for nothing, they willcontinue to be, as you say in your article, ‘A blot upon the country andan eyesore on our roads. ’

“I always find the quickest way of getting rid of a tramp is to threatenhim with the police, and I am quite sure if every householder would makea rule never to relieve tramps with money, and only those who arecrippled, with food, the number would soon be decreased. If people haveany old clothes or spare coppers to give away, I am sure they will soonfind in their own town or village many cases more worthy of their charitythan the highway tramp. I do not recommend anybody to find a tramp eventemporary employment, unless they can stand over him and then see the mansafe off the premises, and even then he may come again at night as aburglar; but I am sure work could be found at 1s. 6d. Or 2s. A day by ourcorporations or on the highways, where, under proper supervision, theseidle vagabonds would be made to earn an honest living. You will findthat nine out of ten tramps have been in prison and have no character, and although they may say they ‘want work, ’ they really do not mean it. Not long ago I caught a great rough fellow trying to get the dinner froma little girl who was taking it to her father at his work. ‘Poor man! hemust have been very hungry, ’ I fancy I hear the benevolent old ladysaying. Of course, during the last year we have had many men ‘on theroad’ who are really in search of work, but I always tell them that thereis as much work in one place as another, and unless they really have asituation in view they should not go tramping from town to town. Many ofthem have no characters to produce, and I expect when they find‘tramping’ is such a pleasant and easy mode of living they will join theranks and become roadsters also. ”

In _May’s Aldershot Advertiser_, September 13th, 1879, the following is aleading article upon the condition of Gipsies:—“The incoming of Septemberreminds us that in the hop districts this is the season of advent ofthose British nomads—the Gipsies, the only class for whom there is solittle legislation, or with whose actions and habits, lawless as theyare, the agents of the law so seldom interfere. The miners of the BlackCountry owe the suppression of juvenile labour and the short time law tothe long exertions of the generous-hearted Richard Oastler. Thebrickmaker may no longer debase and ruin, both morally and physically, his child of the tender age of nine or ten years, by turning it—boy orgirl—into the brick-yard to toil, shoeless and ragged, at carrying heavylumps on its head. The canal population—they who are born and die in thecircumscribed hole at the end of a barge, dignified by the name of‘cabin, ’ are just now receiving the special attention of Mr. Smith, ofCoalville, and certainly, excepting the section of whom I am writing, there is not to be found in privileged England a people so utterlydebased and regardless of the characteristics of civilised life. TheFactory Act prevents the employing of boys or girls under a certain age, and secures for those who are legally employed a sufficient time forrecreation. But who cares for, or thinks about, the wandering Romany?True, Police-Constable Argus receives authority by which he, _sanscérémonie_, commands them to ‘move on, ’ should he come across any by theroadside in his diurnal or nocturnal perambulations. But it often occursthat the object for which they ‘camped’ in the spot has beenaccomplished. The farmer’s hedge has been made to supply them with fuelfor warmth and for culinary purposes; his field has been trespassed upon, and fodder stolen for their overworked and cruelly-treated quadrupeds;so, the ‘move on’ simply means a little inconvenience resulting fromtheir having to transfer their paraphernalia to another ‘camp ground’ notfar off. They also enjoy certain immunities which are withheld fromother classes. Excepting that some of them pay for a hawker’s licence, they roam about as they list, untaxed and uncontrolled, though theearnings of most of them amount to a considerable sum every year; as theyare free from the conventional rule which requires the house-dwellingpopulation, often at great inconvenience, to ‘keep up appearances, ’ itoften happens that the wearer of the most tattered garments earns themost money. They can and do live sparingly, and spend lavishly. Thelabour which they choose is the most remunerative kind. Ploughing orstone-breaking is not the employment, which the Gipsy usually seeks! Hetakes the cream and leaves the skimmed milk for the cottier, and havingdone all there is to do of the kind he chooses, he is off to some othermoney-making industry. A Gipsy will make four harvests in one year;first he goes ‘up the country, ’ as he calls going into Middlesex, for‘peas-hacking. ’ That over, he goes into Sussex(Chichester—’wheat-fagging’ or tying), and on that being done, returnstoward Hampshire—North Hants—to ‘fag’ or tie, and that being done heenters Surrey for hop-picking (previously securing a ‘bin’ in one of thegardens). Some idea of his gross earnings may be obtained from thefollowing fact:—Two able-bodied men, an old woman of about 75 years ofage, and two women, earned on a farm in one harvest, no less than £42. After that, they went hop-picking, and, in answer to my question, ‘Howmuch will they earn there?’ the farmer, who is a hop-grower, said, ‘Morethan they have here. ’ These operations were performed in less than aquarter of the year. In the places through which they pass to their workthey sell what they can, and at night pitch their tent or draw their vanon some common or waste land, buy no corn for their horses, nor spend anymoney for coal or wood. If they locate themselves on the margin of awood, and make a prolonged sojourn, the uproar, the screams, the cries of‘murder’ heard from their rendezvous

 “‘Make night hideous. ’

All this, and more, they do with impunity. ‘It is only the Gipsiesquarrelling. ’ No inspector of nuisances pays them a visit; thetax-gatherer knows not their whereabouts; the rate-collector troublesthem not with any ‘demand note;’ their children are not provided withproper and necessary education, yet no school attendance officer servesthem with a summons. Their existence is not known officially, saving thetime a census is taken, when, at the _expense of the house-dwellers_, aregistry is made of them. Not a farthing do they contribute to thegovernment, imperial or local, though many of them are in a position todo it, and can, without inconvenience, find from £40 to £80; or £100 fora new-travelling van when they want one. Overcrowding and numerousindecencies exist in galore among them, yet no representative of theBoard of Health troubles himself about the number of cubic feet of airper individual there may be in their tent or van. Is this neglect, indifference, obliviousness, or do the authorities believe that theimpurities and unsanitary exhalements are sufficiently oxidised toprevent any disease? It is worthy of remark that they are not liable tothe epidemics which afflict others. The loss of a pony from a commonsimultaneously with their exodus is a suspicious fact occasionally. Theylive in defiance of social, moral, civil, and natural law, a disgrace tothe legislature. —J. W. B. ”

In the _Hand and Heart_, September 19th of last year, the editor says, with reference to our roadside arabs:—“Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, whose efforts to better the condition of the wretched canal populationhave met deserved success, draws attention to the state of anotherneglected class. Parliament, he says, which has lately been reforming somany things, would have done well to consider the case of the Gipsies, ‘our roadside arabs. ’ Of the idleness, ignorance, heathenism, andgeneral misery prevailing among these strange people he gives somecurious instances. One old man, whose acquaintance Mr. Smith made, calculates that ‘there are about 250 families of Gipsies in ten of theMidland counties, and thinks that a similar proportion will be found inthe rest of the United Kingdom. He has seen as many as ten tents ofGipsies within a distance of five miles. He thinks there will be anaverage of five children in each tent. He has seen as many as ten ortwelve children in some tents, and not many of them able to read orwrite. His child of six months old—with his wife ill at the same time inthe tent—sickened, died, and was “laid out” by him, and it was alsoburied out of one of those wretched abodes on the roadside atBarrow-upon-Soar, last January. When the poor thing died he had notsixpence in his pocket. ’ An old woman bore similar testimony. ‘She saidthat she had had sixteen children, fifteen of whom are alive, several ofthem being born in a roadside tent. She says that she was married out ofone of these tents; and her brother died and was buried out of a tent atPackington, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. This poor woman knows about threehundred families of Gipsies in eleven of the Midland and Easterncounties, and has herself, so she says, four lots of Gipsies travellingin Lincolnshire at the present time. She said she could not readherself, and thinks that not one Gipsy in twenty can. She has travelledall her life. Her mother, named Smith, of whom there are not a few, isthe mother of fifteen children, all of whom were born in a tent. ’ Mr. Smith’s conclusion (which will not be disputed) is that ‘to have betweenthree and four thousand men and women, and eight or ten thousand childrenclassed in the Census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming all over thecountry, in ignorance and evil training that carries peril with it, isnot a pleasant look-out for the future. ’ He contends that ‘if these poorchildren, living in vans and tents and under old carts, are to be allowedto live in these places, they should be registered in a manner analogousto the Canal Boats Act of 1877, so that the children may be brought underthe compulsory clauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianisedand civilised as other children. ’”

The _Illustrated London News_, October 4th, says:—“Among the papers to beread at Manchester is one on the condition of the Gipsy children androadside ‘arabs’ in our midst, by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester. Here, indeed, is a gentleman who is certainly neither adealer in crotchets nor a rider of hobbies. Mr. Smith has done admirableservice on behalf of the poor children on board our barges andcanal-boats, and the even more pitiable boys and girls in ourbrick-fields; and to his philanthropic exertions are mainly due therecent amendments in the Factory Acts regulating the labour of youngchildren. He has now taken the case of the juvenile ‘Romanies’ in hand;and I wish him well in his benevolent crusade. Mr. Smith has obliginglysent me a proof of his address, from which I gather that, owing to asuperstitious dislike which the Gipsies entertain towards the Census, andthe successfully cunning attempts on their part to baffle theenumerators, it is only by conjecture and guesswork that we can form anyidea of the number of Bohemians in this country. The result of Mr. Smith’s diligent inquiries has led him to the assumption that there arenot less than 4, 000 Gipsy men and women, and from 15, 000 to 20, 000 Gipsyand ‘arab’—that is to say, tramp—children roaming about the country‘outside the educational laws and the pale of civilisation. ’”

The following leading article, relating to my paper upon “The Conditionof the Gipsy Children, ” appears in the _Daily News_, October 6th:—“At theSocial Science Congress Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, will to-morrowopen a fresh campaign of philanthropy. The philanthropic Alexander isseldom in the unhappy condition of his Macedonian original, and generallyhas plenty of worlds remaining ready to be conquered. Brick-yards andcanal-boats have not exhausted Mr. Smith’s energies, and the field he hasnow entered upon is wider and perhaps harder to work than either ofthese. Mr. Smith desires to bring the Gipsy children under the operationof the Education Act. Education and Gipsies seem at first sight to bewords mutually contradictory. Amid the mass of imaginative fiction, idlespeculation, and deliberate forgery that has been set afloat on thesubject of the Gipsies, one thing has been made tolerably clear, and thatis the intense aversion which the pure bred Gipsy has to any of therestraints of civilised life. Whether those restraints take the form oforderly and cleanly living in houses of brick and of stone, or ofmilitary service, or of school attendance, is pretty much a matter ofindifference to him. Schools, indeed, may be regarded from the Gipsypoint of view as not merely irksome, but useless institutions. Our mostadvanced places of technical education do not teach fortune-telling, orthat interesting branch of the tinker’s art which enables thepractitioner in mending one hole in a kettle to make two. Except formusic the Gipsies do not seem to have much aptitude for the arts; theyare more or less indifferent to literature; and business, except ofcertain dubious kinds, is a detestable thing to them. Their vagranthabits, on the other hand, enable them, without much difficulty, to evadethe great commandment which has gone forth, that all the English worldshall be examined. 

“The condition of the Gipsies is a sufficiently gloomy one. We may passover those degenerate members of the race who have elected to pitchpermanent tents in the slums and rookeries of great towns, because, inthe first place, they are degenerate, and in the second, their childrenought to be within reach of School Board visitors who do their dutydiligently. It is only the Gipsy proper who has the opportunity ofevading this vigilance. His opportunity is an excellent one, and hefully avails himself of it. Gipsy households, if they can be so called, are of the most fluid, not to say intangible character. The partnershipsbetween men and women are rarely of a legal kind, and the constant habitof aliases and double names make identification still more difficult. Asa rule, the race is remarkably prolific, and though the hardships towhich young children are exposed thin it considerably, the proportion ofchildren to adults is still very large. Hawking, their chief ostensibleoccupation, cannot legally be practised until the age of seventeen, anduntil that time the Gipsy child has nothing to do except to sprawl andloaf about the camp, and to indulge in his own devices. Idleness andignorance, unless the whole race of moralists have combined to representthings falsely, are the parents of every sort of vice, and the averageGipsy child would appear to be brought up in a condition which is the _neplus ultra_ of both. It is true that Gipsies do not very often maketheir appearance in courts of justice, but this is partly owing to thecunning with which their peccadilloes are practised, partly to theirwell-known habit of sticking by one another, and still more to the mildbut very definite terrorism which they exercise. Country residents, whena Gipsy encampment comes near them, know that a certain amount ofblackmail in this way or that has to be paid, and that in their own timethe strangers, if not interfered with, will go. Interference with themis apt to bring down a visit from that very unpleasant fowl, the ‘redcock, ’ whose crowings usually cost a good deal more than a stray chickenhere and a vanished blanket there. So the Ishmaelites are left prettymuch alone to wander about from roadside patch to roadside patch to pickup a living somehow or other, and to exist in the condition ofundisturbed freedom and filth which appears to be all that they desire. 

“The gloss has long been taken off the picture which imaginative personsused to varnish for themselves as to the Romany. Nor, perhaps is anycountry in Europe so little fitted for these gentry as ours. England isevery year becoming more and more enclosed, and the spaces which are notenclosed are more and more carefully looked after. Whether in ourclimate open-air living was ever thoroughly satisfactory is a questionnot easy to answer. But even if we admit that it might have been merryin good greenwood under the conditions picturesquely described inballads, the admission does not extend to the present day. There is nogood greenwood now, except a few insignificant patches, which are prettysharply preserved; and the killing of game, except on a small scale andat considerable risk, is difficult. The cheapness of modern manufactureshas interfered a good deal with the various trades of mending, mankindhaving made up their minds that it is better to buy new things and throwthem away when they fail than to have them patched and cobbled. Fortune-telling is a resource to some extent, but even this is meddledwith by the Gorgio and his laws. The _raison d’être_ of the vagabondGipsy is getting smaller and smaller in England, and as this goes on thelikelihood of his practices becoming more and more undisguisedly criminalis obvious. The best way to prevent this is, of course, to catch himyoung and educate him. A century or two ago the innate Bohemianism ofthe race might have made this difficult, if not impossible. But it isclear that even if the Gipsy blood has not been largely crossed duringtheir four centuries of residence in England, other influences have beensufficient to work upon them. If they can live in towns at all, they canlive in them after the manner of civilised townsmen. A Gipsy at schoolsuggests odd ideas, and one might expect that the pupils would imitatesome day or other, though less tragically, the conduct of that promisingSouth African prince who, the other day, solemnly took off his trousers(as a more decisive way of shaking our dust from his feet), and beganvigorously to kill colonists. But it is by no means certain that thiswould be the case. The old order of Gipsy life has, in England, at anyrate, become something of an impossibility and everything of a nuisance. It has ceased to be even picturesque. ”

The following is a copy of my paper upon the “Condition of GipsyChildren, ” as read by me before the Social Science Congress, held atManchester on October 7th, 1879. Although it was at the “fag end” of thesession, and the last paper but two, it was evident the announcement inthe papers that my paper was to be read on Tuesday morning had created alittle interest in the Gipsy children question, for immediately I beganto read it in the large room, under the presidency of Dr. Haviland, itwas manifest I was to be honoured with a large audience, so much so, that, before I had proceeded very far with it, the hall was nearly fullof merchant princes—who could afford to leave their bags of gold andcotton—and ladies and gentlemen desirous of listening to my humble taleof neglected humanity, and the outcasts of society, commonly called“Gipsies’ children. ” Dr. Gladstone, of the London School Board, openedthe discussion and said that he could, from his own observation andknowledge of the persons I had quoted, testify to the truthfulness of myremarks. Dr. Fox, of London, Mr. H. H. Collins, Mr. Crofton, and othergentlemen took part in the discussion, and it was the unanimous feelingof those present that something should be done to remedy this sad stateof things; and the chairman said that the result of my labours withregard to the Gipsies would be that something would be done in the way oflegislation. The paper caused some excitement in the country, and wascopied lengthily into many of the daily papers, including the _LeicesterDaily Post_, _Leicester Daily Mercury_, _Nottingham Guardian_, _Nottingham Journal_, _Sunday School Chronicle_, _Record_, and othersnearly in full, and was read as follows:—

“As it is not in my power to open out a painful subject in the flowerylanguage of fiction, romance, and imagery, in musical sounds of thehighest pitch of refinement, culture, and sentiment, I purpose followingout very briefly the same course on the present occasion as I adopted onthe three times I have had the honour to address the Social ScienceCongress with reference to the brick-yard and canal-boat children—viz. , that of attempting to place a few serious, hard, broad dark facts in aplain, practical, common-sense view, so as to permeate your nature tillthey have reached your hearts and consciences, and compelled you toextend the hand of sympathy and help to rescue my young clients from thedreadful and perilous condition into which they have fallen through longyears of neglect. 

 [Picture: A Farmer’s Pig that does not like a Gipsy’s Tent]

“Owing to a superstitious regard and dislike the Gipsies had towards theCensus, and their endeavours to evade being taken, no correct number hasbeen arrived at; and it is only by guess work and conjecture we can formany idea of the number of Gipsies there are in this country. The Censusputs the number at between 4, 000 and 5, 000. A gentleman who has livedand moved among them many years writes me to say that there cannot beless than 2, 000 in the neighbourhood of London, whose Paradises are inthe neighbourhood of Wormwood Scrubs, Notting Hill Pottery, New FoundOut, Kensal Green, Battersea, Dulwich Common, Lordship Lane, MitchamCommon, Barnes Common, Epping Forest, Cherry Island, and like places. Agentleman told me some time since that he gave a tea to over 150 Gipsiesresiding in the neighbourhood of Kensal Green. A Gipsy woman who hasmoved about all her life says she knows about 300 families in ten of theMidland counties. Another Gipsy, in a different part of England, tellsme a similar story, and says the same proportion will be borne out allover the country. Of hawkers, auctioneers, showmen, and others who livein caravans with their families, there would be, at a rough calculation, not less than 3, 000 children; taking these things along with others, andthe number given in the Census, it may be fairly assumed that I am underthe mark when I state that there are not less than 4, 000 Gipsy men andwomen, and 15, 000 to 20, 000 Gipsy and other children moving about thecountry outside the educational laws and the pale of civilisation. 

“Some few Gipsies who have arrived at what they consider the higheststate of a respectable and civilised life, reside in houses which, in 99cases out of 100, are in the lowest and most degraded part of the towns, among the scum and offscouring of all nations, and like locusts theyleave a blight behind them wherever they have been. Others have theirtents and vans, and there are many others who I have tents only. A tentas a rule is about 7ft. 6in. Wide, 16ft. Long, and 4ft. 6in. High at thetop. They are covered with pieces of old cloth, sacking, &c. , to keepthe rain and snow out; the opening to allow the Gipsies to go in and outof their tent is covered with a kind of coverlet. The fire by which theycook their meals is placed in a kind of tin bucket pierced with holes, and stands on the damp ground. Some of the smoke or sulphur arising fromthe sticks or coke finds its way through an opening at the top of thetent about 2ft. In diameter. The other part of the smoke helps to keeptheir faces and hands the proper Gipsy colour. Their beds consist of alayer of straw upon the damp ground, covered with a sack or sheet, as thecase may be. An old soapbox or tea-chest serves as a chest of drawers, drawing-room table, and clothes-box. In these places children are born, live, and die; men, women, grown-up sons and daughters, lie huddledtogether in such a state as would shock the modesty of South Africansavages, to whom we send missionaries to show them the blessings ofChristianity. As in other cases where idleness and filth abounds, whatlittle washing they do is generally done on the Saturday afternoons; butthis is a business they do not indulge in too often. They are notoverdone with cooking utensils, and the knives and forks they principallyuse are of the kind Adam used, and sensitive when applied to hot water. They take their meals and do their washing squatting upon the ground liketailors and Zulus. Lying, begging, thieving, cheating, and every otherabominable, low, cunning craft that ignorance and idleness can devise, they practise. In some instances these things are carried out to such apitch as to render them more like imbeciles than human beings endowedwith reason. Chair-mending, tinkering, and hawking are in many instancesused only as a ‘blind;’ while the women and children go about the countrybegging and fortune-telling, bringing to their heathenish tentssufficient to keep the family. The poor women are the slaves and toolsfor the whole family, and can be seen very often with a child upon theirbacks, another in their arms, and a heavily-laden basket by their side. Upon the shoulders of the women rests the responsibility of providing forthe herds of ditch-dwelling heathens. Many of the women enjoy theirshort pipes quite as much as the men. 

“Judging from the conversations I have had with the Gipsies in variousparts of the country, not more than half living as men and wives aremarried. No form or ceremony has been gone through, not even ‘jumpingthe broomstick, ’ as has been reported of them; and taking the words of arespectable Gipsy woman, ‘they go together, take each other’s words, andthere is an end of it. ’ I am also assured by Levi Boswell, a realrespectable Gipsy, and a Mrs. Eastwood, a Christian woman and a Gipsy, who preaches occasionally, that not half the Gipsies who are living asmen and wives are married. When once a Gipsy woman has been ill-used, she becomes fearful, and as one said to me a few days since, ‘we areeither like devils or like lambs. ’ In the case of some of the adultGipsies living on the outskirts of London an improvement has taken place. There is some good among them as with others. A Gipsy in Wiltshire hasbuilt himself a house at the cost of £600. Considerable difficulty isexperienced sometimes in finding them out, as many of the women go by twonames; but in vain do I look for any improvement among the children. Owing to the act relating to pedlars and hawkers prohibiting the grantingof licences for hawking to the youths of both sexes under seventeen, andthe Education Acts not being sufficiently strong to lay hold of theirdirty, idle, travelling tribes to educate them—except in rare cases—theyare allowed to skulk about in ignorance and evil training, without beingtaught how to get an honest living. No ray of hope enters their breast, their highest ambition is to live and loll about so long as the foodcomes, no matter by whom or how it comes so that they get it. In manyinstances they live like pigs, and die like dogs. The real old-fashionedGipsy has become more lewd and demoralised—if such a thing could be—byallowing his sons and daughters to mix up with the scamps, vagabonds, ‘rodneys, ’ and gaol birds, who now and then take their flight from the‘stone cup’ and settle among them as they are camping on the ditch banks;the consequence is our lanes are being infested with a lot of dirtyignorant Gipsies, who, with their tribes of squalid children, have beenencouraged by servant girls and farmers—by supplying their wants witheggs, bacon, milk, potatoes, the men helping themselves to game—to locatein the neighbourhood until they have received the tip from the farmer topass on to his neighbours. Children born under such circumstances, unless taken hold of by the State, will turn out to be a class of mostdangerous characters. Very much, up to the present, the wants of thewomen and children have been supplied through gulling the large-heartedand liberal-minded they have been brought in contact with, and the resulthas been that but few of the real Gipsies have found their way intogaols. This is a redeeming feature in their character; probably theiroffences may have been winked at by the farmers and others who do notlike the idea of having their stacks fired and property destroyed, andhave given the Gipsies a wide berth. Gipsies, as a rule, have very largefamilies, generally between eight and sixteen children are born in theirtents. Owing to their exposure to the damp and cold ground they suffermuch from chest and throat complaints. Large numbers of the children dieyoung before they are ‘broken’ in. ’ And it is a ‘breaking in’ in atremendous sense, fraught with fearful consequences. With regard totheir education, the following cases, selected from different parts ofthe country, may be fairly taken as representative of the entire Gipsycommunity. Boswell, a respectable Gipsy, says he has had nine sons anddaughters (six of whom are alive), and nineteen grandchildren, and noneof them can read or write; and he also thinks that about half the Gipsymen and women living as husbands and wives are unmarried. Mrs. Simpson, a Gipsy woman and a Christian, says she has six sons and daughters andsixteen grandchildren, and only two can read and write a little. Mrs. Eastwood says she has nine brothers and sisters. Mr. Eastwood, aChristian and a Gipsy, has eight brothers and sisters, many among themhave large families, making a total of adults and children of about fiftyof all ages, and there is scarcely one among them who can tell a letteror read a sentence; in addition to this number they have between themfrom 130 to 150 first and second cousins, among whom there are not morethan two who can read or write, and that but very little indeed, and Mr. Eastwood thinks this proportion will apply to other Gipsies. Mrs. Trayleer has six brothers and sisters, all Gipsies, and not one can reador write. A Gipsy woman, whose head-quarters are near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, has fifteen brothers and sisters, some of whom have large families. Sheherself has fifteen sons and daughters alive, some of whom are married. But of the whole of these brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, &c. , numbering not less than 100 of all ages, not morethan three or four can read or write, and they who can but veryimperfectly. Mrs. Matthews has a family of seven children, nearly allgrown-up, and not one out of the whole of these can read or write; thusit will be seen that I shall be under the mark when I state that not fiveper cent. Of the Gipsies, &c. , travelling about the country in tents andvans can either read or write; and I have not found one Gipsy but whatthinks it would be a good thing if their tents and vans were registered, and the children compelled to go to school—in fact, many of them areanxious for such a thing to be brought about. In the case of thebrick-yard and canal-boat children, they were over-worked as well asignorant. In the case of the Gipsy children, these children and roadsidearabs, for the want of education, ambition, animation, and push, areindulging in practices that are fast working their own destruction andthose they are brought into contact with, and a great deal of this maylay at the door of flattery, twaddle, petting, and fear. 

“The plan I would adopt to remedy this sad state of things is to applythe principles of the Canal Boats Act of 1877 to all movablehabitations—_i. E. _, I would have all tents, shows, caravans, auctioneers’vans, and like places used as dwellings registered and numbered, andunder proper sanitary arrangements and supervision of the sanitaryinspectors and School Board officers in every town and village. Withregard to the education of the children when once the tent or van isregistered and numbered, the children, whether travelling as Gipsies, auctioneers, &c. , are mostly idle during the day; consequently, a booksimilar to the half-time book, in which their names and attendance atschool could be entered, they could take from place to place as theytravel about, and it could be endorsed by the schoolmaster showing thatthe child was attending school. The education obtained in this way wouldnot be of the highest order; but through the kindness of theschoolmaster—for which extra trouble he should be compensated, as heought to be under the Canal Boats Act—and the vigilance of the SchoolBoard visitor, a plain, practical, and sound education could be impartedto, and obtained by, these poor little Gipsy children and roadside arabs, who, if we do our duty, will be qualified to fill the places of those ofour best artisans who are leaving the country to seek their fortunesabroad. ”

The following is a leading article in the _Birmingham Daily Mail_, October 8th:—“Mr. George Smith, whose exertions on behalf of the canalpopulation and the children employed in brick-yards have been accompaniedwith so much success, is now turning his attention to the education ofthe Gipsies. He read a paper on this subject at the Social ScienceCongress, yesterday, suggesting that the same plan of registration whichhad proved advantageous in the case of the canal-boatmen and theirfamilies should be adopted for the more nomadic class who roam from placeto place, with no settled home and no local habitation. The Gipsies area strange race, with a romantic history, and their vagabond life issurrounded with enough of the mysterious to give them at all times aspecial and curious interest. In the days of our infancy we arefrightened with tales of their child-thieving propensities, and even whenyears and reason have asserted their influence we are apt to regard witha survival of our childish awe the wandering ‘diviners and wickedheathens’ who roam about the country, living in a mysterious aloofnessfrom their fellow-men. Scores of theories have been propounded as to theorigin of the Gipsy race, whence they sprang, and how they came to be solargely scattered over three of the four quarters of the globe. Opinion, following in the wake of the learned Rudiger, has finally settled down tothe view that they came from India, but whether they are the Tshandalasreferred to in the laws of Menou, or kinsmen of the Bazeegars ofCalcutta, or are descended from the robbers of the Indus, or areidentical with the Nuts and Djatts of Northern India, has not beenascertained with any degree of certainty. The Gyptologists are not yetagreed upon the ancestry of this ancient but obscure race, and possiblythey never will be. We know, however, that the Gipsies have wandered upand down Europe since the eleventh century, if not from a still earlierperiod, and that they have preserved their Bohemian characteristics, their language—which is a sort of daughter of the old Sanscrit—theirtraditions, and the mysteries of their religion during a long career ofrestless movement and frequent persecution. And they have kept, too, their indolent, and not too creditable habits. Early in the twelfthcentury an Austrian monk described them as ‘Ishmaelites and braziers, whogo peddling through the wide world, having neither house, nor home, cheating the people with their tricks, and deceiving mankind, but notopenly. ’ That description would hold good at the present day. TheGipsies are still a lazy, thieving set of rogues, who get their living byrobbing hen-roosts, telling fortunes, and ‘snapping up unconsideredtrifles’ like Autolycus of old. Pilfering, varied with a rude sort ofmagic, and the swindling arts of divination and chiromancy for thespecial behoof of credulous servant-girls, are the stock-in-trade of themodern Zingaris. Without education, and without industry, they transmittheir vagrant habits to generation after generation, and perpetuate allthe vices of a lawless and nomadic life. 

“It is very easy to give a romantic and even a sentimental colouring tothe wandering Romany. The ‘greenwood home, ’ with its freedom from allthe restraints of a conventional state of society, is not without itsattractive side—in books and in ballads. Minor poets have told us that‘the Gipsy’s life is a joyous life, ’ and plays and operas have beenwritten to illustrate the superiority of vagabondage over civilisation. But the pretty Gitana of the stage is altogether a different sort ofbeing from the brown-faced, elf-locked, and tawdrily dressed female whohaunts back entries with the ostensible object of selling clothes-pegs, but with the real motive of picking up whatever may be lying in her way. There is but small chance of Bohemian Girls finding themselves indrawing-rooms nowadays. The last experiment of the kind was made by thewriter of a charming book on the Gipsies, who was so fascinated by one oftheir number that he married her; but the wild, restless spirit wasuntameable, and the divorce court proved that the supposed precept offidelity, which is said to guide the conduct of Gipsy wives, is notwithout its exceptions. The Gipsies have nothing in common with ourconventional ways and habits, and whether it is possible ever to removethe barrier that separates them from civilisation is a question whichonly experiment can satisfactorily answer. Mr. Smith’s scheme is not thefirst, by many, that has been made to improve the conditions of Gipsylife. Nearly half a century ago the Rev. Mr. Crabb, of Southampton, formed a society with the object of amalgamating the Gipsies with thegeneral population, but the scheme was comparatively futile. Still, pastfailure is no reason why a new attempt should not be made. Mr. Smithsays there cannot be less than 4, 000 Gipsy men and women, and from 15, 000to 20, 000 Gipsy children moving about the country, outside theeducational laws and the pale of civilisation, and not five per cent. Ofthem can either read or write. Their mode of life is such as ‘wouldshock the modesty of South African savages, ’ for men, women, and grown-upsons and daughters lie huddled together, and in many cases they ‘livelike pigs and die like dogs. ’ There is certainly room enough here foreducation, and education is the only thing that is likely to have anypractical results. 

“It is proposed that the principles of the Canal Boats Act shall beapplied to all movable habitations; that is, that all tents, shows, caravans, auctioneers’ vans, and like places used as dwellings, shall beregistered and numbered, and put under proper sanitary supervision. Mr. Smith points out that when once a tent or van had been registered andnumbered, it could be furnished with a book similar to a half-time book, in which the names of the children having first been entered, theattendances at school could be endorsed by the schoolmaster—for whichextra trouble he should be compensated—as the children travelled aboutfrom place to place. By this means something tangible would be done toprevent the roadside waifs from growing up in the ignorance which is theparent of idleness. Why should these ten or fifteen thousand littlenomads be allowed to remain in the neglected condition which hascharacterised their strange race for centuries? It is time that thespell was broken. There are no traditions of Gipsy life worthperpetuating; there is no sentimental halo around its history which itwould be cruel to dispel. In past ages the Gipsies have been subjectedto harsh laws and barbarous edicts; it remains for our more enlightenedtimes to deal with them on a humaner plan. It is only by the expandinginfluence of education that the little minds of their children can gain anecessary experience of the utility and dignity of honest labour. Whenthey have received some measure of instruction they will be fitter toemerge from the aimless and vagabond life of their forefathers, and breakaway from the squalor and precarious existence which has held so manygenerations of them in thrall. Mr. Smith’s idea is worthy the attentionof legislators. It does not look so grand on paper, we admit, but it isa nobler thing to educate the young barbarian at home than to make warupon the unoffending barbarian abroad. The instincts and habits whichhave been transmitted from father to son for hundreds of years are not, of course, to be eradicated in a day, or even in a generation; but thetime will, perhaps, eventually come when the Gipsies will cease to existas a separate and distinct people, and become absorbed into the generalpopulation of the country. Whether that absorption takes place sooner orlater, nothing can be lost by conferring on the young ‘Arabs’ of thetents the rudiments of an education which will hereafter be helpful tothem if they are desirous of abandoning their squalor and indolence, andof earning an industrious livelihood. Their dread of fixed andcontinuous occupation may die out in time, and closer intimacy with theconditions of industrial life may teach them that civilisation has somecompensations to offer for the sacrifice of their roaming propensities, and for taking away from them their ‘free mountains, their plains andwoods, the sun, the stars, and the winds’ which are the companions oftheir free and unfettered, but wasted and purposeless lives. ”

The _Weekly Dispatch_, in a leading article, October 13th, says:—“Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, has an eye for the nomads of the country. His name must already be unfavourably known throughout most of the canalbarges of the United Kingdom. If he is not the Croquemitaine of everyfloating nursery journeying inland from the metropolis he ought to be, for it was mainly he who thrust a half-time book into the hands of thebargee and compelled him, by the Canal Boats Act of 1877, to soap hisinfants’ faces and put primers in their way. With Smith of Coalville, therefore, it may be expected that each juvenile of the wharves and locksnow associates his most unhappy moments. The half-time book of the actcomes between him and the blessed state of his previous ignorance. Registered and numbered, supervised and inspected, he has been put on theroad to know things that must necessarily disillusionise him of the blackenchantments of life on the water highway. It is allowable to hope, however, that having recovered from the first discomforts of civilisingsoap and primers, he will yet live to appreciate Mr. Smith’s name as oneassociated with kindly intent and generous aspirations in his behalf. Ageneration of bargemen who had a less uncompromising vocabulary of oaths, who could beguile some of the tedium of their voyaging with reading, andwho in other important respects showed the influences of half-time, wouldbe a smiling reward of philanthropy and an important addition to ourcivilisation. That Mr. Smith anticipates some such reward is evidentfrom the eagerness with which he has been pushing the principle inanother quarter. At the Social Science Congress he has just propounded ascheme of educational annexation for Gipsy children similar in everyrespect to that applied to the occupants of the canal-boats. That is, hewould have every tent and van numbered and furnished with a half-timebook, and he would ordain it as the duty of School Board visitors to seethat the Gipsies render their children amenable to the terms of the actto the extent of their wandering ability, under threat of the usualpenalties. The prospect which he foresees from such treatment is that abody of wanderers numbering not much below 20, 000 will be rescued from aposition which, he says, would at present shock South African savages, and will thus be brought in to honest industry and ‘qualified to fill theplaces of our best artisans, who are leaving the country to seek theirfortunes abroad. ’ It is impossible not to wish Mr. Smith’s scheme well, especially as he contends that the Gipsies themselves are not averse tohaving their children educated; but it is equally impossible to besanguine as to results. The true Gipsy, who is not to be confounded withthe desultory hawker of English origin, has many arteries of untameableblood within him. He has never as yet shown the slightest concern aboutthe English phases of civilisation which Mr. Smith would like to pressupon his notice. Such ideas as those of God, immortality, and marriageare as unknown to him as the commonest distinction between mine andthine. He is a well-looking artistic vagabond, to whom a half-time bookand a penalty will in all probability be no better than a standing joketo be cracked with impunity at the expense of the rural School Boards. ”

 [Picture: Gipsies’ Winter Quarters near Latimer Road, Notting Hill]

The _Sportsman_ of October 16th, 1879, has the following notice:—“Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, whose philanthropic efforts on behalf of ‘ourcanal-boat population’ are well known, has lately turned his attention tothe wandering Gipsy tribes who infest the roadside, with the view toprocuring at least a modicum of education for their children. He saysthat the Gipsies are lamentably ignorant, few of them being able even towrite their names. By certain proceedings which took place atChristchurch Police-court on Tuesday, it would almost seem that some ofthe dark-faced wanderers already are educated a little too much. At allevents, they occasionally manifest an ability to ‘take a stave’ out ofthe rest of the community. At the court in question a Gipsy woman namedEmma Barney was brought to task for ‘imposing by subtle craft to extortmoney’ from a Bournemouth shopkeeper named Richard Oliver. It seems thatOliver is troubled with pimples on his face, and that Emma Barney—not aninappropriate name, by the way—said she could cure these by means of acertain herb, the name of which she would divulge ‘for a consideration. ’Before doing so, however, she required Richard’s coat and waistcoat, andsome silver to ‘steam in hot water, ’ after which the name of the herbwould be given—on the following day. It is needless to say that thecoat, waistcoat, and silver did not return to the Oliver home, and thatthe pimples did not depart from the Oliver face. The ‘Gipsy’s home’ forthe next two months will be in the county gaol. It is a curiousreflection, however, that such strange credulity as that displayed by theBournemouth shopkeeper in this case can be found in the present year ofgrace, with its gigantic machinery for educating the masses. ”

The following leading article, taken from the _Daily Telegraph_, underdate October 17th of last year, will show that crime is far from abatingamong the classes of the Gipsy fraternity:—“The melancholy truth thatthere exists a ‘breed’ of criminals in all societies was well illustratedat Exeter this week. Sir John Duckworth, as Chairman of the DevonQuarter Sessions, in charging the grand jury, had to tell them that thecalendar was very heavy, the heaviest, in fact, known for many years. There were forty-five prisoners for trial, whereas the average number istwenty-five, taking the last five years. Sir John could assign noparticular reason for such a lamentable increase, though he supposed theprevailing depression of trade might have had something to do with it. But he pointed out a very notable fact indeed, which sprang from anexamination of the gaol delivery, and this was that out of the forty-fiveprisoners twenty had been previously convicted. Such a percentage goesfar to prove that the criminal propensity is innate, and to a certaindegree ineradicable by punishments; and this only enhances the immenseimportance of national education, by which alone society can hope toconquer the predatory tendency in certain baser blood, and to supply itwith the means and the instincts of industry. In justice, however, tothe existing generation of criminals, we ought also to remember that suchserious figures further prove the difficulty encountered by releasedprisoners in living honestly. A rat will not steal where traps are setif it can only find food in the open, and some of these twice-capturedvermin of our community might tell a piteous tale of the obstacles thatlie in the way of honesty. ”

