Gipsy Life
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Title: Gipsy Life
Author: George Smith
Illustrator: William Heysham Overend
Release date: April 9, 2009 [eBook #28548]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28548
Credits: Transcribed from the 1880 Haughton and Co. edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIPSY LIFE ***
Transcribed from the 1880 Haughton and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[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 forming
the Frontispiece, which he has kindly presented to me on the condition
that the picture occupies the position it does in this book; and also to
the proprietor of the _Illustrated London News_ for the blocks to help
forward my work, the pictures of which appeared in his journal in
November and December of last year and January in the present year, as
found 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 and
proprietors of the _Graphic_ for the blocks forming the illustrations on
pages 1, 132, 170, 222, 228, 248, 272, 277, and which appeared in their
journal on March 13th in the present year, and which they have kindly
presented 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 _Illustrated
London News_, and HERBERT JOHNSON, Esq., was the artist for the sketches
in the _Graphic_.
I also tender my warmest thanks to the Press generally for the help
rendered to me during the crusade so far, without which I should have
done but little.
TO THE MOST HONOURABLE
THE PEERS AND MEMBERS
OF THE
HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT.
I have taken the liberty of humbly dedicating this work to you, the
object of which is not to tickle the critical ears of ethnologists and
philologists, but to touch the hearts of my countrymen on behalf of the
poor Gipsy women and children and other roadside Arabs flitting about in
our midst, in such a way as to command attention to these neglected,
dark, marshy spots of human life, whose seedlings have been running wild
among us during the last three centuries, spreading their poisonous
influence abroad, not only detrimental to the growth of Christianity and
the spread of civilisation, but to the present and eternal welfare of the
children; and, what I ask for is, that the hand of the Schoolmaster may
be extended towards the children; and that the vans and other temporary
and movable abodes in which they live may be brought under the eye and
influence 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 1
Article in _The Daily News_ 8
The Travels of the Gipsies 9
Acts of Parliament relating to the Gipsies 16
Article in _The Edinburgh Review_ 23
,, _The Saturday Review_ 25
Professor Bott on the Gipsies 29
The Changars of India 32
The Doms of India 33
The Sanseeas of India 35
The Nuts of India 36
Grellmann on the Gipsies 39
Gipsies of Notting Hill 40
Rev. Charles Wesley 42
The Number of Gipsies 44
Part II.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CRUSADE.
Work begun 48
Letter to _The Standard_ and _Daily Chronicle_ 51
Leading Article in _The Standard_ 53
Correspondence in _The Standard_ 59
Mr. Leland's Letter, &c., &c. 60
My Reply 66
_Leicester Free Press_ 69
Article in _The Derby Daily Telegraph_ 70
,, _The Figaro_ 73
Letter in _The Daily News_ 75
Mr. Gorrie's Letter 78
My Reply 79
Leading Article in _The Standard_ 82
_May's Aldershot Advertiser_ 87
Article in _Hand and Heart_ 90
Article in _The Illustrated London News_ 91
Leading Article in _The Daily News_ 92
Social Science Congress Paper 95
Article 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_ 126
Letter in _Daily News_ and _Chronicle_ 127
Article 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 142
Acts of Parliament concerning the Gipsies 145
Treatment of the Gipsies in Scotland, Spain, and Denmark 150
Efforts put forth to improve their Condition 155
His Majesty George III. and the Dying Gipsy 161
Mr. Crabb at Southampton in 1827 164
Fiction and the Gipsies 166
Hubert Petalengro's Gipsy Trip to Norway 169
Esmeralda's Song 174
George Borrow's Travels in Spain 177
Romance and Poetry about the Gipsies 183
Dean Stanley's Prize Poem 190
Part IV.
GIPSY LIFE IN A VARIETY OF ASPECTS.
Persecution, Missionary Efforts, and Romance 192
The Gipsy Contrast and _Punch_ 193
Gipsy Slang 195
Rees and Borrow's Description of the Gipsies 199
Leland among the Russian Gipsies 201
Burning a Russian Fortune-teller 203
A Welsh Gipsy's Letter 208
Ryley Bosvil and his Poetry: a Sad Example 213
My Visit to Canning Town Gipsies 220
Article in _The Weekly Times_ 222
My Son's Visit to Barking Road 227
Mrs. Simpson, a Christian Gipsy 228
Part V.
THE SAD CONDITION OF THE GIPSIES, WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR
IMPROVEMENT.
Gipsy Beauty and Songsters 237
Gipsy Poetry 239
Smart and Crofton 239
A Little Gipsy Girl's Letter 242
Scotch Gipsies 243
Gipsy Trickery 244
My Visit to the Gipsies at Kensal Green 248
Fortune-telling and other Sins 249
Wretched Condition of the Gipsies 254
Hungarian Gipsies 259
Visit to Cherry Island 260
The Cleanliness and Food of the Gipsies 262
A Gipsy Woman's Opinion upon Religion 264
Gipsy Faithfulness and Fidelity 264
A Visit to Hackney Marshes 266
Sickness among the Gipsies 270
A Gipsy Woman's Funeral 271
Gipsies and the Workhouse 274
Education of the Gipsy Children Sixty Years ago 274
Mission Work among the Gipsies 275
Gipsy Children upon Turnham Green and Wandsworth Common 276
Sad Condition of the Gipsy Children 277
The Hardships of the Gipsy Women 281
Efforts put forth in Hungary and other Countries 282
Things made by the Gipsies 284
Pity for the Gipsies 285
What the State has done for the Thugs 286
The Remedy 287
My 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 118
Children, 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 regarded
as a peculiar race of wandering, wastrel, ragamuffin vagabonds; the
primary object they had in view in setting out upon their shuffling,
skulking, sneaking, dark pilgrimage; whether they were driven at the
point of the sword, or allured onwards by the love of gold, designing
dark deeds of plunder, cruelty, and murder, or anxious to seek a haven of
rest; the route by which they travelled, whether over hill and dale, by
the side of the river and valley, skirting the edge of forest and dell,
delighting in the jungle, or pitching their tent in the desert, following
the shores of the ocean, or topping the mountains; whether they were
Indians, Persians, Egyptians, Ishmaelites, Roumanians, Peruvians, Turks,
Hungarians, Spaniards, or Bohemians; the end of their destination; their
religious views--if any--their habits and modes of life have been during
the last three or four centuries wrapped, surrounded, and encircled in
mystery, according to some writers who have been studying the Gipsy
character. They have been a theme upon which a "bookworm" could gloat, a
chest of secret drawers into which the curious delight to pry, a
difficult problem in Euclid for the mathematician to solve; and an
unreadable book for the author. A conglomeration of languages for the
scholar, 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 to
clear up and settle; all it aims at, as in the case of my "Cry of the
Children 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 it
will be necessary to take a glimpse at some of the leading features of
the historical part of their lives in order to get, to some extent, a
knowledge of the "little ones" whose pitiable case I have ventured to
take in hand.
Paint the words "mystery" and "secrecy" upon any man's house, and you at
once make him a riddle for the cunning, envious, and crafty to try to
solve; and this has been the case with the Gipsies for generations, and
the consequence has been, they have trotted out kings, queens, princes,
bishops, nobles, ladies and gentlemen of all grades, wise men, fools, and
fanatics, to fill their coffers, while they have been standing by
laughing in their sleeves at the foolishness of the foolish.
In Spain they were banished by repeated edicts under the severest
penalties. In Italy they were forbidden to remain more than two nights
in the same place. In Germany they were shot down like wild beasts. In
England during the reign of Elizabeth, it was felony, without the
"benefit of the clergy," to be seen in their company. The State of
Orleans decreed that they should be put to death with fire and
sword--still they kept coming.
In the last century, however, a change has come over several of the
European Governments. Maria Theresa in 1768, and Charles III. of Spain
in 1783, took measures for the education of these poor outcasts in the
habits of a civilised life with very encouraging results. The experiment
is now being tried in Russia with signal success. The emancipation of
the Wallachian Gipsies is a fact accomplished, and the best results are
being achieved.
The Gipsies have various names assigned to them in different countries.
The name of Bohemians was given to them by the French, probably on
account of their coming to France from Bohemia. Some derive the word
Bohemians from the old French word "Boem," signifying a sorcerer. The
Germans gave them the name of "Ziegeuner," or wanderers. The Portuguese
named them "Siganos." The Dutch called them "Heiden," or heathens. The
Danes and Swedes, "Tartars." In Italy they are called "Zingari." In
Turkey 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 of
their being Egyptian is entirely erroneous--their appearance, manners,
and language being totally different from those of either the Copts or
Fellahs; there are many Gipsies now in Egypt, but they are looked upon as
strangers.
Notwithstanding that edicts have been hurled against them, persecuted and
hunted like vermin during the Middle Ages, still they kept coming. Later
on, laws more merciful than in former times have taken a more humane view
of them and been contented by classing them as "vagrants and
scoundrels"--still they came. Magistrates, ministers, doctors, and
lawyers have spit their spite at them--still they came; frowning looks,
sour faces, buttoned-up pockets, poverty and starvation staring them in
the face--still they came. Doors slammed in their faces, dogs set upon
their heels, and ignorant babblers hooting at them--still they came; and
the worst of it is they are reducing our own "riff-raff" to their level.
The novelist has written about them; the preacher has preached against
them; the drunkards have garbled them over in their mouths, and yelped
out "Gipsy," and stuttered "scamp" in disgust; the swearer has sworn at
them, and our "gutter-scum gentlemen" have told them to "stand off."
These "Jack-o'-th'-Lantern," "Will-o'-th'-Wisp," "Boo-peep," "Moonshine
Vagrants," "Ditchbank Sculks," "Hedgerow Rodneys," of whom there are not
a few, are black spots upon our horizon, and are ever and anon flitting
before our eyes. A motley crowd of half-naked savages, carrion eaters,
dressed in rags, tatters, and shreds, usually called men, women, and
children, 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 of
children following in the rear; hulking men with lurcher dogs at their
heels, sauntering along in idleness, spotting out their prey; donkeys
loaded with sacks, mules with tents and sticks, and their vans and
waggons carrying ill-gotten gain and plunder; and the question arises in
the mind of those who take an interest in this singularly unfortunate
race of beings: From whence came they? How have they travelled? By what
routes did they travel? What is their condition, past and present? How
are they to be dealt with in any efforts put forth to improve their
condition? These are questions I shall in my feeble way endeavour to
solve; at any rate, the two latter questions; the first questions can be
dealt better with by abler hands than mine.
I would say, in the first place, that it is my decided conviction that
the Gipsies were neither more nor less, before they set out upon their
pilgrimage, than a pell-mell gathering of many thousands of low-caste,
good for nothing, idle Indians from Hindustan--not ashamed to beg, with
some amount of sentiment in their nature, as exhibited in their musical
tendencies and love of gaudy colours, and except in rare instances,
without any true religious motives or influences. It may be worth while
to notice that I have come to the conclusion that they were originally
from India by observing them entirely in the light given to me years ago
of the different characters of human beings both in Asia, Europe, and
Africa. Their habits, manners, and customs, to me, is a sufficient test,
without calling in the aid of the philologist to decide the point of
their originality. I may here remark that in order to get at the real
condition 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 kept
myself in ignorance upon the subject as to what various authors have said
either for or against them until I had made my inquiries and the movement
had been afloat for several months. The first work touching the Gipsy
question I ever handled was presented to me by one of the authors--Mr.
Crofton--at the close of my Social Science Congress paper read at
Manchester last October, entitled "The Dialect of the English Gipsies,"
which work, without any disrespect to the authors--and I know they will
overlook this want of respect--remained uncut for nearly two months.
With further reference to their Indian origin, the following is an
extract from "Hoyland's Historical Survey," in which the author
says:--"The Gipsies have no writing peculiar to themselves in which to
give a specimen of the construction of their dialect. Music is the only
science in which the Gipsies participate in any considerable degree; they
likewise compose, but it is after the manner of the Eastern people,
extempore." Grellmann asserts that the Hindustan language has the
greatest affinity with that of the Gipsies. He also infers from the
following consideration that Gipsies are of the lowest class of Indians,
namely, Parias, or, as they are called in Hindustan, Suders, and goes on
to say that the whole great nation of Indians is known to be divided into
four ranks, or stocks, which are called by a Portuguese name, Castes,
each of which has its own particular sub-division. Of these castes, the
Brahmins is the first; the second contains the Tschechterias, or Setreas;
the third consists of the Beis, or Wazziers; the fourth is the caste of
the above-mentioned Suders, who, upon the peninsula of Malabar, where
their condition is the same as in Hindustan, are called Parias and
Pariers. The first were appointed by Brahma to seek after knowledge, to
give instruction, and to take care of religion. The second were to serve
in war. The third were, as the Brahmins, to cultivate science, but
particularly to attend to the breeding of cattle. The caste of the
Suders was to be subservient to the Brahmins, the Tschechterias, and the
Beis. These Suders, he goes on to say, are held in disdain, and they are
considered infamous and unclean from their occupation, and they are
abhorred because they eat flesh; the three other castes living entirely
on vegetables. Baldeus says the Parias or Suders are a filthy people and
wicked crew. It is related in the "Danish Mission Intelligencer," nobody
can deny that the Parias are the dregs and refuse of all the Indians;
they are thievish, and have wicked dispositions. Neuhof assures us, "the
Parias are full of every kind of dishonesty; they do not consider lying
and cheating to be sinful." The Gipsy's solicitude to conceal his
language is also a striking Indian trait. Professor Pallas says of the
Indians round Astracan, custom has rendered them to the greatest degree
suspicious about their language. Salmon says that the nearest relations
cohabit with each other; and as to education, their children grow up in
the most shameful neglect, without either discipline or instruction. The
missionary journal before quoted says with respect to matrimony among the
Suders or Gipsies, "they act like beasts, and their children are brought
up without restraint or information." "The Suders are fond of horses, so
are the Gipsies." Grellmann goes on to say "that the Gipsies hunt after
cattle which have died of distempers in order to feed on them, and when
they can procure more of the flesh than is sufficient for one day's
consumption, they dry it in the sun. Such is the constant custom with
the Suders in India." "That the Gipsies and natives of Hindustan
resemble each other in complexion and shape is undeniable. And what is
asserted of the young Gipsy girls rambling about with their fathers, who
are musicians, dancing with lascivious and indecent gesture to divert any
person who is willing to give them a small gratuity for so acting, is
likewise perfectly Indian." Sonneratt confirms this in the account he
gives of the dancing girls of Surat. Fortune-telling is practised all
over the East, but the peculiar kind professed by the Gipsies, viz.,
chiromancy, constantly referring to whether the parties shall be rich or
poor, happy or unhappy in marriage, &c., is nowhere met with but in
India. Sonneratt says:--"The Indian smith carries his tools, his shop,
and his forge about with him, and works in any place where he can find
employment. He has a stone instead of an anvil, and his whole apparatus
is a pair of tongs, a hammer, a beetle, and a file. This is very much
like Gipsy tinkers," &c. It is usual for Parias, or Suders, in India to
have their huts outside the villages of other castes. This is one of the
leading features of the Gipsies of this country. A visit to the
outskirts of London, where the Gipsies encamp, will satisfy any one upon
this point, viz., that our Gipsies are Indians. In isolated cases a
strong religious feeling has manifested itself in certain persons of the
Bunyan type of character and countenance--a strong frame, with large,
square, massive forehead, such as Bunyan possessed; for it should be
noted that John Bunyan was a Gipsy tinker, with not an improbable mixture
of the blood of an Englishman in his veins, and, as a rule, persons of
this 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 years
in her efforts to do good among persons of her class, and also among
others, as she has travelled about the country. The exodus of the
Gipsies from India may be set down, first, to famine, of which India, as
we all know, suffers so much periodically; second, to the insatiable love
of gold and plunder bound up in the nature of the Gipsies--the West, from
an Indian point of view, is always looked upon as a land of gold, flowing
with milk and honey; third, the hatred the Gipsies have for wars, and as
in the years of 1408 and 1409, and many years previous to these dates,
India experienced some terrible bloody conflicts, when hundreds of
thousands of men, women, and children were butchered by the cruel monster
Timur Beg in cold blood, and during the tenth and eleventh centuries by
Mahmood the Demon, on purpose to make proselytes to the Mohammedan faith,
it is only natural to suppose that under those circumstances the Gipsies
would leave the country to escape the consequences following those
calamities, over-populated as it was, numbering close upon 200,000,000 of
human beings. {8} I am inclined to think that it would be hunger and
starvation upon their heels that would be the propelling power to send
them forward in quest of food. From Attock, Peshawur, Cabul, and Herat,
they would tramp through Persia by Teheran, and enter the Euphrates
Valley 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 the
river Indus, and commence their journey at Hydrabad, and travelling by
the shores of the Indian Ocean, stragglers coming in from Bunpore,
Gombaroon, the commencement of the Persian Gulf, when they would travel
by Bushino to Bassora. At this place they would begin to scatter
themselves over some parts of Arabia, making their headquarters near
Molah, Mecca, and other parts of the country, crossing over Suez, and
getting into Egypt in large numbers. Others would take the Euphrates
Valley route, which, by the way, is the route of the proposed railway to
India. Tribes branching off at Kurnah, some to Bagdad, following the
course of the river Tigris to Mosul and Diarbeker, and others would go to
Jerusalem, Damuscus, and Antioch, till they arrived at Allepo and
Alexandretta. Here may be considered the starting-point from which they
spread over Asiatic Turkey in large numbers, till they arrived before
Constantinople at the commencement of the fourteenth century.