The _Weekly Times_, under date October 26th, 1879, has the followingarticle upon the Gipsies near London. The locality described is not onehundred miles from Mary’s Place and Notting Hill Potteries. The writergoes on to say that “There are at the present time upwards of twothousand people—men, women, and children, members of the Gipsytribe—camped in the outlying districts of London. They are settled uponwaste places of every kind. Bits of ground that will ere long beoccupied by houses, waste corners that seem to be of no good foranything, yards belonging to public-houses, or pieces of ‘common’ overwhich no authority claims any rights; or if there are rights, theauthority is too obscure to interfere with such poor settlers as Gipsies, who will move away again before an authoritative opinion can bepronounced 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 tentwhere a Londoner would only accommodate his pig or his dog, and theycertainly do not affect the balance of labour, few of them being everguilty of robbing a man of an honest day’s work. Yet, with all theirfailings, the Gipsies have always found friends ready to take their partin 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 forceto keep ever moving, they fulfil the fate imposed upon them with a degreeof cheerfulness which no other class of people would exhibit. As theapproach of winter reduces outdoor pursuits to the fewest possiblenumber, the farm labourer finds it difficult to employ the whole of histime profitably, and those who only follow an outdoor life for thepleasures it yields naturally gravitate towards the shelter of largetowns in which to spend the winter months of every year. So when thecold winds begin to blow, and the leaves are falling, the Gipsies come totown, and settle upon the odd nooks and corners, and fill up the unusedyards, and eat and drink, and bring up children, in the very places wheretheir fathers and grandfathers have done the same before them. The youngmen 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 withrope mats, and every form of chair or stool that can be made of rushesand canes. The old folks do a little grinding of knives, or tinker potsand pans; and, if a fine day or a pleasure fair calls forth all theuseful mouths and hands from their tents and caravans, the babies willtake care of themselves in the straw which makes the pony’s bed untilsome member of the camp returns home in the evening. So the wintermonths pass away, and in the spring, when the cuckoo begins to call, these restless-footed people, whose origin no man is acquainted with, goforth again, and in the lanes and woods, or on the commons of thecountry, pass their summer, earning a precarious subsistance—honestly ifthey can—content with hard food and poor clothes, so that they may feelthe free air of heaven blowing about them night and day, while the sunpaints their cheeks the colour of the ancient Egyptians. Our Gipsieshave always been a favourite study with ethnological folk; poets havesung their wild, free life, and painters have taken them as types of thehappy, if the careless; while philanthropists have occasionally goneamongst them, and told pitiful tales of their degradation, ignorance, andmisery. It was not from any feeling of romance or pity that we wereinduced the other day to accept an invitation from Mr. George Smith, ofCoalville, to spend a few hours amongst some of these people. Mr. GeorgeSmith’s life has been devoted to the amelioration of the condition ofmany very poor and almost entirely neglected classes of the community, and it was pleasant to have the opportunity of going with such asimple-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 canal-boats, he has found onemore class still left outside every Act of Parliament, and beyond everychance of being helped in the right way to earn an honest living andbecome industrious members of society. These are the Gipsies and theirchildren, who have been let alone so severely by all so-calledright-thinking men and women that there is great danger of their becominga sore evil in our midst. Unable to read or write—their powers ofthought thereby cramped—with no one to look after them, separated fromthe people in whose midst they live, there can be little wonder that theyshould grow up with certain loose notions about right and wrong, and amanner of life the reverse of that which prevails amongst Christianpeople; but, now that Mr. George Smith has got his eyes and his heartfixed upon them, there will surely be something done which, in the nearfuture, will redeem these people from many of the disadvantages underwhich they labour, and add to the body corporate a tribe possessed ofmany amiable characteristics. Mr. Smith never takes up more than onething at a time, and upon the accomplishment of it he concentrates allhis energies. This attribute is the one which has enabled him to carryto successful conclusions the acts for the relief of the brick-yard andthe canal-boat children; but while he is about a work he becomesthoroughly possessed by his subject, and the most important event thatmay happen for the country, or for the world, loses all value in his eyesunless it bears directly upon the accomplishment of the object in hand. Thus it happened that, from the time we sallied out together in search ofa Gipsy camp, until the moment we parted at night, Mr. Smith thought ofnothing, spoke of nothing, remembered nothing, saw nothing, but what hadsome relation to the Gipsies and their mode of life. The Zulus were tobe pitied because theirs was a sort of Gipsy life; and the Gipsies’ tentswere nothing more than kraals. All his stories were of what Gipsies hehad met, and what they had said; and even our fellow-travellers in thetrain were only noticeable because they looked like some Gipsy man orwoman whom he had met elsewhere. We had a short ride by rail, and atramp through a densely-populated district, and then we came to thecamping-ground we wanted. It was a spacious yard, entered through agate, and surrounded with houses, whose back yards formed the enclosure. There were three caravans and three kraals erected there, and as it wasSunday afternoon nearly all the inhabitants were at home. Those who wereabsent were a few children able to go to Sunday-school, whither they wentof their own free will and with the approval of their parents. Thekraals were not all constructed on the same pattern—two were circular inform 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 manyyears before gone the way of all beef—into a butcher’s shop. There weretiles on the low roof—in places—but plenty of openings were left for therain to come in, and for the smoke from the fire in the bucket to find away out if it chose. The floor was common earth, and very uneven inplaces. Alice, the mistress of this abode, was a woman over fifty, witha 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 herspectacles, without which she solemnly declared she could not read aline. She left the spectacles one day when she was going ‘hopping, ’hidden under a tile above her head, and when she returned the case wasthere, but the spectacles were gone. She carried her licence to hawk inher spectacle-case, until the time came when she could happily beg thegift of a pair of new ones. Her husband, a white-haired old man, with alook of innocent wonder in his face, sat on a lump of wood, warming hishands over the fire. He said little—his wife scarcely allowing anopportunity for any one else to speak—but seemed to consider that he wasa fortunate man in having such a remarkable wife. There was a handsomeyoung woman sitting in the only chair in the place, daughter of the oldcouple; and her brother lay extended on a bed made of indescribablethings in one portion of the cabin, where the tiles in the roof showed noopenings to the sky. His wife, a thoroughbred Gipsy, sat nursing ababy—their first-born—on the edge of the bed. The wood walls werecovered with old clothes, sacking, and a variety of odd things, fastenedin their places by wooden skewers, and adorned with a few pots and pansused in cooking. Here, for six or seven winters, this family hadresided, defying alike the frosts and snows and rains of the most severewinters. Nor could they be made to admit that a cottage would be morecomfortable; that hut had served them well enough so many years, andwould be good enough as long as they lived. Besides, said Alice, therent was a consideration, and the whole yard only cost 2s. A week. Thiswoman 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 twoyoung women, thorough Gipsies in face and tongue, who chaffed us as tothe object of our visit, and begged hard for some kind of remembrance tobe left with them. But we did not accept their invitation to walk up, but passed down the yard, by heaps of manure and refuse of all kinds, byanother kraal, where a bucket containing coal was burning, and a youngman lay stretched on a dirty mattress, and a little bantam kept watchbeside him, to the steps of another caravan, where, from the sounds weheard, high jinks were going on with some children. At the sound of atap 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 inamazement; the girl’s face appeared like an apparition—so fair, sobeautiful, so like some face we had seen elsewhere, that we were confusedand puzzled. In a moment the mystery was solved; we had seen that facebefore in several of the choicest canvases that have hung in recent yearsupon the walls of the Academy; we had met with the fairest Gipsy modelthat ever stood before the students of the Academy, the favourite alikeof the young artist and the head of his profession. It can only fall tothe lot of a few to see Annie, the Gipsy model; but the curious may lookupon her counterpart, only of heroic size, in Clytie, at the BritishMuseum. Annie has a face of exquisite Grecian form, and a hand sodelicate that it has been painted more than once in the ‘portrait of atitled lady. ’ When she was a very little girl, she told us, hawkinglaces in a basket one day, a gentleman met her at the West-end who was apainter, and from that day to the present Annie has earned a living—andat times of great distress maintained all the family—by the fees shereceived as a model. Her mother had had nine children, of whom eightwere living; and three of the family are constantly employed as models. Annie is one, the young fellow who was watched over by the bantam wasanother, and a boy of four was the third. The father is of pure Gipsyblood, but the mother is an Oxfordshire woman, and neither of thempossess any striking characteristic in their faces; yet all their girlsare singularly beautiful, and their sons handsome fellows. They have gota reputation for beauty now, and ladies have, but without success, triedto negotiate for the possession of the youngest. Never before had weseen such fair faces, such dainty limbs, such exquisite eyes, as werepossessed by the Gipsy occupants of that caravan. Annie was as modestand gentle-voiced and mannered as she was beautiful; and there came aflush of trouble over her fair face as she told us that not being able toread or write had ‘been against’ her all her life. There was morerefinement about Annie and her mother than we had discovered amongstothers with whom we had conversed. Thus, Annie, speaking of hergrandfather, laid great emphasis on the assertion that he was a fine man. He lived to be 104, she said, and walked as upright as a young man to hisdeath. He went about crying ‘chairs to mend, ’ in that very locality, upto within a short time of his death, and all the old ladies employed himbecause he was so handsome. She was playing with a baby girl as shetalked with us, and the child fixed her black eyes upon her sister’sface, 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 hername was Comfort. Coming away from the hop grounds, the caravans had tocross a river, and while we were in the water one day the river suddenlyrose, the caravans were upset, and eleven were drowned, Comfort amongstthe number. So I christened baby after her in remembrance. ’ All thefamily were neatly dressed, and once, when Annie opened the cupboard doorfor 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 andcountry daily papers, and it appeared in the _Daily Chronicle_ and _DailyNews_, November 20th, as under:—“The following touching incident mayslightly show the thorough heartfelt desire there is—but lacking thepower—among the Gipsies to be partakers of some of the sanitary andeducational advantages the Gorgios or Gentiles are the recipients of. Afew days since I wended my way to a large number of Gipsies located intents, huts, and vans near Wandsworth Common, to behold the pitiablespectacle of some sixty half-naked, poor Gipsy children, and thirty Gipsymen and women, living in a state of indescribable ignorance, dirt, filth, and misery, mostly squatting upon the ground, making their beds upon pegshavings and straw, and divested of the last tinge of romanticalnonsense, which is little better in this case—used as a deal of itis—than paper pasted upon the windows, to hide from public view the massof human corruption which has been festering in our midst for centuries, breeding all kinds of sin and impurities, except in the eyes of those whosee beautiful colours and delights in the aroma of stagnant pools andbeauty in the sparkling hues of the gutter, and revel in adding tints andpictures to the life and death of a weasel, lending enchantment to thelife of a vagabond, and admire the non-intellectual development of beingsmany of whom are only one step from that of animals, if I may judge fromthe amount of good the 20, 000 Gipsies have accomplished in the worldduring the last three or four centuries. Connected with this encampmentnot more than four or five of the poor creatures could read a sentence orwrite a letter. In creeping almost upon ‘all-fours, ’ into one of thetents, I came across a real, antiquated, live, good kind of Gipsy womannamed Britannia Lee, who boasted that she was a Lee of the fourthgeneration; and in sitting down upon a seat that brought my knees upon alevel with my chin, I entered into conversation with the family about theobjects 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 thecountry registered and under proper sanitary arrangements, and thechildren compelled to attend school wherever they may be temporarilylocated, and to receive an education which will in some degree help toget these poor unfortunate people out of the heartrending and despondingcondition into which they have been allowed to sink. Although Mrs. Leewas ill and poor, her face beamed with gladness to find that I was tryingin my humble way to do the Gipsy children good; and in a kind of maternalfeeling she said she should be pleased to show her deep interest in mywork, 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 keepingas 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 loserfor the mite she had given to me. He once sent her, in her extremity, ashilling in the middle of a potato, which she found when cooking. Withmany expressions of ‘God bless you in your work among the children! Youwill be rewarded some day for all your time, trouble, and expense, ’ weparted. ”

The London correspondent of the _Croydon Chronicle_ writes as under, onNovember 22nd, touching a visit we both made to a number of poor Gipsychildren squatting about upon Mitcham Common. Among other things hesays:—“I have had a day in your neighbourhood with George Smith, ofCoalville. He is visiting all the Gipsy grounds he can find and reach, for the purpose of gaining information as to the condition of the swarmsof children who live in squalor and ignorance under tents. He is ofopinion that he will be able to get them into schools, and do as much forthem generally as he has done for the brick-field and canal children; andI have no doubt myself that he will succeed. Well, the other day heasked me to have a run round with him, and we went to Mitcham Common tosee some of the families there. He told me that one of the Gipsy womenhad been confined, and that she wanted him to give the child a name. Hedid not know what to call it, so we had to put our heads together andsettle the matter. After a great deal of careful deliberation he decidedthat 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, andperhaps it would have done as well for one as for the other. The tentswere much of a character—some kind of stitched-together rags thrown oversticks. Our visit was made on a fine day, when it was not particularlycold, and the first tent we came to had been opened at the top. Welooked over (these tents are only about five feet high), and beheld sixchildren, the eldest being a girl of about eight or ten. The father wasanywhere to suit the imagination, and the mother was away hawking. Thesechildren, sitting on the ground with a fire in the middle of them, weremaking clothes-pegs. The process seemed simple. The sticks are choppedinto the necessary lengths and put into a pan of hot water. This Isuppose swells the wood and loosens the bark. A child on the other sidetakes out the sticks as they are done and bites off the bark with itsteeth. Then there is a boy who puts tin round them, and so the work goeson. When the day is done they look for the mother coming home fromhawking with anything she may have picked up. When they have devouredsuch scraps and pickings as are brought, they lie down where they haveworked and as they are, and go to sleep. It is a wonderful andmysterious arrangement of Providence that they can sleep. They have onlya rag between them and the snow. A good wind would blow their homes overthe trees. I do not wish to make any particularly violent remarks, but Ishould like some of the comfortable clergymen of your neighbourhood, whenthey have done buying their toys and presents for young friends atChristmas, 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 thework of the Master. One tent is very much like another. We visitedabout half-a-dozen, and we then went to name the child. We stayed inthis tent for about ten minutes. It was inhabited by two families, numbering in all about twenty. I talked a little time with the womanlying on the ground, and she uncovered the baby to show it to me. I donot know whether it is a boy or a girl, but ‘Deliverance’ will do foreither one or the other. She asked me to write the name on a piece ofpaper, 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 theyalways 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. GeorgeSmith, of Coalville, is endeavouring to do a work for the children ofGipsies similar to that he has done for the children employed inbrick-yards and the children of canal-boatmen—that is, bring them undersome sort of supervision, so that they may secure at least a small sharein the educational advantages of the country. Recently he published anaccount of a visit to an encampment of the Gipsies near WandsworthCommon, and it is evident that these wanderers without any settled placeof abode look on his efforts with some considerable approval. Theencampment was made up of a number of tents, huts, and vans, andcontained some sixty half-naked poor Gipsy children and thirty Gipsy menand women, living in an indescribable state of ignorance, dirt, filth, and misery, mostly squatting upon the ground, or otherwise making theirbeds upon peg shavings and straw; and it turned out upon inquiry that notmore than four of these poor creatures could read a sentence or write aletter. They are, however, not indisposed to be subject to regulationsthat will contribute to their partial education, if to nothing more. Inpassing from one of these miserable habitations to another, Mr. Smithfound an old Gipsy woman proud of her name and descent, for she was aLee, and a Lee of the fourth generation. To this old woman he explainedhis purpose, sitting on a low seat under the cover of the tent with hisknees on a level with his chin. He wanted, he said, ‘to get all theGipsy tents and vans, and other movable habitations in the country, registered and under proper sanitary arrangements, and the childrencompelled to attend school wherever they may be temporarily located, andto receive an education which will in some degree help to get them out ofthe low, heartrending condition into which they have been allowed tosink. ’ Mrs. Lee listened with pleasure to this narration of Mr. Smith’spurpose, and, though in great poverty, desired to aid this good work. Her stock of cash amounted to three-halfpence; but this she insisted upongiving, so that she might contribute a little, at any rate, towards theimprovement of her people. We hope Mr. Smith may succeed in his work, and succeed speedily, so that these Gipsy children, who are trained up toa vagabond life, may have a chance of learning something better. Andevidently, from Mr. Smith’s experience, there is no hostility to such ameasure as he wishes to have made law among the Gipsies themselves. ”

Owing to my letters, papers, articles and paragraphs, and efforts inother directions during the last several months, the Gipsy subject mightnow be fairly considered to have made good headway, consequently theproprietor of the _Illustrated London News_, without any difficulty, wasinduced—in fact, with pleasure—to have a series of sketches of Gipsy lifein his journal, the first appearing November 29th, connected with whichwas the following notice, and in which he says:—“Our illustrations, froma sketch taken by one of our artists in the neighbourhood of LatimerRoad, Notting Hill, which is not far from Wormwood Scrubs, show thehabits of living folk who are to be found as well in the outskirts ofLondon, where there are many chances of picking up a stray bit ofirregular gain, as in more rural parts of the country. The figure of agentleman introduced into this sketch, who appears to be conversing withthe Gipsies in their waggon encampment, is that of Mr. George Smith, ofCoalville, Leicester, the well-known benevolent promoter of social reformand legislative protection for the long-neglected class of peopleemployed on canal-barges, whose families, often living on board thesevessels, are sadly in want of domestic comfort and of education for thechildren. ” The editor also inserted my Congress paper fully. Thefollowing week another sketch of Gipsy life appeared in the same journal, connected with which were the following remarks:—“Another sketch of thewild and squalid habits of life still retained by vagrant parties orclans of this singular race of people, often met with in theneighbourhood of suburban villages and other places around London, willbe found in our journal. We may again direct the reader’s attention tothe account of them which was contributed by Mr. George Smith, ofCoalville, Leicester, to the late Social Science Congress at Manchester, and which was reprinted in our last week’s publication. That well-knownadvocate of social reform and legal protection for the neglected vagrantclasses of our population reckons the total number of Gipsies in thiscountry at three or four thousand men and women and ten thousandchildren. He is now seeking to have all movable habitations—_i. E. _, tents, vans, shows, &c. —in which the families live who are earning aliving by travelling from place to place, registered and numbered, as inthe case of canal-boats, and the parents compelled to send their childrento school at the place wherever they may be temporarily located, be itNational, British, or Board school. The following is Mr. Smith’s noteupon 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 werealmost men and women. The wife of one of the men had been confined of ababy the day before I called—her bed consisting of a layer of straw uponthe damp ground. Such was the wretched and miserable condition they werein that I could not do otherwise than help the poor woman, and gave her alittle money. But, in her feelings of gratitude to me for this simpleact of kindness, she said she would name the baby anything I would liketo chose; and, knowing that Gipsies are fond of outlandish names, I wasin a difficulty. After turning the thing over in my mind for a fewhours, I could think of nothing but “Deliverance. ” This seemed to pleasethe 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, wasgiven, to which were added the following remarks:—“Another sketch of thesingular habits and rather deplorable condition of these vagrant people, who hang about, as the parasites of civilisation, close on the suburbanoutskirts 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 providingdue supervision and police regulation for the Gipsies, with compulsoryeducation for their children, we readily dedicate these localillustrations to the furtherance of his good work. The ugliest place weknow in the neighbourhood of London, the most dismal and forlorn, is notHackney 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, halfconsisting of fields laid waste in expectation of the house-builder, which lies just outside of Shepherd’s Bush and Notting Hill. There it isthat the Gipsy encampment may be found, squatting within an hour’s walkof the Royal palaces and of the luxurious town mansions of our nobilityand opulent classes, to the very west of the fashionable West-end, beyondthe gentility of Bayswater and Whiteley’s avenue of universal shopping. It is a curious spectacle in that situation, and might suggest a fewserious reflections upon social contrasts at the centre and capital ofthe mighty British nation, which takes upon itself the correction ofevery savage tribe in South and West Africa and Central Asia. Theencampment is usually formed of two or three vans and a rude cabin or atent, placed on some piece of waste ground, for which the Gipsy partyhave to pay a few shillings a week of rent. This may be situated at theback of a row of respectable houses, and in full view of their bedroom orparlour windows, not much to the satisfaction of the quiet inhabitants. The interior of one of the vans, furnished as a dwelling-room, which isshown in our artist’s sketch, does not look very miserable; but Mr. Smithinforms us that these receptacles of vagabond humanity are often sadlyovercrowded. Besides a man, his wife, and their own children, the littleones stowed in bunks or cupboards, there will be several adult personstaken in as lodgers. The total number of Gipsies now estimated to beliving in the metropolitan district is not less than 2, 000. Among theseare doubtless not a small proportion of idle runaways or ‘losels’ fromthe more settled classes of our people. It would seem to be the duty ofsomebody at the Home Office, for the sake of public health and goodorder, to call upon some local authorities of the county or the parish tolook after these eccentricities of Gipsy life. ”

On January 3rd, 1880, additional illustrations were given in the_Illustrated London News_. 1. Tent at Hackney; 2. Tent at Hackney; 3. Sketch near Latimer Road, Notting Hill; 4. A Bachelor’s Bedroom, MitchamCommon; 5. Encampment at Mitcham Common; 6. A Knife-grinder at HackneyWick; 7. A Tent at Hackney Marshes. “A few additional sketches, continuing those of this subject which have appeared in our journal, areengraved for the present number. It is estimated by Mr. George Smith, ofCoalville, Leicester, who has recently been exploring the queer outcastworld of Gipsydom in different parts of England, that some 2, 000 peoplecalled by that name, but of very mixed race, living in the manner of ZuluKaffirs rather than of European citizens, frequent the neighbourhood ofLondon. They are not all thieves, not even all beggars and impostors, and they escape the law of vagrancy by paying a few shillings of weeklyrent for pitching their tents or booths, and standing their waggons orwheeled cabins, on pieces of waste ground. The western side of NottingHill, where the railway passenger going to Shepherd’s Bush or Hammersmithsees a vast quantity of family linen hung out to dry in the gardens andcourtyards of small dwelling-houses, bordered towards Wormwood Scrubs bya dismal expanse of brick-fields, might tempt the Gipsies so inclined totake a clean shirt or petticoat—certainly not for their own wearing. Butwe are not aware that the police inspectors and magistrates of thatdistrict have found such charges more numerous in their official recordthan has been experienced in other quarters of London; and it is possiblethat honest men and women, though of irregular and slovenly habits, mayexist among this odd fragment of our motley population. It is for thesake of their children, who ought to be, at least equally with those ofthe English labouring classes, since they cannot get it from theirparents, 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 obstructthe highways, should not be persecuted; for they are a less activenuisance than the Italian organ-grinders in our city streets, whosetormenting presence we are content to suffer, to the sore interruptionboth of our daily work and our repose. But it is expedient that thereshould be an Act of Parliament, if the Home Secretary has not alreadysufficient legal powers, to establish compulsory registration of thetravelling Gipsy families, and a strict licensing system, with constantpolice supervision, for their temporary encampments, while their childrenshould be looked after by the local School Board. These measures, combined with judicious offers of industrial help for the adults andindustrial training for the juniors, with the special exercise ofPoor-Law Guardian administration, and some parochial or missionaryreligious efforts, might put an end to vagabond Gipsy life in Englandbefore the commencement of the twentieth century, or within onegeneration. We hope to see the matter discussed in the House of Lords orthe House of Commons during the ensuing session; for it actually concernsthe moral and social welfare of more than thirty thousand people in ourown country, which is an interest quite as considerable as that we havein Natal or the Transvaal, among Zulus and Basutos, and the rest ofKaffirdom. The sketches we now present in illustration of this subjectare designed to show the squalid and savage aspect of Gipsy habitationsin the suburban districts, at Hackney and Hackney Wick, north-east ofLondon; where the marsh-meadows of the river Lea, unsuitable forbuilding-land, seem to forbid the extension of town streets and blocks ofbrick or stuccoed terraces; where the pleasant wooded hills of Epping andHainault Forest appear in the distance, inviting the jaded townsman, onsummer holidays, to saunter in the Royal Chace of the old English kingsand queens; where genuine ruralities still lie within an hour’s walk, ofwhich the fashionable West-ender knoweth nought. There lurks the freeand fearless Gipsy scamp, if scamp he truly be, with his squaw and hispiccaninnies, in a wigwam hastily constructed of hoops and poles andblankets, or perhaps, if he be the wealthy sheikh of his wild Bedouintribe, in a caravan drawn from place to place by some lost and strayedplough-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 cock and hen, duck or turkey, be permitted to escape from field orfarmyard, these fascinated creatures will sometimes follow the merrytroop of ‘Romany Rye’ quite of their own accord, such is the magic ofEgyptian craft and the innate superiority of an Oriental race. TheseGipsies, Zingari, Bohemians, whatever they be called in the kingdoms ofEurope, are masters of a secret science of mysterious acquisition, asremote from proved crime of theft or fraud as from the ways of earning orwinning by ordinary industry and trade. There is many a rich andsplendid establishment at the West-end supported by a differentapplication of the same mysterious craft. Solicitors and stockbrokersmay have seen it in action. It is that of silently appropriating what noother person may be quite prepared to claim. ”

The following remarks appeared in the December number of _TheQuiver_:—“Mr. George Smith, who has earned a much-respected and worthyname by his interest in and persevering efforts for the well-being of ourcanal population, is bent on doing similar service for the Gipsy childrenand roadside arabs, who are sadly too numerous in the suburban and ruraldistricts of the land. By securing the registration of canal-boats ashuman domiciles, he has brought quite a host of poor little outcastswithin the pale of society and the beneficent influence of the variouseducational machineries of the age. By bringing the multitudinous tents, vans, shows, and their peripatetic lodgers under some similararrangements, he hopes to put civilisation, education, and Christianitywithin reach, of the thousand ragged Ishmaelites who are at present leftto grow up in ignorance and degradation. These vagrant juveniles aregrowing up to strengthen the ranks of the unproductive and criminalclasses; and policy, philanthropy, and Christianity alike demand that thenomadic waifs should be encircled by the arms of an ameliorating lawwhich will give them a chance of escaping from the life of semi-barbarityto which untoward circumstances have consigned them, and to place them ina position to make something better of the life that now is, and tosecure some fitting preparation for the life that is to come. It isevidently high time that something should be done, otherwise we mustsooner or later be faced with more serious difficulties than even nowexist. Our sympathies are strongly with the warm-hearted philanthropist;and we trust that in taking to this new field of effort he will win allneedful aid, and that his endeavours to rescue from a life of crime andvagabondage these hitherto much-neglected little ones will be crownedwith 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’shomes, as it appeared in the _Daily News_, _Daily Chronicle_, and otherLondon and country daily papers, December 2nd:—“Amongst some of thesorrowful features of Gipsy life I have noticed lately, none call moreloudly for Government help, assistance, and supervision than the wretchedlittle rag and stick hovels, scarcely large enough to hold acostermonger’s wheelbarrow, in which the poor Gipsy women and childrenare 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 ofEnglish scamps and vagabonds in their reins, and the remainder consistingof the blood of the vilest rascals from India and other nations. A realGipsy of the old type, of which there are but few, will tell you a lieand look straight at you with a chuckle and grin; the so-called Gipsy nowwill tell you a lie and look a thousand other ways while doing so. Intheir own interest, and without mincing matters, it is time the plainfacts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that thebrightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Biblemay have their influence upon the character of the little ones about tobecome in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside theirhovels or sack huts, poetically called ‘tents’ and ‘encampments, ’ but inreality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyedlies, —sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, paint immoralitywith Asiatic ideas, notions, and hues, and put a pleasant and cheerfulaspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be seenthousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant and wretched Gipsychildren, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside theirsack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of allages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon abed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little better thana manure-heap, in fact sometimes completely rotten, and as a Gipsy womantold me last week, ‘it is not fit to be handled with the hands. ’ Innoticing that many of the Gipsy children have a kind of eye-disease, I amtold by the women that it is owing to the sulphur arising from the cokefire they have upon the ground in their midst, and which at times alsocauses the children to turn pale and sickly. The sulphur affects the menand women in various ways, sometimes causing a kind of stupor to comeover them. I have noticed farther that many of the adults are muchpitted with small-pox. It is a wonder to me that there is not moredisease among them than there appears to be, considering that they arehuddled together, regardless of sex or age, in the midst of a dampatmosphere rising out of the ground, and impregnated with the sulphur oftheir coke fires. Probably their flitting habits prevent detection. Myplan to improve their condition is not by prosecuting them and breakingup their tents and vans and turning them into the roads pell-mell, but tobring their habitations under the sanitary officers and their childrenunder the schoolmaster in a manner analogous to the Canal Boats Act, andit has the approval of these wandering herds. The process will be slowbut effective, and without much inconvenience. Unless something be donefor them in the way I have indicated, they will drift into a statesimilar to Darwin’s forefathers and prove to the world that civilisationand Christianity are a failure. ”

The following article appears in the _Christian World_, December 19th, byChristopher Crayon (J. Ewing Ritchie), in which he says:—“The other day Iwas witness to a spectacle which made me feel a doubt as to whether I wasliving in the nineteenth century. I was, as it were, within the shadowof that mighty London where Royalty resides, where the richest Church inChristendom rejoices in its Abbey and Cathedral, and its hundreds ofchurches, where an enlightened and energetic Dissent has not only plantedits temples in every district, but has sent forth its missionary agentsinto every land, where the fierce light of public opinion, aided by aPress which never slumbers, is a terror to them that do evil, and apraise to them that do well; a city which we love to boast heads theonward march of man; and yet the scene before me was as intensely that ofsavage life, as if I had been in a Zulu kraal, and savage life destituteof all that lends it picturesque attractions, or ideal charms. I wasstanding in the midst of some twenty tents and vans, inhabited by thatwandering race of whose origin we know so little, and of whose future weknow 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 andworkshops, and the other concomitants of organised industrial life. Yetin that small area the Gipsies held undisputed sway. In or about Londonthere are, it is calculated, some two thousand of these dwellers intents. In all England there are some twenty thousand of these sons ofIshmael, 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 nomeans to be envied; in winter their state is deplorable indeed. 

“We entered, Mr. George Smith and I, and were received as friends. Had Igone by myself, I question whether my reception would have been apleasant one. As Gipsies pay no taxes, they can keep any number of dogs, and these dogs have a way of sniffing and snarling, anything butagreeable to an unbidden guest. The poor people complained to me no oneever 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 fairplay for the poor children of the brick-fields—he himself was brought upin a brick-yard—and for the poor, and sadly-neglected, inmates of thecanal-boats, he has now turned his attention to the Gipsies. His ideais—and it is a good one—that an Act of Parliament should be passed fortheir benefit—something similar to that he has been the means of carryingfor the canal and brick-field children. In a paper read before theSocial Science Congress at Manchester, Mr. Smith argued that all tents, shows, caravans, auctioneer vans, and like places used as dwellingsshould be registered and numbered, and under proper sanitaryarrangements, with sanitary inspectors and School Board officers, inevery town and village. Thus in every district the children would havetheir names and attendance registered in a book, which they could takewith them from place to place, and when endorsed by the schoolmaster, itwould show that the children were attending school. In carrying out thisidea, it is a pity that Mr. Smith should have to bear all the burden. Asit 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 yougo down on your hands and knees, and crawl into the Gipsy’s wigwam; butthe worst of it is, when you have done so, there is little to see afterall. In the middle, on a few bricks, is a stove or fireplace of somekind. On the ground is a floor of wood-chips, or straw, or shavings, andon this squat some two or three big, burly men, who make linen-pegs andskewers, and mend chairs and various articles, the tribe, as they wanderalong, seek to sell. The women are away, for it is they who bring thegrist to the mill, as they tell fortunes, or sell their wares, or followtheir doubtful trade; but the place swarms with children; and it waswonderful to see with what avidity they stretched out the dirtiest littlehand imaginable as Mr. Smith prepared to distribute some sweets he hadbrought with him for that purpose. As we entered, all the vans were shutup, and the tents only were occupied, the vans being apparently desertedbut presently a door was opened half-way, and out popped a little Gipsyhead, 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, aboutthe size of a tiny cabin, and chock full, in the first place, with acooking-stove; and then with shelves, with curtains and some kind ofbedding, apparently not very clean, on which the family repose. It is apiteous life, even at the best, in that van; even when the cooking pot isfilled with something more savoury than cabbages or potatoes; the usualfare; but the children seem happy, nevertheless, in their dirty rags, andwith their luxurious heads of curly hair. All of them are as ignorant asHottentots, and lead a life horrible to think of. I only saw one womanin the camp, and I only saw her by uncovering the top and looking intothe tent in which she resides. She is terribly poor, she says, andpleads earnestly for a few coppers; and I can well believe she wantsthem, for in this England of ours, and especially in the outskirts ofLondon, the Gipsy is not a little out of place. Around us are somestrapping girls, one with a wonderfully sweet smile on her face, who, ifthey could be trained to domestic service, would have a far happier lifethan they can ever hope to lead. The cold and wet seem to affect themnot, nor the poor diet, nor the smoke and bad air of their cabins, inwhich they crowd, while the men lazily work, and the mothers are faraway. The leading lady in this camp is absent on business; but she is afirm adherent of Mr. George Smith, and wishes to see the childreneducated; and as she is a Lee, and as a Lee in Gipsy annals take the samerank 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 handsand face, at any rate, clean; and a Gipsy boy, when he learns to read, will feel that he is born for a nobler end than to dwell in a stinkingwigwam, to lead a lawless life, to herd with questionable characters, andto pick up a precarious existence at fairs and races; and our poets andnovelists and artists will not like that. However, just now, by means ofletters in the newspapers, and engravings in the illustrated journals, agood deal of attention is paid to the Gipsies, and if they can bereclaimed and turned into decent men and women a good many farmers’ wiveswill sleep comfortably at night, especially when geese and turkeys arebeing fattened for Christmas fare; and a desirable impulse will be givento the trade in soap. ”

 [Picture: A Gipsy girl washing clothes]

In the _Sunday School Chronicle_, December 19th, the kind-hearted editormakes the following allusions:—“Mr. George Smith stirs every feeling ofpity and compassion in our hearts by his descriptions of the GipsyChildren’s Homes. It is one of the curious things of English life thatthe distinct Gipsy race should dwell among us, and, neither socially norpolitically, nor religiously, do we take any notice of them. No portionof 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 givepoint, and plot, to novels. But can nothing be done for the Gipsy_children_? Christian enterprise is seldom found wanting when a sphereis suggested for it; and those who live in the neighbourhood of Gipsyhaunts should be especially concerned for their well-being. What mustthe 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 theplain facts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that thebrightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Biblemay have their influence upon the character of the little ones about tobecome in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside theirhovels or sack huts, poetically called “tents” and “encampments, ” but inreality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies, sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, and put a pleasant andcheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may beseen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant, and wretched Gipsychildren, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside theirsack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of allages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon abed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little better thana manure-heap, in fact sometimes it is completely rotten, and as a Gipsywoman 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, Iam told by the women that it is owing to the sulphur arising from thecoke fire they have upon the ground in their midst, and which at timesalso 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 UnitarianSynod in Hungary last summer, is taken from the _Unitarian Herald_, bearing date January 9th, 1880, and in which the author says:—“Not farfrom Rugonfalva we came on a colony of exceedingly squalid Gipsies, living in huts which a respectable Zulu would utterly despise. Theirappearance reminded me of Cowper’s graphic sketch, which I am tempted toquote:—

 “‘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 cock 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 motleypopulation. It is supposed that the tribe found its way to Hungary inthe beginning of the fifteenth century, having fled from Central Asia orIndia during the Mongol reign of terror. About the close of last centuryPastor Benedict, of Debreczin, mastered their language, and on visitingEngland found that the Gipsies in this country understood him very well. There are now about eighty thousand of them in Transylvania, butthree-fourths of this number have settled homes, and caste distinctionsare so strong that the higher grades would not drink from a cup used byone of their half-savage brethren. On reaching the mansion of Mr. Jakabházi, at Siménfalva, who employs about one hundred and fortycivilised Gipsies on his estate, we had an opportunity after dinner ofseeing them return in a long procession from the fields. Some of thewomen carried small brown babies, that appeared able to find footinganywhere on their mothers’ shoulders, backs, or breasts. These labourersare almost entirely paid in food and other necessaries, and if kindlytreated are very honourable towards their master, and generally adopt hisreligion. When smarting under any grievance, they, on the contrary, sometimes change their faith _en masse_, and when conciliated undergo asspeedy a re-conversion. The women are, as a rule, very fond ofornaments, and the men are, above all things, proud of a horse or a pairof scarlet breeches. Of late years they have in a few districts began tointermarry with the Wallachs, and the sharp distinction between them andthe other races in Hungary will, no doubt, gradually disappear. ”

The _Weekly Times_ again takes up the subject, and the following appearson January 9th, 1880:—“We made a second expedition, with Mr. GeorgeSmith, of Coalville, on Sunday, in search of a Gipsy encampment; andthough the way was long and tedious, and we were both lamed with walkingbefore 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 theneighbourhood of the hundred odd square miles which composes the site ofthe metropolis, with which Mr. Smith is not acquainted, and to which weverily believe he could lead a friend if he was blindfolded. The way wewent must remain somewhat of a secret, because the Gipsies do not care tosee many visitors on the only day of the week which is one of absoluterest to them. All that we shall disclose about the way is, that weskirted Mount Nod, and for a short distance looked upon the face of anancient river, then up-hill we clambered for many longish miles, until weturned out of a certain lane into the encampment. There was a rudepicturesqueness in the gaping of the vans and tents. In the foregroundwere the vans, to the rear the cloth kraals, with their smoky coveringsstretched over poles; from a hole in the centre the smoke ascended, furnishing evidence that the open brazier was burning within. The vansprotected the approach to the camp, just in the same way that artilleryare planted to keep the road to a military encampment. Mr. Smith’s faceseemed to be well known to these strange people, and we no soonerappeared in sight than the swinging door of every van was edged withfaces, 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 receptionfrom the dogs. They were evidently dubious as to our character, theirtraining inclining them to bite, if they get a chance, any leg wearingblack cloth, but to give the ragged-trousered visitors a fawning welcome;so they sniffed again and again, and growled, until driven away by thevoices of their owners. Perchance, during the remainder of the day, theywere revolving in their intelligent minds how it had come to pass thatthe black cloth legs were received with evident marks of favour. Norwere they able to settle the point easily, for whenever we happened tolook round the encampment during the afternoon, from the raised door-wayof a kraal where we happened to be couched, we noticed the eyes of one orother of the four-footed guardians fixed intently on us. There wereabout twenty vans and tents in all; and each paid one shilling a week tothe ground landlord. That money, with whatever else was required forfood, was obtained by hawking at this season of the year, and trade wasvery bad. Winter must be a fearful experience for these children of theair, and the field, the summer sun, the wild flowers, and the fruits ofharvest. Such rains as have descended, such snows as have been falling, such cold winds as have been blowing, must discount fearfully the joys ofthe 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 cauldroncovered the brazier fire, and two men and a dog watched with unceasingvigilance. We tried to make friends here, but failed. There was asteamy 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 weguess what it was?’ ‘Not soon, ’ was the reply; ‘a few bones and a potatoor two; perhaps a bit of something green. At such hard times they weremostly glad to get anything. ’ But nothing more could be gleaned, and thetwo men and the dog never lost sight of the cauldron while the visitorsremained. In a few cases the tents were pegged down all round, andacross the top, upon a stout line, there hung a few articles fresh fromthe wash. The pegged cloth indicated that the female occupants werewithin, but ‘not at home, ’ nor would they be visible until the wind haddried the garments that fluttered overhead. We tarried, and were madequite at home in another kraal, where we gleaned many interestingparticulars of Gipsy life; and here we held a sort of smoking _levée_, 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, savea little space filled with the brazier, in which a fire of coke wasburning; above was a hole, out of which the smoke passed. The straw hadbeen stamped into consistency by the feet of the family; there was noodour from it, and in that particular was an improvement on the rush andstraw floors in the English houses of which Erasmus made such greatcomplaint. There was no chair, stool, or box on which to sit, and all ofus reclined Eastern fashion in the posture that was most convenient. Theowner of the kraal and his wife were very interesting people: themother’s hair descended by little steps from the crown of her head, untilit stuck out like a bush, in a line with the nape of her neck, a densedead-black mass 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 headhad often been drawn to fit somebody else’s face. 

“‘When I come again what shall I bring you?’ said Mr. Smith, in mostreckless fashion, to the Egyptian Queen. ‘Well, ’ said she, without amoment’s hesitation, ‘if there is one thing more than another that I dowant, it’s a silk handkercher for my head—a real Bandana. ’ The requestwas characteristic. Of the tales we heard one or two were curious, onepositively 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 objectof his visiting the Gipsies, and what he hoped to accomplish for thechildren, and she forwith handed him a money gift. On more than oneoccasion a well-polished silver coin of small value, a penny, or afarthing has been quietly put into Mr. Smith’s hands, in furtherance ofhis work, by some poor Gipsy woman. The story which made us laugh was ofa Gipsy marriage. It is one of the unwritten laws of Gipsy life that thewife works while the husband idles about the tent. The wife hawks withthe basket or the cart and sells, while the husband loiters about theencampment or cooks the evening meal. But one young Gipsy fell in lovewith an Irish girl named Kathleen, and from the day of their marriage Tomnever had an idle moment. In vain did he plead the usages of Gipsymarried life. Kathleen was deaf to all such modes of argument, and droveher husband forth from tent and encampment, by voice or by stake, untilshe completely cured him of his idleness, and she remained mistress ofthe 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’ beforewe left. Every one spoke of her with respect, and when we were about toleave, Patience offered to show us ‘Granny’s tent. ’ Repentance joinedher sister, and before we were up and out of the tent opening, we sawPatience at a tent not far off; she dived head and shoulders through anopening she made, and then appeared to be pulling vigorously. Heractivity was soon explained. We thrust our heads through the opening, and were face to face with a shrivelled-faced old woman, whose cheekswere like discoloured parchment, and whose hands and arms appeared to bemere bones. But her eye was bright, and her tongue proved her to be inpossession of most of her faculties. She could not stand or walk, norcould she sit up for many minutes at a time, and the action of Patiencewas caused by her hastily seizing the old woman by her arms as she lay onher straw floor, and dragging her into a sitting position. If the olddame had been asleep, Patience had thoroughly aroused her. She greetedus with Gipsy courtesy, and told us she was ‘fourscore and six years ofage. ’ Her name, in answer to our query, she said was ‘Sinfire Smith. ’‘Why, that’s the same as mine, ’ said Mr. Smith. ‘O, likely, ’ saidSinfire, ‘the Smiths is a long family. ’ For four score and six yearspoor Sinfire has led a Gipsy life, and though her house now is only atent, and her bed and bedding straw, she made no moan, and there wasnothing she wished to have. ”

 “Farewell, farewell! so rest there, blade! Entomb me where our chiefs are laid; But, hark, methinks I hear the drum, I would that holy man were come. ”—HARRIS. 

 “What sound is that as of one knocking gently? Yet who would enter here at hour so late? Arise! draw back the bolt—unclose the portal. What figure standeth there before the gate?

 “He bears to thee sweet messages from Heaven, Whispers of love from dear ones folded there, And tells thee that a place for thee is waiting, That thou shalt join them in their home so fair. ”

 A. F. B. —“Sunday at Home. ”

Part III. The Treatment the Gipsies have received in this Country. 

The social history and improvements of our own country seem to have goneby irregular leaps and bounds. The Parliament, like the _Times_, followsupon the heels of public opinion in all measures concerning the welfareof the nation; and it is well it should be so. An Englishman will be ledby a child; but it requires a strong hand and a sharp whip to drive him. One hundred and forty years ago the Wesleys and Whitfield caused acommotion in the religious world. Upwards of a century ago the firstcanal in this country was opened for the conveyance of goods upon oursilent highways, and trade began in earnest to show signs of life andactivity. A century ago Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, opened his firstSunday-school—the beginning of a system ever widening and expanding, carrying with it blessings incomprehensible to finite minds, and only tobe revealed in another world. Nearly a century ago Raper’s translationof Grellmann’s “Dissertation on the Gipsies” was published, and whichcaused no little stir at the time, being the first work of any kind worthnotice that had appeared. Seventy years ago an interestingcorrespondence took place in the _Christian Observer_ upon the conditionof the Gipsies, and various lines of missionary action were suggested;but no plan was adopted, and all words blown to the wind. Then, as now, people would look at the Gipsies in their pitiable condition, and with ashrug of the shoulders would say, “Poor things, ” and away they would goto their mansions, doff their warm winter clothing, put on theirneedleworked slippers, stretch their legs before a blazing fire in thedrawing-room, and call “John” to bring a box of the best cigars, thechampagne, dry sherry, and crusted port, and then noddle off to sleep. Sixty-four years ago Hoyland’s “Historical Survey of the Gipsies” madeits appearance, a work that caught the fire and spirit of Grellmann’s, the object of both being to stir up the missionary zeal of this countryin the cause of the Gipsies. Fifty years ago James Crabb began hismissionary work among the Gipsies at Southampton, and for a while didwell; but in course of time, owing to the Gipsies moving about, as in thecase of “Our Canal Population, ” the work dwindled down and down, tillthere is not a vestige of this good man’s efforts to be seen. About thesame time that Crabb was at work among the Gipsies missionary effortswere put in motion to improve the canal-boatmen, and mission stationswere established at Newark, Stoke-on-Trent, Aylesbury, Oxford, Birmingham, and other places, but fared the same fate as the missionaryeffort of Crabb and others among the Gipsies. Fifty years ago railwayswere opened, which gave an impetus to trade never experienced before. Fifty years ago the preaching of Bourne and Clowes was causingconsiderable excitement in the country. Nearly fifty years ago witnessedthe passing of the Reform Bill, and the Factory Act received the Royalsignature. Forty years have passed away since George Borrow’s missionaryefforts among the Gipsies were prominently before the public, which, sadto say, shared the fate of Crabb’s, Hoyland’s, Roberts’, and Raper’s. From that day till now, except the spasmodic efforts of a clergyman hereand there, or some other kind-hearted friend, these 20, 000 poor slightedoutcasts have been left to themselves to sink or swim as they thoughtwell. The only man, except the dramatist and novelist, who has seemed tonotice them has been the policeman, and his vigilant eye and staff havebeen used to drive them from their camping-ground from time to time, andthus—if possible—made their lives more miserable, and created within themdeeper-seated revenge, owing to the way in which they are carrying outthe Enclosures Act. All missionary efforts put forth to improve thecondition of the factory operative and canal-boatmen, previous to thepassing of the Factory Act, nearly fifty years since, and the Canal BoatsAct of 1877, were fruitless and unprofitable. The passing of the FactoryAct has done more for the children in one year than all the missionariesin the kingdom could have done in their lifetime. Similar results arethe outcome of the Brickyard Act of 1871, as touching the welfare of thechildren. And so in like manner it will be with the Canal Boats Act whenproperly carried out, the canal-boat children of to-day, in fifty yearshence, will be equal to other working classes. From the days of Hoyland, and Borrow, and Crabb, down to the present time, but little seems to havebeen done for the Gipsies. With Crabb died all real interest in thewelfare of these poor unfortunate people. The difficulties he hadencountered seemed to have had a deterrent effect upon others. Missionary zeal, without moral force of law and the schoolmaster, willaccomplish but little for the Gipsies at our doors; and it may be saidwith special emphasis as regards the improvement of the Gipsy children. From the days of the relentless, cruel, and merciless persecution theGipsies received under the reigns of Henry VIII. And Elizabeth, down tothe present time, nothing has been done by law to reclaim these Indianoutcasts and Asiatic emigrants. The case of the Gipsies shows us plainlythat hunting the women and children with bloodhounds, and dragging theGipsy leaders to the gallows, will neither stamp them out nor improvetheir character and habits; and, on the other hand, it appears that thelove-like gentleness, child-like simplicity, and religious fervour of thecircumscribed influence of Crabb and others, about this time, did butlittle for these poor, little, dark-eyed, wandering brethren of ours fromafar. The next agents that appeared upon the scene to try to elevate theGipsies into something like a respectable position in society were thedramatists and novelists. These flickering lights of the night have metwith no better success, in fact, their efforts, in the way they have beenput forth, have, as a rule, exhibited Gipsy life in a variety of falsecolours and shades, which exhibition has turned out to be a failure inaccomplishing the object the authors had in view, other than to filltheir coffers and mislead the public as to the real character of a Gipsyvagabond’s life; and thus it will be seen, I think, that the Gipsies andtheir children of to-day present to us the miserable failure, of bitterpersecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the efforts ofChristianity alone at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and morerecently the novelist and dramatist as a means in themselves, separately, to effect a reformation in the habits and character of the Gipsy childrenand their parents. 

If the Gipsy and other tramping, travelling “rob rats” of to-day are tobecome honest, industrious, and useful citizens of the future, it must beby the influence of the schoolmaster and the sanitary officer, coming toa great extent as they do between the fitful and uncertain efforts of themissionary, the relentless hands of persecution, the policeman, and thestage. 

From the time the Gipsies landed in this country in 1515, down to thetime when Raper’s translation of Grellmann’s work appeared in 1787, aperiod of 272 years, nothing seems to have been done to improve theGipsies, except to pass laws for their extermination. The earliestnotice of the Gipsies in our own country was published in a quarto volumein the year 1612, the object of which was to expose the system offortune-telling, juggling, and legerdemain, and in which reference ismade to the Gipsies as follows:—“This kind of people about a hundredyears ago beganne to gather an head, as the first heere about thesoutherne parts. And this, as I am imformed and can gather, was theirbeginning: Certain Egyptians banished their country (belike not for theirgood conditions) arrived heere in England, who for quaint tricks anddevices, not known heere at that time among us, were esteemed and had ingreat admiration; insomuch that many of our English loyterers joined withthem, and in time learned their crafty cosening. The speech which theyused was the right Egyptian language, with whom our Englishmen conversingat least learned their language. These people continuing about thecountry and practising their cosening art, purchased themselves greatcredit among the country people, and got much by palmistry and telling offortunes; insomuch they pitifully cosened poor country girls, both ofmoney, silver spoons, and the best of their apparalle or other goods theycould make. ” And he goes on to say, “But what numbers were executed onthese statutes you would wonder; yet, notwithstanding, all would notprevaile, but they wandered as before uppe and downe and meeting once ayear at a place appointed; sometimes at the Peake’s Hole in Derbyshire, and other whiles by Ketbroak at Blackheath. ” The annual gathering of theGipsies and others of the same class, who make Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and neighbouring counties, their head-quarters, takes place at the well-known Bolton Fair, heldabout Whitsuntide, on the borders of Leicestershire, a village situatedin a kind of triangle, between Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire andDerbyshire. Spellman speaks of the Gipsies about this time asfollows:—“The worst kind of wanderers and impostors springing up on theContinent, but yet rapidly spreading themselves through Britain and otherparts of Europe, disfigured by their swarthiness, sun-burnt, filthy intheir clothing and indecent in all their customs. ” Under thesecircumstances it is not to be wondered at, in these dark ages, that somesteps should be taken to stop these lawless desperadoes and vagabondsfrom contaminating our English labourers’ and servant girls with theirloose ideas of labour, cleanliness, honesty, morality, truthfulness, andreligion. It was soon manifest what kind of strange people had begun toflock to our shores to make their domiciles among us, as will be seen ina description given of them in an Act of Parliament passed in thetwenty-second year of the reign of Henry VIII. , being only about sevenyears after their landing in Scotland, and to which I have referredbefore. In the tenth chapter of the said act they are described as—“Anoutlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no crafte nor featof merchandise; who have come into this realm and gone from shire toshire and place to place in great company, and used great subtle andcrafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand that bypalmistry they could tell the men’s and women’s fortunes, and so manytimes by crafte and subtlety have deceived the people of their money, andalso have committed many heinous felonies and robberies. Wherefore allare directed to avoid the realm and not to return under pain ofimprisonment and forfeitures of their goods and chattels; and on theirtrials for any felonies which they may have committed they shall not beentitled to a jury. ” As if this was not sufficient or as if it had notthe desired effect the authors anticipated viz. , in preventing otherGipsies flocking to our shores or driving those away from us who werealready in our midst another act was passed in the twenty-seventh year ofthe same reign, more severe than the previous act, and part of it runs asfollows:—“Whereas certain outlandish people, who do not profess anycrafte or trade, whereby to maintain themselves, but go about in greatnumbers from place to pace using insidious underhand means to impose onHis Majesty’s subjects, making them believe that they understand the artof foretelling to men and women their good and evil fortunes by lookingin their hands, whereby they frequently defraud people of their money;likewise are guilty of thefts and highway robberies; it is hereby orderedthat the said vagrants, commonly called Egyptians, in case they remainone month in the kingdom, shall be proceeded against as thieves andrascals, and at the importation of such Egyptians (the importer) shallforfeit £40 for every trespass. ”

The fine of £40 being inflicted at that time, which means a large sum atthe present day, carries something more with it than the thefts committedby the Gipsies. It is evident that the Gipsies had wheedled themselvesinto the graces and favours of some portion of the aristocracy by theircrafts and deception. If the Gipsy offences had been committed againstthe labouring population it would have been the height of absurdity forParliament to have inflicted a fine of some hundreds of pounds upon theworking man of the poorer classes. It has occurred to me that thequestion of Popery may have been one of the causes of their persecution;and it is not unlikely that wealthy Roman Catholics may have hadsomething to do with their importation into this country. The fact is, before the Gipsies left the Continent for England they were RomanCatholic pilgrims, and going about the country doing the work of the Popeto some extent, and this may have been one of the objects of those whowere opposed to the Protestant tendencies of Henry VIII. In causing themto come over to England. At this time our own country was in a verydisturbed state, religiously, and no people were so suitable to work inthe dark and carry messages from place to place as the Gipsies, especially if by so doing they could make plenty of plunder out of it;and this idea I have hinted at before as one of their leadingcharacteristics. It should not be overlooked that telegraphs, railways, stagecoaches, and canals had not been established at this time, consequently for the Gipsies to be moving about the country from villageto village under a cloak, as they appeared to the higher powers, wassufficient to make them the subjects of bitter persecution. For theGipsies to have openly avowed that they were Roman Catholics beforelanding upon our shores, would in all probability have defeated theobject of those who induced—if induced—them to come over to Britain. Atany rate, we may, I think, fairly assume that this feature of theircharacter, an addition to their fortune-telling proclivities, may havebeen one of the causes of their persecution, and in this view I am tosome extent supported by circumstances. 

During the reign of Henry VIII. A number of Gipsies were sent back toFrance, and in the book of receipts and payments of the thirty-fifth ofthe same reign the following entries are made:—“Nett payments, 1st Sept. , 36 of Henry VIII. Item, to Tho. Warner, Sergeant of the Admyraltie, 10thSept. , for victuals prepared for a shippe appointed to convey certaineEgupeians, 58s. Item, to the same Tho. Warner, to the use of John Bowlesfor freight of said shippe, £6 5s. 0d. Item, to Robt. Ap Rice, Esq. , Shriff of Huntingdon, for the charge of the Egupeians at a special gailodelivery, and the bringing of them to be carreied over the sees; over andbesides the sum of £4 5s. 0d. Groming of seventeen horses sold at fiveshillings the peice as apperythe by a particular book, £17 17s. 7d. Item, to Will. Wever, appointed to have the charge of the conduct of thesaid Egupeians to Callis, £5. ”

In 1426 a first-rate horse was worth about £1 6s. 8d. , and a colt 4s. 6d. Twenty-two years later the hay of an acre of land was worth about £5. 

There were several acts passed relating to the Gipsies during the reignof Philip and Mary, and fifth of Elizabeth, by which it states—“If anyperson, being fourteen years old, whether natural born subject orstranger, who had been seen in the fellowship of such persons, or haddisguised himself like them, or should remain with them one month at onceor several times, it should be felony without the benefit of the clergy. ”Wraxall, in his “History of France, ” vol. Ii. , page 32, in referring tothe act of Elizabeth, in 1653, states that in her reign the Gipsiesthroughout England were supposed to exceed 10, 000. About the year 1586complaints were again made of the increase of vagabonds and loiteringpersons. 

The following order is copied from the Harleian MSS. In the BritishMuseum:—“Orders, rules, and directions, concluded, appointed, and agreedupon by us the Justices of Peace within the county of Suffolk, assembledat our general session of peace, holden at Bury, the 22nd daie of Aprill, in the 31st yeare of the raigne of our Souraigne Lady the Queen’sMajestie, for the punishing and suppressinge of roags, vacabonds, idleloyterings, and lewde persons, which doe or shall hereafter wander andgoe aboute within the hundreths of Thingo cum Bury, Blackborne, Thedwardstree, Cosford, Babings, Risbridge, Lackford, and the hundreth ofExninge, in the said county of Suffolk, contrary to the law in that casemade and provided. 

“Whereas at the Parliament beganne and holden at Westminster, the 8thdaie of Maye, in the 14th yeare of the raigne of the Queen’s Majesty thatnowe is, one Acte was made intytuled, ‘An Acte for the punishment ofVacabonds and for releife of the Pooere and Impotent’; and whereas at aSession of the Parliament, holden by prorogacon at Westminster, the eightdaie of February, in the 28th yeare of Her Majesties raigne, an otherActe was made and intytuled, ‘An Act for settinge of the Poore to workand for the avoydinge of idleness’; by virtue of which severall Actscerteyne provisions and remedies have been ordeyned and established, aswell for the suppressinge and punishinge of all roags, vacabonds, sturdyroags, idle and loyteringe persons; as also for the reliefe and settingon worke of the aged and impotente persons within this realm, andauthoritie gyven to justices of peace, in their several charges andcommissions, to see that the said Acts and Statuts be putte in dueexecution, to the glorie of Allmightie God and the benefite of the CommonWelth. 

“And whereas also yt appeareth by dayly experience that the numbr ofidle, vaggraunte, loyteringe sturdy roags, masterless men, lewde and ylldisposed persons are exceedingly encreased and multiplied, committingemany grevious and outerageous disorders and offences, tendinge to thegreat . . . Of Allmightie God, the contempt of Her Majesties laws, and tothe great charge, trouble, and disquiet of the Common Welth:

“We, the Justices of Peace above speciefied, assembled and mett togetherat our general sessions above-named for remedie of theis and such lykeenormitities which hereafter shall happen to arrise or growe within thehundreths and lymits aforesaid, doe by theis presents order, decree, andordeyne That there shall be builded or provided a convenient house, whichshall be called the House of Correction, and that the same be establishdwithin the towne of Bury, within the hundreth of Thingoe aforesaid: Andthat all persons offendinge or lyvinge contrary to the tenor of the saidtwoe Acts, within the hundreths and lymitts aforesaid, shall be, by thewarrante of any Justice of Peace dwellinge in the same hundreths orlymitts, committed thether, and there be received, punished, sett toworke, and orderd in such sorte and accordinge to the directions, provisions, and limitations hereafter in theis presents declard andspecified. 

“Fyrst—That yt maie appeare what persons arre apprehended, committed, andbrought to the House of Correction, it is ordered and appointed, that alland every person and persons which shall be found and taken within thehundreths and lymitts aforesaid above the age of 14 yeares, and shalltake upon them to be procters or procuraters goinge aboute withoutsufficiente lycense from the Queen’s Majestie; all idle persons goingeaboute usinge subtiltie and unlawfull games or plaie; all such as fayntthemselves to have knowledge in physiognomeye, palmestrie, or otherabsurd sciences; all tellers of destinies, deaths, or fortunes, and suchlyke fantasticall imaginations. ”

In Scotland, the Gipsies, and other vagrants of the same class, weredealt with equally as severely under Mary Queen of Scots as they wereunder Henry VIII. And Elizabeth in England. In an act passed in 1579 Ifind the following relating to Gipsies and vagabonds:—“That sik as makethemselves fules and ar bairdes, or uther sik like runners about, beingapprehended, sall be put into the Kinge’s Waird, or irones, sa lang asthey have ony gudes of their owin to live on, and fra they have notquhair upon to live of thir owin that their eares be nayled to the troneor to an uther tree, and thir eares cutted off and banished the countrie;and gif thereafter they be found againe, that they be hanged. 

“And that it may be knowen quwhat maner of persones ar meaned to be idleand strong begares, and vagabounds, and worthy of the punischment beforespecified, it is declared: That all idle persones ganging about in anycountrie of this realm, using subtil craftie and unlawful playes, asjuglarie, fast-and-lous, and sik uthers; the idle people callingthemselves _Egyptians_, or any uther, that feinzies themselves to have aknowledge or charming prophecie, or other abused sciences, quairby theyperswade peopil that they can tell thir weirds, deaths, and fortunes, andsik uther phantastical imaginations, ” &c. , &c. 

Another law was passed in Scotland in 1609, not less severe than the onepassed in 1579, called Scottish Acts, and in which I find thefollowing:—“Sorcerers, common thieves, commonly called Egyptians, weredirected to pass forth of the kingdom, under pain of death as common, notorious, and condemned thieves. ” This was persecution with vengeance, and no mistake; and it was under this kind of treatment, severe as itwas, the Gipsies continued to grow and prosper in carrying out theirnefarious practices. The case of these poor miserable wretches, midnightprowlers, with eyes and hearts and bending steps determined upon mischiefand evil-doing, presents to us the spectacle of justice untempered withmercy. The phial filled with revenge, malice, spite, hatred, extermination and blood—without the milk of human kindness, the honey oflove, water from the crystal fountain, and the tincture of Gethsemane’sgarden being added to take away the nauseousness of it—being handed thesepoor deluding witches and wretches to drink to the last dregs, failed toget rid of social and national grievances. The hanging of thirteenGipsies at one of the Suffolk Assizes a few years before the Restorationcarried with it none of the seeds of a reformation in their character andhabits, nor did it lessen the number of these wandering prowlers, for wefind that from the landing of a few hundred of Gipsies from France in1514, down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, the number hadincreased to something like 15, 000. The number who had been hung, diedin prison, suffered starvation, and the fewness of those who wereChristians, and gone to heaven, during the period of over 250 years, andprior to the noble efforts of Raper, Sir Joseph Banks, Hoyland, Crabb, Borrow, and others, is fearful to contemplate. Hoyland tells us that inhis day, “not one Gipsy in a thousand could read or write. ”

Efforts put forth to exterminate these Asiatic heathens, babble-mongers, and bush-ranging thieves, were not confined to England alone. KingFerdinand of Spain was the first to set the persecuting machine at workto grind them to powder, and passed an edict in the year 1492 for theirextermination, which only drove them into hiding-places, to come out, with their mouths watering, in greater numbers, for fresh acts ofviolence and plunder. At the King’s death, the Emperor Charles V. Persecuted them afresh, but with no success, and the consequence was theywere left alone in Spain to pursue their course of robbery and crime formore than 200 years. In France an edict was passed by Francis I. At aCouncil of the State of Orleans an order was sent to all Governors todrive the Gipsies out of the country with fire and the sword. Under thisedict they still increased, and a new order was issued in 1612 for theirextermination. In 1572 they were driven from the territories of Milanand Parma, and earlier than this date they were driven beyond theVenetian jurisdiction. 

 “It is the sound of fetters—sound of work Is not so dismal. Hark! they pass along. I know it is those Gipsy prisoners; I saw them, heard their chains. O! terrible To be in chains. ”

In Denmark they were not allowed to pass about the country unmolested, and every magistrate was ordered to take them into custody. A very sharpand severe order came out for their expulsion from Sweden in the year1662. Sixty-one years later a second order was published by the Diet;and in 1727 additional stringent measures were added to the foregoingedicts. Under pain of death they were excluded from the Netherlands byCharles V. , and in 1582 by the United Provinces. Germany seems to haveled the van in passing laws for their extermination. At the AugsburgDiet in 1500, Maximillian I. Had the following edict drawnup:—“Respecting those people who call themselves Gipsies roving up anddown the country. By public edict to all ranks of the empire, accordingto the obligations under which they are bound to us and the Holy Empire, it is strictly ordered that in future they do not permit the said Gipsies(since there is authentic evidence of their being spies, scouts, andconveyers of intelligence, betraying the Christians to the Turks) to passor remain within their territories, nor to trade or traffic, neither togrant them protection nor convoy, and that the said Gipsies do withdrawthemselves before Easter next ensuing from the German Dominions, entirelyquit them, nor suffer themselves to be found therein. As in case theyshould transgress after this time, and receive injury from any person, they shall have no redress, nor shall such persons be thought to havecommitted any crime. ” Grellmann says the same affair occupied the Dietin 1530, 1544, 1548, and 1551, and was also enforced in the stringentpolice regulations of Frankfort in 1577, and he goes on to say that withthe exception of Hungary and Transylvania, they were similarly proscribedin every civilised state. I think it will be seen by the foregoingGerman edict that there is some foundation for the supposition I havebrought forward earlier, viz. , that the persecution of the Gipsies inthis country was not so much on account of their thieving deeds, plunder, and other abominations, as their connection with the emissaries of thePope of Rome, and in the secrecy of their movements in going from villageto village, undermining the foundation of the State, law, and order, civil and religious liberty. The only bright spot and cheerful tint uponthis sorrowful picture of persecution which took place in our own countryduring these dark ages was the appearance of the Star of Elstow, JohnBunyan, the Bedfordshire tinker, whose life and death forciblyillustrates the last words of Jesus upon the Cross, “Father, forgivethem, they know not what they do. ”

 “’Twere ill to banish hope and let the mind Drift like a feather. I have had my share Of what the world calls trial. Once a fire Came in the darkness, when the city lay In a still sea of slumber, stretching out Great lurid arms which stained the firmament; And when I woke the room was full of sparks, And red tongues smote the lattice. Then a hand Came through the sulphur, taking hold of mine, And the next moment there were shouts of joy. Ah! I was but a child and my first care Was for my mother. ”—HARRIS (the Cornish poet). 

Towards the end of the eighteenth century it became evident that edictsand persecutions were not going to stamp out the Gipsies in this country, for instead of them decreasing in numbers they kept increasing; at thistime there were supposed to be about 18, 000 in the country. Thefollowing sad case, showing the malicious spirits of the Gipsies, and therelentless hand of the hangman, seemed to have had the effect of bringingthe authorities to bay. They had begun to put their “considering caps”on, and were in a fix as to the next move, and it was time they had. They had never thought of tempering justice with mercy. A century ago, 1780, a number of young Gipsies were arrested at Northampton, upon whatcharge it does not appear. It should be noted that Northamptonshire atthis time was a favourite round for the Gipsy fraternity as well as theadjoining counties. This, it seems, excited the feelings of the Gipsiesin the county, and they sought to obtain the release of the young Gipsieswho were in custody, but were not successful in their application to themagistrate; the consequence was—true to their instincts—the spirit ofrevenge manifested itself to such a degree that the Gipsies threatened toset fire to the town, and would, in all probability have carried it outhad not a number of them been brought to the gallows for these threats. With this case the hands of persecution began to hang down, for it wasevident that persecution _alone_ would neither improve these Gipsies noryet drive them out of the country. The tide of events now changed. Law, rigid, stern justice alone could do no good with them, and consequentlyhanded them over to the minister of love and mercy. This step was abound to the opposite extreme, and as we go along we shall see that theefforts put forth in this direction alone met with but little moresuccess than under the former treatment. Seven years after the foregoingexecutions Grellmann’s work upon the Gipsies appeared, which caused aconsiderable commotion among the religious communities, following, as itdid, the universal feeling aroused in the welfare of the children of thiscountry by the establishment of Sunday-schools throughout the length andbreadth of the land to teach the children of the working-classes readingand writing and the fundamental principles of Christianity. Afterrepeated efforts put forth by a number of Christian gentlemen, and theinterest caused by the publication of Grellmann’s book, the work ofreforming the Gipsies by purely religious and philanthropic action beganto lag behind; the result was, as in the case of persecution, no good wasobservable, and the Gipsies were allowed to go again on their way todestruction. The next step was one in the right direction, viz. , that oftrying to improve the Gipsies by the means of the schoolmaster; althoughhumble and feeble in its plan of operation, yet if we look to the agencyput forth and its results, the Sunday-school teacher must have feltencouraged in his work as he plodded on Sunday after Sunday. 

It may be said of Thomas Howard as it was said of the poor widow of old, he “hath done more than them all. ” The following account of thischeerful, encouraging, and interesting gathering is taken from Hoyland, in which he says:—“The first account he received of any of them was fromThomas Howard, proprietor of a glass and china shop, No. 50, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. This person, who preached among the Calvinists, said thatin the winter of 1811 he had assisted in the establishment of aSunday-school in Windwill Street, Acre Lane, near Clapham. It was underthe patronage of a single gentlewoman, of the name of Wilkinson, andprincipally intended for the neglected and forlorn children ofbrick-makers and the most abject poor. ” At the present day Gipsiesgenerally locate in the neighbourhood of brick-yards and low, swampymarshes, or by the side of rivers or canals. It was begun on a smallscale, but increased till the number of scholars amounted to forty. 

“During the winter a family of Gipsies, of the name of Cooper, obtainedlodgings at a house opposite the school. Trinity Cooper, a daughter ofthe Gipsy family, who was about thirteen years of age, applied to beinstructed at the school; but in consequence of the obloquy affixed tothat description of persons she was repeatedly refused. She neverthelesspersevered in her importunity, till she obtained admission for herselfand two of her brothers. Thomas Howard says, surrounded as he was byragged children, without shoes and stockings, the first lesson he taughtthem was silence and submission. They acquired habits of subordinationand became tractable and docile; and of all his scholars there were notany more attentive and affectionate than these; and when the Gipsiesbroke up in the spring, to make their usual excursions, the childrenexpressed much regret at leaving school. This account was confirmed byThomas Jackson, of Brixton Row, minister of Stockwell Chapel, whosaid:—Since the above experiment, several Gipsies had been admitted to aSabbath-school under the direction of his congregation. At theirintroduction, he compared them to birds when first put into the cage, which flew against the sides of it, having no idea of restraint; but by asteady, even care over them, and the influence of the example of otherchildren, they soon become settled and fell into their ranks. ” The nextstep taken to let daylight upon the Gipsy and his dark doings in the darkages was by means of letters to the Press, and what surprises me is thatthis step, the most important of all, was not taken before. 

In a letter addressed to the _Christian Observer_, vol. Vii. , p. 91, inthe year about 1809, “Nil” writes:—“As the divine spirit of Christianitydeems no object, however uncouth or insignificant, beneath her notice, Iventure to apply to you on behalf of a race, the outcasts of society, ofwhose pitiable condition, among the many forms of human misery which haveengaged your efforts, I do not recollect to have seen any notice in thepages of your excellent miscellany. I allude to the deplorable state ofthe Gipsies, on whose behalf I beg leave to solicit your good officeswith the public. Lying at our very doors, they seem to have a peculiarclaim on our compassion. In the midst of a highly refined state ofsociety, they are but little removed from savage life. In this happycountry, where the light of Christianity shines with its purest lustre, they are still strangers to its cheering influence. I have not heardeven of any efforts which have been made either by individuals orsocieties for their improvement. ” “Fraternicus, ” writing to the sameJournal, vol. Vii. , and in the same year, says:—“It is painful to reflecthow many thousands of these unhappy creatures have, since the light ofChristianity has shone on this island, gone into eternity ignorant of theways of salvation;” and goes on to say that, “there is an awfulresponsibility attached to this neglect, ” and recommends the appointmentof missionaries to the work; and finishes his appeal asfollows:—“Christians of various denominations, perhaps may, through thedivine providence, be the means of exciting effectual attention to thespiritual wants of this deplorable set of beings; and the samebenevolence which induced you to exert your talents and influence onbehalf of the oppressed negroes may again be successfully employed inameliorating the condition of a numerous class of our fellow-creatures. ”“H. ” wrote to the _Christian Observer_, and said he hoped “to see the daywhen the nation, which has at length done justice to the poor negroes, will be equally zealous to do their duty in this instance, ” and heoffered to subscribe “twenty pounds per annum towards so good an object. ”“Minimus, ” another writer to the same paper, with reference to missionaryenterprise, says:—“The soil which it is proposed to cultivate isremarkably barren and unpropitious; of course, a plentiful harvest mustnot be soon expected;” and finishes his letter by saying, “Let us ariseand build; let us begin; there is no fear of progress and help. ” “H. , ” aclergyman, writes again and says:—“Surely, when our charity is flowing inso wide a channel, conveying the blessings of the Gospel to the mostdistant quarters of the globe, we shall not hesitate to water this onebarren and neglected field in our own land. My attention was drawn tothe state of this miserable class of human beings by the letter of‘Fraternicus, ’ and looking upon it as a reproach to our country;” andends his letter with a short prayer, as follows: “It is my earnest prayerto God that this may not be one of these projects which are only talkedof and never begun; but that it may tend to the glory of His name and tothe bringing back of these poor lost sheep to the fold of theirRedeemer. ” “J. P. ” writes to the same Journal, April 28, 1810, in whichhe says:—“Circumstances lead to think that were encouragement given tothem the Gipsies would be inclined to live in towns and villages likeother people; and would in another generation become civilised, and withthe pains which are now taken to educate the poor, and to diffuse theScriptures and the knowledge of Christ, would become a part of theregular fold. It would require much patient continuance in well doing inthose who attempted it, and they must be prepared, perhaps, to meet withsome untowardness and much disappointment. ” “Fraternicus” sums up thecorrespondence by suggesting a plan of taking the school to the Gipsiesinstead of taking the Gipsies to the schools:—“If the compulsoryeducation of the Gipsies had taken place a century ago, and their tentsbrought under some sort of sanitary inspection, what a change by thistime would have taken place in their habits, ” &c. ; and he furthersays:—“By degrees they might be brought to attend divine worship; and ifin the parish of a pious clergyman he would probably embrace theopportunity of teaching them. Much might be done by a pious schoolmasterand schoolmistress, by whom the girls might be taught different kinds ofwork, knitting, sewing, &c. Should these suggestions be deemed worthy ofyour insertion, they might, perhaps, awaken the attention of somebenevolent persons, whose superior talents and experience in the ways ofbeneficence would enable them to perfect and carry into execution a planfor the effectual benefit of these unhappy portioners of our kind. ”

“Junius, ” in the _Northampton Mercury_, under date June 27th, 1814, writes:—“When we consider the immense sums raised for every probablemeans of doing good which have hitherto been made public, we cannot doubtif a proper method should be proposed for the relief and ameliorating thestate of these people it would meet with deserved encouragement. Supposethat legislature should think this not unworthy its notice, and as a partof the great family they ought not to be overlooked. ” Anothercorrespondent to the same Journal, “A Friend of Religion, ” writes underdate July 21st, 1815, urging the necessity of some means being adoptedfor their improvement, and remarks as follows:—“Thousands of ourfellow-creatures would be raised from depravity and wretchedness to astate of comfort; the private property of individuals be much moresecure, and the public materially benefited. ”

Instead of putting into practice measures for their improvement, and theState taking hold of them by the hand as children belonging to us, andwith us, and for whom our first care ought to have been, we have said inanger—

 “‘Heathen dog! Begone, begone! you shall have nothing here. ’ The Indian turned; then facing Collingrew, In accents low and musical, he said: ‘But I am very hungry; it is long Since I have eaten. Only give me a crust, A bone, to cheer me on my weary way. ’ Then answered he, with fury and a frown: ‘Go! Get you gone! you red-skinned heathen hound! I’ve nothing for you. Get you gone, I say!’”

 HARRIS, “Wayside Pictures. ”

During the summer of 1814, Mr. John Hoyland, of Sheffield, set to work inearnest to try to improve the condition of the Gipsies, and for thatpurpose he visited, in conjuction with Mr. Allen, solicitor at HighamFerners, many parts of Northamptonshire and neighbouring counties; and healso sent out a circular to most of the sheriffs in England with a numberof questions upon it relating to their numbers, condition, &c. , and thefollowing are a few of the answers sent in reply:—1. All Gipsies supposethe first of them came from Egypt. 2. They cannot form any idea of thenumber in England. 5. The more common names are Smith, Cooper, Draper, Taylor, Boswell, Lee, Lovell, Leversedge, Allen, Mansfield, Glover, Williams, Carew, Martin, Stanley, Buckley, Plunkett, and Corrie. 6 and7. The gangs in different towns have not any connection or organisation. 8. In the county of Herts it is computed there may be sixty families, having many children. Whether they are quite so numerous inBuckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire the answers are notsufficiently definite to determine. In Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, greater numbers are calculatedupon. 9. More than half their numbers follow no business; others aredealers in horses and asses, &c. , &c. 10. Children are brought up in thehabits of their parents, particular to music and dancing, and are ofdissolute conduct. 11. The women mostly carry baskets with trinkets andsmall wares, and tell fortunes. 13. In most counties there areparticular situations to which they are partial. 15, 16, and 17. Do notknow of any person that can write the language, or of any writtenspecimen of it. 19. Those who profess any religion represent it to bethat of the country in which they reside; but their description of itseldom goes beyond repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and only a few of themare capable of that. 20. They marry, for the most part, by pledging toeach other, without any ceremony. 21. They do not teach their childrenreligion. 22 and 23. Not _one in a thousand can read_. Most of theseanswers were confirmed by Riley Smith, who, during many years, wasaccounted the chief of the Gipsies in Northamptonshire. Mr. John Forsterand Mr. William Carrington, respectable merchants of Biggleswade, and whoknew Riley Smith well, corroborated his statements. After Hoyland hadpublished his book no one stepped into the breach, with flag in hand, totake up the cry; and for several years—except the efforts of a clergymanhere and there—the interest in the cause of the Gipsies dwindled down, and became gradually and miserably less, and the consequence was theGipsies have not improved an iota during the three centuries they havebeen in our midst. As they were, so they are, and likely to remainunless brought under State control. 

 “On the winds A voice came murmuring, ‘We must work and wait’; And every echo in the far-off fen Took up the utterance: ‘We must work and wait. ’ Her spirit felt it, ‘We must work and wait. ’”

 HARRIS. 

No one heeded the warning. No one listened to the cries of the poorGipsy children as they glided into eternity. No one put out their handsto save them as they kept disappearing from the gaze of the bystanders, among whom were artificial Christians, statesmen, and philanthropists. All was as still as death, and the poor black wretches passed away. 

Whether His Majesty George III. Had ever read Grellmann’s or Hoyland’sworks on Gipsies has not been shown. The following interesting accountwill show that royal personages are not deaf to the cries of sufferinghumanity, be it in a Gipsy’s wigwam, a cottage, or palace. It is takenfrom a missionary magazine for June, 1823, and in all probability thecircumstance took place not many years prior to this date, and is asfollows:—“A king of England of happy memory, who loved his people and hisGod better than kings in general are wont to do, occasionally took theexercise of hunting. Being out one day for this purpose, the chase laythrough the shrubs of the forest. The stag had been hard run; and, toescape the dogs, had crossed the river in a deep part. As the dogs couldnot be brought to follow, it became necessary, in order to come up withit, to make a circuitous route along the banks of the river, through somethick and troublesome underwood. The roughness of the ground, the longgrass and frequent thickets, gave opportunity for the sportsmen toseparate from each other, each one endeavouring to make the best andspeediest route he could. Before they had reached the end of the forestthe king’s horse manifested signs of fatigue and uneasiness, so much sothat his Majesty resolved upon yielding the pleasures of the chase tothose of compassion for his horse. With this view he turned down thefirst avenue in the forest and determined on riding gently to the oaks, there to wait for some of his attendants. His Majesty had only proceededa few yards when, instead of the cry of the hounds, he fancied he heardthe cry of human distress. As he rode forward he heard it moredistinctly. ‘Oh, my mother! my mother! God pity and bless my poormother!’ The curiosity and kindness of the king led him instantly to thespot. It was a little green plot on one side of the forest, where wasspread on the grass, under a branching oak, a little pallet, half coveredwith a kind of tent, and a basket or two, with some packs, lay on theground at a few paces distant from the tent. Near to the root of thetree he observed a little swarthy girl, about eight years of age, on herknees, praying, while her little black eyes ran down with tears. Distress of any kind was always relieved by his Majesty, for he had aheart which melted at ‘human woe’; nor was it unaffected on thisoccasion. And now he inquired, ‘What, my child, is the cause of yourweeping? For what do you pray?’ The little creature at first started, then rose from her knees, and pointing to the tent, said, ‘Oh, sir! mydying mother!’ ‘What?’ said his Majesty, dismounting, and fastening hishorse up to the branches of the oak, ‘what, my child? tell me all aboutit. ’ The little creature now led the king to the tent; there lay, partlycovered, a middle-aged female Gipsy in the last stages of a decline, andin the last moments of life. She turned her dying eyes expressively tothe royal visitor, then looked up to heaven; but not a word did sheutter; the organs of speech had ceased their office! _the silver cord wasloosed_, _and the wheel broken at the cistern_. The little girl thenwept aloud, and, stooping down, wiped the dying sweat from her mother’sface. The king, much affected, asked the child her name, and of herfamily; and how long her mother had been ill. Just at that momentanother Gipsy girl, much older, came, out of breath, to the spot. Shehad been at the town of W---, and had brought some medicine for her dyingmother. Observing a stranger, she modestly curtsied, and, hastening toher mother, knelt down by her side, kissed her pallid lips, and burstinto tears. ‘What, my dear child, ’ said his Majesty, ‘can be done foryou?’ ‘Oh, sir!’ she replied, ‘my dying mother wanted a religious personto teach her and to pray with her before she died. I ran all the waybefore it was light this morning to W---, and asked for a minister, _butno one could I get to come with me to pray with my dear mother_!’ Thedying woman seemed sensible of what her daughter was saying, and hercountenance was much agitated. The air was again rent with the cries ofthe distressed daughters. The king, full of kindness, instantlyendeavoured to comfort them. He said, ‘I am a minister, and God has sentme to instruct and comfort your mother. ’ He then sat down on a pack bythe side of the pallet, and, taking the hand of the dying Gipsy, discoursed on the demerit of sin and the nature of redemption. He thenpointed her to Christ, the all-sufficient Saviour. While the king wasdoing this the poor creature seemed to gather consolation and hope; hereyes sparkled with brightness, and her countenance became animated. Shelooked up; she smiled; but it was the last smile; it was the glimmeringof expiring nature. As the expression of peace, however, remained strongin her countenance, it was not till some little time had elapsed thatthey perceived the struggling spirit had left mortality. 

“It was at this moment that some of his Majesty’s attendants, who hadmissed him at the chase, and who had been riding through the forest insearch of him, rode up, and found the king comforting the afflictedGipsies. It was an affecting sight, and worthy of everlasting record inthe annals of kings. 

“His Majesty now rose up, put some gold into the hands of the afflictedgirls, promised them his protection, and bade them look to heaven. Hethen wiped the tears from his eyes and mounted his horse. Hisattendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L--- wasnow going to speak, when his Majesty, turning to the Gipsies, andpointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, withstrong emotion, ‘Who, my lord, who, thinkest thou, was neighbour untothese?’”

 “Hark! Don’t you hear the rumbling of its wheels? Nearer it comes and nearer! Oh, what light! The tent is full; ’tis glory everywhere! Dear Jesus, I am coming! Then she fell— As falls a meteor when the skies are clear. ”

After this solemn but interesting event nothing further seems to havebeen done by either Christian or philanthropist towards wiping out thisnational disgrace, and the Gipsies were left to follow the bent of theirevil propensities for several years, till Mr. Crabb’s reading of Hoylandand witnessing the sentence of death passed upon a Gipsy at Winchester, in 1827, for horse-stealing. 

Mr. Crabb happened to enter just as the judge was passing sentence ofdeath on two unhappy men. To one he held out the hope of mercy; but tothe other, a poor Gipsy, who was convicted of horse-stealing, he said, nohope could be given. The young man, for he was but a youth, immediatelyfell on his knees, and with uplifted hands and eyes, apparentlyunconscious of any persons being present but the judge and himself, addressed him as follows: “Oh, my Lord, save my life!” The judgereplied, “No; you can have no mercy in this world: I and my brotherjudges have come to the determination to execute horse-stealers, especially Gipsies, because of the increase of the crime. ” Thesuppliant, still on his knees, entreated—“Do, my Lord Judge, save mylife! do, for God’s sake, for my wife’s sake, for my baby’s sake!” “No, ”replied the judge, “I cannot; you should have thought of your wife andchildren before. ” He then ordered him to be taken away, and the poorfellow was rudely dragged from his earthly judge. It is hoped, as apenitent sinner, he obtained the more needful mercy of God, through theabounding grace of Christ. After this scene Mr. Crabb could not remainin court. As he returned he found the mournful intelligence had beencommunicated to some Gipsies who had been waiting without, anxious tolearn the fate of their companion. They seemed distracted. 

On the outside of the court, seated on the ground, appeared an old womanand a very young one, and with them two children, the eldest three yearsand the other an infant but fourteen days old. The former sat by itsmother’s side, alike unconscious of her bitter agonies and of herfather’s despair. The old woman held the infant tenderly in her arms, and endeavoured to comfort its weeping mother, soon to be a widow undercircumstances the most melancholy. “My dear, don’t cry, ” said she;“remember you have this dear little baby. ” Impelled by the sympathies ofpity and a sense of duty, Mr. Crabb spoke to them on the evil of sin, andexpressed his hope that the melancholy event would prove a warning tothem, and to all their people. The poor man was executed about afortnight after his condemnation. 

Mr. Crabb being full of fire and zeal, set to work in right good earnest, and succeeded in forming a committee at Southampton to bring about areformation among the Gipsies. He also enlisted the sympathy of otherearnest Christians in the work, and for a time, while the sun shone, received encouraging signs of success, in fact, according to his littlework published in 1831, his labours were attended with blessed resultsamong the adult portion of the Gipsies. Owing to the wandering habits ofthe Gipsies, discouragements, and his own death, the work, so far as anyorganisation was concerned, came to an end. No Elisha came forward tocatch his mantle, the consequence was the Gipsies were left again to workout their own destruction according to their own inclinations and tastes, as they deemed best, plainly showing that voluntary efforts are verylittle better than a shadow, vanishing smoke, and spent steam, toilluminate, elevate, warm, cheer, and encourage the wandering, dark-eyedvagabonds roving about in our midst into paths of usefulness, honesty, and sobriety. 

Thus far in this part I have feebly endeavoured to show that rigid, stern, inflexible law and justice on the one hand, and meek, quiet, mild, human love and mercy on the other hand, have separately failed in theobject the promoters had in view. Justice tried to exterminate theGipsy; mercy tried to win them over. Of the two processes I would muchprefer that of mercy. It is more pleasant to human nature to be underits influence, and more in the character of an Englishman to deal outmercy. The next efforts put forth to reform these renegades was by meansof fiction, romance, and poetry. Some writers, in their praiseworthyendeavours to make up a medicine to improve the condition of the Gipsies, have neutralised its effects by adding too much honey and spice to it. Others, who have mistaken the emaciated condition of the Gipsy, have beendosing him with cordials entirely, to such a degree, that he—Romany_chal_—imagines he is right in everything he says and does, and he oughtto have perfect liberty to go anywhere or do anything. Some haveattempted to paint him white, and in doing so have worked up theblackness from underneath, and presented to us a character which excitesa feeling in our notions—a kind of go-between, akin to sympathy anddisgust. Not a few have thrown round the Gipsy an enchanting, bewitchinghalo, which an inspection has proved nothing less than a delusion and asnare. Others have tried to improve this field of thistles and sourdocks by throwing a handful of daisy seeds among them. It requiressomething more than a phantom life-boat to rescue the Gipsy and bring himto land. Scents and perfumes in a death-bed chamber only last for ashort time. A bottle of rose-water thrown into a room wheredecomposition is at work upon a body will not restore life. Scatteringflowers upon a cesspool of iniquity will not purify it. A fictitiousrope composed of beautiful ideas is not the thing to save drowning Gipsychildren. To put artificially-coloured feathers upon the head of a Gipsychild dressed in rags and shreds, with his body literally teeming withvermin and filth, will not make him presentable at court or a fit subjectfor a drawing-room. To dress the Satanic, demon-looking face of a Gipsywith the violet-powder of imagery only temporally hides from view therepulsive aspect of his features. The first storm of persecution bringshim out again in his true colour. The forked light of imagination thrownacross the heavens on a dark night is not the best to reveal thecharacter of a Gipsy and set him upon the highways for usefulness andheaven. The dramatist has strutted the Gipsy across the stage in variouscharacters in his endeavour to improve his condition. After the finecolours have been doffed, music finished, applause ceased, curtaindropped, and scene ended, he has been a black, swarthy, idle, thieving, lying, blackguard of a Gipsy still. Applause, fine colours, and dazzlinglights have not altered his nature. Bad he is, and bad he will remain, unless we follow out the advice of the good old book, “Train up a childin the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. ”

Would to God the voice of the little Gipsy girl would begin to ring inour ears, when she spoke with finger pointed and tears in her eyes:—

 “There is a cabin half-way down the cliff, You see it from this arch-stone; there we live, And there you’ll find my mother. Poverty Weeps on the woven rushes, and long grass Rent from the hollows is our only bed. I have no father here; he ran away; Perhaps he’s dead, perhaps he’s living yet, And may come back again and kiss his child; For every day, and morn, and even star, I pray for him with face upturned to heaven, ‘O blessed Saviour, send my father home!’”