Straggling Gipsies no doubt found their way westward prior to the wars of
Timur Beg, and in this view I am supported by the fact that two of our
own countrymen--Fitz-Simeon and Hugh the Illuminator, holy friars--on
their pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1322, called at Crete, and there
found some Gipsies--I am inclined to think only a few sent out as a kind
of advance-guard or feeler, adopting the plan they have done subsequently
in peopling Europe and England during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.
Brand, in his observations in "Popular Antiquities," is of opinion also
that the Gipsies fled from Hindustan when Timur Beg ravaged India with a
view of making Mohammedans of the heathens, and it is calculated that
during his deeds of blood he butchered 500,000 Indians. Some writers
suppose that the Gipsies, in order to escape the sword of this human
monster, came into Europe through Egypt, and on this account were called
English Gipsies.
In a paper read by Colonel Herriot before the Royal Asiatic Society, he
says that the Gipsies, or Indians--called by some Suders, by others Naths
or Benia, the first signifying rogue, the second dancer or tumbler--are
to be met in large numbers in that part of Hindustan which is watered by
the Ganges, as well as the Malwa, Gujerat, and the Deccan.
The religious crusades to the Holy Land commenced in the year 1095 and
lasted to 1270. It was during the latter part of the time of the
Crusades, and prior to the commencement of the wars by Timur Beg, that
the Gipsies flocked by hundreds of thousands to Asiatic Turkey. While
the rich merchants and princes were trying to outvie each other in their
costly equipages, grandeur, and display of gold in their pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, and the tremendous death-struggles between Christianity,
Idolatry, and Mohammedism, the Gipsies were busily engaged in singing
songs and plundering, and in this work they were encouraged by the
Persians as they passed through their territory. The Persians have
always been friendly to these wandering, loafing Indians, for we find
that 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 they
passed through on their way westward, for we do not read of their being
persecuted in these countries to anything like the extent they have been
in Europe. This, no doubt, arises from the affinity there is between the
Indian, Persian, and Gipsy races, and the dislike the Europeans have
towards idlers, loafers, liars, and thieves; and especially is this so in
England. Gipsy life may find favour in the East, but in the West the
system 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 who
puts his hands into his pocket the cat-o'-nine-tails most unmercifully.
The persecutions of the Gipsies in this country from time to time has
been brought about, to a great extent, by themselves. John Bull dislikes
keeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. He readily protects
all those who tread upon English soil, but in return for this kindness he
expects them, like bees, to be all workers. Drones, ragamuffins, and
rodneys cannot grumble if they get kicked out of the hive. If 20,000
Englishmen were to tramp all over India, Turkey, Persia, Hungary, Spain,
America, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Germany, or France, in
bands of from, say two to fifty men, women, and children, in a most
wretched; miserable condition, doing little else but fiddling upon the
national conscience and sympathies, blood-sucking the hardworking
population, and frittering their time away in idleness, pilfering, and
filth, 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 his
motley flock. If the Gipsies, and others of the same class in this
country, will begin to "buckle-to," and set themselves out for real hard
work, instead of cadging from door to door, they will find,
notwithstanding they are called Gipsies, John Bull extending to them the
hand of brotherhood and sympathy, and the days of persecution passed.
One thing is remarkable concerning the Gipsies--we never hear of their
being actually engaged in warfare. They left India for Asiatic Turkey
before the great and terrible wars broke out during the fourteenth
century, and before the great religious wars concerning the Mohammedan
faith in Turkey, during the fourteenth century, they fled to Western
Europe. Thus it will be seen that they "would sooner run a mile than
fight a minute." The idea of cold steel in open day frightens them out
of their wits. Whenever a war is about to take place in the country in
which they are located they will begin to make themselves scarce; and, on
the other hand, they will not visit a country where war is going on till
after it is over, and then, vulture-like, they swoop down upon the prey.
This feature is one of their leading characteristics; with some
honourable exceptions, they are always looked upon as long-sighted, dark,
deep, designing specimens of fallen humanity. For a number of years
prior to the capture of Constantinople by Mohammed II. in 1453 the
Gipsies had commenced to wend their way to various parts of Europe. The
200,000 Gipsies who had emigrated to Wallachia and Moldavia, their
favourite spot and stronghold, saw what was brewing, and had begun to
divide themselves into small bands. A band of 300 of these wanderers,
calling themselves Secani, appeared in 1417 at Luneburg, and in 1418 at
Basil 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. Later
on 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 at
those particular times, was, no doubt, owing to the internal troubles of
France; for it was during 1429 that Joan of Arc raised the siege of
Orleans. The Gipsies appearing in small bands in various parts of the
Continent at this particular time were, no doubt, as Mr. Groom says in
his article in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," sent forward by the main
body of Gipsies left behind in Asiatic and European Turkey, to spy out
the land whither they were anxious to bend their ways; for it was in the
year 1438, fifteen years before the terrible struggle by the Mohammedans
for 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-seven
years--except spies--they were content to remain on the Continent without
visiting our shores; probably from two causes--first, their dislike to
crossing the water; second, the unsettled state of our own country during
this period. For it should be remembered that the Wars of the Roses
commenced in 1455, Richard III. was killed at the Battle of Bosworth
Field, and in 1513 the Battle of Flodden took place in Scotland, in which
the Scots were defeated. The first appearance of the Gipsies in large
numbers in Great Britain was in Scotland in 1514, the year after the
Battle of Flodden. Another remarkable coincidence connected with their
appearance in this country came out during my inquiries; but whether
there is any foundation for it further than it is an idea floating in my
brain I have not yet been able to ascertain, as nothing is mentioned of
it in any of the writings I have perused. It seems reasonable to suppose
that the Gipsies, would retain and hand down some of their pleasant, as
well as some of the bitter, recollections of India, which, no doubt,
would at this time be mentioned to persons high in position--it should be
noted that the Gipsies at this time were favourably received at certain
head-quarters amongst merchants and princes--for we find that within
fourteen years after the landing of the Indians upon our shores attempts
were made to reach India by the North-east and North-west passages, which
proved a disastrous affair. Then, again, in 1579 Sir F. Drake's
expedition set out for India. In 1589 the Levant Company made a land
expedition, and in all probability followed the track by which the
Gipsies 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 Baltic
coast and at the mouth of the Elbe, there appeared before the gates of
Luneburg, and later on at Hamburg, Lubeck, Wirmar, Rostock, and
Stralsuna, a herd of swarthy and strange specimens of humanity, uncouth
in form, hideous in complexion, and their whole exterior shadowed forth
the lowest depths of poverty and degradation. A cloak made of the
fragments of oriental finery was generally used to disguise the filth and
tattered garments of their slight remaining apparel. The women and young
children travelled in rude carts drawn by asses or mules; the men trudged
alongside, 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 the
passers-by to their feats of jugglery, craft, and deception. Forsaking
the Baltic provinces the dusky band then sought a more friendly refuge in
central Germany--and it was quite time they had begun to make a move, for
their deeds of darkness had oozed out, and a number of them paid the
penalty upon the gallows, and the rest scampered off to Meissen, Leipsic,
and Herse. At these places they were not long in letting the inhabitants
know, by their depredations, witchcraft, devilry, and other abominations,
the class of people they had in their midst, and the result was their
speedy banishment from Germany; and in 1418, after wandering about for a
few months only, they turned their steps towards Switzerland, reaching
Zurich on August 1st, and encamped during six days before the town,
exciting much sympathy by their pious tale and sorrowful appearance. In
Switzerland the inhabitants were more gullible, and the soft parts of
their nature were easily getatable, and the consequence was the Gipsies
made a good thing of it for the space of four years. Soon after leaving
Zurich, according to Dr. Mikliosch, the wanderers divided their forces.
One detachment crossed the Botzberg and created quite a panic amongst the
peaceable inhabitants of Sisteron, who, fearing and imagining all sorts
of evils from these satanic-looking people, fed them with a hundred
loaves, and induced them, for the good of their health, to make
themselves miserably less. We next hear of them in Italy, in 1422.
After leaving Asiatic Turkey, and in their wanderings through Russia and
Germany, the Asiatic, sanctimonious, religious halo, borrowed from their
idolatrous form and notions of the worship of God in the East, had
suffered much from exposure to the civilising and Christianising
influences of the West; and the result was their leaders decided to make
a pilgrimage to Rome to regain, under the cloak of religion, some of the
self-imagined lost prestige; and in this they were, at any rate, for a
time, successful. On the 11th day of July, 1422, a leader of the
Gipsies, named Duke Andrew, arrived at Bologna, with men, women and
children, fully one hundred persons, carrying with them, as they alleged,
a decree signed by the King of Hungary, permitting them, owing to their
return to the Christian faith--stating at the same time that 4,000 had
been re-baptised--to rob without penalty or hindrance wherever they
travelled during seven years. Here these long-faced, pious hypocrites
were in clover, as a reward for their professed re-embracing
Christianity. After the expiration of this term they told the
open-mouthed inhabitants, as a kind of sweetener, that they were to
present themselves to the Pope, and then return to India--aye, with the
spoils of their lying campaign, gained by robbing and plundering all they
came in contact with. The result of their deceitful, lying expedition to
Rome was all they could wish, and they received a fresh passport from .
the Pope, asking for alms from his faithful flock on behalf of these
wretches, who have been figuring before western nations of the
world--sometimes as kings, counts, martyrs, prophets, witches, thieves,
liars, and murderers; sometimes laying their misfortunes at the door of
the King of Egypt, the Sultan of Turkey, religious persecution in India,
the King of Hungary, and a thousand other Gorgios since them. Sometimes
they would appear as renegade Christians, converted heathens, Roman
Catholics, in fact, they have been everything to everybody; and, so long
as the "grist was coming to the mill," it did not matter how or by whom
it came.
By an ordinance of the State of Orleans in the year 1560 it was enjoined
that all those impostors and vagabonds who go tramping about under the
name of Bohemians and Egyptians should quit the kingdom, on penalty of
the galleys. Upon this they dispersed into lesser companies, and spread
themselves over Europe. They were expelled from Spain in 1591. The
first time we hear of them in England in the public records was in the
year 1530, when they were described by the statute 22 Hen. VIII., cap.
10, as "an outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians. Using no
craft nor seat of merchandise, who have come into this realm and gone
from shire to shire, and place to place, in great company, and used great
subtile, crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand, that
they by palmistry could tell men's and women's fortunes, and so many
times by craft and subtilty have deceived the people of their money, and
also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies. Wherefore they
are directed to avoid the realm, and not to return under pain of
imprisonment and forfeiture of their goods and chattels; and upon their
trials for any felony which they may have committed they shall not be
entitled to a jury _de medietate linguae_." As if the above enactment
was not sufficiently strong to prevent these wretched people multiplying
in our midst and carrying on their abominable practices, it was
afterwards enacted by statutes 1 and 2 Ph., and in c. 4 and 5 Eliz., cap.
20, "that if any such person shall be imported into this kingdom, the
importer shall forfeit 40 pounds. And if the Egyptians themselves remain
one month in this kingdom, or if any person being fourteen years old
(whether natural-born subject or stranger), which hath been seen or found
in the fellowship of such Egyptians, or which hath disguised him or
herself like them, shall remain in the same one month, or if several
times it is felony, without the benefit of the clergy."
Sir Matthew Hale informs us that at the Suffolk Assizes no less than
thirteen Gipsies were executed upon these statutes a few years before the
Restoration. But to the honour of our national humanity--which at the
time 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 highest
pitch of culture and refinement--no more instances of this kind were
thrown into the balance, for the public conscience had become somewhat
awakened; 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, is
repealed; and the statute 17 George II., cap. 5, regards them under the
denomination of "rogues and vagabonds;" and such is the title given to
them 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 their
first arrival in England, which is upwards of three centuries since, a
dreadful persecution was raised against them, the aim of which was their
utter extermination--the being a Gipsy was esteemed a crime worthy of
death, and the gibbets of England groaned and creaked beneath the weight
of Gipsy carcases, and the miserable survivors were literally obliged to
creep into the earth in order to preserve their lives. But these days
passed by; their persecutors became weary of persecuting them; they
showed their heads from the caves where they had hidden themselves; they
ventured forth increased in numbers, and each tribe or family choosing a
particular circuit, they fairly divided the land amongst them.
"In England the male Gipsies are all dealers in horses [this is not
exactly the case with the Gipsies of the present day], and sometimes
employ their time in mending the tin and copper utensils of the
peasantry; the females tell fortunes. They generally pitch their tents
in the vicinity of a village or small town, by the roadside, under the
shelter of the hedges and trees. The climate of England is well known to
be favourable to beauty, and in no part of the world is the appearance of
the Gipsies so prepossessing as in that country. Their complexion is
dark, but not disagreeably so; their faces are oval, their features
regular, 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 the
cattle; and there is every reason for supposing that in none of these
points they were altogether guiltless.
"With respect to sorcery, a thing in itself impossible, not only the
English Gipsies, but the whole race, have ever professed it; therefore,
whatever misery they may have suffered on that account they may be
considered 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 which
love can be awakened in any individual towards any particular object; and
such is the credulity of the human race, even in the more enlightened
countries, that the profits arising from their practices are great. The
following is a case in point:--Two females, neighbours and friends, were
tried some years since in England for the murder of their husbands. It
appeared that they were in love with the same individual, and had
conjointly, at various times, paid sums of money to a Gipsy woman to work
charms to captivate his affection. Whatever little effect the charm
might produce, they were successful in their principal object, for the
person in question carried on for some time a criminal intercourse with
both. The matter came to the knowledge of the husbands, who, taking
means to break off this connection, were respectively poisoned by their
wives. Till the moment of conviction these wretched females betrayed
neither emotion nor fear; but then their consternation was indescribable,
when they afterwards confessed that the Gipsy who had visited them in
prison had promised to shield them from conviction by means of her art.
"Poisoning cattle is exercised by them in two ways: by one, they merely
cause disease in the animals, with the view of receiving money for curing
them upon offering their services. The poison is generally administered
by powders cast at night into the mangers of the animals. This way is
only practised upon the larger cattle, such as horses and cows. By the
other, which they practise chiefly on swine, speedy death is almost
invariably produced, the drug administered being of a highly intoxicating
nature, and affecting the brain. Then they apply at the house or farm
where the disaster has occurred for the carcase of the animal, which is
generally 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 of
view--divested of "opinions," "surmises," "technicalities,"
"similarities," certain ethnological false shadows and philological
mystifications, 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 shall
find 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 cold
blood, in India, during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries; there can be no question, also, that the 200,000,000
inhabitants, in this over-populated country, would suffer, in various
forms, the direst consequences of war, famine, and bloodshed; and, it is
more than probable, that hundreds of thousands of the idle, low-caste
Indians, too lazy to work, too cowardly to fight in open day, with no
honourable ambition or true religious instincts in their nature, other
than 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 as
England is at the present time. The Gipsies, many centuries ago, as now,
did not believe in yokes being placed round their necks. The fact of
200,000 of these emigrants, about whom, after all, there is not much
mystery, emigrating to Wallachia in such large numbers, proves to my mind
that there was a greater power behind them and before them than is
usually supposed to be the case, and than that attending wandering
minstrels, impelling them forward. Mohammedism, soldiers, and death
would not be looked upon by the Gipsies as pleasant companions. By
fleeing for their lives they escaped death, and Wallachia was to the
Gipsies, for some time, what America has been to the Fenians--an ark of
safety and the land of Nod. Many of the Gipsies themselves imagine that
they are the descendants of Ishmael, from the simple fact that it was
decreed by God, they say, that his descendants should wander about in
tents, and they were to be against everybody, and everybody against them.
This erroneous impression wants removing, or the Gipsies will never rise
in position.
In no country in the world is there so much caste feeling, devilish
jealousy, and diabolical revenge manifested as in India. These are true
types and traits of Indian character, especially of the lower orders and
those who have lost caste; the Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Roumanians,
Hungarians, and Spaniards sink into insignificance when compared with the
Afghans, Hindus, and other inhabitants of some of the worst parts of
India. Any one observing the Gipsies closely, as I have been trying to
do for some time, outside their mystery boxes, with their thin, flimsy
veil of romance and superstitious turn of their faces, will soon discover
their Indian character. Of course their intermixture with Circassians
and other nations, in the course of their travels from India, during five
or 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 for
ages through various parts of the world; and, I am sorry to say, this
little dark stream has been casting forth an unpleasant odour and a
horrible stench in our midst, which has so long been fed and augmented by
the dregs of English society from Sunday-schools and the hearthstones of
pious parents. The different nationalities to be seen among the Gipsies,
in their camps and tents, may be looked upon as so many bastard
off-shoots from the main trunk of the trees that have been met with in
their wanderings.