The word “Gipsy” seems to have a magic thread running through it, beginning at the tip end of “G” and ending with the tail end of “y. ”Geese have tried to gobble it, ducks swallow it, hens scratched after it, peacocks pecked it, dandy cocks crowed over it, foxes have hid it, dogshave fought for it, cats have sworn and spit over it, pigs have tried togulp it as the daintiest morsel, parrots have chatted about it, hawks, eagles, jackdaws, magpies, ravens, and crows have tried to carry it awayas a precious jewel, and in the end all have put it down as a thing theycould neither carry nor swallow; and after all, when it has been strippedof its dowdy colours, what has it been? Only a “scamp, ” in many cases, reared and fostered among thieves, pickpockets, and blackguards, in ourback slums and sink gutters. Strip the 20, 000 men, women, and childrenof the word “Gipsy, ” moving about our country under the artificial andunreal association connected with Gipsy life, so-called, of the “redcloaks, ” “silver buttons, ” “pretty little feet, ” “small hands, ”“bewitching eyes, ” “long black hair, ” in nine cases out of ten in nameonly, and you, at a glance, see the class of people you have beenneglecting, consequently sending to ruin and misery through fear on theone hand and lavishing smiles on the other. 

In all ages there have been people silly enough to be led away by sights, sounds, colours, and unrealities, to follow a course of life for whichthey are not suited, either by education, position, or tastes. No oneacts the part of a butterfly among school-boys better than the black-eyedGipsy girl has done among “fast-goers, ” swells, and fops. In ninety-ninecases out of a hundred she has trotted them out to perfection and thenleft them in the lurch, and those, when they have come to their senses, and had their eyes opened to the stern facts of a Gipsy’s life, have saidto themselves, “What fools we have been, to be sure, ” and they would havegiven any amount to have undone the past. The praise, flattery, andlooks bestowed upon the “bewitching deceivers, ” when they have beenlabouring under the sense of infatuation and fascination instead ofreason, has made them in the presence of friends hang down their headslike a willow, and to escape, if possible, the company of their “oldchums” by all sorts of manœuvres. Hubert Petalengro—a gentleman, and arich member of a long family—conceived the idea, after falling madly inlove with a dark-eyed beauty, so-called, of turning Gipsy and tasting forhimself—not in fiction and romance—the charms of tent life, as hethought, in reality passing through the “first, ” “second, ” and “thirddegrees. ” At first, it was ideal and fascinating enough in allconscience; it was a pity Brother Petalengro did not have a foretaste ofit by spending a month in a Gipsy’s tent in the depth of winter, with nobalance at his banker’s, and compelled to wear Gipsy clothing, and makepegs and skewers for his Sunday broth; gather sticks for the fire, andsleep on damp straw in the midst of slush and snow, and peeping throughthe ragged tent roof at the moon as he lay on his back, surrounded byGipsies of both sexes, of all ages and sizes, cursing each other underthe maddening influence of brandy and disappointment. To make himselfand his damsel comfortable on a Gipsy tour he fills his pocket with gold, flask with brandy, buys a quantity of rugs upon which are a number offoxes’ heads—and I suppose tails too—waterproof covering for the tent, and waterproof sheets and a number of blankets to lay on the damp grassto prevent their tender bodies being overtaken with rheumatics, and healso lays in a stock of potted meats and other dainties; makes all“square” with Esmeralda and her two brothers and the donkeys; takes firstand second-class tickets for the whole of them to Hull—the Balaamsexcepted (it is not on record that they spoke to him on his journey);provides Esmeralda with dresses and petticoats—not too long to hide herpretty ankles, red stockings, and her lovely little foot—gold and diamondrings, violin, tambourine, the guitar, Wellington boots, and starts uponhis trip to Norway in the midst of summer beauty. Many times he musthave said to himself, “Oh! how delightful. ” “As we journeyed onward, howfragrant the wild flowers—those wild flowers can never be forgotten. Gipsies like flowers, it is part of their nature. Esmeralda would pluckthem, and forming a charming bouquet, interspersed with beautiful wildroses, her first thoughts are to pin them in the button-hole of theRomany Rye (Gipsy gentleman). As we journeyed quietly through theforest, how delightful its scenes. Free from all care, we enjoy theanticipation of a long and pleasant ramble in Norway’s happy land. Wefelt contented with all things, and thankful that we should be sopermitted to roam with our tents and wild children of nature in keepingthe solitudes we sought. The rain had soon ceased, tinkle, tinkle wentthe hawk-bells on the collar of our Bura Rawnee as she led the way alongthe romantic Norwegian road. 

 [Picture: A Respectable Gipsy and his Family “on the Road”]

 “‘Give the snakes and toads a twist, And banish them for ever, ’

sang Zachariah, ever and anon giving similar wild snatches. ThenEsmeralda would rocker about being the wife of the Romany Rye (Gipsygentleman) and as she proudly paced along in her heavy boots, shepictured in imagery the pleasant life she should lead as her Romany Rye’sjoovel, monshi, or somi. She was full of fun, yet there was nothing inher fanciful delineations which could offend us. They were but the foamof a crested wave, soon dissipated in the air. They were the evanescentcreations of a lively, open-hearted girl—wild notes trilled by the birdof the forest. We came again into the open valley. Down a meadow gusheda small streamlet which splashed from a wooden spout on to the roadside. ”“The spot where we pitched our tents was near a sort of small naturalterrace, at the summit of a steep slope above the road, backed by a mossybank, shaded by brushwood and skirting the dense foliage of the darkforest of pine and fir, above our camp. ” “We gave two of the peasantssome brandy and tobacco. ” “Then all our visitors left, except fourinteresting young peasant girls, who still lingered. ” “They had allpleasant voices. ” “We listened to them with much pleasure; there was somuch sweetness and feeling in their melody. Zachariah made up for hisbrother’s timidity. Full of fun, what dreadful faces the young Gipsywould pull, they were absolutely frightful; then he would twist and turnhis body into all sorts of serpentine contortions. If spoken to he wouldsuddenly, with a hop, skip, and a jump alight in his tent as if he hadtumbled from the sky, and, sitting bolt upright, make a hideous face tillhis mouth nearly stretched from ear to ear, while his dark eyes sparkledwith wild excitement, he would sing—

 “‘Dawdy! Dawdy! dit a kei Rockerony, fake your bosh!’

“At one time a woman brought an exceedingly fat child for us to look at, and she wanted Esmeralda to suckle it, which was, of course, hastilydeclined. We began to ask ourselves if this was forest seclusion. Stillour visitors were kind, good-humoured people, and some drank our brandy, and some smoked our English tobacco. After our tea, at five o’clock, wehad a pleasant stroll. Once more we were with Nature. There we lingeredtill the scenes round us, in their vivid beauty, seemed graven deep inour thought. How graphic are the lines of Moore:—

 “‘The turf shall be my fragrant shrine, My temple, Lord, that arch of Thine, My censor’s breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers. 

 “‘My choir shall be the moonlight waves, When murm’ring homeward to their caves, Or when the stillness of the sea Even more of music breathes of Thee!’

How appropriate were the words of the great poet to our feelings. Wewent and sat down. ” “As we were seated by our camp fire, a tall, oldman, looking round our tents, came and stood contemplating us at our tea. He looked as if he thought we were enjoying a life of happiness. Nor washe wrong. He viewed us with a pleased and kindly expression, as heseemed half lost in contemplation. We sent for the flask of brandy. Returning to our tents we put on our Napoleon boots and made someadditions to our toilette. ” Of course, kind Mr. Petalengro would assistlovely Esmeralda with hers. “Whilst we were engaged some women came toour tents. The curiosity of the sex was exemplified, for they were dyingto look behind the tent partition which screened us from observation. Wedid not know what they expected to see; one, bolder than the rest, couldnot resist the desire to look behind the scenes, and hastily drew backand dropped the curtain, when we said rather sharply, ‘Nei! nei!’Esmeralda shortly afterwards appeared in her blue dress and silverbuttons. Then we all seated ourselves on a mossy bank, on the side ofthe terrace, with a charming view across the valley of the Logan. Ateight o’clock the music commenced. The sun shone beautifully, and themosquitoes and midges bit right and left with hungry determination. Wesat in a line on the soft mossy turf of the grassy slope, sheltered byfoliage. Esmeralda and Noah with their tambourines, myself with thecastanets, and Zachariah with his violin. Some peasant women and girlscame up after we had played a short time. It was a curious scene. Ourtents were pleasantly situated on an open patch of green sward, surrounded by border thickets, near the sunny bank and the small flatterrace. The rising hills and rugged ravines on the other side of thevalley all gave a singular and romantic beauty to the lovely view. Although our Gipsies played with much spirit until nine o’clock, none ofthe peasants would dance. At nine o’clock our music ceased, and we allretired to our tents with the intention of going to bed. When we weregoing into our tents, a peasant and several others with him, who had justarrived, asked us to play again. At length, observing several peasantgirls were much disappointed, we decided to play once more. It was pastnine o’clock when we again took up our position on the mossy bank; so wedanced, and the peasant girls, until nearly ten o’clock. Once we nearlywhirled ourself and Esmeralda over the slope into the road below. Esmeralda’s dark eyes flashed fire and sparkled with merriment andwitchery. ”

“The bacon and fish at dinner were excellent; we hardly knew which wasbest. A peasant boy brought us a bundle of sticks for our fire. The sunbecame exceedingly hot. Esmeralda and myself went and sat in some shadenear our tents. ” “Noah stood in the shade blacking his boots, andobserved to Esmeralda, ‘I shall not help my wife as Mr. Petalengro doesyou. ’ ‘Well, ’ said Esmeralda, ‘what is a wife for?’ ‘For!’ retortedNoah, sharply, giving his boot an extra brush, ‘why, to wait upon herhusband. ’ ‘And what, ’ said Esmeralda, ‘is a husband for?’ ‘What’s ahusband for!’ exclaimed Noah, with a look of profound pity for hissister’s ignorance, ‘why, to eat and drink, and look on. ’” Mr. Petalengro goes on to say: “It would seem to us that the more rude energya man has in his composition the more a woman will be made to take herposition as helpmate. It is always a mark of great civilisation and theeffeminacy of a people when women obtain the undue mastery of men. ” Andhe farther goes on to say: “We were just having a romp with Esmeralda andher two brothers as we were packing up our things, and a merry laugh, when some men appeared at the fence near our camping-ground. We littlethink, ” says Mr. Petalengro, “how much we can do in this world to lightena lonely wayfarer’s heart. ”

 [Picture: A Bachelor Gipsy’s Bedroom]

Esmeralda and Mr. Petalengro tell each other their fortunes. “Esmeraldaand myself were sitting in our tents. Then the thought occurred to herthat we should tell her fortune. ‘Your fortune must be a good one, ’ saidwe, laughing; ‘let me see your hand and your lines of life. ’ We shallnever forget Esmeralda. She looked so earnestly as we regardedattentively the line of her open hand. ” (Mr. Petalengro does not saythat tears were to be seen trickling down those lovely cheeks ofEsmeralda while this fortune-telling, nonsensical farce was being playedout. ) “Then we took her step by step through some scenes of her supposedfuture. We did not tell all. The rest was reserved for another day. There was a serious look on her countenance as we ended; but, reader, such secrets should not be revealed. Esmeralda commenced to tell ourfortunes. We were interested to know what she would say. We castourselves on the waves of fate. The Gipsy raised her dark eyes from ourhand as she looked earnestly in the face. You are a young gentleman ofgood connections. Many lands you have seen. But, young man, somethingtells me you are of a wavering disposition. ’” And then charmingEsmeralda would strike up “The Little Gipsy”—

 “My father’s the King of the Gipsies, that’s true, My mother she learned me some camping to do; With a packel on my back, and they all wish me well, I started up to London some fortunes for to tell. 

 “As I was a walking up fair London streets, Two handsome young squires I chanced for to meet, They viewed my brown cheeks, and they liked them so well, They said ‘My little Gipsy girl, can you my fortune tell?’

 “‘Oh yes! kind Sir, give me hold of your hand, For you have got honours, both riches and land; Of all the pretty maidens you must lay aside, For it is the little Gipsy girl that is to be your bride. ’

 “He led me o’er the Mils, through valleys deep I’m sure, Where I’d servants for to wait on me, and open me the door; A rich bed of down to lay my head upon— In less than nine months after I could his fortune tell. 

 “Once I was a Gipsy girl, but now a squire’s bride, I’ve servants for to wait on me, and in my carriage ride. The bells shall ring so merrily, sweet music they shall play, And will crown the glad tidings of that lucky, lucky day. ”

The drawback to this evening’s whirligig farce was that the mosquitoesdetermined to come in for a share. These little, nipping, bitingcreatures preferred settling upon young blood, full of life and activity, existing under artificial circumstances, to the carcase of a dead horselying in the knacker’s yard. To prevent these little stingers drawingthe sap of life from the sweet bodies of these pretty, innocent, lovablecreatures, the Gipsies acted a very cruel part in dressing their facesover with a brown liquid, called the “tincture of cedar. ” It is notstated whether the “tincture of cedar “was made in Shropshire or Lebanon, nor whether it was extracted from roses, or a decoction of thistles. Alas, alas! how fickle human life is! How often we say and do things injest and fun which turn out to be stern realities in another form. 

“As we looked upon the church and parsonage, surrounded as they were bythe modern park, with the broad silver lake near, the rising mountains onall sides, and the clear blue sky above, our senses seemed entranced withthe passing beauty of the scene. It was one of those glimpses of perfectnature which casts the anchor deep in memory, and leaves a lastingimpression of bygone days. ” And then Esmeralda danced as she sang thewords of her song; the words not in English are her own, for I cannotfind them even in the slang Romany, and what she meant by her bosh isonly known to herself. 

 “Shula gang shaugh gig a magala, I’ll set me down on yonder hill; And there I’ll cry my fill, And every tear shall turn a mill. Shula gang shaugh gig a magala To my Uskadina slawn slawn. 

 “Shula gang shaugh gig a magala, I’ll buy me a petticoat and dye it red, And round this world I’ll beg my bread; The lad I love is far away. Shula gang shaugh gig a magala To my Uskadina slawn slawn. 

 “Shul shul gang along with me, Gang along me, I’ll gang along with you, I’ll buy you a petticoat and dye it in the blue, Sweet William shall kiss you in the rue. Shula gang shaugh gig a magala To my Uskadina slawn slawn. ”

“We were supremely happy, ” says Mr. Petalengro, “in our wanderingexistence. We contrasted in our semi-consciousness of mind our absencefrom a thousand anxious cares which crowd upon the social position ofthose who take part in an overwrought state of extreme civilisation. Howlong we should have continued our half-dormant reflections which mighthave added a few more notes upon the philosophy of life, we knew not, butwe were roused by the rumble of a stolk-jaerre along the road. ”

“For the dance no music can be better than that of a Gipsy band; there islife and animation in it which carries you away. If you have danced toit yourself, especially in a _czardas, _ {176} then to hear the stirringtones without involuntarily springing up is, I assert, an absoluteimpossibility. ” Poor, deluded mortals, I am afraid they will find—

 “Nothing but leaves! Sad memory weaves No veil to hide the past; And as we trace our weary way, Counting each lost and misspent day, Sadly we find at last, Nothing but leaves!”

The converse of all this artificial and misleading Gipsy life is to beseen in hard fate and fact at our own doors—“Look on this picture andthen on that. ”

 “There is a land, a sunny land, Whose skies are ever bright; Where evening shadows never fall: The Saviour is its light. ”

 “There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith we can see it afar; For the Father waits over the way To prepare us a dwelling-place there In the sweet by-and-bye. ”

George Borrow, during his labours among the Gipsies of Spain forty yearsago, did not find much occasion for rollicking fun, merriment, andboisterous laughter; his path was not one of roses, over mossy banks, among the honeysuckles and daisies, by the side of running rivuletswarbling over the smooth pebbles; sitting among the primroses, listeningto the enchanting voices of the thousand forest and valley songsters;gazing at the various and beautiful kinds of foliage on the hill-sides asthe thrilling strains of music pealed forth from the sweet voice ofEsmeralda and her tambourine. No, no, no! George Borrow had to face thehard lot of all those who start on the path of usefulness, honour, andheaven. Hard fare, disappointment, opposition, few friends, life indanger, his path was rough and covered with stones; his flowers werethistles, his songs attended with tears, and sorrow filled his heart. But note his object, and mark his end. In speaking of some of thedifficulties in his travels, he says:—“My time lay heavily on my hands, my only source of amusement consisting in the conversation of the womantelling of the wonderful tales of the land of the Moors—prison escapes, thievish feats, and one or two poisoning adventures in which she had beenengaged. There was something very wild in her gestures. She goggledfrightfully with her eyes. ” And then speaking of the old Gipsy womanwhom he went to see:—“Here, thrusting her hand into her pocket, shedischarged a handful of some kind of dust or snuff into the fellow’sface. He stamped and roared, but was for some time held fast by the twoGipsy men; he extricated himself, however, and attempted to unsheath aknife which he wore in his girdle; but the two young Gipsies flungthemselves upon him like furies. ”

Borrow says, after travelling a long distance by night, and setting outagain the next morning to travel thirteen leagues:—“Throughout the day adrizzling rain was falling, which turned the dust of the roads into mudand mire. Towards evening we reached a moor—a wild place enough, strewnwith enormous stones and rocks. The wind had ceased, but a strong windrose and howled at our backs. The sun went down, and dark nightpresently came over us. We proceeded for nearly three hours, until weheard the barking of dogs, and perceived a light or two in the distance. ‘That is Trujillo, ’ said Antonio, who had not spoken for a long time. ‘Iam glad of it, ’ I replied; ‘I am so thoroughly tired, I shall sleepsoundly in Trujillo. ’ That is as it may be. We soon entered the town, which appeared dark and gloomy enough. I followed close behind theGipsy, who led the way, I knew not whither, through dismal streets anddark places where cats were squalling. ‘Here is the house, ’ said he atlast, dismounting before a low, mean hut. He knocked, but no answer. Heknocked again, but no answer. ‘There can be no difficulty, ’ said I, ‘with respect to what we have to do. If your friends are gone out, it iseasy enough to go to a posada. ’ ‘You know not what you say, ’ replied theGipsy. ‘I dare not go to the mesuna, nor enter any house in Trujillosave this, and this is shut. Well, there is no remedy; we must move on;and, between ourselves, the sooner we leave the place the better. My ownbrother was garroted at Trujillo. ’ He lighted a cigar by means of asteel and yesca, sprung on his mule, and proceeded through streets andlanes equally dismal as those through which we had already travelled. ”Mr. Borrow goes on to say:—“I confess I did not much like this decisionof the Gipsy; I felt very slight inclination to leave the town behind, and to venture into unknown places in the dark of the night, amidst rainand mist—for the wind had now dropped, and the rain again began to fallbriskly. I was, moreover, much fatigued, and wished for nothing betterthan to deposit myself in some comfortable manger, where I might sink tosleep lulled by the pleasant sound of horses and mules despatching theirprovender. I had, however, put myself under the direction of the Gipsy, and I was too old a traveller to quarrel with my guide under presentcircumstances. I therefore followed close to his crupper, our only lightbeing the glow emitted from the Gipsy’s cigar. At last he flung it fromhis mouth into a puddle, and we were then in darkness. We proceeded inthis manner for a long time. The Gipsy was silent. I myself was equallyso. The rain descended more and more. I sometimes thought I hearddoleful noises, something like the hooting of owls. ‘This is a strangenight to be wandering abroad in, ’ I at length said to Antonio, the Gipsy. (The Gipsy word for Antonio is ‘Devil. ’) ‘It is, brother, ’ said theGipsy; ‘but I would sooner be abroad in such a night, and in such places, than in the estaripel of Trujillo. ’

“We wandered at least a league further, and now appeared to be near awood, for I could occasionally distinguish the trunks of immense trees. Suddenly Antonio stopped his mule. ‘Look, brother, ’ said he, ‘to theleft, and tell me if you do not see a light; your eyes are sharper thanmine. ’ I did as he commanded me. At first I could see nothing, but, moving a little further on, I plainly saw a large light at some distance, seemingly amongst the trees. ‘Yonder cannot be a lamp or candle, ’ saidI; ‘it is more like the blaze of a fire. ’ ‘Very likely, ’ said Antonio. ‘There are no queres (_houses_) in this place; it is doubtless a firemade by durotunes (_shepherds_); let us go and join them, for, as yousay, it is doleful work wandering about at night amidst rain and mire. ’

“We dismounted and entered what I now saw was a forest, leading theanimals cautiously amongst the trees and brushwood. In about fiveminutes we reached a small open space, at the farther side of which, atthe foot of a large cork-tree, a fire was burning, and by it stood or sattwo or three figures. They had heard our approach, and one of them nowexclaimed, ‘Quien Vive?’ ‘I know that voice, ’ said Antonio, and, leavingthe horse with me, rapidly advanced towards the fire. Presently I heardan ‘Ola!’ and a laugh, and soon the voice of Antonio summoned me toadvance. On reaching the fire, I found two dark lads, and a still darkerwoman of about forty, the latter seated on what appeared to be horse ormule furniture. I likewise saw a horse and two donkeys tethered to theneighbouring trees. It was, in fact, a Gipsy bivouac . . . ‘Comeforward, brother, and show yourself, ’ said Antonio to me; ‘you areamongst friends; these are of the Errate, the very people whom I expectedto find at Trujillo, and in whose house we should have slept. ’

“‘And what, ’ said I, ‘could have induced them to leave their house inTrujillo and come into this dark forest, in the midst of wind and rain, to pass the night?’

“‘They come on business of Egypt, brother, doubtless, ’ replied Antonio, ‘and that business is none of ours. Calla boca! It is lucky we havefound them here, else we should have had no supper, and our horses nocorn. ’

“‘My ro is prisoner at the village yonder, ’ said the woman, pointing withher hand in a particular direction; ‘he is prisoner yonder for choring amailla (_stealing a donkey_); we are come to see what we can do in hisbehalf; and where can we lodge better than in this forest, where there isnothing to pay? It is not the first time, I trow, that Caloré have sleptat the root of a tree. ’

“One of the striplings now gave us barley for our animals in a large bag, into which we successively introduced their heads, allowing the famishedcreatures to regale themselves till we conceived that they had satisfiedtheir hunger. There was a puchero simmering at the fire, half-fall ofbacon, garbanzos, and other provisions; this was emptied into a largewooden platter, and out of this Antonio and myself supped; the otherGipsies refused to join us, giving us to understand that they had eatenbefore our arrival; they all, however, did justice to the leathern bottleof Antonio, which, before his departure from Merida, he had theprecaution to fill. 

“I was by this time completely overcome with fatigue and sleep. Antonioflung me an immense horse-cloth, of which he bore more than one beneaththe huge cushion on which he rode. In this I wrapped myself, and placingmy head upon a bundle, and my feet as near as possible to the fire, I laydown. ”

How delightful and soul-inspiring it would have been to the wearypilgrim, jaded in the cause of the poor Gipsies, if Antonio’s heart hadbeen full of religious zeal and fervour, and Hubert Petalengro andEsmeralda, their souls filled to overflowing with the love of God, hadbeen by the side of the camp-fire, and the trio had struck up with theirsweet voices, as the good man was drawing his weary legs and cold feettogether before the embers of the dying Gipsy fire—

 “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but Thou art mighty, Hold me with Thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more. 

 “Open now the crystal fountain Whence the healing waters flow; Let the fiery, cloudy pillars, Lead me all my journey through. Strong Deliverer, be Thou still my strength and shield. ”

“Antonio and the other Gipsies remained seated by the fire conversing. Ilistened for a moment to what they said, but I did not perfectlyunderstand it, and what I did understand by no means interested me. Therain still drizzled, but I heeded it not, and was soon asleep. 

“The sun was just appearing as I awoke. I made several efforts before Icould rise from the ground; my limbs were quite stiff, and my hair wascovered with rime, for the rain had ceased, and a rather severe frost setin. I looked around me, but could see neither Antonio nor the Gipsies;the animals of the latter had likewise disappeared, so had the horsewhich I had hitherto rode; the mule, however, of Antonio still remainedfastened to the tree. The latter circumstance quieted some apprehensionswhich were beginning to arise in my mind. ‘They are gone on somebusiness of Egypt, ’ I said to myself, ‘and will return anon. ’ I gatheredtogether the embers of the fire, and heaping upon them sticks andbranches, soon succeeded in calling forth a blaze, beside which I againplaced the puchero, with what remained of the provision of last night. Iwaited for a considerable time in expectation of the return of mycompanions, but as they did not appear, I sat down and breakfasted. Before I had well finished I heard the noise of a horse approachingrapidly, and presently Antonio made his appearance amongst the trees, with some agitation in his countenance. He sprang from the horse, andinstantly proceeded to untie the mule. ‘Mount, brother, mount!’ said he, pointing to the horse; ‘I went with the Callee and her chabés to thevillage where the ro is in trouble; the chino-baro, however, seized themat once with their cattle, and would have laid hands also on me; but Iset spurs to the grasti, gave him the bridle, and was soon far away. Mount, brother, mount, or we shall have the whole rustic _canaille_ uponus in a twinkling—it is such a bad place. ’”

I almost imagine Borrow would have said, under the circumstances, as hewas putting his foot into the stirrup to mount his horse to fly for hislife into the wild regions of an unknown country:—

 “Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly; While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high. Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, Till the storm of life is past, Safe into the haven guide, Oh, receive my soul at last. 

 “Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee, Leave, O leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring, Cover my defenceless head, With the shadow of Thy wing. ”

Sir Walter Scott, in “Guy Mannering, ” speaking of the dark deeds of theGipsies, says:—“The idea of being dragged out of his miserableconcealment by wretches whose trade was that of midnight murder, withoutweapons or the slightest means of defence, except entreaties which wouldbe only their sport, and cries for help which could never reach other earthan their own—his safety intrusted to the precarious compassion of abeing associated with these felons, and whose trade of rapine andimposture must have hardened her against every human feeling—thebitterness of his emotions almost choked him. He endeavoured to read inher withered and dark countenance, as the lamp threw its light upon herfeatures, something that promised those feelings of compassion whichfemales, even in their most degraded state, can seldom altogethersmother. There was no such touch of humanity about this woman. ”

“‘Never fear, ’ said the old Gipsy man, ‘Meg’s true-bred; she’s the lastin the gang that will start; but she has some queer ways, and often cutsqueer words. ’ With more of this gibberish, they continued theconversation, rendering it thus, even to each other, a dark, obscuredialect, eked out by significant nods and signs, but never expressingdistinctly or in plain language the subject on which it turned. ”

G. P. Whyte-Melville speaks of the Russian Gipsies in the language offiction in his “Interpreter” as follows:—“The morning sun smiles upon amotley troop journeying towards the Danube. Two or three lithe, suppleurchins, bounding and dancing along with half-naked bodies, and brightblack eyes shining through knotted elf-locks, form the advanced guard. Half-a-dozen donkeys seem to carry the whole property of the tribe. Themain body consists of sinewy, active-looking men, and strikingly handsomegirls, all walking with the free, graceful air and elastic gait peculiarto those whose lives are passed entirely in active exercise, under noroof but that of heaven. Dark-browed women in the very meridian ofbeauty bring up the rear, dragging or carrying a race of swarthy progeny, all alike distinguished for the sparkling eyes and raven hair, which, with a cunning nothing can overreach, and a nature nothing can tame, seemto be the peculiar inheritance of the Gipsy. Their costume is striking, not to say grotesque. Some of the girls, and all the matrons, bind theirbrows with various coloured handkerchiefs, which form a very picturesqueand not unbecoming head-gear; whilst in a few instances coins even ofgold are strung amongst the jetty locks of the Zingyni beauties. The menare not so particular in their attire. One sinewy fellow wears only agoatskin shirt and a string of beads round his neck, but the generalityare clad in the coarse cloth of the country, much tattered, and bearingevident symptoms of weather and wear. The little mischievous urchins whoare clinging round their mothers’ necks, or dragging back from theirmothers’ hands, and holding on to their mothers’ skirts, are almostnaked. Small heads and hands and feet, all the marks of what we areaccustomed to term high birth, are hereditary among the Gipsies; and wedoubt if the Queen of the South herself was a more queenly-lookingpersonage than the dame now marching in the midst of the throng, andconversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarceentering upon the prime of life, with a Gipsy complexion, but a bearingin which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking tohis protectress—for such she is—with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact allthe respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady isverging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have beenscorching indeed!), and though a masculine beauty, is a beautynevertheless. Black-browed is she, and deep-coloured, with eyes of fire, and locks of jet, even now untinged with grey. Straight and regular areher features, and the wide mouth, with its strong, even dazzling teeth, betokens an energy and force of will which would do credit to the othersex. She has the face of a woman that would dare much, labour much, everything but _love_ much. She ought to be a queen, and she _is_ one, none the less despotic for ruling over a tribe of Gipsies instead of acivilised community . . . 

“‘Every Gipsy can tell fortunes; mine has been told many a time, but itnever came true. ’

“She was studying the lines on his palm with earnest attention. Sheraised her dark eyes angrily to his face. 

“‘Blind! blind!’ she answered, in a low, eager tone. ‘The best of youcannot see a yard upon your way. Look at that white road, winding andwinding many a mile before us upon the plain. Because it is flat andsoft and smooth as far as we can see, will there be no hills on ourjourney, no rocks to cut our feet, no thorns to tear our limbs? Can yousee the Danube rolling on far, far before us? Can you see the river youwill have to cross some day, or can you tell me where it leads? I havethe map of our journey here in my brain; I have the map of your careerhere on your hand. Once more I say, when the chiefs are in council, andthe hosts are melting like snow before the sun, and the earth quakes, andthe heavens are filled with thunder, and the shower that falls scorchesand crushes and blasts—remember me! I follow the line of wealth: Man ofgold! spoil on; here a horse, there a diamond; hundreds to uphold theright, thousands to spare the wrong; both hands full, and broad landsnear a city of palaces, and a king’s favour, and a nation of slavesbeneath thy foot. I follow the line of pleasure: costly amber; richembroidery; dark eyes melting for the Croat; glances unveiled for theshaven head, many and loving and beautiful; a garland of roses, all forone—rose by rose plucked and withered and thrown away; one tender budremaining; cherish it till it blows, and wear it till it dies. I followthe line of blood:—it leads towards the rising sun—charging squadronswith lances in rest, and a wild shout in a strange tongue; and the deadwrapped in grey, with charm and amulet that were powerless to save; andhosts of many nations gathered by the sea—pestilence, famine, despair, and victory. Rising on the whirlwind, chief among chiefs, the honouredof leaders, the counsellor of princes—remember me! But ha! the line iscrossed. Beware! trust not the sons of the adopted land; when the lilyis on thy breast, beware of the dusky shadow on the wall! beware, andremember me!’ . . . 

“I proffered my hand readily to the Gipsy, and crossed it with one of thetwo pieces of silver which constituted the whole of my worldly wealth. The Gipsy laughed, and began to prophesy in German. There are someevents a child never forgets; and I remember every word she said as wellas if it had been spoken yesterday. 

“‘Over the sea, and again over the sea; thou shalt know grief andhardship and losses, and the dove shall be driven from its nest. And thedove’s heart shall become like the eagle’s, that flies alone, and fleshesher beak in the slain. Beat on, though the poor wings be bruised by thetempest, and the breast be sore, and the heart sink; beat on against thewind, and seek no shelter till thou find thy resting-place at last. Thetime will come—only beat on. ’

“The woman laughed as she spoke; but there was a kindly tone in her voiceand a pitying look in her bright eyes that went straight to my heart. Many a time since, in life, when the storm has indeed been boisterous andthe wings so weary, have I thought of those words of encouragement, ‘Thetime will come—beat on. ’ . . . 

“‘Thou shalt be a “De Rohan, ” my darling, and I can promise thee nobrighter lot—broad acres, and blessings from the poor, and horses, andwealth, and honours. And the sword shall spare thee, and the battle turnaside to let thee pass. And thou shalt wed a fair bride with dark eyesand a queenly brow; but beware of St. Hubert’s Day. Birth and burial, birth and burial—beware of St. Hubert’s Day. ’”

Disraeli, speaking of the Gipsies in his “Venetia, ” says:—“As Cadurcisapproached he observed some low tents, and in a few minutes he was in thecentre of an encampment of Gipsies. He was for a moment somewhatdismayed, for he had been brought up with the usual terror of these wildpeople; nevertheless he was not unequal to the occasion. He wassurrounded in an instant, but only with women and children, for Gipsy mennever immediately appear. They smiled with their bright eyes, and theflashes of the watch-fire threw a lurid glare over their dark andflashing countenances; they held out their practised hands; they utteredunintelligible, but not unfriendly sounds. ”

Matilda Betham Edwards, in her remarks upon Gipsies, says:—“Your pulsesare quickened to Gipsy pitch, you are ready to make love or war, to healand slay, to wander to the world’s end, to be outlawed and hunted down, to dare and do anything for the sake of the sweet, untramelled life ofthe tent, the bright blue sky, the mountain air, the free savagedom, thejoyous dance, the passionate friendship, the fiery love. ”

I come now to notice what a few of the poets have said about theseignorant, nomadic tribes, who have been skulking and flitting about inour midst, since the days of Borrow, Roberts, Hoyland, and Crabb—a periodof over forty years. 

 “He grows, like the young oak, healthy and broad, With no home but the forest, no bed but the sward; Half-naked he wades in the limpid stream, Or dances about in the scorching beam. The dazzling glare of the banquet sheen Hath never fallen on him I ween, But fragments are spread, and the wood pine piled, And sweet is the meal of the Gipsy child. ”—ELIZA COOK. 

 “The Gipsy eye, bright as the star That sends its light from heaven afar, Wild with the strains of thy guitar, This heart with rapture fill. Then, maiden fair, beneath this star, Come, touch me with the light guitar. Thy brow unworked by lines of care, Decked with locks of raven hair, Seems ever beautiful and fair At moonlight’s stilly hour. What bliss! beside the leafy maze, Illumined by the moon’s pale rays, On thy sweet face to sit and gaze, Thou wild, uncultured flower. Then, maiden fair, beneath this star, Come, touch me with the light guitar. ”

 HUBERT SMITH: “Tent Life in Norway. ”

 “From every place condemned to roam, In every place we seek a home; These branches form our summer roof, By thick grown leaves made weather-proof; In shelt’ring nooks and hollow ways, We cheerily pass our winter days. Come circle round the Gipsy’s fire, Come circle round the Gipsy’s fire, Our songs, our stories never tire, Our songs, our stories never tire. ”—REEVE. 

 “Where is the little Gipsy’s home? Under the spreading greenwood tree, Wherever she may roam, Wherever that tree may be. Roaming the world o’er, Crossing the deep blue sea, She finds on every shore, A home among the free, A home among the free, Ah, voilà la Gitana, voilà la Gitana. ”—HALLIDAY. 

 “He checked his steed, and sighed to mark Her coral lips, her eyes so dark, And stately bearing—as she had been Bred up in courts, and born a queen. Again he came, and again he came, Each day with a warmer, a wilder flame, And still again—till sleep by night For Judith’s sake fled his pillow quite. ”—DELTA. 

 “A race that lives on prey, as foxes do, With stealthy, petty rapine; so despised, It is not persecuted, only spurned, Crushed under foot, warred on by chance like rats, Or swarming flies, or reptiles of the sea, Dragged in the net unsought and flung far off, To perish as they may. ”

 GEORGE ELIOT: “The Spanish Gipsies, ” 1865. 

 “Help me wonder, here’s a booke, Where I would for ever looke. Never did a Gipsy trace Smoother lines in hands or face; Venus here doth Saturne move That you should be the Queene of Love. ”

 BEN JONSON. 

 “Fond dreamer, pause! why floats the silvery breath Of thin, light smoke from yonder bank of heath? What forms are those beneath the shaggy trees, In tattered tent, scarce sheltered from the breeze; The hoary father and the ancient dame, The squalid children, cowering o’er the flame? Those were not born by English hearths to dwell, Or heed the carols of the village bell; Those swarthy lineaments, that wild attire, Those stranger tones, bespeak an eastern sire; Bid us in home’s most favoured precincts trace The houseless children of a homeless race; And as in warning vision seem to show That man’s best joys are drowned by shades of woe. 

 “Pilgrims of Earth, who hath not owned the spell That ever seems around your tents to dwell; Solemn and thrilling as the nameless dread That guards the chambers of the silent dead! The sportive child, if near your camp he stray, Stands tranced with fear, and heeds no more his play; To gain your magic aid, the love-sick swain, With hasty footsteps threads the dusky lane; The passing traveller lingers, half in sport, And half in awe beside your savage court, While the weird hags explore his palm to spell What varied fates these mystic lines foretell. 

 “The murmuring streams your minstrel songs supply, The moss your couch, the oak your canopy; The sun awakes you as with trumpet-call, Lightly ye spring from slumber’s gentle thrall; Eve draws her curtain o’er the burning west, Like forest birds ye sink at once to rest. 

 “Free as the winds that through the forest rush, Wild as the flowers that by the wayside blush, Children of nature wandering to and fro, Man knows not whence ye came, nor where ye go; Like foreign weeds cast upon Western strands, Which stormy waves have borne from unknown lands; Like the murmuring shells to fancy’s ears that tell The mystic secrets of their ocean cell. 

 “Drear was the scene—a dark and troublous time— The Heaven all gloom, the wearied Earth all crime; Men deemed they saw the unshackled powers of ill Rage in that storm, and work their perfect will. Then like a traveller, when the wild wind blows, And black night flickers with the driving snows, A stranger people, ’mid that murky gloom, Knocked at the gates of awe-struck Christendom! No clang of arms, no din of battle roared Round the still march of that mysterious horde; Weary and sad arrayed in pilgrim’s guise, They stood and prayed, nor raised their suppliant eyes. At once to Europe’s hundred shores they came, In voice, in feature, and in garb the same. Mother and babe and youth, and hoary age, The haughty chieftain and the wizard sage; At once in every land went up the cry, ‘Oh! fear us not—receive us or we die!’”

 DEAN STANLEY’S PRIZE POEM, 1837: “The Gipsies. ”

Part IV. Gipsy Life in a Variety of Aspects. 

 [Picture: A Gipsy’s van near Notting Hill, Latimer Road]

In Part III. I have endeavoured, as well as I have been able, to showsome of the agencies that have been set in motion during the last threecenturies for and against the Gipsies, with a view to theirextermination, by the hang-man, to their being reclaimed by the religiouszeal and fervour of the minister, and to their improvement by theartificial means of poetry, fiction, and romance. First, the persecutiondealt out to the Gipsies in this, as well as other countries, during aperiod of several centuries, although to a large extent brought uponthemselves by their horrible system of lying and deception, neitherexterminated them nor improved their habits; but, on the contrary, theyincreased and spread like mushrooms; the oftener they were trampled uponthe more they seemed to thrive; the more they were hated, hunted, anddriven into hiding-places the oftener these sly, fortune-telling, lyingfoxes would be seen sneaking across our path, ready to grab our chickensand young turkeys as opportunities presented themselves. Second, thatwhen stern justice said “it is enough, ” persecution hanging down itshands and revenge drooping her head, a few noble-hearted men, filled withmissionary zeal, took up the cause of the Gipsies for a period of nearlyforty years in various forms and ways at the end of the last and thecommencement of the present century. Except in a few isolated cases, they also failed in producing any noticeable change in either the moral, social, or religious condition of the Gipsies, and with the death ofHoyland, Borrow, Crabb, Roberts, and others, died the last flicker of aflickering light that was to lead these poor, deluded, benighted heathenwanderers upon a road to usefulness, honesty, uprightness, and industry. Third, that on the decline of religious zeal, fervour, and philanthropyon behalf of the Gipsies more than forty years ago the spasmodic effortsof poets, novelists, and dramatists, in a variety of forms of fiction andromance, came to the front, to lead them to the goal through a lot ofquestionable by-lanes, queer places, and artificial lights, the resultbeing that these melodramatic personages have left the Gipsies in a morepitiable condition than they were before they took up their cause, although they, in doing so, put “two faces under one hat, ” blessing andcursing, smiling and frowning, all in one breath, praising their faultsand sins, and damning their _few_ virtues. In fact, to such a degreehave fiction writers painted the black side of a Gipsy’s life, habits, and character in glowing colours that, to take another 20, 000 men, women, and children out of our back slums and sink-gutters and write the word“Gipsy” upon their back, instead of “scamp, ” and send them through thecountry with a few donkeys, some long sticks, old blankets and rags, darkeyes, dirty faces, filthy bodies, short petticoats, and old scarlet hoodsand cloaks, you would in fifty years make this country not worth livingin. It is my decided conviction that unless we are careful, and take the“bull by the horns, ” and compel them to educate their children, and toput their habitations, tents, and vans under better sanitaryarrangements, we shall be fostering seeds in these dregs of society thatwill one day put a stop to the work of civilisation, and bring to an endthe advance in arts, science, laws, and commerce that have been makingsuch rapid strides in this country of late years. 