In no part of the globe, owing principally to our isolation, is the old
Gipsy character losing itself among the street-gutter rabble as in our
own; notwithstanding this mixture of blood and races, the diabolical
Indian elements are easily recognisable in their wigwams. Then, again,
their Indian origin can be traced in many of their social habits; among
others, they squat upon the ground differently to the Turk, Arab, and
other nationalities, who are pointed to by some writers as being the
ancestors of the Gipsies. Their tramping over the hills and plains of
India, and exposure to all the changes of the climate, has no doubt
fitted them, physically, for the kind of life they are leading in various
parts of the world. To-day Gipsies are to be found in almost every part
of the civilised countries, between the frozen regions of Siberia and the
burning sands of Africa, squatting about in their tents. The treatment
of the women and children by the men corresponds exactly with the
treatment the women and children are receiving at the hands of the
low-caste Indians. The Arabian women, the Turkish women, and Egyptian
women, may be said to be queens when set up in comparison with the poor
Gipsy woman in this country. In Turkey, Arabia, Egypt, and some other
Eastern nations, the women are kept in the background; but among the
low-caste Indians and Gipsies the women are brought to the front divested
of the modesty of those nations who claim to be the primogenitors of the
Gipsy tribes and races. Among the lower orders of Indians, from whom the
Gipsies are the outcome, most extraordinary types of characters and
countenances are to be seen. Any one visiting the Gipsy wigwams of the
present day will soon discover the relationship.
In early life, as among the Indians, some of the girls are pretty and
interesting, but with exposure, cruelty, immorality, debauchery, idle and
loose habits, the pretty, dark-eyed girl soon becomes the coarse, vulgar
woman, with the last trace of virtue blown to the winds. If any one with
but little keen sense of observation will peep into a Gipsy's tent when
the man is making pegs and skewers, and contrast him with the low-caste
Indian potter at his wheel and the carpenter at his bench--all squatting
upon the ground--he will not be long in coming to the conclusion that
they are all pretty much of the same family.
Ethnologists and philologists may find certain words used by the Gipsies
to correspond with the Indian language, and this adds another proof to
those I have already adduced; but, to my mind, this, after the lapse of
so many centuries, considering all the changes that have taken place
since the Gipsies emigrated, is not the most convincing argument, any
more than our forms of letters, the outcome of hieroglyphics, prove that
we were once Egyptians. No doubt, there are a certain few words used by
all nations which, if their roots and derivations were thoroughly looked
into, a similarity would be found in them. As America, Australia, New
Zealand, and Africa have been fields for emigrants from China and Europe
during the last century, so, in like manner, Europe was the field for
certain low-caste poor emigrants from India during the two preceding
centuries, with this difference--the emigrants from India to Europe were
idlers, loafers who sought to make their fortunes among the Europeans by
practising, without work, the most subtle arts of double-dealing, lying,
deception, thieving, and dishonesty, and the fate that attends
individuals following out such a course as this has attended the Gipsies
in all their wanderings; the consequence has been, the Gipsy emigrants,
after their first introduction to the various countries, have, by their
actions, disgusted those whom they wished to cheat and rob, hence the
treatment they have received. This cannot be said of the emigrant from
England 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 the
country where an Indian emigrant of the Gipsy tribe enters the tendency
is the reverse of this, so far as their influence is concerned--downward
to the ground and to the dogs they go. In these two cases the difference
between civilisation and Christianity and heathenism comes out to a
marked degree.
In a leading article in the _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1878, upon the
origin and wanderings of the Gipsies, the following appears:--"We next
encounter them in Corfu, probably before 1346, since there is good reason
to believe them to be indicated under the name of _homines vageniti_ in a
document emanating from the Empress Catharine of Valois, who died in that
year; certainly, about 1370, when they were settled upon a fief
recognised as the _feudum Acinganorum_ by the Venetians, who, in 1386,
succeeded to the right of the House of Valois in the island. This fief
continued to subsist under the lordship of the Barons de Abitabulo and of
the House of Prosalendi down to the abolition of feudalism in Corfu in
the beginning of the present century. There remain to be noted two
important pieces of evidence relating to this period. The first is
contained 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 to
reign in 1398. The second consists in the confirmation accorded in 1398
by the Venetian governor of Nanplion of the privileges extended by his
predecessors to the Acingani dwelling in that district. Thus we find
Gipsies wandering through Crete in 1322, settled in Corfu from 1346,
enslaved in Wallachia about 1370, protected in the Peloponnesus before
1398. Nor is there is any reason to believe that their arrival in those
countries was a recent one."
Niebuhr, in his travels through Arabia, met with hordes of these
strolling Gipsies in the warm district of Yemen, and M. Sauer in like
manner found them established in the frozen regions of Siberia. His
account of them, published in 1802, shows the Gipsy to be the same in
Northern Russia as with us in England. He describes them as follows:--"I
was surprised at the appearance of detached families throughout the
Government of Tobolsk, and upon inquiry I learned that several roving
companies of these people had strolled into the city of Tobolsk." The
governor thought of establishing a colony of them, but they were too
cunning for the simple Siberian peasant. He placed them on a footing
with the peasants, and allotted a portion of land for cultivation with a
view of making them useful members of society. They rejected houses even
in this severe climate, and preferred open tents or sheds. In Hungary
and Transylvania they dwell in tents during the summer, and for their
winter quarters make holes ten or twelve feet deep in the earth. The
women, one writer says, "deal in old clothes, prostitution, wanton
dances, and fortune-telling, and are indolent beggars and thieves. They
have few disorders except the measles and small-pox, and weaknesses in
their eyes caused by the smoke. Their physic is saffron put into their
soup, with bleeding." In Hungary, as with other nations, they have no
sense of religion, though with their usual cunning and hypocrisy they
profess the established faith of every country in which they live.
The following is an article taken from the _Saturday Review_, December
13th, 1879:--"It has been repeated until the remark has become accepted
as a sort of truism that the Gipsies are a mysterious race, and that
nothing is known of their origin. And a few years ago this was true; but
within those years so much has been discovered that at present there is
really no more mystery attached to the beginning of those nomads than is
peculiar to many other peoples. What these discoveries or grounds of
belief are we shall proceed to give briefly, our limits not permitting
the detailed citation of authorities. First, then, there appears to be
every reason for believing with Captain Richard Burton that the Jats of
North-Western India furnished so large a proportion of the emigrants or
exiles who, from the tenth century, went out of India westward, that
there is very little risk in assuming it as an hypothesis, at least, that
they formed the _Hauptstamm_ of the Gipsies of Europe. What other
elements entered into these, with whom we are all familiar, will be
considered presently. These Gipsies came from India, where caste is
established and callings are hereditary even among out-castes. It is not
assuming too much to suppose that, as they evinced a marked aptitude for
certain pursuits and an inveterate attachment to certain habits, their
ancestors had in these respects resembled them for ages. These pursuits
and habits were, that:--They were tinkers, smiths, and farriers. They
dealt in horses, and were naturally familiar with them. They were
without religion. They were unscrupulous thieves. Their women were
fortune-tellers, especially by chiromancy. They ate without scruple
animals which had died a natural death, being especially fond of the pig,
which, when it has thus been 'butchered by God,' is still regarded even
by the most prosperous Gipsies in England as a delicacy. They flayed
animals, carried corpses, and showed such aptness for these and similar
detested callings that in several European countries they long
monopolised them. They made and sold mats, baskets, and small articles
of wood. They have shown great skill as dancers, musicians, singers,
acrobats; and it is a rule almost without exception that there is hardly
a travelling company of such performers, or a theatre in Europe or
America, in which there is not at least one person with some Romany
blood. Their hair remains black to advanced age, and they retain it
longer than do Europeans or ordinary Orientals. They speak an Aryan
tongue, which agrees in the main with that of the Jats, but which
contains words gathered from other Indian sources. Admitting these as
the peculiar pursuits of the race, the next step should be to consider
what are the principal nomadic tribes of Gipsies in India and Persia, and
how far their occupations agree with those of the Romany of Europe. That
the Jats probably supplied the main stock has been admitted. This was a
bold race of North-Western India which at one time had such power as to
obtain important victories over the caliphs. They were broken and
dispersed in the eleventh century by Mahmoud, many thousands of them
wandering to the West. They were without religion, 'of the horse,
horsey,' and notorious thieves. In this they agree with the European
Gipsy. But they are not habitual eaters of _mullo balor_, or 'dead
pork;' they do not devour everything like dogs. We cannot ascertain that
the Jat is specially a musician, a dancer, a mat and basket-maker, a
rope-dancer, a bear-leader, or a pedlar. We do not know whether they are
peculiar in India among the Indians for keeping their hair unchanged to
old 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
Jat warriors 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 the
people of every country, except England, to indicate the Gipsy. An
incredible amount of far-fetched erudition has been wasted in pursuing
this philological _ignis-fatuus_. That there are leather-working and
saddle-working Gipsies in Persia who call themselves Zingan is a fair
basis for an origin of the word; but then there are Tchangar Gipsies of
Jat affinity in the Punjab. Wonderful it is that in this war of words no
philologist has paid any attention to what the Gipsies themselves say
about it. What they do say is sufficiently interesting, as it is told in
the 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 Daughter
and 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--[Greek
text]--'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 the
Gipsies or _Lury_ as follows:--"In the great Persian epic, the
'Shah-Nameh'--in 'Book of Kings,' Firdusi--relates an historical
tradition to the following effect. About the year 420 A.D., Behram Gur,
a wise and beneficent ruler of the Sassanian dynasty, finding that his
poorer subjects languished for lack of recreation, bethought himself of
some means by which to divert their spirits amid the oppressive cares of
a laborious life. For this purpose he sent an embassy to Shankal, King
of Canaj and Maharajah of India, with whom he had entered into a strict
bond of amity, requesting him to select from among his subjects and
transmit to the dominions of his Persian ally such persons as could by
their arts help to lighten the burden of existence, and lend a charm to
the monotony of toil. The result was the importation of twelve thousand
minstrels, male and female, to whom the king assigned certain lands, as
well as an ample supply of corn and cattle, to the end that, living
independently, they might provide his people with gratuitous amusement.
But at the end of one year they were found to have neglected agricultural
operations, to have wasted their seed corn, and to be thus destitute of
all means of subsistence. Then Behram Gur, being angry, commanded them
to take their asses and instruments, and roam through the country,
earning a livelihood by their songs. The poet concludes as
follows:--'The Lury, agreeably to this mandate, now wander about the
world in search of employment, associating with dogs and wolves, and
thieving on the road, by day and by night.'" These words were penned
nearly nine centuries ago, and correctly describe the condition of one of
the wandering tribes of Persia at the present day, and they have been
identified by some travellers as members of the Gipsy family.
Dr. Von Bott goes on to say this:--"The tradition of the importation of
the Lury from India is related by no less than five Persian or Arab
writers: first, about the year 940 by Hamza, an Arab historian, born at
Ispahan; next, as we have seen, by Firdusi; in the year 1126 by the
author of the 'Modjmel-al-Yevaryk;' in the fifteenth century by Mirkhoud,
the historian of the Sassanides. The transplanted musicians are called
by Hamza _Zuth_, and in some manuscripts of Mirkhoud's history the same
name occurs, written, according to the Indian orthography, _Djatt_.
These words are undistinguishable when pronounced, and, in fact, may be
looked upon as phonetically equivalent, the Arabic _z_ being the
legitimate representative of the Indian _dj_. Now Zuth or Zatt, as it is
indifferently written, is one of the designations of the Syrian Gipsies,
and Djatt is the tribal appellative of the ancient Indian race still
widely diffused throughout the Punjab and Beloochistan. Thus we find
that the modern Lury, who may, without fear of error, be classed as
Persian Gipsies, derive a traditional origin from certain Indian
minstrels called by an Arab author of the tenth century _Zuth_, and by a
Persian historian of the fifteenth, _Djatt_, a name claimed, on the one
hand by the Gipsies frequenting the neighbourhood of Damascus, and on the
other by a people dwelling in the valley of the Indus." The Djatts were
averse to religious speculation, and rejected all sectarian observances;
the Hindu was mystical and meditative, and a slave to the superstitions
of caste. From a remote period there were Djatt settlements along the
shores of the Persian Gulf, plainly indicating the route by which the
Gipsies travelled westward from India, as I have before intimated, rather
than endure the life of an Indian slave under the Mohammedan
task-masters. Liberty! liberty! free and wild as partridges, with no
disposition to earn their bread by the sweat of the brow, ran through
their nature like an electric wire, which the chirp of a hedge-sparrow in
spring-time would bring into action, and cause them to bound like wild
asses to the lanes, commons, and moors. They have always refused to
submit to the Mohammedan faith: in fact, the Djatts have accepted neither
Brahma nor Budda, and have never adopted any national religion whatever.
The church of the Gipsies, according to a popular saying in Hungary, "was
built 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 that
Inhabit the Valley of the Indus:"--"It seems probable, from the
appearance and other peculiarities of the race, that the Djatts are
connected by consanguinity with that singular race, the Gipsies." Some
writers have endeavoured to prove that the Gipsies were formerly
Egyptians; but, from several causes, they have never been able to show
conclusively that such was the case. The wandering Gipsies in Egypt, at
the present day, are not 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 of Hagar; but this argument falls to the
ground simply because the connecting links have not been found. The two
main reasons alleged by Mr. Groom and those who try to establish this
theory are, first, that the Ishmaelites are wanderers; second, that they
are smiths, or workers in iron and brass. The Mohammedans claim Ishmael
as their father, and certainly they would be in a better position to
judge upon this point eleven 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 People
of India," prepared under the authority of the Indian Government, and
edited by Dr. Forbes Watson, M.A., and Sir John William Kaye, F.R.S. In
speaking of the Changars, they say that these Indians have an unenviable
character for thieving and general dishonesty, and form one of the large
class of unsettled wanderers which, inadmissible to Hinduism and
unconverted to the Mohammedan faith, lives on in a miserable condition of
life as outcasts from the more civilised communities. Changars are, in
general, 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, and
live in small blanket or mat tents, or temporary sheds outside villages.
They are professedly Hindus and worshippers of Deree or Bhowanee, but
they make offerings at Mohammedan shrines. They have private ceremonies,
separate from those of any professed faith, which are connected with the
aboriginal belief that still lingers among the descendants of the most
ancient tribes of India, and is chiefly a propitiation of malignant
demons and malicious sprites. They marry exclusively among themselves,
and polygamy is common. In appearance, both men and women are
repulsively mean and wretched; the features of the women in particular
being very ugly, and of a strong aboriginal type. The Changars are one
of the most miserable and useless of the wandering tribes of the upper
provinces. They feed, as it were, on the garbage left by others, never
changing, never improving, never advancing in the social rank, scale, or
utility--outcast and foul parasites from the earliest ages, and they so
remain. The Changars, like other vagrants, are of dissolute habits,
indulging freely in intoxicating liquors, and smoking ganjia, or cured
hemp leaves, to a great extent. Their food can hardly be particularised,
and is usually of the meanest description; occasionally, however, there
are assemblies of the caste, when sheep are killed and eaten; and at
marriages and other domestic occurrences feasts are provided, which
usually end in foul orgies. In the clothes and person the Changars are
decidedly unclean, and indeed, in most respects the repulsiveness of the
tribes can hardly be exceeded.
The Doms are a race of Gipsies found from Central India to the far
Northern frontier, where a portion of their early ancestry appear as the
Domarr, and are supposed to be pre-Aryan. In "The People of India," we
are told that the appearance and modes of life of the Doms indicate a
marked difference from those who surround them (in Behar). The Hindus
admit their claim to antiquity. Their designation in the Shastras is
Sopuckh, meaning dog-eater. They are wanderers, they make baskets and
mats, and are inveterate drinkers of spirits, spending all their earnings
on it. They have almost a monopoly as to burning corpses and handling
all dead bodies. They eat all animals which have died a natural death,
and are particularly fond of pork of this description. "Notwithstanding
profligate habits, many of them attain the age of eighty or ninety; and
it 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 their
language would, with the exception of one word, which is probably an
error of the transcriber, be intelligible to any English Gipsy, and be
called pure Romany. Finally, the ordinary Dom calls himself a Dom, his
wife 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 we
have, 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 there
are in the Indian _Dom_ certain distinctly-marked and degrading features,
characteristic of the European Gipsy, which are out of keeping with the
habits of warriors, and of a daring Aryan race which withstood the
caliphs. Grubbing in filth as if by instinct, handling corpses, making
baskets, eating carrion, living for drunkenness, does not agree with
anything we can learn of the Jats. Yet the European Gipsies are all
this, and at the same time 'horsey' like the Jats. Is it not extremely
probable that during the "out-wandering" the Dom communicated his name
and habits to his fellow-emigrants?
The marked musical talent characteristic of the Slavonian and other
European Gipsies appears to link them with the Luri of Persia. These are
distinctly Gipsies; that is to say, they are wanderers, thieves,
fortune-tellers, and minstrels. The Shah-Nameh of Firdusi tells us that
about the year 420 A.D., Shankal, the Maharajah of India, sent to Behram
Gour, a ruler of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia, ten thousand minstrels,
male and female, called _Luri_. Though lands were allotted to them, with
corn 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 in
Beloochistan and Scinde," p. 153.] "They speak a dialect peculiar to
themselves, have a king to each troupe, and are notorious for kidnapping
and pilfering. Their principal pastimes are drinking, dancing, and
music. . . . They are invariably attended by half a dozen of bears and
monkeys that are broken in to perform all manner of grotesque tricks. In
each company there are always two or three members who profess . . .
modes of divining which procure them a ready admission into every
society." This account, especially with the mention of trained bears and
monkeys, identifies them with the Ricinari, or bear-leading Gipsies of
Syria (also called Nuri), Turkey, and Roumania. A party of these lately
came to England. We have seen these Syrian Ricinari in Egypt. They are
unquestionably Gipsies, and it is probable that many of them accompanied
the early migration of Jats and Doms.
The following is the description of another low-caste, wandering tribe of
Indians, taken from "The People of India," called "Sanseeas," vagrants of
no particular creed, and make their head-quarters near Delhi. The
editor, speaking of this tribe, says that they have been vagrants from
the earliest periods of Indian history. They may have accompanied Aryan
immigrants or invaders, or they may have risen out of aboriginal tribes;
but whatever their origin, they have not altered in any respect, and
continue to prey upon its population as they have ever done, and will
continue to do as long as they are in existence, unless they are forcibly
restrained by our Government and converted, as the Thugs have been, into
useful members of society.
They are essentially outcasts, admitted to no other caste fellowship,
ministered to by no priests, without any ostensible calling or
profession, totally ignorant of everything but their hereditary crime,
and with no settled place of residence whatever; they wander as they
please over the land, assuming any disguise they may need, and for ever
preying upon the people. When they are not engaged in acts of crime,
they are beggars, assuming various religious forms, or affecting the most
abject poverty. The women and children have the true whine of the
professional mendicant, as they frequent thronged bazaars, receiving
charity and stealing what they can. They sell mock baubles in some
instances, but only as a cloak to other enterprises, and as a pretence of
an honest calling. The men are clever at assuming disguises; and being
often intelligent and even polite in their demeanour, can become
religious devotees, travelling merchants, or whatever they need to
further their ends. They are perfectly unscrupulous and very daring in
their proceedings. The Sanseeas are not only Thugs and Dacoits, but
kidnappers of children, and in particular of female children, who are
readily sold even at very tender ages to be brought up as household
slaves, or to be educated by professional classes for the purpose of
prostitution. These crimes are the peculiar offence of the women members
of the tribe. Generally a few families in company wander over the whole
of Northern India, but are also found in the Deccan, sometimes by
themselves, sometimes in association with Khimjurs, or a class of
Dacoits, called Mooltanes. It is, perhaps, a difficult question for
Government to deal with, but it is not impossible, as the Thugs have been
employed in useful and profitable arts, and thus reclaimed from pursuits
in which they have never known in regard to others the same instincts of
humanity which exist among ourselves. Sanseeas have as many wives and
concubines as they can support. Some of the women are good-looking, but
with all classes, women and men, exists an appearance of suspicion in
their features which is repulsive. They are, as a class, in a condition
of miserable poverty, living from hand to mouth, idle, disreputable,
restless, without any settled homes, and for the most part without even
habitations. They have no distinct language of their own, but speak a
dialect of Rajpootana, which is disguised by slang or _argot_ terms of
their own that is unintelligible to other classes. In "The People of
India" mention is made of another class of wandering Indians, called
Nuts, or Naths, who correspond to the European Gipsy tribes, and like
these, have no settled home. They are constant thieves. The men are
clever as acrobats. The women attend their performances, and sing or
play on native drums or tambourines. The Nuts do not mix with or
intermarry with other tribes. They live for the most part in tents made
of black blanket stuff, and move from village to village through all
parts of the country. They are as a marked race, and generally
distrusted wherever they go.
They are musicians, dancers, conjurers, acrobats, fortune-tellers,
blacksmiths, robbers, and dwellers in tents. They eat everything, except
garlic. There are also in India the Banjari, who are spoken of by
travellers as "Gipsies." They are travelling merchants or pedlars.
Among all of these wanderers there is a current slang of the roads, as in
England. 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 and
Central India a distinct tribe, which is regarded even by the Nats and
Doms and Jats themselves, as peculiarly and distinctly Gipsy. "We have
met," says one writer, "in London with a poor Mohammedan Hindu of
Calcutta. This man had in his youth lived with these wanderers, and
been, in fact, one of them. He had also, as is common with intelligent
Mohammedans, written his autobiography, embodying in it a vocabulary of
the Indian Gipsy language. This MS. had unfortunately been burned by his
English wife, who informed the writer that she had done so 'because she
was tired of seeing a book lying about which she could not understand.'
With the assistance of an eminent Oriental scholar who is perfectly
familiar with both Hindustani and Romany, this man was carefully
examined. He declared that these were the real Gipsies of India, 'like
English Gipsies here.' 'People in India called them Trablus or Syrians,
a misapplied word, derived from a town in Syria, which in turn bears the
Arabic name for Tripoli. But they were, as he was certain, pure Hindus,
and not Syrian Gipsies. They had a peculiar language, and called both
this tongue and themselves _Rom_. In it bread was called Manro.' Manro
is all over Europe the Gipsy word for _bread_. In English Romany it is
softened into _maro_ or _morro_. Captain Burton has since informed us
that _manro_ is the Afghan word for bread; but this our ex-Gipsy did not
know. He merely said that he did not know it in any Indian dialect
except 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 any
connection with the migration to the West we cannot establish. Their
language and their name would seem to indicate it; but then it must be
borne 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 majority
of even English Gipsy words are Hindu, with an admixture of Persian, and
not 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 be
among the first to be furnished with slang equivalents. And yet these
very Gipsies are _Rom_, and the wife is a _Romni_, and they use words
which are not Hindu in common with European Gipsies. It is therefore not
improbable that in these Trablus, so called through popular ignorance, as
they are called Tartars in Egypt and Germany, we have a portion at least
of the real stock. It is to be desired that some resident in India would
investigate the Trablus.
Grellmann in his German treatise on Gipsies, says:--"They are lively,
uncommonly loquacious and chattering, fickle in the extreme, consequently
inconstant in their pursuits, faithless to everybody, even their own kith
and kin, void of the least emotion of gratitude, frequently rewarding
benefits with the most insidious malice. Fear makes them slavishly
compliant when under subjection, but having nothing to apprehend, like
other timorous people, they are cruel. Desire of revenge often causes
them to take the most desperate resolutions. To such a degree of
violence is their fury sometimes excited, that a mother has been known in
the excess of passion to take her small infant by the feet, and therewith
strike the object of her anger. They are so addicted to drinking as to
sacrifice what is most necessary to them that they may feast their
palates with ardent spirits. Nothing can exceed the unrestrained
depravity of manners existing among them. Unchecked by any idea of shame
they give way to every libidinous desire. The mother endeavours by the
most scandalous arts to train up her daughter for an offering to
sensuality, and she is scarcely grown up before she becomes the seducer
of others. Laziness is so prevalent among them that were they to subsist
by their own labour only, they would hardly have bread for two of the
seven days in the week. This indolence increases their propensity to
stealing and cheating. They seek to avail themselves of every
opportunity to satisfy their lawless desires. Their universal bad
character, therefore, for fickleness, infidelity, ingratitude, revenge,
malice, rage, depravity, laziness, knavery, thievishness, and cunning,
though not deficient in capacity and cleverness, renders them people of
no use in society. The boys will run like wild things after carrion, let
it 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 violent
their language under its impulse, that it is woe to the man who comes
within their clutches, if he does not possess an amount of tact
sufficient to cope with them. A man who desires to tackle the Gipsies
must have his hands out of his pockets, "all his buttons on," "his head
screwed upon the right place," and no fool, or he will be swamped before
he 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 showing
Gipsy life round London; these, it seems, with the truthful description I
have given of the Gipsies, in my letters, papers, &c., encouraged by the
untruthful, silly, and unwise remarks of a clergyman, not overdone with
too much wisdom and common sense, residing in the neighbourhood of N---
Hill, seemed to have raised the ire of the Gipsies in the neighbour hood
of L--- Road (I will not go so far as to say that the minister of Christ
Church did it designedly, if he did, and with the idea of stopping the
work of education among the Gipsy children--it is certain that this
farthing rushlight has mistaken his calling) to such an extent that a
friend wrote to me, stating that the next time I went to the
neighbourhood of N--- Hill I "must look out for a warm reception," to
which I replied, that "the sooner I had it the better, and I would go for
it 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 approach
towards them, I was met with sour looks, scowls, and not over polite
language, but with a little pleasantry, chatting, and a few little
things, such as Christmas cards, oranges to give to the children, the sun
began 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 the
colour and expression upon his face of his satanic majesty from the
regions below. It took me all my time to smile and say kind things while
he was pacing up and down opposite his tent, with his hands clenched, his
eye like fire, step quick, reminding me of Indian revenge. He was
speaking out in no unmistakable language, "I should like to see you hung
like a toad by the neck till you are dead, that I should, and I mean it
from my heart." When I asked him to point out anything I had said or
done 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 would
thrust his hands into his pockets, as if feeling for his clasp-knife, and
then again, occasionally, he would give a shrug of the shoulders, as if
he felt not at all satisfied. I felt in my pocket, and opened my small
penknife. 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-dozen
better men than he was if they would come one at a time, but did not
think I could tackle them all at once." This caused him to open his eyes
wider than I had seen them before, as if in wonder and amazement at the
kind of fellow he had come in contact with. I told him I was afraid that
he would find me a queer kind of customer. Gipsies as a rule are
cowards, 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 the
sake of pillage, plunder, and gain remains the same to-day as it did
eight centuries ago. They do not generally resort to open violence as
the brigands of Spain, Turkey and other parts of the East. They follow
out 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 where
the 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 evil
disposition can devise to bear upon the weak points till they are
successful. When Mahmood was returning with his victorious army from the
war in the eleventh century with the spoils and plunder of war upon their
backs, and while the soldiers were either lain down to rest or allured
away with the Gipsy girls' "witching eyes," the old Gipsies, numbering
some hundreds, who where camping in the neighbourhood, bolted off with
their war prizes; this so enraged Mahmood, after finding out that he had
been sold by a lot of low-caste Indians or Gipsies, that he sent his army
after 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; at
other times they will dress their prettiest girls in Oriental finery and
gaudy colours on purpose to catch the unwary; at other times they will
try to lay hold of the sympathic by sending out their old women and
tottering men dressed in rags; and at other times they will endeavour to
lay hold of the benevolent by sending out women heavily laden with
babies, and in this way they have Gipsyised and are still Gipsyising our
own country from the time they landed in Scotland in the year 1514, until
they besieged London now more than two centuries ago, planting their
encampments in the most degraded parts on the outskirts of our great
city; and this holds good of them even to this day. They are never to be
seen living in the throng of a town or in the thick of a fight. In
sketching the plan of campaigning for the day, the girls with pretty
"everlasting flowers" go in one direction, the women with babies tackle
the tradesmen and householders by selling skewers, clothes-pegs, and
other useful things, but in reality to beg, and the old women with the
assistance of the servant girls face the brass knockers through the back
kitchen. The men are all this time either loitering about the tents or
skulking down the lanes spotting out their game for the night, with their
lurcher dogs at their heels. Thus the Gipsy lives and thus the Gipsy
dies, and is buried like a dog; his tent destroyed, and his soul flown to
another world to await the reckoning day. He can truthfully say as he
leaves his tenement of clay behind, "No man careth for my soul." Charles
Wesley, no doubt, in his day, had seen vast numbers of these wandering
English heathens in various parts of the country as he travelled about on
his missionary tour, and it is not at all improbable but that they were
in his mind when those soul-inspiring, elevating, and tear-fetching lines
were penned by him in 1748, and first published by subscription in his
"Hymns and Sacred Poems," 2 vols., 1749, the profits of which enabled him
to get a wife and set up housekeeping on his own account at Bristol.
They are words that have healed thousands of broken hearts, fixed the
hopes of the downcast on heaven, and sent the sorrowful on his way
rejoicing; and they are words that will live as long as there is a
Methodist 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 that
are outside Europe. Many travellers have attempted to form some idea of
the number, and have come to the conclusion that there were not less than
3,000 families in Persia in 1856, and in 1871 there were not less than
67,000 Gipsies in Armenia and Asiatic Turkey. In Egypt of one tribe only
there are 16,000. With regard to the number of Gipsies there are in
America no one has been able to compute; but by this time the number must
be considerable, for stragglers have been wending their way there from
England, Europe, and other parts of the world for some time.
Mikliosch, in 1878, stated that there are not less than 700,000 in
Europe. Turkey, previous to the war with Russia, 104,750, Bosnia and
Herzegovina in 1874 contained 9,537. Servia in 1874 had 24,691; in 1873
Montenegro had 500, and in Roumania there are at the present time from
200,000 to 300,000. According to various official estimates in Austria
there are about 10,000, and in 1846 Bohemia contained 13,500, and Hungary
159,000. In Transylvania in 1850 there were 78,923, and in Hungary
proper there were in 1864, 36,842. In Spain there are 40,000; in France
from 3,000 to 6,000; in Germany and Italy, 34,000; Scandinavia, 1,500; in
Russia they numbered in 1834, 48,247, exclusive of Polish Gipsies. Ten
years later they numbered 1,427,539, and in 1877 the number is given as
11,654. It seems somewhat strange that the number of Gipsies should be
in 1844, 1,427,539, and thirty-five years later the number should have
been reduced to 11,654. Presuming these figures to be correct, the
question arises, What has become of the 1,415,885 during the last
thirty-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 say
this:--"It has come to the knowledge of the writer what foundation there
has been for the report commonly circulated that a member of Parliament
had stated in the House of Commons, when speaking on some question
relating to Ireland, that there were not less than 36,000 Gipsies in
Great Britain.
"To make up such an aggregate the numerous hordes must have been included
who traverse most of the nation with carts and asses for the sale of
earthenware, and live out of doors great part of the year, after the
manner of the Gipsies. These potters, as they are commonly called,
acknowledge that Gipsies have intermingled with them, and their habits
are 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-hawking
families of this description who visited the earthenware manufactories at
Tunstall, Burslem, Longport, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Fenton, Longton, and
other places in Staffordshire, but without success.
Borrow, in his time, 1843, put the number as upwards of 10,000. The last
census shows that there were under 4,000; but then it should be borne in
mind that the Gipsies decidedly objected to their numbers being taken.
Their reason for taking this step and putting obstacles in the way of the
census-takers has never been stated, except that they looked upon it with
a superstitious regard and dislike, the same as they look upon
photographers, painters, and artists, as kind of _Bengaw_, for whom Gipsy
models will sit for _soonakei_, _Roopeno_, or even a _posh-hovi_. They
told me that during the day the census was taken they made it a point to
always be upon the move, and skulking about in the dark. The census
returns for the number of canal-boatmen gives under 12,000. The Duke of
Richmond stated in the House of Lords, August 8, 1877, that there were
between 29,000 and 80,000 canal boatmen. The number I published in the
daily papers in 1873, viz., 100,000 men, women, and children is being
verified as the Canal Boats Act is being put into operation.
At a pretty good rough estimate I reckon there are at least from 15,000
to 20,000 Gipsies in the United Kingdom. Apart from London, if I may
take ten of the Midland counties as a fair average, there are close upon
3,000 Gipsy families living in tents and vans in the by-lanes, and
attending fairs, shows, &c.; and providing there are only man, wife, and
four children connected with each charmless, cheerless, wretched abodes
called domiciles, this would show us 18,000; and judging from my own
inquiries and observation, and also from the reliable statements of
others who have mixed among them, there are not less than 2,000 on the
outskirts of London in various nooks, corners, and patches of open
spaces. Thus it will be seen, according to this statement, we shall have
1,000 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 the
country; 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 our
midst, 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 three
children. A considerable number of Gipsies would also be at Nottingham,
for the Goose Fair was on about the same time. One gentleman tells me
that he has seen as many as 5,000 Gipsies collected together at one time
in the North of England.