It is more pleasant to human nature to sit upon a stile on a midsummereve, down a country lane, in the twilight, as the shades of evening aregathering around you, the stars twinkling over head, the little silverstream rippling over the pebbles at your feet in sounds like the distantwarbling of the lark, and the sweet notes of the nightingale ringing inyour ears, than to visit the abodes of misery, filth, and squalor amongthe Gipsies in their wigwams. It is more agreeable to the soft parts ofour hearts and our finer feelings to listen to the melody and harmony oflively, lovely damsels as they send forth their enchanting strains thanto hear the cries of the poor little, dirty Gipsy children sending forththeir piteous moans for bread. It is more delightful to the poetic andsentimental parts of our nature to guide over the stepping-stones anumber of bright, sharp, clean, lively, interesting, little dears, withtheir “hoops, ” “shuttle-cocks, ” and “battle-doors, ” than to be seatedamong a lot of little ragged, half-starved Gipsy children, who have neverknown what soap, water, and comb are. It is more in harmony with oursensibilities to sit and listen to the drollery, wit, sarcasm, and fun of_Punch_ than to the horrible tales of blood, revenge, immorality, andmurder that some of the adult Gipsies delight in setting forth. It ismore in accordance with our feelings to sit and admire the innocent, angelic being, the perfection of the good and beautiful, than to sit bythe hardened, wicked, ugly, old Gipsy woman who has spent a lifetime insin and debauchery, cursing the God who made her as she expires. Nevertheless, these things have to be done if we are to have the angelicbeings from the other world ministering to our wants, and wafting us homeas we leave our tenement of clay behind to receive the “Well done. ”

I will now, as we pass along, endeavour to show what the actual conditionof the Gipsies has been in the past, and what it is at the present time, which, in some cases, has been touched upon previously, with reference tothe moral, social, and religious traits in their character that go to themaking up of a MAN—the noblest work of God. The peculiar fascinatingcharms about them, conjured up by ethnologists and philologists, I willleave for those learned gentlemen to deal with as they may think well. Iwill, however, say that, as regards their so-called language, it isneither more nor less than gibberish, not “full of sound and furysignifying nothing, ” but full of “sound and fury” signifying something. They never converse with it openly among themselves for a good purpose, as the Frenchmen, Germans, Turks, Spaniards, or other foreigners do. Some of the old Gipsies have a thousand or more leading words made upfrom various sources, English, French, German, Spanish, Indian, &c. , which they teach their children, and use in the presence of strangerswith a certain amount of pride, and, at the same time, to throw dust intotheir eyes while the Gipsies are talking among themselves. They will inthe same breath bless you in English and curse you in Romany; this Iexperienced myself lately while sitting in a tent among a dozenuninteresting-looking Gipsies, while they one and all were thanking mefor taking steps to get the children educated. There was one among themwho with a smile upon his face, was cursing me in Romany from his heart. Many writers differ in the spelling and pronunciation of Gipsy words, andwhat strikes me as remarkable is, the Gipsies themselves are equallyconfused upon these points. No doubt the confusion in the minds ofwriters arises principally from the fact that they have had theirinformation from ignorant, lying, deceiving Gipsies. Almost all Gipsieshave an inveterate hatred and jealousy towards each other, especially ifone sets himself up as knowing more than John Jones in the next yard. One Gipsy would say paanengro-gújo means sailor, or water gentile, another Gipsy would say it means an Irishman, or potato gentile; anotherwould say poovengri-gújo meant a sailor; another would say it means anIrishman. They glory in contradictions and mystification. I was at anencampment a few days ago, and out of the twenty-five men and women andforty children there were not three that could talk Romany, and there wasnot one who could spell a single word of it. Their language, likethemselves, was Indian enough, no doubt, when they started on theirpilgrimage many centuries ago; but, as a consequence of their mixing withthe scum of other nations in their journey westward, the charm in theirlanguage and themselves has pretty nearly by this time vanished. If Iwere to attempt to write a book about their language it would not do theGipsies one iota of good. “God bless you” are words the Gipsies veryoften use when showing their kindness for favours received, and, as akind of test, I have tried to find out lately if there were any Gipsiesround London who could tell me what these words were in Romany, and Ihave only found one who could perform the task. They all shake theirheads and say, “Ours is not a language, only slang, which we use whenrequired. ” Taking their slang generally, according to Grellmann, Hoyland, Borrow, Smart, and Crofton, there is certainly nothing veryelevating about it. Worldliness, sensuality, and devilism are thingshelped forward by their gibberish. Words dealing with honesty, uprightness, fidelity, industry, religion, cleanliness, and love are verysparse. 

William Stanley, a converted Gipsy, said, some years since, that “Godbless you” was in Romany, Artmee Devillesty; Smart and Crofton say it is, Doòvel, pàrav, pàrik toot, toòti. In another place they say it is Dooveljal toosà. Mrs. Simpson says it is, Mi-Doovel-kom-tooti. Mrs. Smithsays it is Mi-Doovel Andy-Paratuta. 

The following are the whole of the slang words Smart and Crofton haveunder the letters indicated, and which words are taken principally fromGrellmann, Hoyland, Borrow, and Dr. Paspati:—

I. 

I, Man, mè, màndi, mànghi. 

Ill, Nàsfelo, nàffelo doosh. 

Illness, Nàffelopén. 

Ill-tempered, Kòrni. 

Imitation, Foshono. 

Immediately, Kenàw sig. 

In, Adrè, dre, ando, inna. 

Indebted, Pazerous. 

Inflame, Katcher. 

Injure, Dooka. 

Inn, Kítchema. 

Innkeeper, Kitchemèngro. 

Intestine, Vénderi. 

Into, Andè, adrè, drè. 

Ireland, Hindo-tem, Hinditemeskro-tem. 

Irishman, Hindi-temengro, poovengri gaujo. 

Irish Gipsy, Efage. 

Iron, Sáster, saàsta, saáshta. 

Iron, Sástera. 

Is, See. 

It, Les. 

Itch, Honj. 

J. 

Jail, Stèripen. 

Jews, Midùvelesto-maùromèngri. 

Jockey, Kèstermèngro. 

Judgment, Bitchama. 

Jump, Hokter hok òxta. 

Jumper, Hoxterer. 

Just now, Kenaw sig. 

Justice of the peace, Chivlo-gaujo, chuvno-gaùjo, pòkenyus, poòkinyus. 

K. 

Keep, Righer, riker. 

Kettle, Kekàvvi, kavvi. 

Key, Klèrin klisin. 

Kick, Del, dé. 

Kill, Maur. 

Kin, Simènsa. 

Kind, Komelo komomuso. 

King, Kràlis. 

Kingdom, Kralisom tem. 

Kiss, Chooma. 

Knee, Chong, choong. 

Knife, Choori chivomèngro chinomèngro. 

Knock, Koor, dè. 

Know, Jin. 

Knowing, Yoki, jinomengro, jinomeskro. 

Q. 

Quarrel, Chíngar. 

Quarrel, Chingariben, gòdli. 

Quart, Troòshni. 

Queen, Kralisi krailisi. 

Quick, Sig. 

Quick, Be, Sigo toot, rèssi toot kair àbba. 

Quietly, Shookàr. 

The following dozen words will show, in some degree, the fearful amountof ignorance there is amongst them, even when using the language of theirmother country, for England is the mother country of the present race ofGipsies. For—

Expensive, Expencival. 

Decide, Cide. 

Advice, Device. 

Dictionary, Dixen. 

Equally, Ealfully. 

Instructed, Indistructed. 

Gentleman, Gemmen. 

Daunted, Dauntment. 

Spitefulness, Spiteliness. 

Habeas Corpus, Hawcus paccus. 

Increase, Increach. 

Submit, Commist. 

I cannot find joy, delight, eternity, innocent, ever, everlasting, endless, hereafter, and similar words, and, on inquiry, I find that manyof the Gipsies do not believe in an eternity, future punishment, orrewards; this belief, no doubt, has its effects upon their morals in thislife. 

The opinion respecting the Gipsy language at the commencement of thepresent century was, that it was composed only of cant terms, or of whathas been called the slang of beggars; much of this probably was promotedand strengthened by the dictionary contained in a pamphlet, entitled, “The Life and Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew. ” It consists for themost part of English words trumped up apparently not so much for thepurpose of concealment as a burlesque. Even if used by this people atall, the introduction of this cant and slang as the genuine language ofthe community of Gipsies is a gross imposition on the public. 

Rees, in his Encyclopædia, 1819, describes the Gipsies as “impostors andjugglers forming a kind of commonwealth among themselves, who disguisethemselves in uncouth habits, smearing their faces and bodies, andframing to themselves a canting language, wander up and down, and underpretence of telling fortunes, curing diseases, &c. , abuse the commonpeople, trick them of their money, and steal all that they come at. ”

Mr. Borrow, speaking of the Hungarian Gipsies in his “Zyncali, ” page 7, says:—“Hungary, though a country not a tenth part so extensive as thehuge colossus of the Russian empire, whose Czar reigns over a hundredlands, contains perhaps as many Gipsies, it not being uncommon to findwhole villages inhabited by this race. They likewise abound in thesuburbs of the towns. 

“In Hungary the feudal system still exists in all its pristine barbarity. In no country does the hard hand of oppression bear so heavy upon thelower classes—not even in Russia. The peasants of Russia are serfs, itis true, but their condition is enviable compared with that of the sameclass in the other country; they have certain rights and privileges, andare, upon the whole, happy and contented, at least, there, whilst theHungarians are ground to powder. Two classes are free in Hungary to doalmost what they please—the nobility and the Gipsies (the former areabove the law, the latter below it). A toll is wrung from the hands ofthe hard working labourers, that most meritorious class, in passing overa bridge, for example, at Perth, which is not demanded from awell-dressed person, nor from Zingany, who have frequently no dress atall, and whose _insouciance_ stands in striking contrast with thetrembling submission of the peasants. The Gipsy, wherever you find him, is an incomprehensible being, but nowhere more than in Hungary, where inthe midst of slavery he is free, though apparently one step lower thanthe lowest slave. The habits of the Hungarian Gipsies are abominable;their hovels appear sinks of the vilest poverty and filth; their dress isat best rags; their food frequently of the vilest carrion, andoccasionally, if report be true, still worse: thus they live in filth, inrags, in nakedness. The women are fortune-tellers. Of course both sexesare thieves of the first water. They roam where they list. ”

The “Chronicle of Bologna, ” printed about the year 1422, says:—“And ofthose who went to have their fortunes told few there were who had nottheir purses stolen, or some portion of their garments cut away. Theirwomen also traversed the city six or eight together, entering the housesof the citizens, and diverting them with idle talk while one of the partysecured whatever she could lay her hands upon. In the shops theypretended to buy, but in fact stole. They were amongst the cleverestthieves that the world contained. Be it noted that they were the mosthideous crew ever seen in these parts. They were lean and black, and atelike pigs. The women wore mantles flung upon one shoulder, with only avest underneath. ” Forli, who wrote about them about the same time as the“Chronicle of Bologna, ” does not seem to have liked them, and says theywere not “even civilised, and resembling rather savage and untamedbeasts. ”

A writer describes a visit to a Gipsy’s tent as follows:—“We were in awigwam which afforded us but miserable shelter from the inclemency of theseason. The storm raged without; the tempest roared in the open country;the wind blew with violence, and whistled through the fissures of thecabin; the rain fell in torrents, and prevented us from continuing ourroute. Our host was an Indian with sparkling and intelligent eyes, cladwith a certain elegance, and wrapped majestically in a large fur cloak. Seated close to the fire, which cast a reddish gleam through the interiorof the wigwam, he felt himself all at once seized with an irresistibledesire to imitate the convulsion of nature, and to sing his impressions. So taking hold of a drum which hung near his bed, he beat a slightrolling, resembling the distant sounds of an approaching storm, thenraising his voice to a shrill treble, which he knew how to soften when hepleased, he imitated the whistling of the air, the creaking of thebranches dashing against one another, and the particular noise producedby dead leaves when accumulated in compact masses on the ground. Bydegrees the rollings of the drum became more frequent and louder, thechants more sonorous and shrill; and at last our Indian shrieked, howled, and roared in the most frightful manner; he struggled and struck hisinstrument with extraordinary rapidity; it was a real tempest, to whichnothing was wanting, not even the distant howling of the dogs, nor thebellowing of the affrighted buffaloes. ”

Mr. Leland, speaking of the Russian Gipsies near Moscow, says that aftermeeting them in public, and penetrating to their homes, they werealtogether original, deeply interesting, and able to read and write, andhave a wonderful capacity for music, and goes on to say that he speedilyfound the Russian Gipsies were as unaffected and childlike as they weregentle in manner, and that compared with our own prize-fighting, sturdy, begging, and always suspecting Gipsy roughs, as a delicate greyhoundmight compare with a very shrewd old bulldog trained by a fly tramp. Leland, in his article, speaking of one of the Russian Gipsy maidens, says:—“Miss Sarsha, who had a slight cast in one of her wild black eyes, which added something to the Gipsiness and roguery of her smiles, and whowore in a ring a large diamond, which seemed as if it might be the righteye in the wrong place, was what is called an earnest young lady, andwith plenty to say and great energy wherewith to say it. What with hereyes, her diamond, her smiles, and her tongue, she constituted altogethera fine specimen of irrepressible fireworks. ”

Leland, referring to the musical abilities of the Russian Gipsies, in hisarticle in “Macmillan’s Magazine, ” November, 1879, says:—“These artists, with wonderful tact and untaught skill have succeeded in all their songsin combining the mysterious and maddening chorus of the true wild easternmusic with that of regular and simple melody intelligible to everywestern ear. ” “I listened, ” says Leland, “to the strangest, wildest, andsweetest singing I ever had heard—the singing of Lurleis, of syrens, ofwitches. First, one damsel, with an exquisitely clear, firm voice beganto sing a verse of a love ballad, and as it approached the end the chorusstole in, softly and unperceived, but with exquisite skill, until, in afew seconds, the summer breeze, murmuring melody over a rippling lake, seemed changed to a midnight tempest roaring over a stormy sea, in whichthe basso of the black captain pealed like thunder, and as it died away asecond girl took up the melody, very sweetly, but with a little moreexcitement—it was like a gleam of moonlight on the still agitatedwaters—a strange contralto witch gleam, and then again the chorus and thestorm, and then another solo yet sweeter, sadder, and stranger—themovement continually increasing, until all was fast, and wild, and mad—alocomotive quick step and then a sudden silence—sunlight—the storm hadblown away;” and adds, “I could only think of those strange fits ofexcitement which thrill the Red Indian, and make him burst into song. ”

“After the first Gipsy lyric then came another to which the captainespecially directed my attention as being what Sam. Petalengro calls ‘Thegirl in the red chemise’—as well as I can recall his words. A very sweetsong, with a simple but spirited chorus, and as the sympatheticelectricity of excitement seized the performers we were all in a minutegoing down the rapids in a spring freshet. ‘Sing, sir, sing!’ cried myhandsome neighbour, with her black Gipsy eyes sparkling fire. ”

Some excuse ought to be made for Leland getting into this wild state ofexcitement, for he had on his right and on his left, before and behindhim, dark-eyed Gipsy beauties—as some would call them—among whom was one, the belle of the party, dressed in black silk attire, wafting in his facethe enchanting fan of fascination till he was completely mesmerised. Howdifferent this hour’s excitement to the twenty-three hours’ reality!

The following is the full history of a remarkable case which has recentlyoccurred in Russia, taken from the London daily papers last November, andit shows the way in which Gipsy witches and fortune-tellers are held andhorribly treated in that country. It is quite evident that Gipsies andwitches are not esteemed by the Russians like angels:—

 Agrafena Ignatjewa was as a child simple and amiable, neither sharper nor more stupid than all the other girls of her native village, Wratschewo, in the Government of Novgorod. But the people of the place having, from her early youth, made up their minds that she had the “evil eye, ” nothing could eradicate that impression. 

 Being branded with this reputation, it naturally followed that powers of divination and enchantment were attributed to her, including the ability to afflict both men and animals with various plagues and sicknesses. 

 In spite, however, of the supernatural skill with which she was credited, she met with no suitor save a poor soldier. She accepted him gladly, and going with him, shortly after her marriage, to St. Petersburg, Wratschewo lost sight of her for some twelve years. She was, however, by no means forgotten there, for when, after the death of her husband, she again betook herself to the home of her childhood, she found that her old reputation still clung to her. The news of her return spread like wild-fire, and general disaster was anticipated from her injurious spells. This, however, was, from fear, talked of only behind her back, and dread of her at length reached such a pitch that the villagers and their wives sent her presents and assisted her in every way, hoping thereby to get into her good graces, and so escape being practised upon by her infernal arts. As she was now fifty years of age, somewhat weakly, and therefore unable to earn a living, these attentions were by no means unwelcome, and she therefore did nothing to disabuse her neighbours’ minds. Their superstition enabled her to live comfortably and without care, and she knew very well that any assurances she might give would not have produced the slightest effect. 

 A short time after her return to Wratschewo, several women fell ill. This was, of course, laid at the door of Ignatjewa, particularly as one of these women, the daughter of a peasant, had been attacked immediately after being refused a slight favour by her. Whenever any misfortune whatsoever happened in the village, all fingers pointed to Ignatjewa as the source of it. At the beginning of the present year a dismissed soldier, in the interest of the community, actually instituted criminal proceedings against her before the local urjadnik, the chief of the police of the district, the immediate charge preferred being that she had bewitched his wife. 

 Meanwhile the feeling in the village against her became so intensified that it was resolved by the people, pending the decision on the complaint that had been lodged, to take the law into their hands so far as to fasten her up in her cottage. 

 The execution of this resolve was not delayed a moment. Led by Kauschin, Nikisorow, Starovij, and an old man of seventy, one Schipensk, whose wife and daughters were at the time supposed to be suffering from her witchcraft, a crowd of villagers set out on the way to Ignatjewa’s dwelling. Nikisorow had provided himself with hammer and nails, and Iwanow with some chips of pinewood “to smoke out the bad spirits. ” Finding the cottage door locked, they beat it in, and while a portion of them nailed up the windows the remainder crowded in and announced to the terrified woman that, by unanimous decision, she was, for the present, to be kept fastened up in her house. Some of them then proceeded to look through the rooms, where they found, unfortunately, several bottles containing medicaments. Believing these to be enchanted potions, and therefore conclusive proofs of Ignatjewa’s guilt, it was decided, on the suggestion of Nikisorow, to burn her and her devilish work there and then. “We must put an end to it, ” shouted the peasants in chorus; “if we let her off now we shall be bewitched one and all. ”

 Kauschin, who held in his hand a lighted chip of pine-wood, which he had used “to smoke out the spirits” and to light him about the premises, instantly applied it to a bundle of straw lying in a room, after which all hastily left. Ignatjewa attempted in vain to follow them. The agonised woman then tried to get out at the windows, but these were already nailed up. In front of the cottage stood the people, blankly staring at the spreading flames, and listening to the cries of their victim without moving a muscle. 

 At this point Ignatjewa’s brother came on the scene, and ran towards the cottage to rescue his sister. But a dozen arms held him back. “Don’t let her out, ” shouted the venerable Schipensk, the husband and father of the bewitched women. “I’ll answer for it, that we won’t, father; we have put up with her long enough, ” replied one of the band. “The Lord be praised!” exclaimed another, “let her burn away; she bewitched my daughters too. ”

 The little room in which Ignatjewa had taken refuge was not as yet reached by the fire. Appeals were now made to her to confess herself a witch, the brother joining, probably in the hope that if she did so her life might be spared. “But I am entirely innocent, ” the poor woman cried out. One of the bystanders, apparently the only one in possession of his five senses, made another attempt at rescue, but was hindered by the mob. He then, in loud tones, warned them of the punishment which would certainly await them, but in vain, no attention was paid to him. On the contrary, the progress of the flames not appearing rapid enough, it was endeavoured to accelerate it by shoving the snow from the roof and loosening the frame-work. The fire now extended rapidly, one beam after another blazed up, and at length the roof fell in on the wretched woman. 

 The ashes smouldered the whole night; on the following morning nothing was found remaining but the charred bones of Ignatjewa. 

 The idea now, it would seem, occurred to the murderers that perhaps, after all, their action had not been altogether lawful. They accordingly resolved to bribe the local authority, who had already viewed the scene of the affair, to hush it up. For this purpose they made a collection, and handed him the proceeds, twenty-one roubles ninety copecks. To their astonishment he did not accept the money, but at once reported the horrible deed to his superior officer. Sixteen of the villagers were, in consequence, brought up for trial at Tichwin before the district court of Novgorod on the charge of murdering Agrafena Ignatjewa, in the manner above described. 

 After a protracted hearing with jury the following result was arrived at:—Kauschin, who had first set fire to the building; Starovij, who had assisted in accelerating the burning; and Nikisorow, the prime mover in the matter, who had nailed up the windows, were found guilty, and sentenced by the judge to some slight ecclesiastical penance, while the remaining thirteen, including the aged Schipensk—who had used his influence to prevent a rescue—went scot free. 

The Spanish Gipsies, in Grellmann’s day, would resort to the most wickedand inhuman practices. Before taking one of their horses to the fairthey would make an incision in some secret part of the skin, throughwhich they would blow the creature up till his flesh looked fat andplump, and then they would apply a strong sticking plaster to prevent theair escaping. Wolfgang Franz says they make use of another device withan eel. Grellmann says of the Spanish Gipsies in his day that dancingwas another means of getting something; they generally practised dancingwhen they were begging, particularly if men were about the streets. Their dances were of the most disgusting kind that could be conceived;the most lascivious attitudes and gestures, young girls and marriedwomen, travelling with their fathers, would indulge in, to the extent offrisking about the streets in a state of nudity. 

Further inquiries among the Gipsies more than ever satisfy me that myfirst statement last August, viz. , that five per cent. Of them could notread and write, is being more than fully borne out by facts brought undermy notice; in fact, I question if there will be three per cent. Of theGipsies who can read and write. The following letter has been sent to meby a friend to show that there is one Gipsy in the country, at least, whoknows how to put a letter together, and as it is somewhat of a curiosityI give it, as exactly as possible as I received it, of course leaving outthe name, and without note or comment. 

 “Newtown Moor, “the 22nd, 1877. 

 “Dear Sir, —

 “I recivd your last Letter, and proude to say that I shall (if alls well) endeavor to cum on the day mentioned. I shall start from hear 5. 36 a. M. , and be in Edinburgh betwen 3 and 4. I have no more to say very particular, only feel proude of having the enviteation (we are all well hear) with the exception of my little Daughter. She still keeps about the same. I shall finish (this little bit) by sending all our very kind love and respects to Mrs. --- and yourself. Hopeing this will find you boath in good helth (I shall go on with a little bit of something else) (by the way, a little filling up which I hope you will parden me for taking up so much of your time. 

 “I am yours “Very obediently, t “WELSH HARPER. 

 (Now a little more about what my poor old mother leant me when a child) and before I go on any further I want you (if you will be so kind) as to perticullery—understand me—that the ch has a curious sound—also the LR, as, for instence, chommay, in staid hommay, choy in place of hoi. Chotche yoi instaid of _hotche_ yoi. Matteva ma tot _in staid_ of lat eva ma tot and so on. I shall now commence with the feminine and the musculin gender (but I must mind as I don’t put my foot in it) as you know a hundred times more than I do about these last words—the same time the maight be a little picket up by _them_. _Well_, hear goes to make a start. (You must not always laugh. )

“Singular Feminine M. F. “Masculine gender. Gender. 

Dad Dai Dada Daia

Chavo Chai Chavay Chaia

Tieno Tienoy Tickna

Morsh Jovel Morsha Jovya

Gongeo Gangee Gongea Gongeya

Racloo Raclee

Raclay or Racklay

Pal Pen Palla Peoya

Pella Penya Cock Bebey

 (I shall finish this) as you know yourself it will take me to long to go on with more of it. I shall now sho how my poor mother use to speak her English. 

 “THE WHOL FAMALY CAMPING WITH HORSES, DONKEYS, AND DOGS. 

 “On the first weakning in the morning (mother speaking to my Father in the Tent)—“Now, man, weak dear Boys up to go and geather some sticks to light the fire, and to see whare dem Hoses and Donkeys are. I think I shoud some marshas helen a pray the Drom and coving the collas out of the pub. Mother again—Now, boy, go and get some water to put in the ole kettle for breakfast. The Boy—I davda—I must go and do every bit a thing. Why don’t you send dat gel to cer some thing some times her crie chee tal only wishing talkay all the blessed time. Mother, I am going to send her to the farm House for milk (jack loses mony) when a Bran of fire is flying after him, and he (the boy) over a big piece of wood, and hurts his knea. 

 “The girl goes for the milk (and she has a river to go threw) when presently a Bull is heard roreng. Mother, dare now, boy, go and meet your sister; does de Bull roreing after her. She will fall down in a faint in de middle of de riber. Boy sar can I gal ear yoi ta ma docadom me heroi ta shom quit leam (the old woman), go, man, go, man, and stick has dat charey chai is a beling da da say dat dat is a very bad after jovyas. Strenge men brings the Horses and donkeys up to the tents, and begins to scould very much. (The little girl comes with the milk. ) The girl said to her brother that she may fall over the wooden in the river for what he cared; yet the boy said that when she would fall down she would chin a bit, and all the fish would come and nibble at her. Horras and her bull; and then they began the scrubble, and begins to scould her brother for not going to meet her, when they boath have a scuffel over the fire, and very near knocks the jockett over, when the boy hops away upon one leg, and hops upon one of the dog’s paws—un-seen—and dog runs away barking, and runs himself near one of the Donkeys, and the Donkey gives him a kick, until he is briging in the horse. The old woman: Dare now, dare now, ockkie now chorro jocked mardo. Breakfast is over with a deal of boather, and a little laughing and cursing and swaring. 

 “They strike the tents. (The old woman) Men chovolay nen sig waste ja mangay. I am a faling a vaver drom codires, and you will meet me near old Town. Be shewer and leave a _pattern_ by the side of the cross road, if you sal be dare before me. 

 “(The old man and the Boys Pitches the Tents) and gets himself ready to go to the Town. The old woman comes up, and one of the girls with her—boath very tired and havey, loaded with _choben_ behind her back, anugh to frighten waggens and carts of the road with her humpey back. 

 “(They intend to stay in this delightfull camping place for a good many days. ) To day is soposid to be a very hot day, and a fare day in a Town about three miles and ½ from there. The old woman and one of her Daughters goes out as usual. The old man takes a couple of Horses to the Fare to try and sell. (The boys go a fishing. ) The day is very bright and hot. (The old man soon comes home. )

 “One of the prityist girls takes a strol by herself down to a butyfull streem of water to have herself a wash, and she begins singing to the sound of a waterfall close by her, when all of a suden a very nice looking young gentleman, who got tiard fishing in the morning, and the day being very hot, took a bit of a lull on his face, his basket on his back, and Fishing-rod by his side (the girl did not see him) nor him her) until he was atracted by some strange sound, when all of a instant he sprung upon his heels, and to his surprise seen a most butyfull creature with her bear bosom and her long black hair and butyfull black eyes, white teeth, and a butyfull figure. He stared with all the eyes he had, and he made a advance towards her, and when she seen him she stared also at him, and aproaching slowly towards her and saying, from whence comest thou hear, my butyfull maid (and staring at her butyfull figure) thinking that she was some angel as droped down (when she with a pleasant smile by showing her ivory and her sparkling eyes) Oh, my father’s tents are not fare off, and seen the day very warm I thought to have a little wash. 

 “Gentleman Well indeed I have been fishing to day, and cot a few this morning; but the day turned out so excesably hot I was obliged to go in to a shade and have a sleep, but was alarmed at your sweet voice mingling with the murmuring waters. They boath steer up to the camp, when now and then as he is speaking to her on the road going up, a loude and shrill laugh is heard many times—the same time he does not sho the least sign of vulgaraty by taking any sort of liberty with her whatever. They arrive at the tents, when one or the little boys says to his dady Dady, dady, there is a rye a velin a pra. The gentleman sitts himself down and pulls out a big Flask very near full of Brandy and toboco, and offers to the old man. 

 “By this time that young girl goes in her Tent and pull down the front, and presently out she comes butyfully dressed, which bewitched the young gentleman, and he said that they were welcome to come there to stop as long as they had a mind so as they would not tear the Headges. He goes and leaves them highly delighted towards hime, and he should pay them another visit. This camping ground belonged to the young gentleman’s father, and is situated in a butyfull part of Derbyshire. One of the little girls sees two young ladys coming a little sideways across the common from a gentleman’s house which is very near, which turns out to be the gentleman’s two sisters. The little girl, Mamey, mamey, der is doi Rawngas avelin accai atch a pray. The young ladys comes to the tents and smiles, when the old woman says to one of them, Good day, meyam, it’s a very fine day, meyam; shall I tell you a few words, meyam? The old woman takes them on one side and tells them something just to please them, now and then a word of truth, the rest a good lot of lies. 

 “The old man goes off for a stroll with a couple of dogs. 

 “One of the young boys asks his mother for some money, and she refuses him, or says she has got none. The boy says, Where is the £000 tooteys sold froom those doi Rawngas maw did accai I held now from them they pend them not appopolar? One of the other brothers says to him, Hear, Abraham, ile lend you 5s. Will you, my blessed brother. Yes, I will; hear it is. Now we will boath of us go to the gav togeather. One gets his fiddle ready and the other the Tamareen. The harp is too heavy to carry. They go to call at the post office for a chinginargery—they boath come home rather wary. 

 “The next day the Boys go a fishing again and bring home a good lot (as the day was not near so hot as the day before) and comes home in good time to play the harp and violin (and sometimes the Tambureen) for the county gouges [green horns], as a good many comes to have a dance on the green—the collection would be the boys pocket money. 

 “There is a great deal of amusement found by those that us to follow Barns. The have many country people coming them to hear there music and to dance on the green, or sometimes in the barn, but most oftener in the house in a big kitchen, and the country people would be staring at the collays, Gipsies, with all there eyes, and the Gipsies would stare at the people to see them such Dinalays [fools]. 

 “Those who followed Barns, us to call gentlemen’s houses with the Harps, and us to be called in and make a good thing of it. 

 “Dear Mr. —With your permission I will leave of now, and let you know a little more when I come. Hoping that I have not trespased on your time to read such follishness. All that I have written has happened. 

 “I again beg to remain, “Yours very respectfully, “WELSHANENGAY BORY BOSHAHENGBO. 

 [Hedge Fiddler. ]

 “I beg to acquaint you that I am the oldest living Welsh Harper in the world at the present time. Mr. Thomas G---, Welsh Harper to the Prince of Wales, is next to me. ”

It would be perhaps a difficult task to find a score of Gipsies out ofthe 15, 000 to 20, 000 there are in this country who can write as well asthe foregoing letter. 

The following may be considered a fair specimen of the high class or“Gentleman Gipsy, ” so much admired by those who have got the Gipsy spellround their necks, the Gipsy spectacles before their eyes, the Gipsycharm in their pocket, and who can see nothing but what is lively, charming, fascinating, and delightful in the Gipsy, from the crown of hishead to the sole of his foot. To those of my friends I present them withan account of Ryley Bosvil as a man after their own heart, at the sametime I would call their attention to his ending, as related by Borrow. 

Ryley Bosvil was a native of Yorkshire, a county where, as the Gipsiessay, “There’s a deadly sight of Bosvils. ” He was above the middleheight, exceedingly strong and active, and one of the best riders inYorkshire, which is saying a great deal. He was thoroughly versed in allthe arts of the old race; he had two wives, never went to church, andconsidered that when a man died he was cast into the earth and there wasan end of him. He frequently used to say that if any of his peoplebecame Gorgios he would kill them. He had a sister of the name of Clara, a nice, delicate girl, about fourteen years younger than himself, whotravelled about with an aunt; this girl was noticed by a respectableChristian family, who, taking great interest in her, persuaded her tocome and live with them. She was instructed by them, in the rudiments ofthe Christian religion, appeared delighted with her new friends, andpromised never to leave them. After the lapse of about six weeks therewas a knock at the door, and a dark man stood before it, who said hewanted Clara. Clara went out trembling, had some discourse with the manin an unknown tongue, and shortly returned in tears, and said that shemust go. “What for?” said her friends. “Did you not promise to staywith us?” “I did so, ” said the girl, weeping more bitterly; “but thatman is my brother, who says I must go with him; and what he says mustbe. ” So with her brother she departed, and her Christian friends neversaw her again. What became of her? Was she made away with? Manythought she was, but she was not. Ryley put her into a light cart, drawnby a “flying pony, ” and hurried her across England, even to distantNorfolk, where he left her with three Gipsy women. With these women thewriter found her encamped in a dark wood, and had much discourse with herboth on Christian and Egyptian matters. She was very melancholy, bitterly regretted her having been compelled to quit her Christianfriends, and said that she wished she had never been a Gipsy. She wasexhorted to keep a firm grip of her Christianity, and was not seen againfor a quarter of a century, when she was met on Epsom Downs on the Derbyday, when the terrible horse, “Gladiateur, ” beat all the English steeds. She was then very much changed indeed, appearing as a full-blown Egyptianmatron, with two very handsome daughters flaringly dressed in genuineGipsy fashion, to whom she was giving motherly counsels as to the bestmeans to _hok_ and _dukker_ the gentlefolk. All her Christianity sheappeared to have flung to the dogs, for when the writer spoke to her onthat very important subject she made no answer save by an indescribableGipsy look. On other matters she was communicative enough, telling thewriter, amongst other things, that since he saw her she had been twicemarried, and both times very well, for that her first husband, by whomshe had the two daughters, whom the writer “kept staring at, ” was a manevery inch of him, and her second, who was then on the Downs grindingknives with a machine he had, though he had not much manhood, beingnearly eighty years old, had something much better, namely, a mint ofmoney, which she hoped shortly to have in her possession. 

Ryley, like most of the Bosvils, was a tinker by profession; but though atinker, he was amazingly proud and haughty of heart. His grand ambitionwas to be a great man among his people, a Gipsy king (no such individualsas either Gipsy kings or queens ever existed). To this end he furnishedhimself with clothes made after the costliest Gipsy fashion; the twohinder buttons of the coat, which was of thick blue cloth, were broadgold pieces of Spain, generally called ounces; the fore-buttons wereEnglish “spaded guineas, ” the buttons of the waistcoat were half-guineas, and those of the collar and the wrists of his shirt were seven-shillinggold-pieces. In this coat he would frequently make his appearance on amagnificent horse, whose hoofs, like those of the steed of a TurkishSultan, were cased in shoes of silver. How did he support such expense?it may be asked. Partly by driving a trade in “wafedo loovo, ”counterfeit coin, with which he was supplied by certain honesttradespeople of Brummagem; partly and principally by large sums of moneywhich he received from his two wives, and which they obtained by thepractice of certain arts peculiar to Gipsy females. One of his wives wasa truly remarkable woman. She was of the Petalengro or Smith tribe. HerChristian name, if Christian name it can be called, was Xuri or Shuri, and from her exceeding smartness and cleverness she was generally calledby the Gipsies Yocky Shuri—that is, smart or clever Shuri, Yocky being aGipsy word signifying “clever. ” She could dukker—that is, tellfortunes—to perfection, by which alone, during the racing season, shecould make a hundred pounds a month. She was good at the big hok—thatis, at inducing people to put money into her hands in the hope of itbeing multiplied; and, oh, dear! how she could caur—that is, filch goldrings and trinkets from jewellers’ cases, the kind of thing which theSpanish Gipsies call ustibar pastesas—filching with hands. Frequentlyshe would disappear and travel about England, and Scotland too, dukkering, hokking, and cauring, and after the lapse of a month returnand deliver to her husband, like a true and faithful wife, the proceedsof her industry. So no wonder that the Flying Tinker, as he was called, was enabled to cut a grand appearance. He was very fond of hunting, andwould frequently join the field in regular hunting costume, save andexcept that instead of the leather hunting cap he wore one of fur, with agold band round it, to denote that though he mixed with Gorgios he wasstill a Romany chal. Thus equipped, and mounted on a capital hunter, whenever he encountered a Gipsy encampment he would invariably dashthrough it, doing all the harm he could, in order, as he said, to let thejuggals know that he was their king, and had a right to do what hepleased with his own. Things went on swimmingly for a great many years, but, as prosperity does not continue for ever, his dark hour came atlast. His wives got into trouble in one or two expeditions, and hisdealings in wafedo loovo to be noised about. Moreover, by his grand airsand violent proceedings, he had incurred the hatred of both Gorgios andGipsies, particularly of the latter, some of whom he had ridden over andlamed for life. One day he addressed his two wives—

 “The Gorgios seek to hang me, The Gipsies seek to kill me; This country we must leave. ”

 SHURI. 

 “I’ll join with you to heaven, I’ll fare with you, Yandors, But not if Lura goes. ”

 LURA. 

 “I’ll join with you to heaven And to the wicked country, Though Shuri goeth too. ”

 RYLEY. 

 “Since I must choose betwixt you, My choice is Yocky Shuri, Though Lura loves me best. ”

 LURA. 

 “My blackest curse on Shuri; Oh, Ryley, I’ll not curse you, But you will never thrive. ”

She then took her departure, with her cart and donkey, and Ryley remainedwith Shuri. 

 RYLEY. 

 “I’ve chosen now betwixt ye, Your wish you now have gotten, But for it you shall smart. ”

He then struck her with his fist on the cheek and broke her jaw-bone. Shuri uttered no cry or complaint, only mumbled—

 “Although with broken jaw-bone, I’ll follow thee, my Riley, Since Lura doesn’t fal. ”

Thereupon Ryley and Yocky Shuri left Yorkshire and wended their way toLondon, where they took up their abode in the Gipsyry near Shepherd’sBush. Shuri went about dukkering and hokking, but not with the spirit offormer times, for she was not quite so young as she had been, and herjaw, which was never properly cured, pained her very much. Ryley wentabout tinkering, but he was unacquainted with London and itsneighbourhood, and did not get much to do. An old Gipsy man, who wasdriving about a little cart filled with skewers, saw him standing in astate of perplexity at a place where four roads met:—

 OLD GIPSY. 

 “Methinks I see a brother. Who’s your father? Who’s your mother? And what be your name?”

 RYLEY. 

 “A Bosvil was my father, A Bosvil was my mother, And Ryley is my name. ”

 OLD GIPSY. 

 “I’m glad to see you, brother; I am a kaulo camlo. {218a} What service can I do?”

 RYLEY. 

 “I’m jawing petulengring, {218b} But do not know the country; Perhaps you’ll show me round. ”

 OLD GIPSY. 

 “I’ll sikker tulle prala! Ino bikkening escouyor, {218c} And av along with me. ”

The old Gipsy showed Ryley about the country for a week or two, and Ryleyformed a kind of connection and did a little business. He, however, displayed little or no energy, was gloomy and dissatisfied, andfrequently said that his heart was broken since he had left Yorkshire. Shuri did her best to cheer him, but without effect. Once when she badehim get up and exert himself, he said that if he did it would be of nouse, and asked her whether she did not remember the parting prophecy ofhis other wife, that he would never thrive. At the end of about twoyears he ceased going his rounds, and did nothing but smoke under thearches of the railroad and loiter about beershops. At length he becamevery weak and took to his bed; doctors were called in by his faithfulShuri, but there is no remedy for a bruised spirit. A Methodist came andasked him, “What was his hope?” “My hope, ” said he, “is that when I amdead I shall be put into the ground, and my wife and children will weepover me, ” and such, it may be observed, is the last hope of every genuineGipsy. His hope was gratified. Shuri and his children, of whom he hadthree—two stout young fellows and a girl—gave him a magnificent funeral, and screamed and shouted and wept over his grave. They then returned tothe “arches, ” not to divide his property among them, and to quarrel aboutthe division, according to Christian practice, but to destroy it. Theykilled his swift pony—still swift though twenty-seven years of age—andburied it deep in the ground without depriving it of its skin. Then theybroke the caravan to pieces, making of the fragments a fire, on whichthey threw his bedding, carpets, curtains, blankets, and everything whichwould burn. Finally, they dashed his mirrors, china, and crockery topieces, hacked his metal pots, dishes, and what not to bits, and flungthe whole on the blazing pile. {219} Such was the life, such the death, and such were the funeral obsequies of Ryley Bosvil, a Gipsy who will belong remembered amongst the English Romany for his buttons, his twowives, grand airs, and last not least, for having been the composer ofvarious stanzas in the Gipsy tongue, which have plenty of force ifnothing else to recommend them. One of these, addressed to Yocky Shuri, runs as follows:—

 “Beneath the bright sun there is none, There is none I love like my Yocky Shuri; With the greatest delight in blood I would fight To the knees for my Yocky Shuri. ”

How much better and happier it would have been for this poor, hardened, ignorant, old Gipsy, if, instead of indulging in such rubbish as he didin the last hours of an idle and wasted life, he could, after a lifespent in doing good to the Gipsies and others over whom he had influence, as the shades of the evening of life gathered round him, sung, from thebottom of his heart—fetching tears to his eyes as it did mine a Sunday ortwo ago—the following verses to the tune of “Belmont:”—

 “When in the vale of lengthened years My feeble feet shall tread, And I survey the various scenes Through which I have been led, “How many mercies will my life Before my view unfold! What countless dangers will be past! What tales of sorrow told!

 “This scene will all my labours end, This road conduct on high; With comfort I’ll review the past, And triumph though I die. ”

On the first Sunday in February this year I found myself surrounded by ablack, thick London fog—almost as dense as the blackest midnight, and anoverpowering sense of suffocation creeping over me—in the midst of anencampment of Gipsies at Canning Town, and, acting upon their kindinvitation, I crept into one of their tents, and there found about adozen Gipsy men of all sizes, ages, and complexions, squatting upon pegshavings. Some of their faces looked full of intelligence and worthy ofa better vocation, and others seemed as if they had had the “cropper” atwork round their ears; so short was their hair that any one attempting to“pull it up by the roots” would have a difficult task, unless he set toit with his teeth. They looked to me as if several of them had wornbright steel ornaments round their wrists and had danced at a countyball, and done more stepping upon the wheel of fortune than many peopleimagine; at any rate, they were quite happy in their way, and seemedprepared for another turn round when needful. Their first salutationwas, “Well, governor, how are you? Sit you down and make yourselfcomfortable, and let’s have a chat. Never mind if it is Sunday, send forsome ‘fourpenny’ for us. ” I partly did as they bid me, but, owing to thedarkness of the tent and the fog, I sat upon a seat that was partlycovered with filth, consequently I had an addition to my trousers morethan I bargained for. I told them my object was not to come to send for“fourpenny, ” but to get a law passed to compel the Gipsy parents to sendtheir children to school, and to have their tents registered and providedwith a kind of school pass book; and, before I had well finished myremarks, one of the Gipsies, a good-looking fellow, said, “I say, Bill, that will be a capital thing, won’t it?” “God bless you, man, for it, ”was the remark of another, and so the thing went the round among them. By this time there were some score or more Gipsy women and children atthe tent door, or, I should rather say, rag coverlet, who heard what hadpassed, and they thoroughly fell in with the idea. The question nextturned upon religion. They said they had heard that there werehalf-a-dozen different religions, and asked me if it was true. One saidhe was a Roman Catholic; but did not believe there was a hell. Anothersaid he was a Methodist, but could not agree with their singing andpraying, and so it went round till they asked me what religion was. Itold them in a way that seemed to satisfy them, and I also told them someof its results. I could not learn that any of these Gipsies had everbeen in a place of worship. 

I mentioned to them that I wanted to show, during my inquiries, bothsides of the question, and should be glad if they would point out to methe name of a Gipsy whom they could look up to and consider as a goodpattern for them to follow. Here they began to scratch their heads, andsaid I had put them “a nightcap on. ” “Upon my soul, ” said one, “I shouldnot know where to begin to look for one, ” and then related to me thefollowing story:—“The Devil sent word to some of his agents for them tosend him the worst man they could find upon the face of the earth. Sonews went about among various societies everywhere, consultations andmeetings were held, and it was decided that a Gipsy should be sent, asnone of the societies or agents could find one bad enough. Accordingly apassport was procured, and they started the Gipsy on his way. When hecame to the door of hell he knocked for admittance. The Devil shoutedout, ‘Who is there?’ The Gipsy cried out, ‘A Gipsy. ’ ‘All right, ’ saidthe Devil; ‘you are just the man I am wanting. I have been on thelook-out for you some time. Come in. I have been told the Gipsies arethe worst folks in all the world. ’ The Gipsy had not been long in hellbefore the Devil perceived that he was too bad for his place, and theplace began to swarm with young imps to such a degree that the Devilcalled the Gipsy to him one day, and said, ‘Of all the people that haveever come to this place you are the worst. You are too bad for us. Hereis your passport. Be off back again!’ The Devil opened the door, andsaid, as the Gipsy was going, ‘Make yourself scarce. ’ So you see, ” saidLee to me, “we are too bad for the Devil. We’ll go anywhere, fightanybody, or do anything. Now, lads, drink that ‘fourpenny’ up, and let’ssend for some more. ” This is Gipsy life in England on a Sunday afternoonwithin the sound of church bells. 