Of this 20,000, 19,500 cannot read a sentence and write a letter. The
highest 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 the
mile-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 loitering
about the tents and camps, and not learning a single letter in the
alphabet. The others mostly will tell you that they have "finished their
education," and when questioned on the point and asked to put three
letters together, you put them into a corner, and they are as dumb as
mutes. Of the whole number of Gipsy children probably a few hundreds
might be attending Sunday-schools, and picking up a few crumbs of
education in this way. Then, again, we have some 1,500 to 2,000 families
of our own countrymen travelling about the country with their families
selling hardware and other goods, from Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham,
Leeds, Leicester, the Staffordshire potteries, and other manufacturing
towns, from London, Liverpool, Nottingham, and other places, the children
running wild and forgetting in the summer, as a show-woman told me, the
little education they receive in the winter.
Caravans will be moving about in our midst with "fat babies," "wax-work
models," "wonders of the age," "the greatest giant in the world," "a
living skeleton," "the smallest man alive," "menageries," "wild beast
shows," "rifle galleries," and like things connected with these caravans;
there will be families of children, none of whom, or at any rate but very
few of them, are receiving an education and attending any school, and
living together regardless of either sex or age, in one small van. In
addition to these, we have some 3,000 or 4,000 children of school age "on
the road" tramping with their parents, who sleep in common
lodging-houses, and who might be brought under educational supervision on
the plan I shall suggest later on in this book. Altogether, with the
Gipsies, we have a population of over 30,000 outside our educational and
sanitary laws, fast drifting into a state of savagery and barbarism, with
our 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 forty
years ago, I remember most vividly that the popular song of the
_employes_ 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 in
singing these lines was always looked upon as a "stupid donkey," and the
consequence was that upon all occasions, when excitement was needed as a
whip, they were "struck up;" especially would it be the case when the
limbs of the little brick and clay carrier began to totter and were
"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 and
wenches, strike up with the:
"'In the days we went a-gipsying, a long time ago.'"
And as a result more work was ground out of the little English slave.
Those words made such an impression upon me at the time that I used to
wonder what "gipsying" meant. Somehow or other I imagined that it was
connected with fortune-telling, thieving and stealing in one form or
other, especially as the lads used to sing it with "gusto" when they had
been robbing the potato field to have "a potato fuddle," while they were
"oven tenting" in the night time. Roasted potatoes and cold turnips were
always looked upon as a treat for the "brickies." I have often vowed and
said many times that I would, if spared, try to find out what "gipsying"
really was. It was a puzzle I was always anxious to solve. Many times I
have been like the horse that shies at them as they camp in the ditch
bank, half frightened out of my wits, and felt anxious to know either
more or less of them. From the days when carrying clay and loading
canal-boats was my toil and "gipsying" my song, scarcely a week has
passed 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. In
meditation and solitude; by night and by day; at the top of the hill, and
down deep in the dale; in the throng and battle of life; at the deathbed
scene; through evil report and good report these words, "In the days we
went a-gipsying," were ever and anon at my tongue's end. The other part
of the song I quickly forgot, but these words have stuck to me ever
since. On purpose to try to find out what fortune-telling was, when in
my teens I used to walk after working hours from Tunstall to Fenton, a
distance of six miles, to see "old Elijah Cotton," a well-known character
in the Potteries, who got his living by it, to ask him all sorts of
questions. Sometimes he would look at my hands, at other times he would
put my hand into his, and hold it while he was reading out of the Bible,
and burning something like brimstone-looking powder--the forefinger of
the other hand had to rest upon a particular passage or verse; at other
times he would give me some of this yellow-looking stuff in a small paper
to wear against my left breast, and some I had to burn exactly as the
clock struck twelve at night, under the strictest secrecy. The stories
this fortune-teller used to relate to me as to his wonderful power over
the spirits of the other world were very amusing, aye, and over "the men
and women of this generation." He was frequently telling me that he had
"fetched men from Manchester in the dead of the night flying through the
air in the course of an hour;" and this kind of rubbish he used to relate
to those who paid him their shillings and half-crowns to have their
fortunes told. My visits lasted for a little time till he told me that
he could do nothing more, as I was "not one of his sort." Like Thomas
called Didymus, "hard of belief." Except an occasional glance at the
Gipsies as I have passed them on the road-side, the subject has been
allowed to rest until the commencement of last year, when I mentioned the
matter to my friends, who, in reply, said I should find it a difficult
task; this had the effect of causing a little hesitation to come over my
sensibilities, and in this way, between hesitation and doubt, matters
went on till one day in July last year, when the voice of Providence and
the wretched condition of the Gipsy children seemed to speak to me in
language that I thought it would be perilous to disregard. On my return
home one evening I found a lot of Gipsies in the streets; it struck me
very forcibly that the time for action had now arrived, and with this
view in mind I asked Moses Holland--for that was his name, and he was the
leader of the gang--to call into my house for some knives which required
grinding, and while his mate was grinding the knives, for which I had to
pay two shillings, I was getting all the information I could out of him
about the Gipsy children--this with some additional information given to
me by Mr. Clayton and several other Gipsies at Ashby-de-la-Zouch,
together with a Gipsy woman's tale to my wife, mentioned in my "Cry of
the Children from the Brick-yards of England," brought forth my first
letter upon the condition of the poor Gipsy children as it appeared in
the _Standard_, _Daily Chronicle_, and nearly every other daily paper on
August 14th of last year:--"Some years since my attention was drawn to
the condition of these poor neglected children, of whom there are many
families eking out an existence in the Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and
Staffordshire lanes. Two years since a pitiful appeal was made in one of
our local papers asking me to take up the cause of the poor Gipsy
children; but I have deferred doing so till now, hoping that some one
with time and money at his disposal would come to the rescue. Sir, a few
weeks since our legislators took proper steps to prevent the maiming of
the little show children, who are put through excruciating practices to
please a British public, and they would have done well at the same time
if they had taken steps to prevent the warping influence of a vagrant's
life having its full force upon the tribes of little Gipsy children,
dwelling in calico tents, within the sound of church bells--if living
under the body of an old cart, protected by patched coverlets, can be
called living in tents--on the roadside in the midst of grass, sticks,
stones, and mud; and they would have done well also if they had put out
their hand to rescue from idleness, ignorance, and heathenism our
roadside arabs, _i.e._, the children living in vans, and who attend
fairs, wakes, &c. Recently I came across some of these wandering tribes,
and the following facts gleaned from them will show that missionaries and
schoolmasters have not done much for them. Moses Holland, who has been a
Gipsy nearly all his life, says he knows about two hundred and fifty
families of Gipsies in ten of the Midland counties and thinks that a
similar proportion will be found in the rest of the United Kingdom. He
has seen as many as ten tents of Gipsies within a distance of five miles.
He thinks there will be an average of five children in each tent. He has
seen as many as ten or twelve children in some tents, and not many of
them able to read or write. His child of six months old--with his wife
ill at the same time in the tent--sickened, died, and was 'laid out' by
him, and it was also buried out of one of those wretched abodes on the
roadside at Barrow-upon-Soar, last January. When the poor thing died he
had not sixpence in his pocket. In shaking hands with him as we parted
his face beamed with gladness, and he said that I was the first who had
held out the hand to him during the last twenty years. At another time
later on I came across Bazena Clayton, who said that she had had sixteen
children, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in a
roadside tent. She says that she was married out of one of these tents;
and her brother died and was buried out of a tent at Packington, near
Ashby-de-la-Zouch. This poor woman knows about three hundred families of
Gipsies in eleven of the Midland and Eastern counties, and has herself,
so she says, four lots of Gipsies travelling in Lincolnshire at the
present time. She said she could not read herself, and thinks that not
one Gipsy in twenty can. She has travelled all her life. Her mother,
named Smith, of whom there are not a few, is the mother of fifteen
children, all of whom were born in a tent. A Gipsy lives, but one can
scarcely tell how; they generally locate for a time near hen-roosts,
potato-camps, turnip-fields, and game-preserves. They sell a few
clothes-lines and clothes-pegs, but they seldom use such things
themselves. Washing would destroy their beauty. Telling fortunes to
servant girls and old maids is a source of income to some of them. They
sleep, but in many instances lie crouched together, like so many dogs,
regardless of either sex or age. They have blood, bone, muscle, and
brains, which are applied in many instances to wrong purposes. To have
between three and four thousand men and women, and fifteen thousand
children classed in the census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming all
over the country, in ignorance and evil training, that carries peril with
it, is not a pleasant look-out for the future; and I claim on the grounds
of justice and equity, that if these poor children, living in vans and
tents and under old carts, are to be allowed to live in these places,
they shall be registered in a manner analogous to the Canal Boats Act of
1877, so that the children may be brought under the Compulsory Clauses of
the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised as other
children."
The foregoing letter, as it appeared in the _Standard_, brought forth the
following leading article upon the subject the following day, August
15th, in which the writer says:--"We yesterday published a letter from
Mr. George Smith, whose efforts to ameliorate and humanise the floating
and transitory population of our canals and navigable rivers have already
borne good fruit, in which he calls attention to the deserted and almost
hopeless lot of English Gipsy children. Moses Holland--the Hollands are
a Gipsy family almost as old as the Lees or the Stanleys, and a Holland
always holds high rank among the 'Romany' folk--assures Mr. Smith that in
ten of the Midland counties he knows some two hundred and fifty families
of Gipsies, and that none of their children can read or write. Bazena
Clayton, an old lady of caste, almost equal to that of a Lee or a
Holland, confirms the story. She has lived in tents all her life. She
was born in a tent, married from a tent, has brought up a family of
sixteen children, more or less, under the same friendly shelter, and
expects to breathe her last in a tent. That she can neither read nor
write goes without saying; although doubtless she knows well enough how
to 'kair her patteran,' or to make that strange cross in the dust which a
true Gipsy alway leaves behind him at his last place of sojourn, as a
mark for those of his tribe who may come upon his track. 'Patteran,' it
may be remarked, is an almost pure Sanscrit word cognate with our own
'path;' and the least philological raking among the chaff of the Gipsy
dialect will show their secret _argot_ to be, as Mr. Leland calls it, 'a
curious old tongue, not merely allied to Sanscrit, but perhaps in point
of age an elder though vagabond sister or cousin of that ancient
language.' No Sanscrit or even Greek scholar can fail to be struck by
the fact that, in the Gipsy tongue, a road is a 'drum,' to see is to
'dicker,' to get or take to 'lell,' and to go to 'jall;' or, after
instances so pregnant, to agree with Professor von Kogalnitschan that 'it
is interesting to be able to study a Hindu dialect in the heart of
Europe.' Mr. Smith, however, being a philanthropist rather than a
philologist, takes another view of the question. His anxiety is to see
the Gipsies--and especially the Gipsy children--reclaimed. 'A Gipsy,' he
reminds us, 'lives, but one can scarcely tell how; they generally locate
for a time near hen-roosts, potato-camps, turnip-fields, and
game-preserves. They sell a few clothes-lines and clothes-pegs; but they
seldom use such things themselves. Washing would destroy their beauty
. . . To have between three and four thousand men and women, and eight or
ten thousand children, classed in the census as vagrants and vagabonds,
roaming all over the country in ignorance and evil training, is not a
pleasant look-out for the future; and I claim that if these poor
children, living in vans and tents and under old carts, are to be allowed
to live in these places, they shall be registered in a manner analogous
to the Canal Boats Act, so that the children may be brought under the
Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised.'
"Mr. Smith, it is to be feared, hardly appreciates the insuperable
difficulty of the task he proposes. The true Gipsy is absolutely
irreclaimable. He was a wanderer and a vagabond upon the face of the
earth before the foundations of Mycenae were laid or the plough drawn to
mark out the walls of Rome; and such as he was four thousand years ago or
more, such he still remains, speaking the same tongue, leading the same
life, cherishing the same habits, entertaining the same wholesome or
unwholesome hatred of all civilisation, and now, as then, utterly devoid
of even the simplest rudiments of religious belief. His whole attitude
of mind is negative. To him all who are not Gipsies, like himself, are
'Gorgios,' and to the true Gipsy a 'Gorgio' is as hateful as is a 'cowan'
to a Freemason. It would be interesting to speculate whether, when the
Romany folk first began their wanderings, the 'Gorgios' were not--as the
name would seem to indicate--the farmers or permanent population of the
earth; and whether the nomad Gipsy may not still hate the 'Gorgio' as
much as Cain hated Abel, Ishmael Isaac, and Esau Jacob. Certain in any
case it is that the Gipsy, however civilised he may appear, remains, as
Mr. Leland describes him, 'a character so entirely strange, so utterly at
variance with our ordinary conceptions of humanity, that it is no
exaggeration whatever to declare that it would be a very difficult task
for the best writer to convey to the most intelligent reader any idea of
such a nature.' The true Gipsy is, to begin with, as devoid of
superstition as of religion. He has no belief in another world, no fear
of a future state, nor hope for it, no supernatural object of either
worship or dread--nothing beyond a few old stories, some Pagan, some
Christian, which he has picked up from time to time, and to which he
holds--much as a child holds to its fairy tales--uncritically and
indifferently. Ethical distinctions are as unknown to him as to a kitten
or a magpie. He is kindly by nature, and always anxious to please those
who treat him well, and to win their affection. But the distinction
between affection and esteem is one which he cannot fathom; and the
precise shade of _meum_ and _tuum_ is as absolutely unintelligible to him
as was the Hegelian antithesis between _nichts_ and _seyn_ to the late
Mr. John Stuart Mill. To make the true Gipsy we have only to add to this
an absolute contempt for all that constitutes civilisation. The Gipsy
feels a house, or indeed anything at all approaching to the idea of a
permanent dwelling, to amount to a positive restraint upon his liberty.
He can live on hedgehog and acorns--though he may prefer a fowl and
potatoes not strictly his own. Wherever a hedge gives shelter he will
roll himself up and sleep. And it is possibly because he has no property
of his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property in
others. But above all, his tongue--the weird, corrupt, barbarous
Sanscrit 'patter' or 'jib,' known only to himself and to those of his
blood--is the keynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that
has been made to fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to
'Gorgios'--a few experts such as Mr. Borrow alone excepted. But wherever
the true Gipsy goes he carries his tongue with him, and a Romany from
Hungary, ignorant of English as a Chippeway or an Esquimaux, will
'patter' fluently with a Lee, a Stanley, a Locke, or a Holland, from the
English Midlands, and make his 'rukkerben' at once easily understood.
Nor is this all, for there are certain strange old Gipsy customs which
still constitute a freemasonry. The marriage rites of Gipsies are a
definite and very significant ritual. Their funeral ceremonies are
equally remarkable. Not being allowed to burn their dead, they still
burn the dead man's clothes and all his small property, while they mourn
for him by abstaining--often for years--from something of which he was
fond, and by taking the strictest care never to even mention his name.
"What are we to do with children in whom these strange habits and
beliefs, or rather wants of belief, are as much part of their nature as
is their physical organisation? Darwin has told us how, after
generations had passed, the puppy with a taint of the wolf's blood in it
would never come straight to its master's feet, but always approach him
in a semicircle. Not Kuhleborhn nor Undine herself is less susceptible
of alien culture than the pure-blooded Gipsy. We can domesticate the
goose, we can tame the goldfinch and the linnet; but we shall never
reclaim the guinea-fowl, or accustom the swallow to a cage. Teach the
Gipsy to read, or even to write; he remains a Gipsy still. His love of
wandering is as keen as is the instinct of a migratory bird for its
annual passage; and exactly as the prisoned cuckoo of the first year will
beat itself to death against its bars when September draws near, so the
Gipsy, even when most prosperous, will never so far forsake the
traditions of his tribe as to stay long in any one place. His mind is
not as ours. A little of our civilisation we can teach him, and he will
learn it, as he may learn to repeat by rote the signs of the zodiac or
the multiplication table, or to use a table napkin, or to decorously
dispose of the stones in a cherry tart. But the lesson sits lightly on
him, and he remains in heart as irreclaimable as ever. Already, indeed,
our Gipsies are leaving us. They are not dying out, it is true. They
are making their way to the Far West, where land is not yet enclosed,
where game is not property, where life is free, and where there is always
and everywhere room to 'hatch the tan' or put up the tent. Romany will,
in all human probability, be spoken on the other side of the Atlantic
years after the last traces of it have vanished from amongst ourselves.
We begin even now to miss the picturesque aspects of Gipsy life--the
tent, the strange dress, the nomadic habits. English Gipsies are no
longer pure and simple vagrants. They are tinkers, or scissor-grinders,
or basket-makers, or travel from fair to fair with knock-'em-downs, or
rifle galleries, or itinerant shows. Often they have some ostensible
place of residence. But they preserve their inner life as carefully as
the Jews in Spain, under the searching persecution of the Inquisition,
preserved their faith for generation upon generation; and even now it is
a belief that when, for the sake of some small kindness or gratuity, a
Gipsy woman has allowed her child to be baptised, she summons her
friends, and attempts to undo the effect of the ceremony by subjecting
the infant to some weird, horrible incantation of Eastern origin, the
original import of which is in all probability a profound mystery to her.
There is a quaint story of a Yorkshire Gipsy, a prosperous horse-dealer,
who, becoming wealthy, came up to town, and, amongst other sights, was
shown a goldsmith's window. His sole remark was that the man must be a
big thief indeed to have so many spoons and watches all at once. The
expression of opinion was as naive and artless as that of Blucher, when
observing that London was a magnificent city 'for to sack.' Mr. Smith's
benevolent intentions speak for themselves. But if he hopes to make the
Gipsy ever other than a Gipsy, to transform the Romany into a Gorgio, of
to alter habits of life and mind which have remained unchanged for
centuries, he must be singularly sanguine, and must be somewhat too
disposed to overlook the marvellously persistent influences of race and
tongue."
Rather than the cause of the children should suffer by presenting garbled
or one-sided statements, I purpose quoting the letters and articles upon
the subject as they have appeared. To do otherwise would not be fair to
the authors or just to the cause I have in hand. The flattering
allusions and compliments relating to my humble self I am not worthy of,
and I beg of those who take an interest in the cause of the little ones,
and deem this book worthy of their notice, to pass over them as though
such compliments were not there. The following are some of the letters
that have appeared in the _Standard_ in reply to mine of the 14th
instant. "B. B." writes on August 16th:--"Would you allow an Irish Gipsy
to express his views touching George Smith's letter of this date in your
paper? Without in the least desiring to warp his efforts to improve any
of his fellow-creatures, it seems to me that the poor Gipsy calls for
much less sympathy, as regards his moral and social life, than more
favoured classes of the community. Living under the body of an old cart,
'within the sound of church bells,' in the midst of grass, sticks, and
stones, by no means argues moral degradation; and if your correspondent
looks up our criminal statistics he will not find one Gipsy registered
for every five hundred criminals who have not only been within hearing of
the church bells but also listening to the preacher's voice. It should
be remembered that the poor Gipsy fulfils a work which is a very great
convenience to dwellers in out-of-the-way places--brushes, baskets, tubs,
clothes-stops, and a host of small commodities, in themselves apparently
insignificant, but which enable this tribe to eke out a living which
compares very favourably with the hundreds of thousands in our large
cities who set the laws of the land as well as the laws of decency at
defiance. As to education--well, let them get it, if possible; but it
will be found they possess, as a rule, sufficient intelligence to
discharge the duties of farm-labourers; and already they are beginning to
supply a felt want to the agriculturist whose educated assistant leaves
him to go abroad."
"An Old Woman" writes as follows:--"In the article on Gipsies in the
_Standard_ of to-day I was struck with the truth of this; remark--'He is
kindly by nature, and always anxious to please those who treat him well,
and to win their affections.' I can give you one instance of this in my
own family, although it happened long, long ago. The Boswell tribe of
Gipsies used to encamp once a year near the village in which my
grandfather (my mother's father), who was a miller and farmer, lived; and
there grew up a very kindly feeling between the head of the tribe and my
grandfather and his family. Some of the Gipsies would often call at my
grandfather's house, where they were always received kindly, and oftener
still, on business or otherwise, at the mill, to see 'Pe-tee,' as they
called my grandfather, whose Christian name was Peter. Once upon a time
my grandfather owed a considerable sum of money, and, alas! could not pay
it; and his wife and children were much distressed. I believe they
feared he would be arrested. Everything is known in a village; and the
news of what was feared reached the Gipsies. The idea of their friend
Pe-tee being in such trouble was not borne quietly; the chief and one or
two more appeared at the farm-house, asking to see my grandmother. They
told her they had come to pay my grandfather's debt; 'he should never be
distressed for the money,' they said, 'as long as they had any.' I
believe some arrangement had been made about the debt, but nevertheless
my grandmother felt just as grateful for the kindness. The head of the
tribe wore guineas instead of buttons to his coat, and when his daughter
was married her dowry was measured in guineas, in a pint measure. I
suppose, as in the old ballad of 'The Beggar of Bethnal Green,' the
suitor would give measure for measure. The villagers all turned out to
gaze each year when they heard the 'Boswell gang' were coming down the
one long street; the women of the tribe, fine, bold, handsome-looking
women, in 'black beaver bonnets, with black feathers and red cloaks,'
sometimes quarrelled, and my mother, then a girl, saw the procession
several times stop in the middle of the village, and two women (sometimes
more) would fall out of the ranks, hand their bonnets to friends, strip
off cloak and gown, and fight in their 'shift' sleeves, using their fists
like men. The men of the tribe took no notice, stood quietly about till
the fight was over, and then the whole bevy passed on to their
camping-ground. My grandfather never passed the tents without calling in
to see his friends, and it would have been an offence indeed if he had
not partaken of some refreshment. Two or three times my mother
accompanied him, and whenever and wherever they met her they were always
very kind and respectful to 'Pe-tee's little girl.' In after years, when
visiting her native village, she often inquired if it was known what had
become of the tribe; at last she heard from some one it was thought they
had settled in Canada: at any rate they had passed away for ever from
that part of England."
Mr. Leland wrote as follows in the _Standard_, August 19:--"As you have
kindly cited my work on the English Gipsies in your article on them, and
as many of your readers are giving their opinions on this curious race,
perhaps you will permit me to make a few remarks on the subject. Mr.
Smith is one of those honest philanthropists whom it is the duty of every
one to honour, and I for one, honour him most sincerely for his kind
wishes to the Romany; but, with all my respect, I do not think he
understands the travellers, or that they require much aid from the
'Gorgios,' being quite capable of looking out for themselves. A _tacho
Rom_, or real Gipsy, who cannot in an emergency find his ten, or even
twenty, pounds is a very exceptional character. As I have, even within a
few days, been in company, and on very familiar footing with a great
number of Romanys of different families of the dark blood who spoke the
'jib' with unusual accuracy, I write under a fresh impression. The Gipsy
is almost invariably strong and active, a good rough rider and
pedestrian, and knowing how to use his fists. He leads a very hard life,
and is proud of his stamina and his pluck. Of late years he _kairs_, or
'houses,' more than of old, particularly during the winter, but his life
at best requires great strength and endurance, and this must, of course,
be supported by a generous diet. In fact, he lives well, much better
than the agricultural labourer. Let me explain how this is generally
done. The Gipsy year may be said to begin with the races. Thither the
dark children of Chun-Gwin, whether pure blood, _posh an' posh_
(half-and-half), or _churedis_, with hardly a drop of the _kalo-ratt_,
flock with their cocoa-nuts and the balls, which have of late taken the
place of the _koshter_, or sticks. With them go the sorceresses, old and
young, who pick up money by occasional _dukkerin_, or fortune-telling.
Other small callings they also have, not by any means generally
dishonest. Wherever there is an open pic-nic on the Thames, or a country
fair, or a regatta at this season, there are Romanys. Sometimes they
appear looking like petty farmers, with a bad, or even a good, horse or
two for sale. While summer lasts this is the life of the poorer sort.
"This merry time over, they go to the _Livinengro tem_, or
hop-land--_i.e._, Kent. Here they work hard, not neglecting the
beer-pot, which goes about gaily. In this life they have great
advantages over the tramps and London poor. Hopping over, they go,
almost _en masse_, or within a few days, to London to buy French and
German baskets, which they get in Houndsditch. Of late years they send
more for the baskets to be delivered at certain stations. Some of them
make baskets themselves very well, but, as a rule, they prefer to buy
them. While the weather is good they live by selling baskets, brooms,
clothes-lines, and other small wares. Most families have their regular
'beats' or rounds, and confine themselves to certain districts. In
winter the men begin to _chiv the kosh_, or cut wood--_i.e._, they make
butchers' skewers and clothes-pegs. Even this is not unprofitable, as a
family, what between manufacturing and selling them, can earn from twelve
to eighteen shillings a week. With this and begging, and occasional jobs
of honest hard work which they pick up here and there, they contrive to
feed well, find themselves in beer, and pay, as they now often must, for
permission to camp in fields. Altogether they work hard and retire
early.
"Considering the lives they lead, Gipsies are not dishonest. If a Gipsy
is camped anywhere, and a hen is missing for miles around, the theft is
always at once attributed to him. The result is that, being sharply
looked after by everybody, and especially by the police, they cannot act
like their ancestors. Their crimes are not generally of a heinous
nature. _Chiving a gry_, or stealing a horse, is, I admit, looked upon
by them with Yorkshire leniency, nor do they regard stealing wood for
fuel as a great sin. In this matter they are subject to great
temptation. When the nights are cold--
"Could anything be more alluring
Than an old hedge?
"As for Gipsy lying, it is so peculiar that it would be hard to explain.
The American who appreciates the phrase 'to sit down and swap lies' would
not be taken in by a Romany _chal_, nor would an old salt who can spin
yarns. They enjoy hugely being lied unto, as do all Arabs or Hindus.
Like many naughty children, they like successful efforts of the
imagination. The old _dyes_, or mothers, are 'awful beggars,' as much by
habit as anything; but they will give as freely as they will take, and
their guest will always experience Oriental hospitality. They are very
fond of all gentlemen and ladies who take a real interest in them, who
understand them, and like them. To such people they are even more honest
than they are to one another. But it must be a real _aficion_, not a
merely amateur affectation of kindness. Owing to their entire ignorance
of ordinary house and home life, they are like children in many respects,
though so shrewd in others. Among the Welsh Gipsies, who are the most
unsophisticated and the most purely Romany, I have met with touching
instances of gratitude and honesty. The child-like ingenuity which some
of them manifested in contriving little gratifications for myself and for
Professor E. H. Palmer, who had been very kind to them, were as naive as
amiable. I have observed that some Gipsies of the more rustic sort loved
to listen to stories, but, like children, they preferred those which they
had heard several times and learned to like. They knew where the laugh
ought to come in. The Gipsy is both bad and good, but neither his faults
nor his virtues are exactly what they are supposed to be. He is
certainly something of a scamp--and, _nomen est omen_, there is a tribe
of Scamps among them--but he is not a bad scamp, and he is certainly a
most amusing and eccentric one.
"There is not the least use in trying to ameliorate the condition of the
Gipsy while he remains a traveller. He will tell you piteous stories,
but he will take care of himself. As Ferdusi sings:
"'Say what you will and do what you can,
No washing e'er whitens the black Zingan.'
"The only kindness he requires is a little charity and forgiveness when
he steals wood or wires a hare. All wrong doubtless; but something
should be allowed to one whose ancestors were called 'dead-meat eaters'
in the Shastras. Should the reader wish to reform a Gipsy, let him
explain to the Romany that the days for roaming in England are rapidly
passing away. Tell him that for his children's sake he had better rent a
cheap cottage; that his wife can just as well peddle with her basket from
a house as from a waggon, and that he can keep a horse and trap and go to
the races or hopping 'genteely.' Point out to him those who have done
the same, and stimulate his ambition and pride. As for suffering as a
traveller he does not know it. I once asked a Gipsy girl who was sitting
as a model if she liked the _drom_ (road) best, or living in a house.
With sparkling eyes and clapping her hands she exclaimed, 'oh, the road!
the road!'"
Mr. Beerbohm writes under date August 19th:--"In reading yesterday's
article on the customs and idiosyncrasies of Gipsies I was struck by the
similarity they present to many peculiarities I have observed among the
Patagonian Indians. To those curious in such matters it may be of
interest to know that the custom of burning all the goods and chattels of
a deceased member of the tribe prevails among the Patagonians as among
the Gipsies; and the identity of custom is still further carried out,
inasmuch as with the former, as with the latter, the name of the deceased
is never uttered, and all allusion to him is strictly avoided. So much
so, that in those cases when the deceased has borne some cognomen taken
from familiar objects, such as 'Knife,' 'Wool,' 'Flint,' &c., the word is
no longer used by the tribe, some other sound being substituted instead.
This is one of the reasons why the Tshuelche language is constantly
fluctuating, but few of the words expressing a proper meaning, as
chronicled by Fitzroy and Darwin (1832), being now in use."
The Rev. Mr. Hewett writes to the _Standard_, under date August 19th, to
say that he baptised two Gipsy children in 1871. One might ask, in the
language of one of the "Old Book," "What are these among so many?" The
following letter from Mr. Harrison upon the subject appeared on August
20th:--"I have just returned from the head-quarters of the Scotch
Gipsies--Yetholm (Kirk), a small village nestling at the foot of the
Cheviots in Roxburghshire. Here I saw the abode of the Queen, a neat
little cottage, with well-trimmed garden in front. Inside all was a
perfect pattern of neatness, and the old lady herself was as clean 'as a
new pin.' As I passed the cottage a carriage and pair drove up, and the
occupants, four ladies, alighted and entered the cottage. I was
afterwards told that they were much pleased with their visit, and that,
in remembrance of it, each of the four promised to send a new frock to
the Queen's grandchild. The Queen's son ('the Prince,' as he is called)
I saw at St. James's Fair, where he was swaggering about in a drunken
state, offering to fight any man. I believe he was subsequently locked
up. In the month of August there are few Gipsies resident in Yetholm:
they are generally on their travels selling crockeryware (the country
people call the Gipsies 'muggers,' from the fact that they sell mugs),
baskets made of rushes, and horn spoons, both of which they manufacture
themselves. I have a distinct recollection of Will Faa, the then King of
the Gipsies. He was 95 when I knew him, and was lithe and strong. He
had a keen hawk eye, which was not dimmed at that extreme age. He was
considered both a good shot and a famous fisher. There was hardly a
trout hole in the Bowmont Water but he knew, and his company used to be
eagerly sought by the fly-fishers who came from the South. My opinion of
the Gipsies--and I have seen much of them during the last forty years--is
that they are a lazy, dissolute set of men and women, preferring to beg,
or steal, or poach, to work, and that, although many efforts have been
made (more especially by the late Rev. Mr. Baird, of Yetholm), to settle
them, they are irreclaimable. There are but two policemen in Yetholm and
Kirk Yetholm, but sometimes the assistance of some of the townsfolk is
required to bring about order in that portion of the village in which the
Gipsies reside. I may say that the townsfolk do not fraternise with the
Gipsies, who are regarded with the greatest suspicion by the former. Ask
a townsman of Yetholm what he thinks of the Gipsies, and he will tell you
they are simply vagabonds and impostors, who lounge about, and smoke, and
drink, and fight. In fact, they are the very scum of the human race;
and, what is more singular, they seem quite satisfied to remain as they
are, repudiating every attempt at reformation."
"F. G. S." writes:--"One of your correspondents suggests that the silence
of the Gipsies concerning their dead is carried so far as to consign them
to nameless graves. In my churchyard there is a headstone, 'to the
memory of Mistress Paul Stanley, wife of Mr. Paul Stanley, who died
November, 1797,' the said Mistress Stanley having been the Queen of the
Stanley tribe. In my childhood I remember that annually some of the
members of the tribe used to come and scatter flowers over the grave; and
when my father had restored the stone, on its falling into decay, a
deputation of the tribe thanked him for so doing. I have reason to think
they still visit the spot, to find, I am sorry to say, the stone so
decayed now as to be past restoration, and I would much like to see
another with the same inscription to mark the resting-place of the head
of a leading tribe of these interesting people."