 [Picture: A Fortune-telling Gipsy enjoying her pipe]

The proprietor of the _Weekly Times_ very readily granted permission forone of the principals of his staff to accompany me to one of the Gipsyencampments a Sunday or two ago on the outskirts of London. Those whoknow the writer would say the article is truthful, and not in the leastoverdrawn:—“The lane was full of decent-looking houses, tenanted bylabourers in foundries and gas and waterworks; but there were spacesbetween the rows of houses, forming yards for the deposit of garbage, andin these unsavoury spots the Gipsies had drawn up their caravans, andpitched their smoke-blackened tents. These yards were separated fromeach other by rows of cottages, and each yard contained families relatednear or distantly, or interested in each other’s welfare by longassociations in the country during summer time, and in such places as wefound them during the winter season. After spending several hours withthese people in their tents and caravans, and passing from yard to yard, asking the talkative ones questions, we came to the conclusion that, inthe whole bounds of this great metropolis, it would have been impossibleto have found any miscalling themselves Gipsies whose mode of living moreurgently called for the remedial action of the law than the tenants ofLamb-lane. In the first place, there was not a true Gipsy amongst them;nor one man, woman, or child who could in any degree claim relationshipwith a Gipsy. They were, all of them, idle loafers, who had adopted thewandering life of the Gipsy because of the opportunities it afforded ofcombining a maximum of idle hours with a minimum of work. The menexhibited this in their countenances, in the attitudes they took up, bythe whining drawl with which they spoke; the women, by their dirtinessand inattention to dress; and the children, by their filthy condition. The men and women had fled from the restraints of house life to escapethe daily routine which a home involved; the men had no higher ambitionthan to obtain a small sum of money on the Saturday to pay for a fewdays’ food. There was not one man amongst them who could solder a brokenkettle; a few, however, could mend a chair bottom, but there allindustrial ability ended; and the others got their living by shavingskewers from Monday morning to Friday night, which were sold to butchersat 10d. Or 1s. The stone. These men stayed at home, working over thebrazier of burning coke during the week, while their wives hawked smallwool mats or vases, but nothing of their own manufacture; and thegrown-up lads, on market-days, added to the general industry by buyingflowers in Covent-garden, and hawking them in the suburbs of themetropolis. We were assured by Mr. Smith that this class of pseudo-Gipsywas largely on the increase, and to check their spread Mr. Smith suggeststhat the provisions of an Act of Parliament should be mainly directed. Only one of all we saw and spoke to on Sunday was ‘a scholar’—that is, could read at all—and this was a lad of about fourteen, who had spent afew hours occasionally at a Board school. With all the others theknowledge that comes of reading was an absolute blank. They knewnothing, except that the proceeds of the previous week had been below theaverage; social events of surpassing interest had not reached them, andthe future was limited by ‘to-morrow. ’ We questioned them upon theirexperiences of the past winter, and the preference they had for theirtents over houses was emphatically marked. ‘Brick houses, ’ said onewoman, who was suckling a baby, ‘are so full of draughts. ’ Night and daythe brazier of burning coke was never allowed to go low, and under thetent the ground was always dry, however wet it might be outside, becauseof the heat from the brazier; besides, they lay upon well-trodden-downstraw, six or eight inches deep, and covered themselves with theirclothes, their wraps, their filthy rugs, and tattered rags, and were aswarm as possible. The tents had many advantages over a brick house. Besides having no draughts, there was no accumulation of snow upon thetops of the tents; and so these witless people were content to endurepoverty, hunger, cold, and dirt for the sake of minimising theircontribution to the general good of the whole commonwealth. The poorestworking man in London who does an honest week’s work is a hero comparedwith such men as these. It would be impossible to nurture sentiment inany tent in Lamb-lane. There was no face with a glimmer of honestself-reliance about it, no face bearing any trace of the strange beautywe had noticed in other encampments, and no form possessed of anydistinguishing grace. The whole of the yards were redolent of dirt; andthe people, each and all, inexcusably foul in person. In several yardslittle boys or girls sat on the ground in the open air, tending cokefires over which stood iron pots, and, as the water boiled and raised thelids, it was plain that the women were taking advantage of the quiethours of the afternoon for a wash. Before we came away from the lastyard, lines had been strung across all the yards, and the hastily-washedlinen rags were fluttering in the air. One tent was closed to visitors. It was then four o’clock, and a woman told us confidentially her friendwas washing a blanket, which she would have to dry that same afternoon, as it would be ‘wanted’ at night; but ‘the friend’ professed herreadiness to take charge of anything we had to spare for thewasherwoman—a mouthful of baccy, a ‘sucker’ for the baby, or ‘threeha’pence for a cup of tea. ’ Boys were there of fourteen and sixteen, with great rents in the knees of their corduroys, who only went out tohawk one day in the week—Saturday. They started with a light truck forCovent-garden at four in the morning, and would have from 4s. To 6s. Tolay out in flowers. When questioned as to what flowers they had boughton the previous day, one lad said they were ‘tulips, hyacinths, andcyclaments, ’ but nobody could give us an intelligible description of thelast-named flowers. Two lads generally took charge of the flower truck, and the result of the day’s hawking was usually a profit of half-a-crownto three shillings. These lads also assisted during the week in shavingskewers, and accompanied their fathers to market when they had a load tosell. In one tent we found a dandy-hen sitting; she had been so occupiedone week, and the presence of the children and adults, who shared herstraw bed, in no way discomposed her. We found that baccy and ‘suckers’were the most negotiable exchanges with these people. The women, youngand old, small boys and the men, all smoked, and the day became historicwith them because, of the extra smokes they were able to have. The‘suckers’ were the largest specimen of ‘bulls’ eyes’ we could find—notthose dainty specimens sold at the West-end or in the Strand, but realwhoppers, almost the size of pigeons’ eggs; and yet there was no babywhose mouth was not found equal to the reception and the hiding of thelargest; and we noticed as a strange psychological fact that no babywould consent, though earnestly entreated by its mother, to suffer the‘sucker’ to leave its mouth for the mother to look at. The babies knewbetter, shaking their wary little heads at their mothers. Instinct wasstronger than obedience. We were not sorry to get away from Lamb-lane, with its filthy habitations, blanket washings, ragged boys and girls, lazy men and women. For the genuine Gipsy tribe, and their mysteriouspromptings to live apart from their fellows in the lanes and fields ofthe country, we have a sentimental pity; but with such as these Lamb-lanepeople, off-scourings of the lowest form of society, we have no manner ofsympathy; and we hope that a gracious Act of Parliament may soon ridEnglish social life of such a plague, and teach such people their duty totheir children and to society at large—things they are too ignorant andtoo idle to learn for themselves. ”

My son sends me the following account of a visit he made to a Gipsyencampment near London:—I visited the camp at Barking Road thisafternoon. Possibly you thought I might not go if you gave me a correctdescription of the route, for I certainly went through more muddy streetsand over lock-bridges than your instructions mentioned. Presuming I wasnear the camp, I inquired of a policeman, and was surprised with thereply that there used to be one, but he had not heard anything of it fora long while. His mind was evidently wandering, or else he meant it as ajoke, for we were then standing within three hundred yards of the largestencampment I have yet seen. It is situated at the back of Barking Road, in what may be termed a field, but it certainly is not a green one, forthe only horse and donkey that I saw were standing against boxeseating—perhaps corn. 

I am surprised that the Gipsies should choose such an exposed, damp placefor camping-ground, as it is always partly under water, and the onlyshelter afforded being a few houses at the back and one side; the restfaces, and is consequently exposed to, the bleak winds blowing over themarsh and the river. 

At the entrance I was met by a poor woman taking a child to the doctor, her chief dread being that if she did not the law would be down upon her. She had put the journey off to the last minute, for the poor thing lookednearly dead then. 

Once in the camp one could not but notice the miserable appearance of theplace. Women and children, not one of whom could read and write, withscarcely any clothing, the latter without shoes or stockings. Twenty totwenty-five old, ragged, and dirty tents—not canvas, but old, worn-outblankets—separated by the remains of old broken vans, buckets, andrubbish that must have taken years to accumulate. Everything betokenedage and poverty. Evidently this field has been a camping-ground for someyears. Three old vans were all the place could boast of, and one ofthose was made out of a two-wheeled cart. 

I was for the first ten minutes fully occupied in trying to keep arespectable distance from a number of dogs of all sizes and breeds, whichhad the usual appetite for fresh meat and tweed trowsering, and, at thesame time, endeavouring in vain to find solid ground upon which to stand, for the place at the entrance and all round the tents was one regularmass of deep “slush. ” It soon became known that my pockets wereplentifully supplied with half-ounces of tobacco and sweets. These Isoon disposed off, especially the latter, for there seemed no end to thelittle bare-footed children that could walk, and those that couldn’t werebrought in turn by their sisters or brothers. I was invited to visit allthe tents, but I could gain but little information beyond an account ofthe severe winter, bad state of trade, your visit in one of the black, dense fogs, &c. 

 [Picture: Inside a Christian Gipsy’s Van—Mrs. Simpson’s]

The men followed the occupation of either tinkers or peg-makers, and allthe young women will pull out their pipe and ask for tobacco as readilyas the old ones. 

The camp is one of the Lees. The majority of the men, women, andchildren are of light complexion, and, as for a dark-eyed beauty, one wasnot to be found. I stayed most of the time under the “blanket” of theold man, Thomas Lee, who is a jolly old fellow about sixty, and thefather of eleven young children. He was evidently the life of the camp, for they all flock round his tent to hear his interesting snatches ofsong and story. 

He had heard that Her Majesty had sent £50 to assist you in getting thechildren educated, and just before I left I was pleased to hear him givevent to his feelings with the rough but patriotic speech that “She was arare good woman, and a Queen of the right sort. ”

It must not be inferred from what I have said, or shall say, that thereare no good Gipsies among them. Here and there are females to be foundready at all hours and on all occasions to do good both to the souls andbodies of Gipsies and house-dwellers as they travel with their basketfrom door to door hawking their wares; and to illustrate the truth ofthis I cannot do better than refer to the case of the good andkind-hearted Mrs. Simpson, who is generally located with her husband andsome grand-children in her van in the neighbourhood near Notting Hill, onthe outskirts of London. Mrs. Simpson tells me that she is not athorough Gipsy, only a half one. Her father was one of the rare oldGipsy family of Lees, of Norfolk, and her mother was a Gorgio or Gentile, who preferred following the “witching eye” and “black locks” to the ragand stick hovel—or, to be more aristocratic, “the tent”—whose roof andsides consisted of sticks and canvas, with an opening in the roof toserve as a chimney, through which the smoke arising from the hearth-stickfire could pass, excepting that which settled on the hands and face. Grass, green, decayed, or otherwise, to serve as a carpet, the browntrampled turf taking the place of mosaic and encaustic tile pavements, straw instead of a feather-bed, and a soap-box, tea-chest, and likethings doing duty as drawing-room furniture. Mrs. Simpson, when quite achild, was always reckoned most clever in the art of deception, tellinglies and fortunes out of a small black Testament, of which she could notread a sentence or tell a letter; sometimes reading the planets of sillygeese, simpletons, and fools out of it when it was upside down, and whendetected she was always ready with a plausible excuse, which they, withopen mouths, always swallowed as Gospel; and for more than twenty-fiveyears she kept herself and family in this way with sufficient money tokeep them in luxury, loose living, and idleness, till the year of 1859, when, by some unaccountable means, her conscience, which, up to thistime, had been insensible, dull, and without feeling, became awakened, sharp, and alive. Probably this quickening took place in consequence ofher hearing a good Methodist minister in a mission-room in theneighbourhood. The result was that the money she took by tellingfortunes began to burn her fingers, and to make it sit upon herconscience as easy as possible she had a large pocket made in her dressso that she could drop it in without much handling. It was no easy thingto give up such an easy way of getting a living to face the realities ofan honest pedlar’s life, in the midst of “slamming of doors, ”“cold-shoulders, ” “scowls, ” “frowns, ” and insults; and a woman with lessdetermination of character would never have attempted it—or, at least, ifattempted, it would soon have been given up on account of theinsurmountable difficulties surrounding it. Many times she has sat bythe wayside with her basket, after walking and toiling all day, and nothaving taken a penny with which to provide the Sunday’s dinner, when atthe last extremity Providence has opened her way and friends haveappeared upon the scene, and she has been enabled to “go on her wayrejoicing, ” and for the last twenty years she has been trying to do allthe good she can, and to day she is not one penny the loser, but, on theother hand, a gainer, by following such a course. Personally, I havereceived much encouragement and valuable information at her hands to helpme in my work to do the Gipsy children good in one form or other. I havefrequently called to see the grand old Gipsy woman, sometimesunexpectedly, and when I have done so I have either found her reading theBible or else it has been close to her elbow. Its stains and soilsbetoken much wear and constant use. Very different to the old woman whoput her spectacles into her Bible as she set it upon the clock, and lostthem for more than seven years. She is a firm believer in prayer; infact, it seems the very essence of her life, and she can relate numbersof instances when and where God has answered her petitions. On herbed-quilt are the following texts of scripture, poetry, &c. , which, asshe says, these, with other portions of God’s word, she “has learnt toread without any other aid except His Holy Spirit:”—“For God so loved theworld that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Himshould not perish but have everlasting life. ” “Every kingdom dividedagainst itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against ahouse falleth. ” “But whoso hath this world’s goods and seeth his brotherhave need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleththe love of God in him?” “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayerbelieving ye shall receive. ” “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside thestill waters. ” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow ofdeath I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staffthey comfort me. ” “I am the door; by Me if any man enter in he shall besaved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. ” “Let nothing be donethrough strife, but in lowliness of mind; let each esteem others betterthan themselves. ” “Look not every man on his own things, but every manalso on the things of others. ” “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. ”“Wives submit yourselves unto your husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. ”“Husbands love your own wives and be not bitter against them. ” “Childrenobey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto theLord. ” “Fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they bediscouraged. ” “Servants obey in all things your masters according to theflesh, not with eye service as man pleases, but in singleness of heartfearing God. ” “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, ” &c. “The wages of sin is death. ” “Let usrun the race with patience. ” “Judge not, that ye be not judged. ”“Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them. ”“He that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out. ” “Come unto Me allye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. ” “I am theway, the truth, and the life. ” “Whatsoever ye find to do, do it with allyour might. ” “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; andthere shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shallthere be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. ” “He thatovercometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God and he shallbe My son. ” “And they shall see His face and His name shall be in theirforeheads. ” “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and theyshall reign for ever and ever. ”

 “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save me from its guilt and power. 

 “While I draw this fleeting breath, When mine eyes shall close in death, When I soar to worlds unknown, See Thee on Thy judgment throne; Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. ”

 * * * * *

 “Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

 “Just as I am—Thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down; Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!”

 * * * * *

 “Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. 

 “Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away! Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me. 

 “I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me. ”

Upon these promises of help, comfort, warning, encouragement, andconsolation, she has many times rested her wearied body after returningfrom her day’s trudging and toil, and under these she has sleptpeacefully as in the arms of death, ready to answer the Master’s summons, and to meet with her dear little boy who has crossed the river, when Heshall say, “It is enough; come up hither, ” and “sit on My throne. ”Although she is a big, powerful woman, and has been more so in years thatare past, when any one begins to talk about Heaven and the happiness andjoy in reserve for those who have a hope of meeting with loved onesagain, when the cares and anxieties of life are ended, it is not longbefore they see big, scalding, briny tears rolling down her dark, Gipsy-coloured face, and she will frequently edge in words during theconversation about her “Dear Saviour” and “Blessed Lord and Master. ” Imay mention the names of other warm-hearted Gipsies who are trying toimprove the condition of some of the adult portion of their brethren andsisters—dwellers upon the turf, and clod scratchers, who feed many oftheir poor women and children upon cabbage broth and turnip sauce, and“bed them down, ” after kicks, blows, and ill-usage, upon rotten strawstrewn upon the damp ground. Mrs. Carey, Mr. And Mrs. Eastwood, Mrs. Hedges, and the three Gipsy brothers Smith, Mrs. Lee, and a few others, have not laboured without some success, at the same time they arepowerless to improve the condition of the future generations of Gipsywomen and children, young mongrels and hut-dwelling Gorgios, by applyingthe civilising influences of education and sanitary measures to banishheathenism worse than that of Africa, idleness, immorality, thieving, lying, and deception of the deepest dye from our midst, as exhibited inthe dwellings of the rag and stick hovels to be seen flitting about theoutskirts, fringe, and scum of our own neglected ragamuffin population, roaming about under the cognition that the name of a Gipsy is nauseousand disgusting in most people’s mouths on account of the damning evilpractices they have followed and carried out for centuries upon thehonest and industrious artisans, tradesmen, and others they have beenbrought in contact with. A raw-boned Gipsy, with low, slanting forehead, deep-set eyes, large eyebrows, thick lips, wide mouth, skulkingly slowgait, slouched hat, and a large grizzly-coloured dog at his heels, in adark, narrow lane, on a starlight night, is not a pleasant state ofthings for a timid and nervous man to grapple with; nevertheless this isone side of a Gipsy’s life as he goes prowling about in quest of hisprey, and as such it is seen by those who know something of Gipsy life. 

 “And they return at evening: they growl like a dog and compass the city; They—they prowl about for food. If (or since) they are not satisfied they spend the night (in the search). ”

 “Sunday at Home. ”

Even my friends, the canal-boatmen, look upon Gipsies as the lowest ofthe low, and lower down the social scale than any boatman to be met with. Some of them have gone so far as to try to shake my nerves by telling methat, now I had taken the Gipsy women and children in hand, they wouldnot give sixpence for my life. I could only reply with a smile, and tellthem that I was in safe keeping till the work was done, as in the case ofthe canal movement. Frowns, dogs, sticks, stones, and oaths did notfrighten me. The time had arrived when the vagabondish life of aGipsy—so called—should be unmasked and the plain truth made known; andfor this the Gipsies will thank me, if they take into consideration theobject I have in view and the end I am seeking. My object is to elevatethem, through the instrumentality of sanitary officer and schoolmasterbeing at work among the children, into respectable citizens of society, earning an honest livelihood by honourable and legitimate means; farbetter to do this than to go sneaking about the country, begging, cadging, lying, and stealing all they can lay their hands upon, andtraining their children to put up with the scoffs, sneers, and insults ofthe Gorgios or Gentiles for the sake of pocketing a penny at the cost oflosing their manhood. A thousand times better live a life such as wouldenable them to look everybody straight in the face than burrowing andscratching their way into the ground, making skewers at one shilling perstone, and being considered as outlaws, having the mark of Cain upontheir forehead, with their hands against everybody and everybody againstthem. There is no honour in a scamp’s life, credit in being a thief, glory surrounding a rogue, and halo over the life of a vagabond and atramp. To see a half-naked, full grown-man and his wife, with six oreight children, sitting on the damp ground in rag huts large enough onlyfor a litter of pigs, scratching roasted potatoes out of the dying embersof a coke fire, as thousands are doing to-day, is enough to freeze theblood in one’s veins, make one utter a shriek of horror and despair, andto bring down the wrath of God upon the country that allows such a stateof things in her midst. 

 “How dark yon dwelling by the solemn grove!”

Part V. The sad Condition of the Gipsies, with Suggestions for their Improvement. 

One thing that strikes me in going through the writings of those authorsin this country who have endeavoured to deal with the Gipsy question is, their hesitation to tackle the Gipsy difficulty at home. On the surfaceof the books they have written there appears a disposition to mince thesubject, at all events, that amount of courage has not been put intotheir works that characterised Grellmann’s work upon the Gipsies of hisown country. If an account similar to Grellmann’s had appearedconcerning our English Gipsies a century ago, and energetic action hadbeen taken by our law-makers, instead of publishing an account of theHungarian and other Continental Gipsies, it is impossible to calculatethe beneficent results that would have accrued long before this, both tothe Gipsies themselves and the country at large. 

 [Picture: Inside a Gipsy Fortune-teller’s van near Latimer Road]

One writer deals principally with the Scotch Gipsies, another with theSpanish Gipsies, another is trying to prove the Egyptian origin of theGipsies, another is tracing their language, another treats upon ourEnglish Gipsies in a kind of “milk-and-watery” fashion that will neitherdo them good nor harm—he pleases his readers, but leaves the Gipsieswhere he found them, viz. , in the ditch. Another went to work on theprinciple of praying and believing for them; but, I am sorry to say, inhis circumscribed sphere his faith and works fell flat, on account, nodoubt, of this dear, good man and his friends undertaking to do a workwhich should in that day have been undertaken by the State, at least, that part of it relating to the education of the Gipsy children. 

The Gipsy race is supposed to be the most beautiful in the world, andamongst the Russian Gipsies are to be found countenances, which, to dojustice to, would require an abler pen than mine; but exposure to therays of the sun, the biting of the frost, and the pelting of the pitilesssleet and snow destroys the beauty at a very early age, and if in infancytheir personal advantages are remarkable, their ugliness at an advancedage is no less so, for then it is loathsome and appalling:—“He wanted butthe dark and kingly crown to have represented the monster who opposed theprogress of Lucifer whilst careering in burning arms and infernal gloryto the outlet of his hellish prison. ” In our own country a number ofGipsies sit as models, for which they get one shilling per hour. Theyare not in demand as perfect specimens of the human figure from the crownof the head to the sole of the foot; but few of them, owing to their low, debasing habits, have arrived at that state of perfection. I know onereal, fine, old Gipsy woman who sits to artists for the back of her headonly, on account of her black, frizzy, raven locks. One will sit for hereyes, another for the nose, another for the hands and feet, another forthe colour only. Alfred Smith sits for his feet, and there are otherswho sit for their legs and arms. No class of people, owing to theirmixture with other classes, tribes, and nations, presents a greatervariety of models for the artist than the Gipsy. If an artist wants topaint a thief he can find a model among the Gipsies. If he wants topaint a dark highwayman lurking behind a hedge after his prey he goes tothe Gipsy. If he wants to paint Ajax he goes to the Gipsy. If he wantsto paint a Grecian, Roman, or Spaniard he goes to the Gipsy. Of coursethere are exceptions, but if an artist wants to paint a large, fine, intellectual-looking figure, with an open countenance, he keeps away fromthe Gipsies and seeks his models elsewhere. Dregs among the Gipsies haveproduced queens for the artists. 

Gipsies with a mixture of English blood in their veins have produced menwith pluck, courage, and stamina, strongly built, with plenty of muscleand bone. Two “bruisers” of the Gipsy vagabond class have worn thechampion’s belt of the world; and, on the other hand, this mixture ofEnglish and Gipsy blood has produced some fine delicate Grecian forms offemale beauty, dove-like, soft in eye, hand, and heart—the flashy fire inthe eye of a Gipsy has been reduced to the modesty and innocence andsimplicity of a child. Our present race of Gipsies, under the influenceof education, refinement, and religion, will, if properly and wiselytaken in hand and dealt with according to the light of reason and truth, produce a class of men and women well qualified to take their share, forweal or for woe, in the struggle of life. 

Some first-rate songsters and musicians have been produced among theGipsies, and whose merits have been acknowledged. Perhaps the highestcompliment ever paid to a singer was paid by Catalini herself to one ofthe daughters of a tanned and tawny skin. It is well known in Russiathat the celebrated Italian was so enchanted with the voice of a MoscowGipsy (who, after the former had displayed her noble talent before asplendid audience in the old Russian capital, stepped forward and pouredforth one of her national strains) that she tore from her own shoulders ashawl of cashmere which had been presented to her by the Pope, and, embracing the Gipsy, insisted on her acceptance of the splendid gift, saying that it was intended for the matchless songster, which she nowperceived she herself was not. No doubt there are many good voices amongour Gipsies; what is required to bring them out is education and culture. Our best Gipsy songsters and musicians are in Wales. 

The following is a specimen of a Gipsy poetic effusion, which my Gipsyadmirers will not consider an extraordinarily high-flown production—theoutcome of nearly one million Gipsies who have wandered up and downEurope for more than three hundred years, as related by Borrow. 

TWO GIPSIES. 

 “Two Gipsy lads were transported, Were sent across the great water; Plato was sent for rioting, And Louis for stealing the purse Of a great lady. 

 “And when they came to the other country, The country that lies across the water, Plato was speedily hung, But Louis was taken as a husband By a great lady. 

 “You wish to know who was the lady: ’Twas the lady from whom he stole the purse; The Gipsy had a black and witching eye, And on account of that she followed him Across the great water. ”

Smart and Crofton, speaking poetically and romantically of Gipsy life, say as follows:—

“With the first spring sunshine comes the old longing to be off, and soonis seen, issuing from his winter quarters, a little cavalcade, tiltedcart, bag and baggage, donkeys and dogs, rom, romni, and tickni, chavis, and the happy family is once more under weigh for the open country. Withdark, restless eye and coarse, black hair fluttered by the breeze, heslouches along, singing as he goes, in heart, if not in precise words—

 “I loiter down by thorpe and town, For any job I’m willing; Take here and there a dusty brown, And here and there a shilling. 

No carpet can please him like the soft green turf, and no curtainscompare with the snow-white blossoming hedgerow thereon. A child ofNature, he loves to repose on the bare breast of the great mother. Asthe smoke of his evening fire goes up to heaven, and the savoury odour ofroast hotchi witchi or of canengri soup salutes his nostrils, he sits inthe deepening twilight drinking in with unconscious delight all thesights and sounds which the country affords; with his keen senses aliveto every external impression he feels that

 “’Tis sweet to see the evening star appear, ’Tis sweet to listen as the night winds creep From leaf to leaf. 

He dreamily hears the distant bark of the prowling fox, and themelancholy hootings of the wood owls; he marks the shriek of thenight-wandering weasel, and the rustle of the bushes as some startledforest creature darts into deep coverts; or, perchance, the faint soundsfrom a sequestered hamlet of a great city. Cradled from infancy in suchhaunts as these ‘places of nestling green for poets made, ’ and surely forGipsies too, no wonder if, after the fitful fever of town life, he sleepswell, with the unforgotten and dearly-loved lullabies of his childhoodsoothing him to rest. ”

The following is in their own Gipsy language to each other, and exhibitsa true type of the feeling of revenge they foster to one another forwrongs done and injuries received, and may be considered a fair specimenof the disposition of thousands of Gipsies in our midst:—“Just see, mates, what a blackguard he is. He has been telling wicked lies aboutus, the cursed dog. I will murder him when I get hold of him. Thatcreature, his wife, is just as bad. She is worse than he. Let us thrashthem both and drive them out of our society, and not let them come nearus, such cut-throats and informers as they are. They are nothing butmurderers. They are informers. We shall all come to grief through theirmisdoings. ” Not much poetry and romance in language and characters ofthis description. 

 “These Indians ne’er forget Nor evermore forgive an injury. ”

The following is a wail of their own, taken from Smart and Crofton, andwill show that the Gipsies themselves do not think tent life is sodelightful, happy, and free as has been pictured in the imaginative brainof novel writers, whose knowledge has been gained by visiting the Gipsiesas they have basked on the grassy banks on a hot summer day, surroundedby the warbling songsters and rippling brooks of water, as clear ascrystal, at their feet, sending forth dribbling sounds of enchantment tofall upon musical ears, touching the cords of poetic affection and lyricsympathy:—“Now, mates, be quick. Put your tent up. Much rain will comedown, and snow, too—we shall all die to-night of cold; and bringsomething to make a good fire, too. Put the tent down well, much windwill come this night. My children will die of cold. Put all the rods inthe ground properly to make it stand well. The poor children cry forfood. My God! what shall I do to give them food to eat? I have nothingto give them. They will die without food. ”

My object in this part will be to deal with the Gipsy question in a hard, matter of fact way, both as regards their present condition and the onlyremedy by which they are to be improved. No one believes in the power ofthe Gospel more than I do as to its being able to rescue the very dregsof society from misery and wretchedness; but in the case of the Gipsiesand canal-boatmen they cannot be got together so as to be brought underits influence. Their darkness, ignorance, and flitting habits, preventthem either reading about Jesus or being brought within the magic spellof the Gospel. When once the Gipsy children have learned to read andwrite I shall then have more faith in the power of God’s truth reachingthe hearts of the Gipsies and producing better results. 

The following letter has been handed to me by the uncle, to show what alittle, dark-eyed Gipsy girl of twelve years of age can do. Notwithstanding all its faults it is a credit to the little beauty, especially if it is taken into consideration that she has had no fatherto teach her, and she has chiefly been her own schoolmaster and mistress. She is the only one who can read and write in a large family. Her bookshave been sign-boards, guide-posts, and mile-stones, and her light thered glare of a coke fire. I give the letter to show two things; first, that there is a strong desire among the poor Gipsy children foreducation; second, that there is that mental calibre about the Gipsychildren of the present generation that only requires fostering, handling, educating, and caring for as other children are to produce inthe next generation a class of people of whom no country need be ashamed. They will be equal to stand shoulder to shoulder with other labouringclasses. 

 (Copy of envelope. )

 “JOB CLATAN “Char bottomar “at ash be hols in “Darbyshere. ”

 (Copy of letter. )

 “febury 18 1880. 

“Dear uncel and Aunt

“I wright these few li to you hoping find you all well. 

“Fanny Vickers as sent you a rose father and Mother as sent there bestlove to you I think it is very strang you have never wrote it is Twentyyear if live till may it is a strang thing you doant com to see her Sheis stark stone blind and lives with son john at gurtain I hope and trustyou will send us word how you are getting Fanny mother is not only avery poor crater somtimes Mother often thinks she should often like tosee your bazy and joby you might com land see us in the summer if we hadnothing elce I ca il find them something to eat if mother never see youin this world she is hopining to see you in heaven so no more from yourafexenen brother and sister Vickers good buy * * * * Kiss all on you * ** *”

In speaking of the Gipsies in Scotland sixty years ago, Mr. Deputy-Sheriff Moor, of Aberdeenshire, says as follows:—“Occasionallyvagrants, both single and in bands, appear in this part of the country, resorting to fairs, when they commit depredations on the unwary. ” SirWalter Scott, Bart. , says of the Gipsies:—“A set of people possessing thesame erratic habits, and practising the trade of tinkers, are well knownin the Borders, and have often fallen under the cognisance of the law. They are often called Gipsies, and pass through the country annually insmall bands, with their carts and asses. The men are tinkers, poachers, and thieves upon a small scale, ” and he goes on to say that “some of themore atrocious families have been extirpated. ” Mr. Riddell, Justice ofPeace for Roxburghshire, says:—“They are thorough desperadoes of theworst class of vagabonds. Those who travel through this county giveoffence chiefly by poaching and small thefts. All of them are perfectlyignorant of religion. They marry and cohabit amongst each other, and areheld in a sort of horror by the common people. ” Mr. William Smith, theBaillie of Kelso, and a gentlemen of high position, says:—“Some kind ofhonour peculiar to themselves seems to prevail in their community. Theyreckon it a disgrace to steal near their homes, or even at a distance ifdetected. I must always except that petty theft of feeding theirshilties and asses on the farmers’ grass and corn, which they will dowhether at home or abroad. ” And he further says, “I am sorry to say, however, that when checked in their licentious appropriations they aremuch addicted both to threaten and to execute revenge. ” Mr. Smith alwaysvisited the Gipsies upon one of the estates of which he had the charge, consequently he would be likely to know more about them than most people. A number of other gentleman confirmed these statements. By comparingthese remarks with the statements of Mr. Harrison in a letter publishedin the _Standard_ last August, backing up my case, it will be seen thatthe Scotch Gipsies if anything have degenerated. Mr. Harrison’s letterwill be found in Part II. 

Much has been said and written with reference to their health and age. For my own part I firmly believe that the great ages to which they saythey live—of course there are many exceptions—are only myths anddelusions, and another of their dodges to excite sympathy. From the daysof their debauchery, and becoming what are termed under a respectablephrase for Gipsies, “old hags, ” they seem to jump from sixty to betweenseventy and eighty at a bound. I was talking to one I considered an oldwoman as to her age only a day or two ago, and she said, with a pitifultone, “I am a long way over seventy, ” and I asked her if she could tellme the year in which she was born, to which she replied that she “wassixteen when the good Queen was crowned. ”

The following case, related to me by the tradesman himself, atBattersea—a sharp, quick, business gentleman, who boasted to me that hehad never been sold before by any one—will show faintly how clever theGipsy women are at lying, deception, and cheating:—Three pretty, well-dressed Gipsy women went into his shop one day last summer, and saidthat they had arranged to have a christening on the morrow, and as beergot into the heads of their men, and made them wild, which they did notlike to see on such occasions, they had decided to have a quiet, little, respectable affair, and in place of beer they were going to have wine, cakes, and biscuits after their tea; and they ordered some currant cake, several bottles of wine, tea, sugar, and other things required on suchoccasions, to the amount of two pounds fourteen shillings. The Gipsiesasked to have the bill made out and the goods packed in a hamper. Andwhile this was being done the Gipsies said to the tradesman: “Now, as wehave ordered so much from you, we think that you ought to buy a mat ortwo and other things of us. ” Without consulting his wife, he agreed tobuy one or two things, to the amount of eleven shillings, which thetradesman had thought would have been deducted from their account; butthe Gipsies thought differently—and here was the craft—and said, “Wedon’t understand figures. You had better pay us for the mats, &c. , andwe will pay you for the wine. ” The tradesman, who was thrown off hisguard, paid them the eleven shillings. With this they walked out of hisshop, saying that they would take the bill with them, and send a man withthe money and a barrow for the wine, cake, &c. , in a few minutes, whichthey did not, but left the tradesman a wiser but sadder man for spendingeleven shillings in things he did not require; and his remarks to mewere, “No more Gipsies for me, thank you. I’ve had quite plenty ofGipsies for my lifetime. ”

Cases have been known when the Gipsy women have gone among the farmers’cattle and rubbed their nostrils with some nastiness to such an extent asto cause the cattle to loathe their food. The Gipsy in the lane—who ofcourse knows all about the affair—goes to the farmer and tells him he cancure his cattle. This is agreed upon. All the Gipsy does is to visitthe cattle secretly and slyly, and rub off the nastiness he has put on. The cattle immediately begin to eat their food, and the Gipsy gets hisfee. They kill lambs by sticking pins into their heads. 

Tallemant says that near Peye, in Picardy, a Gipsy offered a stolen sheepto a butcher for one hundred sous, or five francs; but the butcherdeclined to give more than four francs for it. The butcher then wentaway; whereupon the Gipsy pulled the sheep from a sack into which he hadput it, and substituted for it a child belonging to his tribe. He thenran after the butcher, and said, “Give me five francs, and you shall havethe sack into the bargain. ” The butcher paid him the money, and wentaway. When he got home he opened the sack, and was much astonished whenhe saw a little boy jump out of it, who in an instant caught up the sackand ran off. “Never was a poor man so hoaxed as this butcher. ” Whenthey want to leave a place where they have been stopping they set out inan opposite direction to that in their right course. The Gipsies have athousand other tricks—so says one of the Gipsy fraternity named Pechou deRuby. Paul Lacroix says that when they take up their quarters in anyvillage they steal very little in its immediate vicinity, but in theneighbouring parishes they rob and plunder in the most daring manner. Ifthey find a sum of money they give notice to the captain, and make arapid flight from the place. They make counterfeit money, and put itinto circulation. They play all sorts of games; they buy all sorts ofhorses, whether sound or unsound, provided they can manage to pay forthem in their own base coin. When they buy food, they pay for it in goodmoney the first time, as they are held in such distrust; but when theyare about to leave a neighbourhood they again buy something, for whichthey tender false coin, receiving the change in good money. In harvesttime all doors are shut against them, nevertheless they contrive, bymeans of picklocks and other instruments, to effect an entrance intohouses, when they steal linen, clocks, silver, and any other movablearticle which they can lay their hands upon. They give a strict accountof everything to their captain, who takes his share. They are veryclever in making a good bargain. When they know of a rich merchantliving in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communicationwith him, and swindle him, after which they change their clothes, havetheir horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some softmaterial, lest they should be heard, and gallop away. Grellmannsays:—“The miserable condition of the Gipsies may be imagined from thefollowing facts: many of them, and especially the women, have beenburned, by their own request, in order to end their miserable existence;and we can give the case of a Gipsy, who, having been arrested, flogged, and conducted to the frontier, with the threat that if he re-appeared inthe country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after threesuccessive and similar threats at three different places, and imploredthat the capital sentence might be carried out, in order that he might bereleased from a life of such misery. ” And he goes on to say that “theseunfortunate people were not even looked upon as human beings, for duringa hunting party the huntsmen had no scruple whatever in killing a Gipsywoman who was suckling her child, just as they would have done any wildbeast which came in their way. ” And he further says that they received“into their ranks all those whose crime, the fear and punishment of anuneasy conscience, or the charm of a roaming life continually threw intheir path; they made use of them either to find their way into countriesof which they were ignorant, or to commit robberies which would otherwisehave been impracticable. They were not slow to form an alliance withprofligate characters, who sometimes worked in concert with them. ”

A century ago it was somewhat romantic, and answered very well as acontrast to civilisation, to see a number of people moving about thecountry, dressed in beaver hats and bonnets, scarlet cloaks and hoods, short petticoats, velvet coats with silver buttons, and a plentifulsupply of gold rings. The novelty of their person, with dark skin andeyes, black hair, and their fortune-telling proclivities, and other oddcuriosities and eccentricities, answered well for a time as a kind ofeye-blinder to their little thefts and like things; but that day is over. Their silver buttons are all gone to pot. Their silk velvet coats, plushwaistcoats, and diamond rings have vanished, never more to return withtheir present course of life; patched breeches, torn coats, slouchedhats, and washed gold rings have taken their places, and ragged garmentsin place of silk dresses for the poor Gipsy women. The Gipsy men“lollock” about, the women tell fortunes, and the children gambol on theditch banks with impunity, nobody caring to interfere with them in anyway. This kind of thing, as regards dash and show, is to a great extentpassed, and those men who put on a show of work at all, it is as ageneral thing at tinkering, chair-mending, peg-splitting, skewer-making, and donkey buying. The men make the skewers and sell them at pricesvarying from one shilling to two shillings per stone; the wood for theskewers they do not always buy. A friend of mine told me a couple ofmonths since that the Gipsies had broken down his fences with impunity, and had taken five hundred young saplings out of his plantation for thispurpose. Chairs are bottomed at prices ranging from one shilling andupwards. Some of them do scissor-grinding, for which they chargeexorbitant prices. Sir G. H. Beaumont, Bart. , of Coleorton Hall, told mevery recently that one of the Boswell gang had charged him two shillingsfor grinding one knife. Some of the women, who are not good hands atfortune-telling, sell artificial flowers, combs, brushes, lace, &c. Thewomen who are good at fortune-telling can make a good thing out of it, even at this late day, in the midst of so much light and Christianity, and they carry it out very adroitly and cleverly too. Two or threemonths ago I was invited by some Gipsy friends to have tea with them onthe outskirts of London. They very kindly sent for twopenny worth ofbutter for me, and allowed me the honour of using the only cup andsaucer, which they said were over one hundred years old. The tea for thegrown-up sons and daughters was handed round in mugs, jugs, and basins. The good old man cut my bread and butter with his dark coloured handspretty thin, but the bread for his sons and daughters was like pieces ofbricks, which, with pieces of bacon, he pitched at them without anyceremony, and as they caught it they, although men and women, kept saying“Thank you, pa, ” “Thank you, pa, ” and down it went without either knivesor forks, or very little grinding. We were all sitting upon the floor, my table being an undressed brick out of some old building, and it waswith some difficulty I could keep the pigs that were running loose in theyard from taking a piece off my plate, but with a pretty free use of mytoe I kept sending the little grunters squeaking away. After tea I felta little curious to know what was in the big old Gipsy dame’s basket, forI had an idea one or two hair-brushes, combs, laces, and other smalltrifles which lay on the top of a small piece of oilcloth covering theinside of the basket had, by their greasy appearance, done duty for manya long day. I told the old Gipsy dame that I was going home the nextday, and should like to take a little thing or two for my little ones athome, as having been bought of a Gipsy woman near London. The sharp oldwoman was not long in offering me one or two of her trifles that lay onthe top of her basket, but these I said were not so suitable as I shouldlike. “Had she nothing more suitable lower down as a small present?”After a little fumbling and flustering she began to see my motive, andsaid, “Ah! I see what you are after. I will tell you the truth and showyou all. ” She turned the oilcloth off the basket, underneath of whichwere “shank ends” of joints, ham-bones, pieces of bacon, and crusts. “These, ” she said, “have been given to me by servant girls and others fortelling their fortunes, really lies, and I have brought them here for mychildren to live upon, and this is how we live. ”

 [Picture: Gipsy Fortune-tellers cooking their evening meal]

Fortune-telling is a soul-crushing and deadly crying evil, and it is farfrom being stamped out. A hawker’s licence, about the size of one ofthese pages, covers a life-time of sin and iniquity in this respect. Abasket with half-a-dozen brushes, combs, laces, a piece of oilcloth, anda pocket Bible, is all the stock-in-trade they require, and it will servethem for a year. They generally prophecy good. Knowing the readiest wayto deceive, to a young lady they describe a handsome gentleman as one shemay be assured will be her “husband. ” To a youth they promise a prettylady with a large fortune. And thus suiting their deluding speeches tothe age, circumstances, anticipations, and prospects of those who employthem, they seldom fail to please their vanity, and often gain a richreward for their fraud. 

A young lady in Gloucestershire allowed herself to be deluded by a Gipsywoman, of artful and insinuating address, to a very great extent. Thislady admired a young gentleman, and the Gipsy promised that he wouldreturn her love. The lady gave her all the plate in the house, and agold chain and locket, with no other security than a vain promise thatthey should be restored at a given period. As might be expected, thewicked woman was soon off with her booty, and the lady was obliged toexpose her folly. The property being too much to lose, the woman waspursued and overtaken. She was found washing her clothes in a Gipsycamp, with the gold chain about her neck. She was taken up, but onrestoring the articles was allowed to escape. 