[Picture: Gipsies Camping among the Heath near London]
To these letters I replied as under, on August 21st:--"The numerous
correspondents who have taken upon themselves to reply to my letter that
appeared in your issue of the 14th inst., and to show up Gipsy life in
some of its brightest aspects, have, unwittingly, no doubt, thoroughly
substantiated and backed up the cause of my young clients--_i.e._, the
poor Gipsy children and our roadside arabs--so far as they have gone, as
a reperusal of the letters will show the most casual observer of our
hedge-bottom heathens of Christendom. At the same time, I would say the
tendency of some of the remarks of your correspondents has special
reference to the adult Gipsies, roamers and ramblers, and, consequently,
there is a fear that the attention of some of your readers may be drawn
from the cause of the poor uneducated children, living in the midst of
sticks, stones, ditches, mud, and game, and concentrated upon the 'guinea
buttons,' 'black-haired Susans,' 'red cloaks,' 'scarlet hoods,' the
cunning craft of the old men, the fortune-telling of the old women, the
'sparkling eyes' and 'clapping of hands,' and 'twopenny hops' of the
young women, who certainly can take care of themselves, just as other
un-Christianised and uncivilised human beings can. I do not profess--at
any rate, not for the present--to take up the cause of the men and women
ditch-dwelling Gipsies in this matter; I must leave that part of the work
to fiction writers, clergymen, and policemen, abler hands than mine. I
may not be able, nor do I profess, to understand the singular number of
the masculine gender of _dad_, _chavo_, _tikeno_, _moosh_, _gorjo_,
_raklo_, _rakli_, _pal palla_; the feminine gender _dei_, _tikeno_,
_chabi_, _joovel_, _gairo_, _rakle_, _raklia_, _pen penya_, or the plural
of the masculine gender _dada_, _chavi_, and the feminine gender _deia_,
_chavo_; but, being a matter of fact kind of man--out of the region of
romance, fantastical notions, enrapturing imagery, nicely coloured
imagination, clever lying and cleverer deception, beautiful green fields,
clear running rivulets, the singing of the wood songster, bullfinch, and
wren, in the midst of woodbine, sweetbriar, and roses--with an eye to
observe, a heart to feel, and a hand ready to help, I am led to
contemplate, aye, and to find out if possible, the remedy, though my
friends say it is impossible--just because it is impossible it becomes
possible, as in the canal movement--for the wretched condition of some
eight to ten thousand little Gipsy children, whose home in the winter is
camping half-naked in a hut, so called, in the midst of 'slush' and snow,
on the borders of a picturesque ditch and roadside, winterly delights,
Sunday and week day alike. The tendency of human nature is to look on
the bright side of things; and it is much more pleasant to go to the edge
of a large swamp, lie down and bask in the summer's sun, making
'button-holes' of daisies, buttercups, and the like, and return home and
extol the fine scenery and praise the richness of the land, than to take
the spade, in shirt-sleeves and heavy boots, and drain the poisonous
water from the roots of vegetation. Nevertheless, it has to be done, if
the 'strong active limbs' and 'bright sparkling eyes' are to be turned to
better account than they have been in the past. It is not creditable to
us as a Christian nation, in size compared with other nations not much
larger than a garden, to have had for centuries these heathenish tribes
in our midst. It does not speak very much for the power of the Gospel,
the zeal of the ministers of Christ's Church, and the activity of the
schoolmaster, to have had these plague spots continually flitting before
our eyes without anything being done to effect a cure. It is true
something has been done. One clergyman, who has 'had opportunities of
observing them,' if not brought in daily contact with them, tells us that
some eight or nine years since he publicly baptised two Gipsy children.
Another tells us that some time since he baptised many Gipsy children, as
if baptism was the only thing required of the poor children for the
duties and responsibilities of life and a future state. Better a
thousand times have told us how many poor roadside arabs and Gipsy
children they have taken by the hand to educate and train them, so as to
be able to earn an honest livelihood, instead of 'cadging' from door to
door, and telling all sorts of silly stories and lies. How many poor
children's lives have been sacrificed at the hands of cruelty,
starvation, and neglect, and buried under a clod without the shedding of
a tear, it is fearful to contemplate. The idlers, loafers, rodneys,
mongrels, gorgios, and Gipsies are increasing, and will increase, in our
midst, unless we put our hand upon the system, from the simple fact that
by packing up with wife and children and 'taking to the road,' he thus
escapes taxes, rent, and the School-board officer. This they see, and a
'few kind words' and 'gentle touches' will never cause them to see it in
any other light. The sooner we get the ideal, fanciful, and romantic
side of a vagrant's and vagabond's life removed from our vision, and see
things as they really are, the better it will be for us. For the life of
me I cannot see anything romantic in dirt, squalor, ignorance, and
misery. Ministers and missionaries have completely failed in the work,
for the simple reason that they have never begun it in earnest;
consequently, the schoolmaster and School-board officer must begin to do
their part in reclaiming these wandering tribes, and this can only be
done in the manner stated by me in my previous letter."
In the _Leicester Free Press_ the following appeared on August
16th:--"Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, is earning the title of the
Children's Friend. His 'Cry of the Brick-yard Children' rang through
England, and issued in measures being adopted for their protection. His
description of the canal-boat children has also resulted in legislation
for their relief. Now I see Mr. Smith has put in a good word for Gipsy
children. It will surprise a good many who seldom see or hear of these
Gipsies, except perhaps at the races, to find how numerous they are even
in this county. I do not think the number is at all exaggerated. A few
days ago while driving down a rural lane in the country I 'interviewed'
one of these children, who had run some hundreds of yards ahead, in order
to open a gate. At first the young, dark-eyed, swarthy damsel declared
she did not know how many brothers and sisters she had, but on being
asked to mention their names she rattled them over, in quick succession,
giving to each Christian name the surname of Smith--thus, Charley Smith,
Emma Smith, Fanny Smith, Bill Smith, and the like, till she had
enumerated either thirteen or fifteen juvenile Smiths, all of whom lived
with their parents in a tent which was pitched not far from the side of
the lane. Of education the child had had none, but she said she went to
church on a Sunday with her sister. This is a sample of the kind of
thing which prevails, and in his last generous movement Mr. Smith, of
Coalville, will be acting a good part to numerous children who, although
unable to claim relationship, rejoice in the same patronymic as himself."
In the _Derby Daily Telegraph_, under date August 16th, the following
leading article was published:--"When the social history of the present
generation comes to be written a prominent place among the list of
practical philanthropists will be assigned to George Smith, of Coalville.
The man is a humanitarian to the manner born. His character and labours
serve to remind us of the broad line which separates the real apostle of
benevolence from what may be termed the 'professional' sample. George
Smith goes about for the purpose of doing good, and--he does it. He does
not content himself with glibly talking of what needs to be done, and
what ought to be done. He prefers to act upon the spirit of Mr. Wackford
Squeers' celebrated educational principle. Having discovered a sphere of
Christian duty he goes and 'works' it. Few more splendid monuments of
practical charity have been reared than the amelioration of the social
state of our canal population--an achievement which has mainly been
brought about by Mr. Smith's indomitable perseverance and self-denial. A
few years ago we were accustomed to speak of the dwellers in these
floating hovels as beings who dragged out a degraded existence in a
far-off land. We were gloomily told that they could not be reached.
Orators at fashionable missionary-meetings were wont to speak of them as
irreclaimable heathens who bid defiance to civilising influences from
impenetrable fastnesses. Mr. George Smith may be credited with having
broken down this discreditable state of things. He brought us face to
face with this unfortunate section of our fellow-creatures, with what
result it is not necessary to say. The sympathies of the public were
effectually roused by the narratives which revealed to us the deplorable
depths of human depravity into which vast numbers of English people had
fallen. The sufferings of the children in the gloomy, pestiferous cabins
used for 'living' purposes especially excited the country's pity. At
this present moment the lot of these poor waifs is far from being
inviting, but it is vastly different from what it was a short time back.
It was only a few days ago that the Duke of Richmond, in reply to no less
a personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that express
arrangements had been made by the Government to meet the educational
requirements of the once helpless and neglected victims.
"Mr. Smith has now embarked upon a fresh crusade against misery and
ignorance. He has turned his attention from the 'water Gipsies' to their
brethren ashore. He has already began to busy himself with the condition
of 'our roadside arabs,' as he calls them. We fear Mr. Smith in
prosecuting this good work of his is doomed to perform a serious act of
disenchantment. The ideal Gipsy is destined to be scattered to the winds
by the unvarnished picture which Mr. Smith will cause to be presented to
our vision. He does not pretend to show us the romantic,
fantastically-dressed creature whose prototypes have long been in the
imaginations of many of us as types of the Gipsy species. Those of our
readers who have formed their notions of Gipsy life upon the strength of
the assurances which have been given them by the late Mr. G. P. R. James
and kindred writers will find it hard to substitute for the joyous scenes
of sunshine and freedom he has associated with the nomadic existence, the
dull, wearisome round of squalor and wretchedness which is found, upon
examination, to constitute the principal condition of the Gipsy tent.
Whether it is that in this awfully prosaic period of the world's history
the picturesque and jovial rascality which novelist and poet have
insisted in connecting with the Ishmaelites is stamped ruthlessly out of
being by force of circumstances, it is barely possible to say. Perhaps
Gipsies, in common with other tribes of the romantic past, have gradually
become denuded of their old attractiveness. It is, we confess, rather
difficult to believe that Bamfylde Moore Carew (wild, restless fellow
though he was) would persistently have linked his lot with that of the
poor, degraded, poverty-stricken wretches whom Mr. Smith has taken in
hand. Perchance it happens that our old heroes of song and story have,
so far as England is concerned, deteriorated as a consequence of the
money-making, business-like atmosphere that they are compelled to
breathe, and that with more favoured climes they are to be seen in much
of their primitive glory. In Hungary, for instance, it is declared that
Gipsy life is pretty much what it is represented to be in our own glowing
pages of fiction. The late Major Whyte-Melville, in a modern story
declared to be founded on fact, introduces us to a company of these
continental wanderers who, with their beautiful Queen, seem to invest the
scenes from our old friend, 'The Bohemian Girl,' with something akin to
probability. But there is, of course, a limit to even Mr. Smith's
labours. Hungary is beyond his jurisdiction. He does not pretend to
carry his experience of the Gipsies further than the Midlands.
Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and our neighbouring counties have offered him
the examples he requires with his new campaign. The lot of the roamers
who eke out a living in the adjacent lanes and roadways is, he explains
to us, as pitiful as anything of the sort well could be. The tent of the
Gipsy he finds to be as filthy and as repulsive as the cabin of the
canal-boat. Human beings of both sexes and of all ages are huddled
together without regard to comfort. As a necessary sequence the women
and children are the chief sufferers in a social evil of this sort. The
men are able to rough it, but the weaker sex and their little charges are
reduced to the lowest paths of misery. Children are born, suffer from
disease, and die in the canvas hovels; and are committed to the dust by
the roadside. One old woman told Mr. Smith 'that she had had sixteen
children, fifteen of whom are alive, several of them being born in a
roadside tent. She says that she was married out of one of these tents;
and her brother died and was buried out of a tent at Packington, near
Ashby-de-la-Zouch.' The experience of this old crone is akin to that of
most of her class. She also tells Mr. Smith that she could not read
herself, and she did not believe one in twenty could. Morally, as well
as from a sanitary point of view, Gipsy life, as it really exists, is a
social plague-spot, and consequently a social danger. Especially does
this contention apply to the children, of whom Mr. Smith estimates that
there are ten thousand roaming over the face of the country as vagrants
and vagabonds. It is to be hoped many months will not be allowed to
elapse before this difficulty is seriously and successfully grappled
with. Mr. Smith's counsel as to the children is that 'living in vans and
tents and under old carts, if they are to be allowed to live in these
places they should be registered in a manner analogous to the Canal Boats
Act of 1877, so that the children may be brought under the compulsory
clauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianised and civilised as
other children.' The Duke of Richmond and his department may do much to
facilitate Mr. Smith's crusade without temporising with the prejudices of
red-tapeism."
_Figaro_ writes August 27th:--"Our old friend having successfully tackled
the brick-yard children, and the floating waifs and strays of our barge
population, has now taken the little Gipsies in hand, with a view of
bringing them under the supervision of the School Board system now
general in this country. He is a bold and energetic man, but we are
bound to say we doubt a little whether he will be able to tame the
offspring of the merry Zingara, and pass them all through the regulation
educational standard. Should he succeed, we shall be thenceforth
surprised at nothing, but be quite prepared to hear that Mr. Smith has
become chairman of a society for changing the spots of the leopard, or
honorary director of an association for changing the Ethiopian's skin!"
The following letter from the Rev. J. Finch, a rural dean, appeared in
the _Standard_, August 30th:--"The following facts may not be without
some interest to those who have read the letters which have recently
appeared in the pages of the _Standard_ respecting Gipsies. During the
thirty years I have been rector of this parish, members of the Boswell
family have been almost constantly resident here. I buried the head of
the family in 1874, who died at the age of 87. He was a regular
attendant at the parish church, and failed not to bow his head reverently
when he entered within the House of God. His burial was attended by
several sons resident, as Gipsies, in the Midland counties, and a
headstone marks the grave where his body rests. I never saw, or heard,
any harm of the man. He was a quiet and inoffensive man, and worked
industriously as a tinman within a short time of his death. If he had
rather a sharp eye for a little gift, that is a trait of character by no
means confined to Gipsies. One of his daughters was married here to a
member of the Boswell tribe, and another, who rejoiced in the name of
Britannia, I buried in her father's grave two years ago. After his death
she and her mother removed to an adjoining parish, where she was
confirmed by Bishop Selwyn in 1876. Regular as was the old man at
church, I never could persuade his wife to come. In 1859 I baptized,
privately, an infant of the same tribe, whose parents were travelling
through the parish, and whose mother was named Elvira. Great was the
admiration of my domestics at the sight of the beautiful lace which
ornamented the robe in which the child was brought to my house. Clearly
there are Gipsies, and those of a well-known tribe, glad to receive the
ministrations of the Church."
I next turned my steps towards London, having heard that Gipsies were to
be found in the outskirts of this Babylon. I set off early one morning
in quest of them from my lodgings, not knowing whither; but my earliest
association came to my relief. Knowing that Gipsies are generally to be
found in the neighbourhood of brick-yards, I took the 'bus to Notting
Hill, and after asking the policeman, for neither clergyman or other
ministers could tell me where they were to be found, I wended my way to
Wormwood Scrubs, and the following letter, which appeared in the _Daily
News_, September 6th of last year, is the outcome of that "run out," and
is as follows:--"It has been the custom for years--I might almost say
centuries--when speaking of the Gipsies, to introduce in one form or
other during the conversation either 'the King of the Gipsies,' 'the
Queen,' or some other member of 'the Royal Family.' It may surprise many
of your readers who cling to the romantic side of a Gipsy's life, and
shut their eyes to the fearful amount of ignorance, wretchedness, and
misery there is amongst them, to say that this extraordinary being is
nothing but a mythological jack-o'-th'-lantern, phantom of the brain,
illusion, the creation of lying tongues practising the art of deception
among some of the 'green horns' in the country lanes, or on the village
greens. It is true there are some 'horse-leeches' among the Gipsies who
have got fat out 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 Gipsies who, with a chuckle, tongue in cheek, wink of the eye, side
grin and a sneer, say they have these important personages amongst them;
and if any little extra stir is being made at a fair-time in the country
lanes, in the neighbourhood of straw-yards, they will be sure to tell
them that either the 'king,' 'queen,' or some member of the 'royal
family' is being married or visiting them; and nothing pleases the poor,
ignorant Gipsies better than to get the bystanders, with mouths open, to
believe their tales and lies. I should think that there is scarcely a
county in England but what a Gipsy king's or queen's wedding has not
taken place there within the last twenty years. There was one in
Bedfordshire not long since; another at Epping Forest; and the last I
heard of this wonderful airy being was that he had taken up his
head-quarters at the Royal Hotel, Liverpool, and a carriage with eight
wheels and six piebald horses had been presented to him as a wedding
present from the Gipsies. Gipsy 'kings,' 'queens,' and 'princes,' their
marriages and deaths, are innumerable among the 'royal family.' It is
equally believing in moonshine and air-bubbles to believe that the
Gipsies never speak of their dead. There is a beautiful headstone put in
a little churchyard about 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 the Lees has a tombstone erected to his memory in Hanwell
Cemetery; and such silly nonsense is put out by the cunning, crafty
Gipsies as 'dazzlers,' to enable them more readily to practise the art of
lying and deception upon their gullible listeners. Then again, with
reference to the Gipsies having a religion of their own. There is not a
word of truth in this imaginative notion prevalent in the minds or some
who have been trying to study their habits. Excepting the language of
some of the old-fashioned real Gipsies, and a few other little
peculiarities, any one studying the real hard facts of a Gipsy's life
with reference to the amount of ignorance, and everything that is bad
among them, will come to the conclusion that there is much among them to
compare very unfavourably with the most neglected in our back streets and
slums. Of course, there are some good among them, as with other
'ragamuffin' ramblers. The following particulars, related to me by a
well-known Gipsy woman in the neighbourhood of 'Wormwood Scrubs' and the
'North Pole,' remarkable for her truthfulness, honesty, and uprightness,
will tend to show that my previous statement as regards the amount of
ignorance prevalent among the poor Gipsy children has not been
over-stated. She has had six brothers and one sister, all born in a
tent, and only one of the eight could read a little. She has had nine
children born in a tent, four of whom are alive, and only one could read
and write a little. She has seventeen grandchildren, and only two of
them can read and write a little, and thinks this a fair average of other
Gipsy children. She tells me that she got a most fat living for more
than twenty years by telling lies and fortunes to servant-girls, old
maids, and young men, mostly out of a book of which she could not read a
sentence, or tell a letter. She said she had heard that I had taken up
the cause of the poor Gipsy children to get them educated, and, with
hands uplifted and tears in her eyes, which left no doubt of her meaning,
said, 'I do hope from the bottom of my heart that God will bless and
prosper you in the work till a law is passed, and the poor Gipsy children
are brought under the School Board, and their parents compelled to send
them to school as other people are. The poor Gipsy children are poor,
ignorant things, I can assure you.' She also said 'Does the Queen wish
all our poor Gipsy children to be educated?' I told her that the Queen
took special interest in the children of the working-classes, and was
always pleased to hear of their welfare. Again, with tears trickling
down her face, she said, 'I do thank the Lord for such a good Queen, and
for such a noble-hearted woman. I do bless her. Do Thou, 'Lord, bless
her!' After some further conversation, and taking dinner with her in her
humble way in the van, she said she hoped I would not be insulted if she
offered me, as from a poor Gipsy woman, a shilling to help me in the work
of getting a law passed to compel the Gipsies to send their children to
school. I took the shilling, and, after making her a present of a copy
of the new edition of my 'Cry of the Children from the Brick-yards of
England,' which she wrapped in a beautiful white cloth, and after a shake
of the hand, we parted, hoping to meet again on some future day."