The same woman afterwards persuaded a gentleman’s groom that she couldput him in possession of a great sum of money if he would first depositwith her all he then had. He gave her five pounds and his watch, andborrowed for her ten more of two of his friends. She engaged to meet himat midnight in a certain place a mile from the town where he lived, andthat he there should dig up out of the ground a silver pot full of goldcovered with a clean napkin. He went with his pickaxe and shovel at theappointed time to the supposed lucky spot, having his confidencestrengthened by a dream he happened to have about money, which heconsidered a favourable omen of the wealth he was soon to receive. Ofcourse he met no Gipsy; she had fled another way with the property shehad so wickedly obtained. While waiting her arrival a hare startedsuddenly from its resting-place and so alarmed him that he as suddenlytook to his heels and made no stop till he reached his master’s house, where he awoke his fellow-servants and told to them his disaster. 

This woman, who made so many dupes, rode a good horse, and dressed bothgaily and expensively. One of her saddles cost thirty pounds. It wasliterally studded with silver, for she carried on it the emblems of herprofession wrought in that metal—namely, a half moon, seven stars, andthe rising sun. Poor woman! _her_ sun is set. Her sins have found herout. Fortune-tellers die hard without exception, so I am told by theGipsies themselves. 

Some time ago a gentleman followed several Gipsy families. Arriving atthe place of their encampment his first object was to gain theirconfidence. This was accomplished; after which, to amuse theirunexpected visitant, they showed forth their night diversions in musicand dancing; likewise the means by which they obtained their livelihood, such as tinkering, fortune-telling, and conjuring. That the gentlemanmight be satisfied whether he had obtained their confidence or not, herepresented his dangerous situation, in the midst of which they all withone voice cried, “Sir, we would kiss your feet rather than hurt you!”After manifesting a confidence in return, the master of this formidablegang, about forty in number, was challenged by the gentleman for aconjuring match. The challenge was instantly accepted. The Gipsiesplaced themselves in a circular form, and both being in the middlecommenced with their conjuring powers to the best advantage. At last thevisitor proposed the making of something out of nothing. This proposalwas accepted. A stone which never existed was to be created, and appearin a certain form in the middle of a circle made on the turf. The masterof the gang commenced, and after much stamping with his foot, and thegentleman warmly exhorting him to cry aloud, like the roaring of a lion, he endeavoured to call forth nonentity into existence. Asking him if hecould do it, he answered, “I am not strong enough. ” They were all askedthe same question, which received the same answer. The visitorcommenced. Every eye was fixed upon him, eager to behold this unheard-ofexploit; but (and not to be wondered at) he failed! telling them hepossessed no more power to create than themselves. Perceiving thethought of insufficiency pervading their minds, he thus spoke: “Now, ifyou have not power to create a poor little stone, and if 1 have not powereither, what must that power be which made the whole world out ofnothing?—men, women, and children! that power I call God Almighty. ”

I have been told that the dislike they have to rule and order has ledmany of them to maim themselves by cutting off a finger, that they mightnot serve in either the army or the navy; and I believe there is oneinstance known of some Gipsies murdering a witness who was to appearagainst some of their people for horse-stealing; the persons who wereguilty of the deed are dead, and in their last moments exclaimed withhorror and despair, “Murder, murder. ” But these circumstances do notstamp their race without exception as infamous monsters in wickedness. 

The following is a remarkable instance of the love of costly attire in afemale Gipsy of the old school. The woman alluded to obtained a verylarge sum of money from three maiden ladies, pledging that it should bedoubled by her art in conjuration. She then decamped to anotherdistrict, where she bought a blood-horse, a black beaver hat, a newside-saddle and bridle, a silver-mounted whip, and figured away in herill-obtained finery at the fairs. It is not easy to imagine thedisappointment and resentment of the covetous and credulous ladies, whomshe had so easily duped. With the present race of our gutter-scumGipsies the last remnant of Gipsy pride is nearly dead—poverty, rags, anddespair taking the place. 

Gipsies of the old type are not strangers to pawnbrokers’ shops; but theydo not visit these places for the same purposes as the vitiated poor ofour trading towns. A pawnshop is their bank. When they acquire propertyillegally, as by stealing, swindling, or fortune-telling, they purchasevaluable plate, and sometimes in the same hour pledge it for safety. Such property they have in store against days of adversity and trouble, which on account of their dishonest habits often overtake them. Shouldone of their families stand before a judge of his country, charged with acrime which is likely to cost him his life, or to transport him, everyarticle of value is sacrificed to save him from death or apprehendedbanishment. In such cases they generally retain a counsel to plead forthe brother in adversity. Their attachment to the horse, donkey, rings, snuff-box, silver spoons, and all things, except the clothes, of thedeceased relatives is very strong. With such articles they will neverpart, except in the greatest distress, and then they only pledge some ofthem, which are redeemed as soon as they possess the means. 

It has been stated by some writers, that there is hardly a Gipsy inexistence who could not, if desired, produce his ten or twenty pounds “ata pinch. ” Some of those who work, no doubt, could; but it is entirelyerroneous, as many other statements relating to the Gipsies, to imaginethat the whole of them are as well off as all this. Smith tells us thatthere is not one in twenty who can show one pound, much less twenty. AGipsy named Boswell travelled about in the Midland counties with a largevan pretty well stocked with his wares, and everybody, especially theGipsies, thought he was a rich man; but in course of time it came to passthat he died, which event revealed the fact that he was not worthhalf-a-crown. No class of men and women under the sun has been morewicked than the Gipsies, and no class has prospered less. By their evildeeds for centuries they have brought themselves under the curse of Godand the lash of the law wherever they have been. 

 “To our foes we leave a shame! disgrace can never die; Their sons shall blush to hear a name still blackened with a lie. ”

Their miserable condition, the persecution, misrepresentation, and thetreatment they are receiving are due entirely to their ownevil-doing—lying, cheating, robbing, and murder bring their own reward. The Gipsies of to-day are drinking the dregs of the cups they had mixedfor others. The sly wink of the eye intended to touch the heart of theinnocent and simple has proved to be the electric spark that has reachedheaven, and brought down the vengeance of Jehovah upon their heads. Thelies proceeding from their bad hearts have turned out to be a swarm ofwasps settling down upon their own pates; their stolen goods have beensmitten with God’s wrath; the horses, mules, and donkeys in theirunlawful possession are steeds upon which the Gipsies are riding to hell;and the fortune-telling cards are burning the fingers of the Gipsy women;in one word, the curse of God is following them in every footstep onaccount of their present sins, and not on account of their pasttraditions. Immediately they alter their course of life, and “cease todo evil and learn to do well”—no matter whether they are Jews orbarbarians, bond or free—the blessing of God will follow, and they willbegin to thrive and prosper. 

Smoking and eating tobacco adds another leaden weight to those alreadyround their neck, and it helps to bow them down to the ground—a shortblack pipe, the ranker and oftener it has been used the more deliciouswill be the flavour, and the better they will like it. When their“baccy” is getting “run out, ” the short pipe is handed round to thecompany of Gipsies squatting upon the ground, without any delicacy offeeling, for all of them to “have a pull. ” Spittoons are things theynever use. White, scented, cambric pocket-handkerchiefs are not oftenbrought into request upon their “lovely faces. ” They prefer allowing thebottom of the dresses the honour of appearing before his worship “thenose. ” Nothing pleases the Gipsies better than to give them some of theweed. I saw a poor, dying, old Gipsy woman the other day. Nothingseemed to please her so much, although she could scarcely speak, as todelight in referring to the sins of her youth, of a kind before referredto, and no present was so acceptable to her as “a nounce of baccy. ” Shesaid she “would rather have it than gold, ” and I “could not have pleasedher better. ” I doubt whether she lived to smoke it. I think I amspeaking within the mark when I state that fully three-fourths of theGipsy women in this country are inveterate smokers. It is a black, burning shame for us to have such a state of things in our midst. Innine cases out of ten the children of drunken, smoking women will turnout to be worthless scamps and vagabonds, and a glance at the Gipsieswill prove my statements. 

Eternity will reveal their deeds of darkness—murders, immorality, torturous and heart-rending treatment to their poor slaves of women, beastly and murderous brutality to their poor children. There is aterrible reckoning coming for the “Gipsy man, ” who can chuckle to hisfowls, and kick, with his iron-soled boot, his poor child to death; whocan warm and shelter his blackbird, and send the offspring of his ownbody to sleep upon rotten straw and the dung-heap, covered over withsticks and rags, through which light, hail, wind, rain, sleet, and snowcan find its way without let or hinderance; who can take upon his knees adog and fondle it in his bosom, and, at the same time, spit in his wife’sface with oaths and cursing, and send her out in the snow on apiercing-cold winter’s day, half clad and worse fed, with child on herback and basket on her arm, to practise the art of double-dyed lying anddeception on honest, simple people, in order to bring back her ill-gottengains to her semi-clad hovel, on which to fatten her “lord and master, ”by half-cleaned knuckle-bones, ham-shanks, and pieces of bacon that fallfrom the “rich man’s table. ”

The following is a specimen of house-dwelling Gipsies in the Midlands Ihave visited. In the room downstairs there were a broken-down old squab, two rickety old chairs, and a three-legged table that had to be proppedagainst the wall, and a rusty old poker, with a smoking fire-place. TheGipsy father was a strong man, not over fond of work; he had been inprison once; the mother, a strong Gipsy woman of the old type, markedwith small-pox, and plenty of tongue—by the way, I may say I have not yetseen a dumb and deaf Gipsy. She turned up her dress sleeves and showedme how she had “made the blood run out of another Gipsy woman for hittingher child. ” As she came near to me exhibiting her fisticuffing powers, Imight have been a little nervous years ago; but dealing with men andthings in a rough kind of fashion for so many years has taken some amountof nervousness of this kind out of me. 

It may be as well to remark here that the Gipsy women can do their shareof fighting, and are as equally pleased to have a stand-up fight as theGipsy men are. One of these Gipsy women lives with a man who is not athorough Gipsy, who spends a deal of his time under lock and key onaccount of his poaching inclinations; and other members of this largefamily are on the same kind of sliding scale, and not one of whom canread or write. 

It is not pleasant to say strong things about clergymen, for whom I havethe highest respect; nevertheless, there are times when respect forChrist’s church, duty to country, love for the children and anxiety fortheir eternal welfare, compels you to step out of the beaten rut toexpose, though with pain, wrong-doing. In a day and Sunday school-yardconnected with the Church of England, not one hundred miles from London, there are to be seen—and I am informed by them, except during thehop-picking season, that it is their camping-ground, and has been foryears—one van, in which there are man, wife, young woman, and a daughterof about fourteen years of age; the young woman and daughter sleep in akind of box under the man and his wife. In another part of the yard is aGipsy tent, where God’s broad earth answers the purpose of a table, and a“batten of straw” serves as a bed. There is a woman, two daughters, oneof whom is of marriageable age and the other far in her teens, and ayouth I should think about sixteen years of age. I should judge that themother and her two daughters sleep on one bed at one end of the tent andthe youth at the other; there is no partition between them, and onlyabout seven feet of space between each bed of litter. In another tentthere is man, wife, and one child. When I was there, on the Sundayafternoon, they were expecting the Gipsy “to come home to his tent drunkand wake the baby. ” In another tent there was a Gipsy with his lawfulwife and three children. One of the Gipsy women in the yard frequentlycame home drunk, and I have seen her smoking with a black pipe in hermouth three parts tipsy. Now, I ask my countrymen if this is the way toeither improve the habits and morals of the Gipsies themselves, or to seta good example to day and Sunday scholars. Drunkenness is one of theevil associations of Gipsy life. Brandy and “fourpenny, ” or “hell fire, ”as it is sometimes called, are their chief drinks. A Gipsy of the nameof Lee boasted to me only a day or two since that he had been drunk everynight for more than a fortnight, his language being, “Oh! it isdelightful to get drunk, tumble into a row, and smash their peepers. What care we for the bobbies. ” They seldom if ever use tumblers. Alarge jug is filled with this stuff, in colour and thickness almost liketreacle and water, leaving a kind of salty taste behind it as it passesout of sight; but, I am sorry to say, not out of the body, mind, orbrain, leaving a trail upon which is written—more! more! more! Under itsinfluence they either turn saints or demons as will best serve theirpurpose. The more drink some of the Gipsy women get the more the redcoloured piety is observable in their faces, and when I have been talkingto them, or otherwise, they have said, “Amen, ” “Bless the Lord, ” “Oh, itis nice to be ’ligious and Christany, ” as they have closed round me; andwith the same breath they have begun to talk of murder, bloodshed, andrevenge, and to say, “How nice it is to get a living by telling lies. ”Half an ounce of tobacco and a few gentle words have a most wonderfuleffect upon their spirits and nerves under such circumstances. I havefrequently seen drunken Gipsy women in the streets of London. Early thisyear I met one of my old Gipsy women friends in Garrett Lane, Wandsworth, with evidently more than she could carry, and a weakness was observablein her knees; and when she saw me she was not so far gone as not to knowwho I was. She tried to make a curtsy, and in doing so very nearly losther balance, and it took her some ten yards to recover her perpendicular. With a little struggling, stuttering, and stumbling, she got right, andpursued her way to the tent. 

In December of last year four Gipsies, of Acton Green, were chargedbefore the magistrates at Hammersmith with violently assaulting aninnkeeper for refusing to allow them to go into a private part of hishouse. A terrible struggle ensued, and a long knife was fetched out oftheir tents, and had they not been stopped the consequences might havebeen fearful. They were sent to gaol for two months, which would givethem time for reflection. A few days ago two Gipsies from the East Endof London were sent to gaol for thieving, and are now having their turnupon the wheel of fortune. 

 “Whirl fiery circles, and the moon is full: Imps with long tongues are licking at my brow, And snakes with eyes of flame crawl up my breast; Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns, And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands; Great trunks have some, and some are hung with beads. Here serpents dash their stings into my face, All tipped with fire; and there a wild bird drives His red-hot talons in my burning scalp. Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears Like crackling coals, and frogs strut up and down Like hissing cinders; wasps and waterflies Scorch deep like melting minerals. Murther! Fire!”

Cries the Gipsy, as he rolls about on his bed of filthy litter, in a tentwhose only furniture is an old tin bucket pierced with holes, a soap-box, and a few rags, with a poor-looking, miserable woman for a wife, and alot of wretched half-starved, half-naked children crying round him forbread. “Give us bread!” “Give us bread!” is their piteous cry. 

The Gipsy in Hungary is a being who has puzzled the wits of theinhabitants for centuries, and the habits of the Hungarian Gipsies areabominable; their hovels, for they do not all live in tents andencampments, are sinks of the vilest poverty and filth; their dress isnothing but rags, and they live on carrion; and it is in this pitiablecondition they go singing and dancing to hell. Nothing gives them morepleasure than to be told where a dead pig, horse, or cow may be found, and the Gipsies, young and old, will scamper to fetch it; decompositionrather sharpens their ravenous appetites; at any rate, they will not“turn their noses up” at it in disgust; in fact, Grellmann goes so far asto say that human flesh is a dainty morsel, especially that of children. What applies to the Hungarian Gipsies will to a large extent apply to theGipsies in Spain, Germany, France, Russia, and our own country. There isno proof of our Gipsies eating children; but if I am to believe their ownstatements, the dead dogs, cats, and pigs that happen to be in their wayrun the risk of being potted for soup, and causing a “smacking of thelips” as the heathens sit round their kettle—which answers the purpose ofa swill-tub when not needed for cooking—as it hangs over the coke fire, into which they dip their platters with relish and delight. What becomesof the dead donkeys, mules, ponies, and horses that die during theirtrafficking is best known to themselves. No longer since than lastwinter I was told by some Gipsies on the outskirts of London that some oftheir fraternity had been seen on more than one occasion picking up deadcats out of the streets of London to take home to their dark-eyedbeauties and lovely damsels. Only a few days since I was told by a lotof Gipsies upon Cherry Island, and in presence of some of the Lees, thatsome of their fraternity, and they mentioned some of their names, hadoften picked up snails, worms, &c. , and put them alive into a pan overtheir coke fires, and as the life was being frizzled out of the creepingthings they picked them out of the pan with their fingers and put theminto their months without any further ceremony. I cannot for the life ofme think that human nature is at such a low ebb among them as to makethis kind of life general. At most I should think cases of this kind areexceptional. Their food, whether it be animal or vegetable, is generallyturned into a kind of dirty-looking, thick liquid, which they think goodenough to be called soup. Their principal meal is about five o’clock, upon the return of the mother after her hawking and cadging expeditions. Their bread, as a rule, is either bought, stolen, or begged. When theybake, which is very seldom, they put their lumps of dough among the redembers of their coke fires. Sometimes they will eat like pigs, till theyhave to loose their garments for more room, and other times they starvethemselves to fiddle-strings. A few weeks since, when snow was on theground, I saw in the outskirts of London eight half-starved, poor, little, dirty, Gipsy children dining off three potatoes, and drinking thepotato water as a relish. They do not always use knife and fork. Table, plates, and dishes are not universal among them. Their whole kitchen andtable requirements are an earthen pot, an iron pan, which serves as adish, a knife, and a spoon. When the meal is ready the whole family sitround the pot or pan, and then “fall to it” with their fingers and teeth, Adam’s knives and forks, and the ground providing the table and plates. Boiled pork is, as a rule, their universal, every-day, centralpot-boiler, and the longer it is boiled the harder it gets, like theIrishman who boiled his egg for an hour to get it soft, and then had togive it up as a bad job. Some of these kind-hearted folks have, on morethan one occasion, given me “a feed” of it. It is sweet and nice, butawfully satisfying, and I think two meals would last me for a week verycomfortably; all I should require would be to get a good dinner off theirknuckle-bones, roll myself up like a hedgehog, doze off like HubertPetalengro into a semi-unconscious state, and I should be all right forthree or four days. “Beggars must not be choosers. ” They have done whatthey could to make me comfortable, and for which I have been verythankful. I have had many a cup of tea with them, and hope to do soagain. 

One writer observes:—“Commend me to Gipsy life and hard living. Robustexercise, out-door life, and pleasant companions are sure to beget gooddispositions both of body and mind, and would create a stomach under thevery ribs of death capable of digesting a bar of pig-iron. ” Their habitsof uncleanliness are most disgusting. Occasionally you will meet withclean people, and children with clean, red, chubby faces; but in ninecases out of ten they are of parents who have had a different bringing upthan squatting about in the mud and filth. One woman I know at NottingHill, and who was born in an Oxfordshire village, is at the present timesurrounded with filth of the most sickening kind, which she cannot help, and to her credit manages to keep her children tolerably clean and nicefor a woman of her position. There is another at Garrett Lane, Wandsworth; another at Sheepcot Lane, Battersea; two at Upton Park; oneat Cherry Island; two at Hackney Wick, and several others in variousparts on the outskirts of London. At Hackney Wick I saw twenty tents andvans, connected with which there were forty men and women and aboutseventy children of all ages, entirely devoid of all sanitaryarrangements. A gentleman who was building some property in theneighbourhood told me that he had seen grown-up youths and big girlsrunning about entirely nude in the morning, and squatting about theground and leaving their filth behind them more like animals than humanbeings endowed with souls and reason. When I was there it was with somedifficulty I could put my foot in a clean place. The same kind of thingoccurs in a more or less degree wherever Gipsies are located, and, sad torelate, house-dwelling Gipsies are very little better in this respect. Grellmann, speaking of the German and Hungarian Gipsies many years ago, says:—“We may easily account for the colour of their skin. TheLaplanders, Samoyeds, as well as the Siberians, have bronze, yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living from their childhood insmoke and dirt, as the Gipsies do. These would long ago have got rid oftheir swarthy complexions if they had discontinued this Gipsy manner ofliving. Observe only a Gipsy from his birth till he comes to man’sestate, and one must be convinced that their colour is not so much owingto their descent as to the nastiness of their bodies. In summer thechild is exposed to the scorching sun, in winter it is shut up in a smokyhut. Some mothers smear their children over with black ointment, andleave them to fry in the sun or near the fire. They seldom troublethemselves about washing or other modes of cleaning themselves. Experience also shows us that it is more their manner of life thandescent which has propagated this black colour of the Gipsies fromgeneration to generation. ” I am told, and I verily believe it, that manyof the children are not washed for years together. I have seen over andover again dirt peeling off the poor children’s bodies and faces like askin, and leaving a kind of white patch behind it, presenting a kind of apiebald spectacle. Some of the children never take their clothes offtill they drop off in shreds. Many of the Gipsies, both old and young, have only one suit of clothes. English delicacy of feeling and sentimentfor female virtue must stand abashed with horror at this kind ofcivilisation in the nineteenth century of Christian England. I have seenwashing done on the Sunday afternoon among them, and while the clotheshave been drying on the line the women and children have been roastingthemselves before the fires in nearly a nude state. A Sunday or two agoa poor Gipsy woman was washing her only smoky-looking blanket late in theafternoon, and upon which she would have to lay that night. It was acold, wintry, drizzling afternoon, and how it was to get dry was a puzzleto me. A Gipsy woman, named Hearn, said to me a few days ago, in answerto some conversation relating to their dirty habits; “The reason for theGipsies not washing themselves oftener was on account of their catchingcold after each time they washed. ” She “only washed herself once in afortnight, and she was almost sure to catch cold after it. ” In somethings the real old Gipsies are very particular, _i. E. _, they will on noaccount take their food out of cups, saucers, or basins, that have beenwashed in the same pansions in which their linen has been washed; sosensitive are they on this point that if they found out that by anaccident this custom had been transgressed they would immediately breakthe vessel to pieces. This is a custom picked up by the Gipsies amongthe Jews in their wandering from India through the Holy Land. Anotherpractice they adopt in common with the Jews is, swearing or taking oathsover their dead relations. The customs, practices, and words picked upby them during their wanderings have added to their mystification. Whilethey will respect certain delicacy observed among the Jews, they will eatpork, the most detestable of all food in the eyes of the Israelites, andwill even pay a greater price for it than for beef or mutton. AnEnglishwoman, who had married a Gipsy named Smith, told me very recently, in presence of her mother-in-law and another woman, that she had seen herhusband eat a small plate of cooked snails as a dainty. While thedaughter-in-law was telling me this, the old Gipsy mother-in-law, withone foot in the grave, not far from Mary’s Place, near the Potteries, Notting Hill, was trying to make me believe what a choice dish there wasin store for me if I would allow her to cook me a hedgehog. She said Ishould “find it nicer than the finest rabbit or pheasant I had evertasted. ” The fine, old, Gipsy woman, as regards her appearance, althoughsuffering from congestion of lungs and inflammation, and expecting everymoment to be her last, would joke and make fun as if nothing was thematter with her. When I questioned her upon the sin of lying, she said, “If the dear Lord spares me, I shall tell lies again. I could not get onwithout it; how could I? I could not sell my things without lies. ” Shewas rather severe, and this was a pleasing feature in the old woman’scharacter, upon a Gipsy who was pretending to “’ligious, ” and yet livingupon the money gained by his wife in telling fortunes. She said, “If Imust be ‘’ligious, ’ I would be ‘’ligious. ’ You might, ” said the oldwoman, “as well eat the devil as suck his broth. Ah! I hate the fellow. ”After asking her, and getting her interpretation of “God bless you” inRomany, which is Mi-Doovel-Parik-tooti—and she was the only Gipsy roundLondon who could put the words in Romany—and some other conversationaccompanied with “coppers and baccy, ” &c. , and to which she replied, “Amen!” with as much earnestness as if she was the greatest saint outsideheaven, we parted. 

Much has been said and written years ago about the chastity, fidelity, and faithfulness of the Gipsies towards each other. This may have beenthe case, and in a few exceptional cases it holds good now; but if I amto believe these men themselves they are very isolated indeed, and what Ihave said upon this point about the brick-yard _employés_ in my “Cry ofthe Children from the Brick-yards of England, ” and also those living incanal-boats, in “Our Canal Population, ” holds good, but with ten timesmore force concerning the Gipsies. Immorality abounds to a most alarmingdegree. Incest, wantonness, lasciviousness, lechery, whoring, bigamy, and every other abomination low, degrading, carnal appetites, propensity, and lust originate and encourage they practise openly, without the leastblush; in fact, I question if many of them know what it is to blush atall. 

I have heard a deal of disgusting, filthy language in my time amongbrick-yard and canal-boat women, but not a tithe so sickening as amongsome Gipsy women. I pitied them, and to look upon them as charitably aspossible I set it down to their extreme ignorance of the language theyused. A Gipsy at Upton Park last week named D--- gloried to my face inthe fact that he was not married. This same man has a brother not farfrom Mitcham Common living with two sisters in an unlawful state. Abraham Smith, a Gipsy at Upton Park, who is over seventy, and tells methat he is trying to serve God and get to heaven, mentioned a case to meof a Gipsy and a woman at Hackney Wick. The man has several children bya woman now living with another man, and the woman has several childrenby another man. 

This Gipsy, S---, and his woman S---, turned both lots of their formerown children adrift upon the wide, wide world, uncared for, unprotected, and abandoned, while they are living and indulging in sin to theirhearts’ content, without the least shame and remorse. Inquire of whoeverI may, and look whichever way Providence directs me among the variousphases of Gipsy life, I find the same black array of facts staring me inthe face, the same dolorous issues everywhere. The words reason, honour, restraint, and fidelity are words not to be found in their vocabulary. My later inquiries fully confirm my previous statements as to two-thirdsliving as husband and wife being unmarried. I have not found a Gipsy tocontradict this statement. Abraham Smith fully agrees with it. 

The marriage ceremony of the Gipsies is a very off-hand affair. Formerlythere used to be some kind of ceremony performed by a friend. Now theceremony is not performed by any one. Of course there are a few who getmarried at the church, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, isperformed by the clergyman gratuitously. As soon as a boy has arrived inhis teens he begins to think that something more than eating and drinkingis necessary to him, and as the children of Gipsies are under no kind ofparental, moral, or social restraint, a connection is easily formed withgirls of twelve, some of them of close relationship. After a few hours, in many cases, of courtship, they go together, and the affair so far isover. They leave their parents’ tents and set up one for themselves, andfor a short time this kind of life lasts. In course of time children areborn, the only attendant being, in many instances, another Gipsy woman, or it may be members of their own families see to the poor woman in herhour of need. If they have no vessel in which to wash the newly-bornchild, they dig a hole in the ground, which is filled with cold water, and the Gipsy babe is washed in it. This being over, the poor littlething is wrapped in some old rags. This was the custom years ago, and Iverily believe the Gipsies have gone backwards instead of forwards inmatters of this kind. 

The following brief account of a visit—one of many I have made to Gipsyencampments at Hackney Marshes and other places during the presentwinter—will give some faint idea of what Gipsy life is in this country, as seen by me during my interviews with the Gipsies. The morning wasdark; the snow was falling fast; about six inches of snow and slush wereupon the ground—my object being in this case, as in others, viz. , tovisit them at inclement seasons of the weather to find as many of theGipsies in their tents as possible, and as I closed my door I said, “Lord, direct me, ” and off I started, not knowing which way to go. Ultimately I found my way to Holborn, and took the ’bus, and, as Ithought, to Hackney, which turned out to be “a delusion and a snare, ” forat the terminus I found myself some two and a half miles from theMarshes; however, I was not going to turn back if the day was against me, and after laying in a stock of sweets for the Gipsy children, and “baccy”for the old folks, I commenced my squashy tramp till I arrived at theMarshes; the difficulty here was the road leading to the tents beingcovered ankle deep with snow and water, but as my feet were pretty wellwet I could be no worse off if I paddled through it. Consequently, afterthese little difficulties were overcome, I found myself in the midst ofabout a score of tents and vans of all sizes and descriptions, connectedwith which there were not less than thirty-five grown-up Gipsies andabout sixty poor little Gipsies. The first van I came to was a kind ofone-horse cart with a cover over it; inside was a strong, hulking-lookingfellow and a poor, sickly-looking woman with five children. The womanhad only been confined a few days, and looked more fit for “the box” thanto be washing on such a cold, wintry day. On a bed—at least, somerags—were three poor little children, one of whom was sick, which themother tried to prevent by putting her dirty apron to the child’s mouth. The large, piercing eyes of this poor, death-looking Gipsy child I shallnever forget; they have looked into my innermost soul scores of timessince then, and every time I think about this sight of misery the sicklychild’s eyes seem to cry out, “Help me! Help me!” The poor woman saidit was the marshes that caused the illness, but my firm opinion is thatit was neither more nor less than starvation. The poor woman seemed tobe given up to despair. A few questions put to her in the momentaryabsence of the man elicited the fact that she was no Gipsy. She had beenbrought up as a Sunday-school scholar and teacher, and had been beguiledaway from her home by this “Gipsy man. ” She said she could tell me a lotif I would come some other time. She also said, “Gipsy life as it is atpresent carried out ought to be put a stop to, and would be if peopleknew all. ” With a few coppers given to her and the children we parted. In another tent on the marshes there was a man, woman, and six children. The tent was about twelve feet long, six feet six inches wide, and anaverage height of about three feet, making a total of about two hundredand thirty-four cubic feet of space for man, wife, and six children. These were of both sexes, grown-up and in their teens. Their bed wasstraw upon the damp ground, and their sheets, rags. The man washalf-drunk, and the poor children were running about half-naked andhalf-starved. The woman had some Gipsy blood in her veins, but the manwas an Englishman, and had, so he said, been a soldier. With a fewcoppers and sweets among the children, and in the midst of “Good-byes!”and “God bless you’s!” I left them, promising to pay them another visit. Out of these twenty families only three were properly married, and onlytwo could read and write, and these were the poor woman who had been aSunday-school scholar and the man who had been a soldier, and, strange tosay, the children of these two people could not read a sentence or tell aletter. No minister ever visited them, and not one ever attended a placeof worship. In a visit to an encampment in another part of London I cameacross a poor Irishwoman, who had been allured away from her respectablehome at the age of sixteen by one of the Gipsy gang. When I saw her shewas sitting crying, with two half-starved children by her side, who, owing to the coke fire, had bad eyes. Their home was an old ragged tent, and their bed, rotten straw. When I saw them, and it was about oneo’clock, they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. I sent for aloaf for them, and they set to work upon it with as much relish as ifthey had been gnawing at the leg of a Christmas fat turkey. The poorGipsy woman had been a Sunday-school scholar, and could read and write, but neither her husband nor children could tell a letter. Her taking toGipsy life had broken her father’s heart. Her eldest child, a finelittle girl of about seven years of age, had been taken from her by herfriends, and was being educated and cared for. A few weeks since thelittle daughter was anxious to see her mother, consequently she was takento her tent; but, sad to relate, instead of the daughter going to kissher mother, as she would expect, she turned away from her with a shudderand a shriek, and for the whole day the child did nothing but cry. Itwould not touch a morsel of anything. The only pleasant look that cameupon its countenance was as it was leaving. As the poor child wasleaving the tent she would not kiss her mother or say the usual“Good-bye” as she went away. This poor woman, as in the case of thewoman at Hackney, said she could tell me a lot of things, which she wouldsome time, and said, “Gipsy life ought to be put a stop to, for there wassomething about it more than people knew, ” and I thoroughly believe whatthis poor woman says. It is my firm conviction that there is much morein connection with Gipsy life than many people imagine, or is dreamt ofin their philosophy. There is a substratum of iniquity lower than anywriters have ever touched. There are certain things in connection withtheir dark lives, hidden and veiled by their slang language, that may notcome out in my day, but most surely daylight will be shed upon them someday. They will kill and murder each other, fight and quarrel likehyenas, but certain things they will not divulge, and so long as thewell-being of society is not in danger I suppose we have no right tointerfere. A query arises here. Their past actions back me up in thistheory. Upon Mitcham Common last week there were nearly two hundredtents and vans. In one tent, which may be considered a specimen of manyothers, there were two men and their wives, and about twelve children ofboth sexes and of all ages. In another tent there were nine children ofboth sexes and all ages, some of them men and women, and for the life ofme I cannot tell how they are all packed when they sleep—I suppose likeherrings in a box, pell-mell, “all of a heap. ” One of these Gipsy youngwomen was a model, and has her time pretty much occupied during the day. I have been among house-dwelling Gipsies in the Midland counties, andhave found twelve to fifteen men, women, and children, squatting about onthe floor, which they used as a workshop, sitting-room, drawing-room, andbed-room; although there was a bed-room up-stairs it was not oftenused—so I was told by the landlady. 

There is much more sickness among the Gipsies than is generally known, especially among the children. They have strong faith in herbs; theprincipal being chicken-weed, groundsel, elder leaves, rue, wild sage, love-wort, agrimony, buckbean, wood-betony, and others; these they boilin a saucepan like they would cabbages, and then drink the decoction. They only go to the chemist or surgeon at the last extremity. They arevery much like the man who tried by degrees to train his donkey to liveand work without food, and just as he succeeded the poor Balaam died; andso it is with the poor Gipsy children. It kills them to break them in tothe hardships of Gipsy life. Occasionally I have heard of Gipsies whoact as human beings should do with their children. A well-to-do Gipsywhom I know—one of the Lees, a son of Mrs. Simpson—has spent over £30 indoctors’ bills this winter for his children’s good. Not one Gipsy in athousand would do likewise. 

Gipsies die like other folk, although before doing so they may have livedand quarrelled like the Kilkenny cats among other Gipsies; but at deaththese things are all forgotten, and a Gipsy funeral seems to be the meansto revive all the good they knew about the person dead and a burying ofall the bad connected with the dead Gipsy’s life. I am now referring toa few of the better class of Gipsies. Gipsies, as a rule, pay specialregard to the wishes of a dying Gipsy, and will sacrifice almost anythingto carry them out. I attended the funeral of a house-dwelling Gipsy, Mrs. Roberts, at Notting Hill, a few weeks ago. The editor andproprietor of the _Suburban Press_, refers to this funeral in his editionunder date February 28th, as follows:—“On Monday last a noteworthy eventtook place in the humble locality of the Potteries, Notting Dale. Inthis district are congregated a miscellaneous population of the poorestorder, who get what living they can out of the brick-fields or adjoiningstreets and lanes, or by costermongering, tinkering, &c. , &c. They dwelltogether in the poorest and most melancholy-looking cottages, some insheds and outhouses, or in dilapidated vans, for it is the resort and_locale_ of many of the Gipsies that wander in the western suburbs. Yetall these make up a kind of community and live together as friends andneighbours, and every now and again they show themselves amenable to goodinfluences, and characters of humble mark and power arise among them. Tothose who sympathise with the poet who sings of the

 “‘Short and simple annals of the poor, ’

we scarcely know a region that can be studied to greater advantage. Inthe present instance it was the funeral of an old inhabitant of the Gipsytribe, one of the oldest, most respected, and loved of all the nomads, and related in some way to many Gipsy families in London and theneighbouring counties. Abutting from the Walmer Road is a good sizedcourt or alley called ‘Mary Place, ’ and in a nook of one of the smallcottages here lived Mrs. Roberts for a number of years, who has beendescribed to us by one who long enjoyed her acquaintance as ‘a verysuperior woman, intelligent and happy Christian. ’ So that she mustindeed have shone in that humble and sombre spot as a ‘gem of purest rayserene, ’ though not exactly as the flower

 “‘Born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. ’

 [Picture: Outside a Christian Gipsy’s van]

For the comprehensive genius of Christian sympathy and labour had foundher out, and she was known and respected, and her influence was felt byall around her. She lived for years a widow, but with five grown-up, strong, and thrifty children—two sons and three daughters and troops offriends—to cheer her latter days. The preliminaries—a service of songconducted by Mr. Adams and his sons—were soon over, and the coffin beinglifted through the window was placed on the strong shoulders which hadbeen appointed to convey it to Brompton Cemetery, a distance of somethree miles. It was a neat coffin, covered with black cloth, and whenthe pall had been thrown over it affectionate hands placed upon it two orthree large handsome wreaths of immortals white as snow, and so theprocession moved off followed by weeping sons, daughters, and friends, and a host of sympathising neighbours, to the strains of the ‘Dead Marchin Saul. ’ _Requiescat in pace_. Among those present at this interestingceremony standing next to us, and sharing in part our umbrella, was agentleman whose name and vocation we were not aware until afterwards. Wewere glad, however, to learn that we were unwittingly conversing with noother than Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, the philanthropicand well-known promoter of the ‘Brick-maker’s’ and ‘Canal Boatman’s’Acts, who has specially devoted himself to the improvement of the socialcondition of these too-neglected people. He is now giving his attentionto the case of the Gipsies, and specially to the children, to whom he isanxious to see extended among other things the provisions of the SchoolBoard Act. The great and good work of Mr. Smith has already attractedthe attention of a number of charitable Christian people, and it has notbeen overlooked by Her Majesty the Queen, who, with her accustomed careand kindness, has expressed her special interest therein. ” She was agood, Christian woman, and I think I am speaking within bounds when I saythat there is not one in five hundred like she was. Before she died shewished for two things to be carried out at her funeral—one was that sheshould be carried on Gipsies’ shoulders all the way to Brompton Cemetery, a distance of some miles; and the other was that Mr. Adams, a gentlemanin the neighbourhood, should conduct a service of song just before thefuneral _cortége_ left the humble domicile; both requests were carriedout, notwithstanding that it was a pouring wet day. The service of songwas very impressive, surrounded as we were by some two hundred Gipsiesand others of the lowest of the low, living in one of the darkest placesin London. Some stood with their mouths open and appeared as if they hadnot heard of the name of Jesus before, and there were others whosefeatures betokened strong emotion, and upon whose cheeks could be seenthe trickling tears as we sung, among others:—

 “Shall we gather at the river, Where bright angels’ feet have trod, With its crystal tide for ever Flowing by the throne of God? Yes, we’ll gather at the river, The beautiful, the beautiful river, That flows by the throne of God. 

 “Soon we’ll reach the silvery river, Soon our pilgrimage will cease, Soon our happy hearts will quiver, With the melody of peace. Yes, we’ll gather at the river, The beautiful, the beautiful river, That flows by the throne of God. ”

It has frequently been stated that the Gipsies never allow their poor togo into the union workhouses; this statement is both erroneous, false, and misleading. Clayton, a Gipsy, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, told me only theother day that he knew an old Gipsy woman who was living in the MeltonMowbray Union Workhouse at the present time, and mentioned some otherswho had died in the union, a few connected with his own family. AbrahamSmith, a respectable and an old Christian Gipsy, mentioned the names of adozen or more Gipsies of his acquaintance who had died in the unionworkhouse, some in the Biggleswade Union, of the name of Shaw. There wasa time when there was a little repugnance to the union, but this feelinghas died out, thus adding another proof that the Gipsies, in manyrespects, are not so good as what they were fifty years or more ago; andthis fact, to my mind, calls loudly for Government interference asregards the education of the children. Abraham Smith also further statedthat nearly all the old people belonging to one family of S--- had diedin the workhouse in Bedfordshire. Another thing has forced itself uponmy attention, viz. , that there seems to be a number of poor unfortunateidiots among them. I know, for a fact, of one family where there are twopoor creatures, one of whom is in the asylum, and of another family wherethere is one, and a number in various parts where they are semi-idiotic, and only next door to the asylum. These painful facts will plainly showto all Christian-thinking men and women, and to others who love theircountry and seeks its welfare, that the time has arrived for the Gipsiesto be taken hold of in a plain, practical, common-sense manner by thoseat the helm of affairs, and placed in such a position as to helpthemselves to some of the blessings we are in possession of ourselves. During all my inquiries, when the Gipsies have not fallen in with all Ihave said with reference to Gipsy life, they have all agreed withoutexception to the plan I have sketched out for the education of theirchildren and the registration of their tents, &c. 

In the days of Hoyland and Borrow the Gipsies were very anxious for theeducation of their children and struggled hard themselves to bring itabout. Sixty years ago one of the Lovells sent three of his children toschool, at No. 5, George Street, taught by Partak Ivery, and paidsixpence per week each with them; but the question of religion came upand the children were sent home. The schoolmaster, Ivery, said that hehad had six Gipsy children sent to his school, and when placed among theother children they were reduceable to order. It is a standing disgraceand a shame to us as a nation professing Christianity that at this timewe had in our midst ten to fifteen thousand poor little heathen childrenthirsting for knowledge, and no one to hand it to them or put them in theway to help themselves. The sin lays at some one’s door, and I would notlike to be in their shoes for something. While this dense ignorance wasmanifest among the poor Gipsy children at our doors we were scatteringthe Bibles all over the world, and sending missionaries by hundreds toforeign lands and supporting them by hundreds of thousands of poundsgladly subscribed by our hard-working artisans and others. Not that I amfinding fault with those who take an interest in foreign missions in theleast—would to God that more were done for every nation upon the face ofthe globe—but I do think in matters relating to the welfare of thechildren we ought to look more at home. 

With reference to missionary effort among the Gipsies, I must confessthat I am not a strong advocate for a strictly sectarian missionaryorganisation to be formed with headquarters in London, and a paid staffof officials, to convert the Gipsies. If the act is passed upon thebasis I have laid down, the result will be that in course of time theGipsies will be localised. I am strongly in favour of all sections ofChrist’s Church dealing with our floating population, whether upon landor water, in their own localities, and in a kind of spirit of holyrivalry among themselves, if I may use the term. For the life of me Icannot see why temporary wooden erections, something of the “penny-gaff”style, should not be erected upon race-courses, and in the market-placesduring fair time, in which religious services could be held free from allsectarian bias, and which could be called the Showman’s or Gipsy’sChurch. There are times when a short interesting service could be heldwithout coming in collision with the steam whistles of the“round-abouts, ” “big drums, ” reports from the “rifle galleries, ” thescreams and shouts of stall-keepers; and at any rate, I think it would bebetter to have a number of organisations at work rather than one, dealingboth with our Gipsies and canal-boatmen. In whatever form missionaryeffort is put forth, it must go further than that of a clergyman, whotold me one Sunday afternoon last year, after he had been preaching inthe most fashionable church in Kensington, to the effect that, if any ofthe large number of Gipsies who encamped in his parish in the country, and not far from the vicarage, “raised their hats to him as he passedthem, he returned the compliment. ” Poor stuff this to educate theirchildren and to civilise and Christianise their parents. 

It is my decided opinion that if the Gipsy children had been taken holdof at that day, and placed side by side with the children of otherworking classes, we should not by this time have had a Gipsy wigwamflitting about our country; fifty years’ educational influences mean, toa great extent, their present and eternal salvation. A tremendousresponsibility and sin hangs, and will hang, about the necks of those whohave in the past, or will in the future, shut the door of the school inthe face of the poor Gipsy child, and turn it into the streets to perisheverlastingly. I am confident the Gipsies will do their part if a simpleplan for its accomplishment can be set in motion. Harshness, cruelty, and insult, rigid, and extreme measures will do no good with the Gipsies. Fiery persecution will only frustrate my object. God knows, they are badenough, and I have no wish to mince matters, or to paint them white, asfiction has done. I have tried—how far I have succeeded it is not for meto say—to expose the evils, and not individuals, thoroughly, inaccordance with my duty to my God, my country, and my conscience, withoutpartiality, bias, or fear, be the consequences what they may. To write abook full of glowing colour, pictures, fancies, imagination, and fiction, is both more profitable and pleasant. The waft of a scentedpocket-handkerchief across one’s face by the hand of a fair and lovelydamsel is only as a fleeting shadow and a passing vapour; they quicklycome and they quickly go, leaving no footstep behind them; a shootingstar and a flitting comet, and all is in darkness blacker than ever. Somehow or other the Gipsies will, if possible, encamp near a school, butthey lack the power to enter, and some of them, no doubt, could sendtheir children to school for a few days occasionally; but the Gipsieshave got it in their heads that their children are not wanted, and thisis the case with the show people’s children. Last autumn I saw myself anencampment of Gipsies upon Turnham Green; there were about thirty Gipsychildren playing upon the school-fence, not one of whom could either reador write. The school was only half full, and the teacher was lookingvery pleasantly out of the door of the school upon the poor, ignorantchildren as they were rolling about in the mud. In another part ofLondon a Gipsy owns some cottages, with some spare land between eachcottage; upon this land there is her own van and a number of other vansand tents, for which standing ground they pay the Gipsy woman a rent ofone shilling and sixpence per week each. Neither herself nor any of theGipsies connected with the encampment could tell a letter, and there weresome sixty to seventy men, women, and children of all ages; and thestrange part of the thing is, the Gipsy woman’s tenants in her cottageswere compelled by the School Board officer to send their children toschool, while the Gipsy children were running wild like colts, andrevelling in dirt and filth in the neighbourhood. A similar state ofthings to this exists in a more or less degree with all the otherencampments on the outskirts of London. At one of the large encampmentsI tried to find if there were really any who could read and write, and toput this to the test I took the _Christian World_ and the _ChristianGlobe_ with me. The Gipsy lad who they said was “a clever scholard” wasbrought to me, and I put the _Christian World_ before him to see if hecould read the large letters; sad to say, instead of _Christian World_, he called it “Christmas, ” and there he stuck and could get no further. Ihave said some strong things, and endeavoured to lay bare some hard factsrelating to Gipsy life in the preceding part of this book, with a view toenlist help and sympathy for the poor children, and not to submit theGipsy fathers to insult and ridicule. 

 [Picture: Four little Gipsies sitting for the Artist outside their tent, dressed for the occasion, and who can neither read nor write]

From the mode of living among the Gipsies, the mother is oftennecessitated to leave her tent in the morning, and seldom returns to itbefore night. Their children are then left in or about their solitarycamps, having many times no adult with them; the elder children then havethe care of the younger ones. Those who are old enough gather wood forfuel; nor is stealing it thought a crime. By the culpable neglect of theparents in this respect the children are often exposed to accidents byfire, and melancholy instances of children being burnt and scalded todeath are not unfrequent. One poor woman relates that two of herchildren have thus lost their lives by fire during her absence from hertent at different periods, and some years ago a child was scalded todeath at Southampton. 

The following account will faintly show something of the hardships ofGipsy children’s lives:—It was winter, and the weather was unusuallycold, there being much snow on the ground. The tent, which was onlycovered with a ragged blanket, was pitched on the lee side of a smallhawthorn bush. The children had stolen a few green sticks from thehedges, but they would not burn. There was no straw in the tent, andonly one blanket to lay betwixt six children and the frozen ground, withnothing to cover them. The youngest of these children was three and theeldest seventeen years old. In addition to this wretchedness the smallerchildren were nearly naked. The youngest was squatted on the ground, herlittle feet and legs bare, and gnawing a frozen turnip which had beenstolen from an adjoining field. None of them had tasted bread for morethan a day. The moment they saw their visitor, the little onesrepeatedly shouted, “Here is the gemman come for us!” Some money wasgiven to the eldest sister to buy bread with, at which their joy wasgreatly increased. Straw was also provided for them to sleep on, fourwere measured for clothes, and after a few days they were placed underproper care. The youngest child died, however, a short time after inconsequence of having been so neglected in infancy. 

During last June a Gipsy woman, of the name of Bishop, was found in oneof the tents, on a common just outside London, with her throat cut andher child lying dead by her side in a pool of blood, and the man withwhom she cohabited—true to his Gipsy character—refused to answer anyquestions concerning this horrible affair. An impression has gone theround for years that the Gipsies are exceedingly kind and affectionate totheir children, in some instances it, no doubt, is true, but they arerare indeed if I may judge from appearances. I have yet to learn thatstarvation, allowing their children to grow up infinitely worse thanbarbarians, subjecting them to fearful oaths and curses, and inflictingupon the poor children blows with sticks, used with murderous passion, towithin an inch of their lives, exhibits much of the lamb-like spirit, dove-like innocence, and childish simplicity fiction would picture to ourminds concerning these English barbarians as they camp on the mossy bankson a hot summer day. In the presence of myself and a friend one of theselawless fellows very recently hurled a log of wood at a poor Gipsychild’s head for an offence which we could not learn, farther than it wasfor a trifling affair; fortunately, it missed the poor child’s head, ordeath must have been the result. In visiting an encampment last autumn Icame across six Gipsy children having their dinner off three small boiledturnips, and drinking the water as broth; the eldest girl, althoughdressed in rags, was going to sit the same afternoon for a leading artistupon a throne as a Spanish queen. In another part of London—Mary Place—Ifound a family of Gipsies living under sticks and rags in the mostfilthy, sickening, and disgusting backyard I have ever been into—to suchan extent was the stench that immediately I came out of it I had to get alittle brandy or I should have fainted—the eldest girl of whom had hertime pretty fully taken up by sitting as an artist’s model in the costumeof a peasant girl, sometimes gathering buttercups and daisies, at othertimes gathering roses and making button-holes for gentlemen’s coats andplacing them there with gentle hands and a smiling face; occasionally shewould be painted as a country milk-girl driving the cows to pasture; atother times as a young lady playing at croquet on the lawn and gambollingwith children. What a contrast, what a delusion! from rags to silks andsatins; from a filthy abode not fit for pigs to a palace; from turnipsand diseased bacon to wine and biscuits; from beds of rotten straw tocrimson and gold-covered chairs; from trampling among dead cats to acarpet composed of wild flowers; from “Get out you wretch and fetch somemoney, no matter how, ” to “Come here, my dear, is there anything I can dofor you?” from the stench of a cesspool to the fragrance of thehoneysuckle and sweetbriar, in one word, from hell to heaven all in anhour—such is one side of Gipsy life among the little Gipsies, not one ofwhom can read a sentence or write one word, and it is in this way Gipsygirls are found exposing their bodies to keep their big, healthy brothersand fathers at home in idleness and sin. Two such Gipsy girls have comeunder my own notice, and no doubt there are scores of similar cases. Gipsy children are fond of a great degree of heat, and sometimes lie sonear to the coke fires as to be in danger of burning. I have seen themwith their faces as red as if they were upon the point of being roasted, and yet they can bear to travel in the severest cold bare-headed, with noother covering than some old rags carelessly thrown over them. The causeof their bodily qualities, at least some of them, arises from theireducation and hardy manner of life. Formerly the Gipsies, when there wasless English blood in their veins, could stand the extreme changes andhardships of the English climate much better than now. An Englishman, notwithstanding the fact that he has let go all moral and social respectand restraint over his conduct and joined the Gipsies, does not, andcannot, thrive and look well under their manner of living, and this I seemore and more every day. I have been struck very forcibly lately invisiting some of the hordes of Gipsies with the vast number of childrenthe Gipsies bring into the world and the few that are reared. At oneencampment there were forty men and women and only about the same numberof children to be seen. At another encampment I found double thequantity of children to adult Gipsies. 

 [Picture: A top bedroom in a Gipsy’s van for man, wife, and three children, the sons and daughters sleeping underneath]

No one can deny the fact that some of the children look well, but, on theother hand, a vast number look quite the reverse of this, pictures ofstarvation, neglect, bad blood, and cruelty. An Englishman is born for anobler purpose than to lead a vagabond’s life and end his days inscratching among filth and vermin in a Gipsy’s wigwam, consequently, uponthose of our own countrymen who have forsaken the right path, the sinattending such a course is dogging them at every footstep they take. Idon’t lay at the door of their wigwam the sin of child-stealing, but thisI have seen, _i. E. _, many strange-looking children in their tents withoutthe least shadow of a similarity to the adults in either habits, appearance, manner, or conversation. Some of the poor things seemed shyand reserved, and quite out of their element. Sometimes the thought hasoccurred to me that they were the children of sin, and put out of the wayto escape shame being painted upon the back of their parents. Sometimesmy pity for the poor things has led me to put a question or two bearingupon the subject to the Gipsies, and the answer has been, “The poorthings have lost their father and mother. ” When I have asked if thefathers and mothers were Gipsies a little hesitation was manifested, andthe subject dropped with no satisfactory answer to my mind. I have myown idea about the matter. 

The hardships the women have to undergo are most heartrending. Themother, in order to procure a morsel of food, takes her three months’ oldchild either in her arms or on her back, and wanders the streets or lanesin foul or fair weather—in heat or cold. Some of them have told me thatthey walk on an average over twelves miles a day. They are thebread-winners. I have seen them on their return to their wigwams, in thedepth of winter, with six inches of snow on the ground, and scantilyclad, and with six little children crying round them for bread. No firein the tent, and her husband idling about in other tents. In cases ofconfinements, the men have to do something, or they would all starve. For a few days they wake up out of their idle dreams. I know of Gipsywomen who have trudged along with their loads, and their children attheir heels, to within the last five minutes of their confinement. Thechildren were literally born under the hedge bottom, and without any tentor protection whatever. A Gipsy woman told me a week or two since thather mother had told her that she was born under the hedge bottom inBagworth Lane, in Leicestershire. When I questioned her on the subject, she rather gloried in the fact that they had not time to stick thetent-sticks into the ground. This kind of disgraceful procedure is notfar removed from that of animals. I should think that I am speakingwithin compass when I state that two-thirds of the Gipsies travellingabout the country have been born under what they call the “hedge bottom, ”_i. E. _, in tents and like places. The Gipsy women use no cradles; thechild, as a rule, sleeps on the ground. When a boy attains three yearsof age, so says Hoyland, the rags he was wrapped in are thrown on oneside, and he is equally exposed with the parents to the severest weather. He is then put to trial to see how far his legs will carry him. Claytontold me that when he was a boy of about twelve, his father sent him intothe town and among the villages—with no other covering upon him only apiece of an old shirt—to bring either bread or money home, no matter how. 

Among some of the State projects put forth in Hungary more than a centurysince to improve the condition of the Gipsies, the following may bementioned: (1) They were prohibited from dwelling in huts and tents, fromwandering up and down the country, from dealing in horses, from eatinganimals which died of themselves and carrion. (2) They were to be calledNew Boors instead of Gipsies, and they were not to converse in any otherlanguage but that of any of the countries in which they chose to reside. (3) After some months from the passing of the Act, they were to quittheir Gipsy manner of life and settle, like the other inhabitants, incities or villages, and to provide themselves with suitable and properclothing. (4) No Gipsy was allowed to marry who could not prove himselfin a condition to provide for and maintain a wife and children. (5) Thatfrom such Gipsies who were married and had families, the children shouldbe taken away by force, removed from their parents, relations, orintercourse with the Gipsy race, and to have a better education given tothem. At Fahlendorf, in Schütt, and in the district of Prassburg, allthe children of the New Boors (Gipsies) above five years old were carriedaway in waggons on the night of the twenty-first of December, 1773, byoverseers appointed for that purpose, in order, that, at a distance fromtheir parents or relations, they might be more usefully educated and sentto work. (6) They were to be taught the principles of religion, andtheir children educated. Their children were prohibited running abouttheir houses, streets, or roads naked, and they were not to be allowed tosleep promiscuously by each other without distinction of sex. (7) Theywere enjoined to attend church regularly, and to give proof of theirChristian disposition, and they were not to wear large cloaks, which werechiefly used to hide the things they had stolen. (8) They were to bekept to agriculture, and were only to be permitted to amuse themselveswith music when their day’s work was finished. (9) The magistrates atevery place were to be very attentive to see that no Gipsy wasted histime in idleness, and whoever was remiss in his work was to be liable tocorporal punishment. 

All these suggestions and plans of operation may not suit English life;be that as it may, they were suitable to the condition of the HungarianGipsies, and no doubt laid the foundation for the improvement that hastaken place among them. The Hungarian Gipsies are educated, and aretillers of the soil. If a plan similar in some respects had been carriedout with our Gipsies at the same period, we should not by this time havehad a Gipsy-tent in the country, or an uneducated Gipsy in our land. What a different aspect would have presented itself ere this, if the5, 000 Gipsies among us had been tilling our waste lands and commons forthe last century. With proper management, these 5, 000 Gipsy men couldhave bought and kept under cultivation some 20, 000 acres of land for thewell-being of themselves and for the good of the country. There isneglect, indifference, and apathy somewhere. The blame will lay heavilyupon some one when the accounts are made up. 

It is appalling and humiliating to think that we, as a Christian nation, should have had in our midst for more than three centuries 15, 000 to20, 000 poor ignorant Asiatic heathens, naturally sharp and clever, andnext to nothing being done to reclaim them from their worse than midnightdarkness. A heavy sin and responsibility lays at our doors. Take awayJohn Bunyan, a few of the Smiths, Palmers, Lovells, Lees, Hearns, Coopers, Simpsons, Boswells, Eastwoods, Careys, Roberts, &c. , and what dowe find?—a black army of human beings who have done next tonothing—comparatively speaking—for the country’s good. They have cadgedat our doors, lived on our commons, worn our roads, been fed from ourtables, sent their paupers to our workhouses, their idiots to ourasylums, and not contributed one farthing to their maintenance andsupport. Rates and taxes are unknown to them. There is only oneinstance of them paying rates for their vans, and that is at Blackpool. 

It is a black, burning shame and disgrace to see herds of healthy-lookinggirls and great strapping youths growing up in ignorance and idleness, not so much as exerting themselves to wash the filth off their bodies ormake anything better than skewers. Their highest ambition is to learnslang, roll in the ditch, spread small-pox and fevers, threatenvengeance, and carry out revenge upon those who attempt to frustratetheir evil designs. Excepting skewers, clothes-pegs, and a few otherlittle things of this kind, they have not manufactured anything; thehighest state of perfection they have arrived at is to be able to makeand tie up a bundle of skewers, split a clothes-peg, tinker a kettle, mend a chair, see-saw on an old fiddle, rap their knuckles on atambourine, clatter about with their feet, tickle the guitar, and make asqueaking noise through their teeth, that fiction and romance callsinging. The most that can be said in their favour is, that a few ofthem have become respectable Christians and hard-working men and women, and have done something for the country’s good—and whose fault is it thatthere are not more? They have been the agents of hell, working outSatan’s designs, and we have stood by laughing and admiring theirso-called pretty faces, scarlet cloaks, and “witching eyes. ” For thelife of me I can find no more bewitching beauty among them than can befound in our back slums any day, circumstances considered—and where doesthe blame lay?—upon our own shoulders for not paying more attention tothe education and welfare of their children. It is truly horrible tothink that we have had 15, 000 to 20, 000 young and old Gipsies at work, carrying out the designs of the infernal regions at the tip end of theroots of our national life, vigour, and Christianity. 

Only the other day the country was much shocked, and rightly so, at ahundred poor Russian emigrants landing upon our shores; and yet we havetwo hundred times this quantity of Gipsies among us, and we quietly standby and take no notice of their wretched condition. The time will come, and that speedily, when we shall have the scales taken off our eyes, andthe thin, flimsy veil of romance torn to shreds. Sitting by and admiringtheir “pretty faces” and “witching eyes” will not save their souls, educate their children, or put them in the way of earning an honestlivelihood. It is not pity—whining, sycophantic pity—alone that will dothem good. The Rev. Mr. Cobbin’s Gipsy’s petition, written fifty yearsago, “Oh! ye who have tasted of mercy and love, And shared in the blessings of pardoning grace, Let us the kind fruits of your tenderness prove, And pity, oh! pity, the poor Gipsy race. ”

has been little better than beating the air, and it may be repeated athousand times, but if nothing further is done more than “pity, ” theGipsies will be worse off in fifty years hence than they are now, norwill presenting to them bread, cheese, ale, blankets, stockings, and adry sermon, as Mr. Crabb did half a century ago, render them permanenthelp. We must do as the eagle does with her young: we must cause alittle fluster among them, so that they may begin to flounder forthemselves. Take them up, turn them out, and teach them to use their ownwings, and the schoolmaster and sanitary officers are the agencies to doit. The men are clever and can get money sufficient to keep theirfamilies comfortable even at skewer-making and chair-mending, &c. , ifthey will only work. All the police-officer must do will be to takecharge of those who prefer to fall to the ground rather than to strugglefor life with its attendant pleasures and enjoyments. The State hastaken in hand a more dangerous class—perhaps the most dangerous—in India, viz. , the Thugs, and is teaching them useful trades and honest industrywith most encouraging results. Before the Government tackled them, theywere idling, loafing, rambling, and robbing all over the country, aliketo our Gipsies; now they have settled down and become useful and goodcitizens. In Norway the Gipsies are put into prison, and there kept tillthey have learnt to read and write. In Hungary the Government hasappointed a special Minister to look after them, and see that they arebeing properly educated and brought up. In Russia, the laws passed fortheir imprisonment has had the effect of causing them, to a great extent, to settle down to useful trades, and they are forming themselves intocolonies. And so, in like manner, in Spain, Germany, France, and otherEuropean countries, steps have been taken to bring about an improvementamong them. In these countries nearly the whole of the Gipsies can readand write; and we, of all others, who ought to have set the example acentury ago in the way of educating the Gipsy children, have stood bywith folded arms, and let them drift into ruin. I claim it to be ourduty—and it will be to our shame if we do not—to see to the welfare ofthe Gipsy children for four reasons. First, that they are Indians, andunder the rule of our noble Queen; second, that they are in our midst, and ought to take their share of the blessings, duties, andresponsibilities pertaining to the rest of the community; third, that asa Christian nation, professing to lead the van and to set forth theblessings of Christianity and civilisation; and, fourth, their universaldesire for the education of their children, and to contribute theirquota, however small, to the country’s good, and for the eternal welfareof their own children; and I do not think that there will be anyobjection on their part to it being brought about on the plan I havebriefly sketched out. 

I fancy I can hear some of the artists who have been delighted with Gipsymodels—the novelists who have hung many a tale upon the skirts of theirgarments—the dramatists who have trotted them before the curtain toplease the public, and some old-fashioned croakers, who delight inallowing things to be as they have always been—the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—saying, “let everybody look after their ownchildren;” and then, in a plaintive tone, singing—

 “Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough; In youth it sheltered me, And I’ll protect it now. ”

First, —I would have all movable or temporary habitations, used asdwellings, registered, numbered, and the name and address of the owner oroccupier painted in a prominent place on the outside, _i. E. _, on alltents, Gipsy vans, auctioneers’ vans, showmen’s vans, and like places, and under proper sanitary arrangements in a manner analogous to the CanalBoats Act of 1877. 

Second, —Not less than one hundred cubic feet of space for each femaleabove the age of twelve, and each male above the age of fourteen; and notless than fifty cubic feet of space for each female young person underthe age of twelve, and for each male under the age of fourteen. 

Third, —No male above the age of fourteen, and no female above the age oftwelve, should be allowed to sleep in the same tent or van as man andwife, unless separate sleeping accommodation be provided for each male ofthe age of fourteen, and for each female of the age of twelve; and alsowith proper regard for partitions and suitable ventilation. 

Fourth, —A registration certificate to be obtained, renewable at any ofthe offices of the Urban or Rural sanitary authorities throughout thecountry, for which the owner or occupier of the tent or van should paythe sum of ten shillings annually, commencing on the first of January ineach year. 

Fifth, —The compulsory attendance at school of all travelling children, orothers living in temporary or unrateable dwellings, up to the agerequired by the Elementary Education Acts, which attendance should befacilitated and brought about by means of a school pass-book, in whichthe children’s names, ages, and grade could be entered, and whichpass-book could be made applicable to children living and working oncanal-boats, and also to other wandering children. The pass-book to beeasily procurable at any bookseller’s for the sum of one shilling. 

Sixth, —The travelling children should be at liberty to go to eitherNational, British, Board, or other schools, under the management of aproperly-qualified schoolmaster, and which schoolmaster should sign thechildren’s pass-book, showing the number of times the children hadattended school during their temporary stay. 

Seventh, —The cost for the education of these wandering children should bepaid by the guardians of the poor out of the poor rates, a proper accountbeing kept by the schoolmaster and delivered to the parochial authoritiesquarterly. 

Eighth, —Power to be given to any properly-qualified sanitary officer, School Board visitor or inspector, to enter the tents, vans, canal-boats, or other movable or temporary habitations, at any time or in any place, and detain, if necessary, for the purpose of seeing that the law wasbeing properly carried out; and any one obstructing such officer in hisduty, and not carrying out the law, to be subject to a fine orimprisonment for each offence. 

Ninth, —It would be well if arrangements could be made with lords ofmanors, the Government, or others who are owners of waste lands, to grantthose Gipsies who are without vans, and living in tents only, prior tothe act coming into force, a long lease at a nominal rent of, say, halfan acre or an acre of land, for ninety-nine years, on purpose toencourage them to settle down to the cultivation of it, and to take tohonest industry—as many of them are prepared to do. By this means anumber of the Gipsies would collect together on the marshes and commons, and no doubt other useful and profitable occupation would be the outcomeof the Gipsies being thus localised, and in which their children couldand would take an important part; and in addition to these things thesocial and educational advantages to be reaped by following such a coursewould be many. 

I have not the least doubt in my mind but that if a law be passedembodying these brief, but rough, suggestions, on the one hand, and stepsare taken to encourage them to settle down, in accordance with the ideathrown out in clause nine, on the other, we shall not have in fifty yearshence an uneducated Gipsy in our midst. Many of the Gipsies are anxious, I know, for some steps to be taken for the children to be brought up towork. The operation of the present Hawkers’ and Pedlars’ Act is actingvery detrimental to the interests of the Gipsy children, as none areallowed to carry a licence under the age of sixteen, consequently allGipsy children, except a few who assist in making pegs and skewers, areneither going to school nor yet are they learning a trade or in fact workof any kind; they are simply living in idleness, and under the influenceof evil training that carries mischief underneath the surface. 

It is truly appalling to think that over seven hundred thousand sharp, clever, well-formed human beings, and with plenty of muscular power, have, as I have said before, been roaming about Europe for many centurieswith no object before them, and accomplishing nothing. Something liketen millions of Gipsies have been born, lived, died, and gone into theother world since they set foot upon European soil, and what have theydone? what work have they accomplished? Alas! alas! worse than a ciphermight be written against them. They have lived in the midst of beauty, songsters, romance, and fiction, and they have been surrounded byeverything that would help to call forth natural energy, mechanicalskill, and ability, but they have been in some senses like childrenplaying in the street gutters. They have the elements of success withinthem, but no one has taken them by the hand to put them upon the firststep, at any rate, so far as England is concerned. It is grievous tothink that not one of these ten millions of Gipsies who have gone the wayof all flesh has written a book, painted a painting, composed any poetry, worth calling poetry, produced a minister worthy of much note—at least, Ican only hear of one or two. They have fine voices as a rule, and exceptsome half-dozen Gipsies no first-rate musicians have sprung from theirmidst. No engineer, no mechanic—in fact, no nothing. The highest stateof their manufacturing skill has been to make a few slippers for thefeet, as some of them are doing at Lynn; skewers to stick into meat, forwhich they have done nothing towards feeding; pegs to hang out otherpeople’s linen, some tinkering, chair-bottoming, knife-grinding, and alittle light smith work, and a few have made a little money byhorse-dealing. There are others clever at “making shifts” and roadsidetents, and will put up with almost anything rather than put forth muchenergy. Since the Gipsies landed in this country more than one hundredand fifty thousand have been born, principally, as they say, “under thehedge bottom, ” lived, and died. They are gone “and their works do followthem. ” Their present degraded condition in this country may be laid uponour backs. 

This book, with its many faults and few virtues, is my own as in the caseof my others, and all may be laid upon my back; and my object in sayinghard and unpalatable things about the poor, ignorant Gipsy wanderers inour midst is not to expose them to ridicule, or to cause the finger ofscorn to be pointed at them or to any one connected with them, but to tryto influence the hearts of my countrymen to extend the hand of practicalsympathy, and help to rescue the poor Gipsy children from dropping intothe vortex of ruin, as so many thousands have done before. It is notunlikely but that I shall, in saying plain things about the Gipsies, expose myself to some inconvenience, misrepresentation, malice, and spitefrom those who would keep the Gipsies in ignorance, and also from shadowphilanthropists, who are always on the look out for other people’sbrains; but these things, so long as God gives me strength, will notdeter me from doing what I consider to be right in the interest of thechildren, so long as I can see the finger of Providence pointing the way, and it is to Him I must look for the reward, “Well done, ” which will morethan repay me for all the inconvenience I have undergone, or may havestill to undergo, in the cause of the “little ones. ” That man is no realfriend to the Gipsies who seeks to improve them by flattery anddeception. A Gipsy, with all his faults, likes to be dealt fairly andopenly with—a little praise but no flattery suits him. They can practisecunning, but they do not care to have any one practising it upon them. 

I dare not be sanguine enough to hope that I shall be successful, but Ihave tried thus far to show, first, the past and present condition of theGipsies; second, the little we, as a nation, have done to reclaim them;and, third, what we ought to do to improve them in the future, so as toremove the stigma from our shoulders of having 20, 000 to 30, 000 Gipsies, show people, and others living in vans, &c. , in our midst, fast driftinginto heathenism and barbarism, not five per cent. Of whom can read andwrite, at least, so far as the Gipsies are concerned; and those childrentravelling with “gingerbread” stalls, rifle galleries, and auctioneersare but little better, for all the parents tell me their children lose inthe summer what little they learn at school in the winter, for the wantof means being adopted whereby their children could go to school duringthe daytime as they are travelling through the country with their wares, _i. E. _, at their halting-places. 

In bringing this book to a close, I would say, in the name of all that isjust, fair, honourable, and reasonable, in the name of science, religion, philosophy, and humanity, and in the name of all that is Christ-like, God-like, and heavenly, I ask, nay I claim, the attention of our nobleQueen—whose deep interest in the children of the labouring population isunbounded—statesmen, Christians, and my countrymen to the condition ofthe Gipsies and their children, whose condition is herein feeblydescribed, and whose cause I have ventured to take in hand, praying themto adopt measures and to pass such laws that will wipe out the disgraceof having so many thousands of poor, ignorant, uneducated, wretched, andlost Gipsy children in our midst, who cannot read and write, on thefollowing grounds—

First. Their Indian origin, which I venture to think has beensatisfactorily proved, and over which country our Queen is the Empress;consequently, our Gipsies ought and have as much need to be taken in handand their condition improved by the State as the Thugs in India havebeen, with such beneficial results, a class similar in many respects toour Gipsies. 

Second. As the Government in 1877 passed an act, called “The Canal BoatsAct, ” dealing pretty much with the same class of people as the Gipsiesand other travelling children, they ought, in all fairness, to extend theprinciple to those living in tents and vans. 

Third. As small-pox, fevers, and other infectious diseases are at timesvery prevalent among them—a medical officer being called in only underthe rarest occasion—and as the tents and vans are not under any sanitaryarrangements, there is, therefore, urgent need for some sort of sanitarysupervision and control to be exercised over their wretched habitationsto prevent the spread of disease in such a stealthy manner. 

Fourth. As the Government took steps some three centuries ago to classthe Gipsies as rogues and vagabonds, but took no steps at the same timeto improve their condition or even to encourage them to get upon theright paths for leading an honourable and industrious life, the time hasnow come, I think, both in justice and equity, for the Government toadopt some means to catch the young hedge-bottom “Bob Rats, ” and to dealout to them measures that will Christianise and civilise them to such anextent that the Gipsies will not in the future be deserving of theepithets passed upon them by the Government for their sins of omissionand commission. 

Fifth. By passing an Act of Parliament, as I suggest, or amending theCanal Boats Act, in accordance with the plan I have laid down, andembodying the suggestions herein contained, the Government will completethe educational system and bring under the educational and sanitary lawsthe lowest dregs of society, which have hitherto been left out in thecold, to grope about in the dark as their inclinations might lead them. 

Sixth. The families who are seeking a living as hawkers, show people, &c. , apart from the Gipsies, are on the increase. By travelling up anddown the country in this way they not only escape rates and taxes, buttheir children are going without education, as no provision is made inthe education acts to meet cases of this kind. By bringing the Gipsychildren under the influence of the schoolmaster our law-makers will beadding the last stroke to the system of compulsory education introducedand carried into law through its first difficult and intricate phases bythe Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M. P. , when he was at the head of theEducation Department under the Liberal Government, and through its secondstages by the Right Hon. Lord Sandon, M. P. , when he was at the head ofthe Education Department under the Conservative Government. 

Seventh. There is an universal desire among people of the classes I havebefore referred to for the education of their children, in fact, I havenot met with one exception during my inquiries, and the Gipsies will beglad to make some sacrifices to carry it out if the Government will dotheir part in the matter. 

Eighth. The Gipsies and other travellers of the same kind use our roads, locate on our commons, live in our lanes, and send their poor, halt, maimed, and blind to our workhouses, infirmaries, and asylums, towardsthe support of which they do not contribute one farthing. 

Ninth. As a Christian nation professing to send the Gospel all over theworld, to preach glad tidings, peace upon earth and good-will towards meneverywhere, to take steps for the conversion of the Gipsies in India, theAfrican, the Chinese, the South Sea Islander, the Turk, the black, thewhite, the bond, the free, in fact everywhere where an Englishman goesthe Gospel is supposed to go too, and yet—and it is with sadness, sorrow, and shame I relate it—we have had on an average during the last threehundred and sixty-five years not less than 15, 000 Gipsies moving amongus, and not less than 150, 000 have died and been buried, either underwater, in the ditches, or on the roadside, on the commons, or in thecemeteries or churchyards, and we, as Christians of Christian England, have not spent 150, 000 pence to reclaim the adult Gipsies, or to educatetheir children. 

Tenth. As a civilised country we are supposed to lead the van incivilising the world by passing the most humane, righteous, just, andliberal laws, carrying them out on the plan of tempering justice withmercy; but in matters concerning the interests and welfare of the Gipsieswe are, as I have shown previously, a long way in the rear. We havepassed laws to improve the condition of the agricultural labourer’schild, children working in mines, children working in factories, performing boys, climbing boys, children working in brick-yards, childrenworking and living on canal-boats, and a thousand others; but we havedone nothing for the poor Gipsy child or its home. In things pertainingto their present and eternal welfare they have asked for bread and wehave given them a stone; and they have asked for fish and we have giventhem a serpent. We have allowed them to wander and lose themselves inthe dark wilds of sin and iniquity without shedding upon their path thelight of Gospel truths or the blessings of education; and to-day theGipsy children are dying, where thousands have died before, among thebrambles and in the thicket of bad example, ignorance, and evil training, into which we have allowed them to stray blinded by the evil associationsof Gipsy life. 

 “An aged woman walks along, Her piercing scream is on the air, Her head and streaming locks are bare, She sadly sobs ‘My child, my child!’”

A faint voice is heard in the distance calling out—

 “My dying daughter, where art thou? Call on our gods and they shall come. ”

 “So mote it be. ”

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THE LIFE OF GEORGE SMITH, OF COALVILLE. 

“The name of George Smith, of Coalville, is familiar as household words, and the unpretending memoir just published by Messrs. Haughton & Co. Ofhim, to whose deep sympathy and ceaseless effort the populations of ourbrick-yards and canals owe so much, will be read with interest byall. ”—_The Graphic_. 

“Readers of Mr. Smith’s letters in numerous papers, and of hisdescriptive articles in the _Illustrated London News_, _Graphic_, andother journals and magazines, will be glad to possess this little work, which tells the story of his career in a brief but interesting manner. The book is elegantly printed on good paper, and is embellished with anexcellent portrait and with an engraving of Mr. Smith among the Gipsychildren. ”—_Capital and Labour_. 

“This is ‘a chapter’ in philanthropy, yet it contains three times as muchin the way of practical philanthropy as would suffice to make any man abenefactor to his generation. His devoted, self-denying, persistent, andsuccessful endeavours on behalf of the brick-yard children, the canalpopulation, and more recently the Gipsy ‘arabs, ’ of our country and time, are concisely and vividly set forth in this neat volume. ”—_TheChristian_. 

“The name of George Smith, and his noble work amongst the canal-boat folkand the Gipsies, have become familiar and welcome to multitudes in GreatBritain. This volume is an excellent sketch of Mr. Smith; it contains acapital likeness, and should be read by all who desire to possessincreasing zeal in rescuing the perishing. ”—_Christian Age_. 

“A smartly written biography of a man who may be justly termed theChildren’s Friend. It is well got up, and contains an excellent portraitof the great social reformer. It is well that this fascinating sketchshould be given to the world. ”—_Literary World_. 

“In this book we are presented with a sketch of the life andlabours—labours which have been attended with a large measure ofsuccess—of one of the most devoted of livingphilanthropists. ”—_Scotsman_. 

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OUR CANAL POPULATION:A CRY FROM THE BOAT CABINS, WITH REMEDY. 

 New Edition, with Supplement. By GEORGE SMITH, F. S. A. , Coalville, Leicester. 

“A little book called ‘Our Canal Population, ’ lately published andwritten by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, furnishes the most incredibledetails of what is going on on our silent highways. ”—_MorningAdvertiser_. 

“The notorious state of ‘Our Canal Population, ’ the women and childrenwho live on barges, and in whose condition Mr. George Smith, ofCoalville, has awakened public interest, is described as ‘revolting andintolerable. ’ If only a part of the statements made were true it wouldbe enough to make the ears of them that hear it tingle for pity andshame. ”—_Daily News_. 

“Although the statements made by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, in ‘OurCanal Population, ’ were doubtless, in some instances, open to the chargeof exaggeration, in the main they were largely correct. Mr. Smith hasearned the thanks of the community in this philanthropic object, as hepreviously earned our thanks for his efforts to ameliorate the conditionof children in the brick-yards. ”—_Standard_. 

“Canal Boats. —On the 1st inst. Came into operation an Act (the 40 and 41Vic. , c. 60) which is calculated to do much good. Hitherto ‘Our CanalPopulation’ were left pretty much to themselves. They were consideredoutside the pale of local and educational authorities. They werepermitted to live in their boats as they pleased, and to bring up theirchildren without any interference from school authorities. Mr. GeorgeSmith, of Coalville, whose efforts on behalf of the children employed inbrick-fields were attended with such beneficial results, turned hisattention to ‘Our Canal Population, ’ and the credit likely to be won bythe passing of the Act of last Session will be mainly his. ”—_The Times_. 

“Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, who has done so much for the well-beingof ‘Our Canal Population, ’ is now busied in attempts to ameliorate thecondition of juvenile Gipsies. ”—_Daily Telegraph_. 

“This gentleman represents by name, at least, a very large family, but hehas won for himself considerable distinction among the ‘Smiths’ for hisunparalleled efforts to ameliorate the wretched condition of ‘Our CanalPopulation’ on the English canals, the women and children working in thebrick-yards, and the Gipsy children. ”—_Christian Herald_. 

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THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN FROM THE BRICK-YARDS OF ENGLAND, AND HOW THE CRYHAS BEEN HEARD, With Observations on the Carrying-out of the Act. 

 By GEORGE SMITH, of Coalville, Leicester. SIXTH EDITION. 

“We heartily commend to our readers’ notice a new edition of a work whichis full of thrilling interest to those who sympathise with childhood, whose hearts bleed at the story of its wrongs and leap for joy at anyhumane or beneficial measures on its behalf. ”—_Sunday School Chronicle_. 

“This book, now in its sixth edition, has many capital illustrations, andis a monument to the patient self-denial and unwearying zeal brought tobear in favour of the poor children by the author. ”—_Weekly Times_. 

“His cry for the protection for the helpless little ones is one that mustassuredly command attention. ”—_Daily Chronicle_. 

“This book is the record of a splendid service nobly done. The author islikewise the hero of it. The value of the book is enhanced by thecareful and tasteful manner in which Messrs. Haughton have fulfilledtheir share of the undertaking. ”—_Derby Reporter_. 

“This is a title of an interesting work. The whole forms a mostinteresting record of a noble-hearted work. We hope the book will meet, as it deserves, with an increasingly large circulation. ”—_DerbyshireAdvertiser_. 

“‘The Cry of the Children’ and ‘Our Canal Population’ are unique in manyways. They have brought prominently before public attention twounsuspected blots upon our civilisation. We wish any word of our’s couldgive still wider publicity to his self-denying labours. ”—_Live StockJournal_. 

“Mr. Smith writes with vehement energy, which he puts into everything hedoes. Some will perhaps think that his language is occasionally toolittle measured, but then it is probable that a man of more delicacy offeeling and expression would have never undertaken, and we think it iscertain that he would never have carried through, the work which Mr. George Smith has accomplished. That work is of no smallvalue. ”—_Staffordshire Sentinel_. 

“A good deal of new matter is inserted in this edition, including aninteresting account of the history and progress of the movement. . . . The volume is certainly worthy of a careful perusal. ”—_BirminghamGazette_. 

“In it is written the author’s account of his single-handed struggle forthe emancipation of the poor children of the brick-yards—a struggle longand patiently sustained, and which at last, in 1872, met with its pastmerited reward in freeing 10, 000 of these little ones from their darkslavery. ”—_The Graphic_. 

“This is a deeply interesting book, both from the facts which it setsforth and the cause it advocates. ”—_Christian Age_. 

“Every true philanthropist will read with deep interest Mr. Smith’saccount of the history and the passing of the Act, which marks one of thebrightest victories yet won over prejudice and self-interest in theUnited Kingdom. ”—_Derby Mercury_. 

“This excellently got-up work will strike a cord of sympathy in thebosoms of all who are interested in the works of Christianity andphilanthropy. . . . Should find a place upon every book-shelf becauseits contents are of thrilling interest. . . . The book is essentially astatement of facts, and no one can peruse its pages without feeling theimpulse of the living spirit which breathes in this ‘Cry of theChildren. ’”—_Potteries Examiner_. 

“Mr. George Smith has, in his ‘Cry of the Children from the Brick-yardsof England, ’ raised issues too serious, and advanced pleas toopassionate, to be treated with indifference. ”—_Daily Telegraph_. 

“In the present volume, which contains a number of excellent woodcuts, wehave gathered up the full story of the evils which used to prevail, whichin the hands of a person of less moral courage and perseverance than Mr. Smith would have failed. ”—_Leicester Daily Post_. 

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Footnotes:

{8} Since writing the foregoing concerning Mahmood or Mahmud, I cameacross the enclosed, taken from an article in the _Daily News_, January11, 1880, which confirms my statements as regards one of the main causeswhy the Gipsies or Indians left their native country:—“Ghuznee was thecapital of Mahmud of Ghuznee, or Mahmud the Destroyer, as he is known inEastern story, the first of the Mohammedan conquerors of India, and theonly one who had his home in Afghanistan, though he was himself of Turkior Mongol nationality. Seventeen times did he issue forth from hisnative mountains, spreading fire and sword over the plains of Hindustan, westward as far as the Ganges Valley, and southward to the shore ofGujerat. Seventeen times did he return to Ghuznee laden with the spoilof Rajput kings and the shrines of Hindu pilgrimage. In one of theseexpeditions his goal was the far-famed temple of Somnauth or SomnauthPatan in Gujerat. Resistance was vain, and equally useless were thetears of the Brahmins, who besought him to take their treasures, but atleast spare their idol. With his own hand, and with the mace which isthe counterpart of Excalibar in Oriental legend, he smote the face of theidol, and a torrent of precious stones gushed out. When Keane’s armytook Ghuznee in 1839, this mace was still to be seen hanging up over thesarcophagus of Mahmud, and the tomb was then entered through foldinggates, which tradition asserted to be those of the Temple of Somnauth. Lord Ellenborough gave instructions to General Nott to bring back withhim to India both the mace and the gates. The latter, as is well-known, now lie mouldering in the lumber-room of the fort at Agra, for theirauthenticity is absolutely indefensible; but the mace could nowhere befound by the British plunderer. Mahmud reigned from 997 to 1030 A. D. , and in his days Ghuznee was probably the first city in Asia. Theextensive ruins of his city stretch northwards along the Cabul road formore than two miles from the present town; but all that now remainsstanding are two lofty pillars or minarets, 400 yards apart, one bearingthe name of Mahmud, the other that of his son Masaud. Beyond these ruinsagain is the Roza or Garden, which surrounds the mausoleum of Mahmud. The building itself is a poor structure, and can hardly date back foreight centuries. The great conqueror is said to rest beneath a marbleslab, which bears an inscription in Cufic characters, thus interpreted byMajor (now Sir Henry) Rawlinson: ‘May there be forgiveness of God uponhim, who is the great lord, the noble Nizam-ud-din (Ruler of the Faith)Abul Kasim Mahmud, the son of Sabaktagin! May God have mercy upon him!’The Ghuznevide dynasty founded by Mahmud lasted for more than a centuryafter his death, though with greatly restricted dominions. Finally, itwas extinguished in 1152 by one of those awful acts of atrocity which arefortunately recorded only in the East. Allah-ud-din, Prince of Ghore, atown in the north-western hills of Afghanistan, marched upon Ghuznee toavenge the death of two of his brothers. The king was slain in battle, and the city given up to be sacked. The common orders of the people wereall massacred upon the spot; the nobles were taken to Ghore, and thereput to death, and their blood used to cement the rising walls of thecapital. ”

{176} The “Czardas” is a solitary public-house, an institution whichplays a considerable part in all romantic poems or romantic novels whosescene is laid in Hungary, as a fitting haunt for brigands, horse-thieves, Gipsies, Jews, political refugees, strolling players, vagabond poets, andother melodramatic personages. 

{218a} A Black Govel. 

{218b} Going a tinkering. 

{218c} I’ll show you about, brother; I’m selling skewers. 

{219} The fact of Ryley having at his death a caravan, pony, carpets, curtains, blankets, mirrors, china, crockery, metal pots and dishes, &c. , seems hardly, in my mind, to be in accord with his doing no work foryears, smoking under railroad arches and loitering about beershops. Iexpect, if the truth were known, the whole of his furniture andstock-in-trade could have been placed upon a wheelbarrow.