The foregoing letter brought forth the following letter from Mr. Daniel
Gorrie, and appeared in the _Daily News_ under date September 13th, as
under:--"Mr. George Smith, Coalville, Leicester, whose letter on the
above subject appears in your impression to-day, succeeded so well in his
efforts 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 attention
to the pitiful condition of the Gipsy children, who are allowed to grow
up as ignorant as savages that never saw the face nor heard the voice of
a Christian missionary. In one of the late Thomas Aird's poems, entitled
'A Summer Day,' there are some lines which, with your permission, I
should like to quote, that are in perfect accord with Mr. Smith's wise
and 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, many
years before the Education Acts now in force came into existence. As
many parents might not like the idea of Gipsy children attending the same
Board schools as their own, would it not be possible to establish special
schools in those parts of the Midland counties where Gipsies 'most do
congregate'?"
To which I replied as under, in the _Daily News_ bearing date September
13th:--"In reply to Mr. Gorrie's letter which appears in your issue of
this morning, I consider that it would be unwise and impracticable to
build separate schools for either the brick-yard, canal-boat, Gipsy, or
other children moving about the country, in tents, vans, &c., for their
use solely; especially would it be so in the case of Gipsy children and
roadside arabs. What I have been and am still aiming at is the education
of these children, not by isolating them from other
working-classes--colliers, potters, ironworkers, factory hands,
tradesmen, &c.--but by bringing them in daily contact with the children
of these parents, and also under some of the influences of our little
missionary civilisers who are brought up and receiving some of their
education in drawing-rooms, and whose parents cannot afford to send them
to boarding-schools, colleges, &c., and have to content themselves by
having their children educated at either the national, British, or Board
schools. I confess that it is not pleasant to hear that our children
have picked up vulgar words at school; and it requires patience, care,
and watchfulness on the part of parents to counteract some of the
downward tendencies resulting from an uneven mixing of children brought
up and educated under such influences. Better by far put up with these
little ills than others we know not of, the outcome of ignorance. On the
other hand, it is pleasing to note how glad the parents of Gipsy,
canal-boat, and brick-yard children are when their children pick up 'fine
words' and become more 'gentlerified' by mixing with children higher up
the social scale. Bad habits, words, and actions are generally picked up
between school times. It would be well for us to rub down class feeling
among children as much as possible as regards their education. The
children of brick-makers, canal-boatmen, and Gipsies are of us and with
us, and must be taken hold of, educated, and elevated in things
pertaining to their future welfare. The 'turning up of the nose,' by
those whose duty, education, and privilege should have taught them better
things, at these poor children has had more to do in bringing about their
pitiable and ignorant condition than can be imagined. The Canal Boats
Act, if wisely carried out, will before long bring about the education of
the canal-boat children; and in order to bring the Gipsy children, show
children, and other roadside arabs under the Education Acts, I am seeking
to have all movable habitations, _i.e._, tents, vans, shows, &c., in
which the families live who are earning a living by travelling from place
to place, registered and numbered, as in the case of canal-boats, and the
parents compelled 'by hook or by crook' to send their children to school
at the place wherever they may be temporarily located, be it national,
British, or Board school. The education of these children should be
brought about at all risks and inconveniences, or we may expect a blacker
page in the social history of this country opening to our view than we
have seen for many a long day."
The following leading article upon Gipsies and other tramps of a similar
class appeared in the _Standard_, September 10th, 1879, and as it relates
to the subject I have in hand I quote it in full:--"Not only in his
'Uncommercial Traveller,' but in many other scattered passages of his
works, Dickens, who for many years lived in Kent, has described the
intolerable nuisance inflicted by tramps upon residents in the home
counties, and has sketched the natural history of the sturdy vagabond who
infests our roads and highways from early spring to late autumn, with a
minuteness and power of detail worthy of a Burton. The subject of
vagabondage is not, however, confined in its interest to the Metropolis
and its adjacent parts. In the United States the habitual beggar has
become as serious a nuisance, and, indeed, source of positive danger, as
he was once amongst ourselves; and in the State of Pennsylvania more
especially it has been found necessary to pass what may be described as
an Habitual Vagrants Act for his suppression. That the terms of this
enactment should be excessively severe is hardly matter of astonishment,
when we bear in mind the fate of little Charley Ross. Early in the year
1874 a couple of men who were travelling up and down the country in a
waggon stole from the home of his parents in Germantown, Pennsylvania, a
boy of some seven years named Charley Ross. They then sent letters
demanding a large sum of money for his restoration. The ransom
increased, 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, all
negotiations fell through. The two men believed to have been concerned
in the abduction were shot down in the act of committing a burglary on
Rhode Island, and from that day to this the fate of Charley Ross has
remained a mystery. Under these circumstances, public opinion has
naturally run high, and it has been provided that any habitual tramp
making his way from place to place, without earning an honest livelihood,
shall be liable to imprisonment with hard labour for a period of twelve
months; and that tramps who enter dwellings without permission, who carry
fire-arms, or other weapons, or who threaten to injure either persons or
property, shall be put to work in the common penitentiary for a period of
three years. Pennsylvania in this is but reverting to the old law of
England in the Tudor days. In the time of Henry VIII. vagrants were
whipped at the cart's tail, without distinction of either sex or age.
The whipping-post, together with the stocks, was a conspicuous ornament
of every parish green, and it was not until the year 1791 that the
whipping of women was expressly forbidden by statute. There were other
enactments even more severe. By an act of Elizabeth idle soldiers and
marines, or persons pretending to be soldiers or marines, wandering about
the realm, were held _ipso facto_ guilty of felony, and hundreds of such
offenders were publicly executed. Another act of the same kind was
directed against Gipsies, by which any Gipsy, or any person over fourteen
who had been seen or found in their fellowship, was guilty of felony if
he remained a month in the kingdom; and in Hale's 'Pleas of the Crown' we
learn that at one Suffolk Assizes no less than thirteen Gipsies were
executed on the strength of this barbarous act, and without any other
reason 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 as
wake on the night and sleep on the day, and haunt customable taverns and
ale-houses, and routs about; and no man wot from whence they come ne
whither they go,' is a brief period of hard labour under the provisions
of the Vagrant Act. Under this comprehensive statute are swept together
as into one common net a vast variety of petty offenders, of whom some
are deemed 'idle and disorderly persons,' other 'rogues and vagabonds,'
and others again 'incorrigible rogues.' Under one or other of these
heads are unlicensed hawkers or pedlars; persons wandering abroad to beg
or causing any child to beg; persons lodging in any outhouse or in the
open air, not having any visible means of subsistence, and not giving a
good account of themselves; persons playing or betting in the public
street; and notorious thieves loitering about with intent to commit a
felony. At the present period of the year the country in the
neighbourhood not of the Metropolis alone, but of all large towns, is
filled with offenders of this kind. Indeed, the sturdy tramp renders the
country to a very great extent unsafe for ladies who have ventured to go
about without protection. Ostensibly he is a vendor of combs, or
bootlaces, or buttons, or is in quest of a hop-picking job, or is a
discharged soldier or sailor, or a labourer out of employment. But
whatever may be his pretence, his mode of procedure is more or less the
same. If he can come upon a roadside cottage left in the charge of a
woman, 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 at
violence. Indeed, when we remember how many horrible outrages have
within the last few years been committed by ruffians of this kind, it is
quite easy to understand the severity necessary in less civilised times.
Only recently the Spaniard Garcia murdered an entire family in Wales; and
some few years ago, at Denham, near Uxbridge, a small household was
butchered for the sake of a few shillings and such little plunder as the
humble cottage afforded. And although grave crimes of this kind are
happily rare, and tend to become rarer, petty violence is far from
uncommon. Many ladies resident in the country can tell how they have
been beset upon the highway by sturdy tramps of forbidding aspect, to
whom, in despair, they have given alms to an amount which practically
made the solicitation an act of brigandage. The farmer's wife and the
bailiff tell us how haystacks are converted into temporary
lodging-houses, chickens stolen, and outbuildings plundered. Only too
often the rogues are in direct league with the worst offenders in London.
Whitechapel supplies a large contingent of the Kentish hop-pickers, and
the 'traveller' who is ostensibly in search of a haymaking or hopping job
is, as often as not, spying out the land, and planning profitable
burglaries to be carried out in winter with the aid of his colleagues.
"There is, no doubt, much about the tramp that is picturesque. A
romantic imagination pictures him as a sort of peripatetic philosopher,
with more of Jacques in him than of Autolycus; living in constant
communion with Nature; sleeping in the open air; subsisting on the
scantiest fare; slaking his thirst at the running brook; and only begging
to be allowed to live his own childlike and innocent life, as purposeless
as the butterflies, as happy as the swallows, as destitute of all worldly
ends and aims as are the very violets of the hedge-row. AEsthetic
enthusiasm of this kind is apt to be severely checked by the prosaic
realities of actual existence. The tramp, like the noble savage, is a
relic 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 for
its own sake. In winter he becomes an inmate of the workhouse, where he
almost always proves himself turbulent and disorderly. As soon as it
becomes warm enough to sleep in a haystack, or under a hedge, or in a
thick 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 workhouse
must always provide him with gratuitous board and lodging. Work of any
kind, although he vigorously pretends to be in 'want of a job,' is
utterly abhorrent to him. Home county farmers, led by that unerring
instinct which is the unconscious result of long experience, know the
tramp at once, and can immediately distinguish him from the _bona-fide_
'harvester,' in quest of honest employment. The tramp, indeed, is the
sturdy idler of the roads--a cousin-german of the 'beach-comber,' who is
the plague of consuls and aversion of merchant skippers. In almost every
port of any size the harbour is beset by a gang of idle fellows, whose
pretence is that they are anxious to sign articles for a voyage, but who
are, in reality, living from hand to mouth. Captains know only too well
that the true 'beach-comber' is always incompetent, often physically
unfit for work, and constitutionally mutinous. When his other resources
fail, he throws himself upon the nearest consul of the nation to which he
may claim to belong, and a very considerable sum is yearly wasted in
providing such ramblers with free passages to what they please to assert
is the land of their birth. Harbour-masters and port authorities
generally are apt to treat notorious offenders of this kind somewhat
summarily, and our local police and poor-law officers are ill-advised if
they do not follow the good example thus set, and show the tramp as
little mercy as possible. Leniency, indeed, of any kind he simply
regards as weakness. He would be a highwayman if the existing conditions
of society allowed it, and if he had the necessary personal courage. As
it 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 genuine
Gipsies. He has taken to it from choice, and the true-bred Romany will
always regard him with contempt, as a mere migratory gaol bird, who knows
no tongue of the roads beyond the cant or 'kennick' of thieves--a
Whitechapel _argot_, familiarity with which at once tells its own tale.
Fortunately, our existing law is sufficient to keep the nuisance in
check, if only it be resolutely administered. The tramp, however, trades
upon spurious sympathy. There will always be weak-minded folk to pity
the poor man whom the hard-hearted magistrates have sent to gaol for
sleeping under a haystack--forgetting that this interesting offender is,
as a rule, no better than a common thief at large, who will steal
whatever he can lay his hands on, and who makes our lanes and pleasant
country byways unpleasant, if not actually dangerous."
The foregoing article upon Gipsies and tramps brought from a
correspondent in the _Standard_, under date September 12th, the following
letter:--"I have just been reading the article in your paper on the
subject of tramps. If you could stand at my gate for one day, you would
be astonished to see the number of tramps passing through our village,
which is on the high road between two of the principal towns in South
Yorkshire; and the same may be said of any place in England situated on
the main road, or what was formerly the coach road. We seldom meet
tramps in town, except towards evening, when they come in for the casual
ward. They spend their day in the country, passing from one town to
another, and to those who reside near the high road, as I do, they are an
intolerable nuisance. A tramp in a ten mile journey, which occupies him
all day, will frequently make 1s. 6d. or 2s. a day, besides being
supplied with food, and the more miserable and wretched he can make
himself appear, the more sympathy he will get, and if he is lucky enough
to 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 how
she has helped 'that poor, wretched man' on his way. Tramps are a class
of people who never have worked, and who never will, except it be in
prison, and, as long as they can get a living for nothing, they will
continue to be, as you say in your article, 'A blot upon the country and
an eyesore on our roads.'
"I always find the quickest way of getting rid of a tramp is to threaten
him with the police, and I am quite sure if every householder would make
a rule never to relieve tramps with money, and only those who are
crippled, with food, the number would soon be decreased. If people have
any old clothes or spare coppers to give away, I am sure they will soon
find in their own town or village many cases more worthy of their charity
than the highway tramp. I do not recommend anybody to find a tramp even
temporary employment, unless they can stand over him and then see the man
safe off the premises, and even then he may come again at night as a
burglar; but I am sure work could be found at 1s. 6d. or 2s. a day by our
corporations or on the highways, where, under proper supervision, these
idle vagabonds would be made to earn an honest living. You will find
that 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 from
a little girl who was taking it to her father at his work. 'Poor man! he
must have been very hungry,' I fancy I hear the benevolent old lady
saying. Of course, during the last year we have had many men 'on the
road' who are really in search of work, but I always tell them that there
is as much work in one place as another, and unless they really have a
situation in view they should not go tramping from town to town. Many of
them have no characters to produce, and I expect when they find
'tramping' is such a pleasant and easy mode of living they will join the
ranks and become roadsters also."
In _May's Aldershot Advertiser_, September 13th, 1879, the following is a
leading article upon the condition of Gipsies:--"The incoming of
September reminds us that in the hop districts this is the season of
advent of those British nomads--the Gipsies, the only class for whom
there is so little legislation, or with whose actions and habits, lawless
as they are, the agents of the law so seldom interfere. The miners of
the Black Country owe the suppression of juvenile labour and the short
time law to the long exertions of the generous-hearted Richard Oastler.
The brickmaker 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 or girl--into the brick-yard to toil, shoeless and ragged, at
carrying heavy lumps on its head. The canal population--they who are
born and die in the circumscribed hole at the end of a barge, dignified
by the name of 'cabin,' are just now receiving the special attention of
Mr. Smith, of Coalville, and certainly, excepting the section of whom I
am writing, there is not to be found in privileged England a people so
utterly debased and regardless of the characteristics of civilised life.
The Factory Act prevents the employing of boys or girls under a certain
age, and secures for those who are legally employed a sufficient time for
recreation. But who cares for, or thinks about, the wandering Romany?
True, Police-Constable Argus receives authority by which he, _sans
ceremonie_, commands them to 'move on,' should he come across any by the
roadside in his diurnal or nocturnal perambulations. But it often occurs
that the object for which they 'camped' in the spot has been
accomplished. The farmer's hedge has been made to supply them with fuel
for 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 from
their having to transfer their paraphernalia to another 'camp ground' not
far off. They also enjoy certain immunities which are withheld from
other classes. Excepting that some of them pay for a hawker's licence,
they roam about as they list, untaxed and uncontrolled, though the
earnings of most of them amount to a considerable sum every year; as they
are free from the conventional rule which requires the house-dwelling
population, often at great inconvenience, to 'keep up appearances,' it
often happens that the wearer of the most tattered garments earns the
most money. They can and do live sparingly, and spend lavishly. The
labour which they choose is the most remunerative kind. Ploughing or
stone-breaking is not the employment, which the Gipsy usually seeks! He
takes the cream and leaves the skimmed milk for the cottier, and having
done all there is to do of the kind he chooses, he is off to some other
money-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, returns
toward Hampshire--North Hants--to 'fag' or tie, and that being done he
enters Surrey for hop-picking (previously securing a 'bin' in one of the
gardens). Some idea of his gross earnings may be obtained from the
following fact:--Two able-bodied men, an old woman of about 75 years of
age, and two women, earned on a farm in one harvest, no less than 42
pounds. After that, they went hop-picking, and, in answer to my
question, 'How much will they earn there?' the farmer, who is a
hop-grower, said, 'More than they have here.' These operations were
performed in less than a quarter of the year. In the places through
which they pass to their work they sell what they can, and at night pitch
their tent or draw their van on some common or waste land, buy no corn
for their horses, nor spend any money for coal or wood. If they locate
themselves on the margin of a wood, 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 Gipsies
quarrelling.' No inspector of nuisances pays them a visit; the
tax-gatherer knows not their whereabouts; the rate-collector troubles
them not with any 'demand note;' their children are not provided with
proper and necessary education, yet no school attendance officer serves
them with a summons. Their existence is not known officially, saving the
time a census is taken, when, at the _expense of the house-dwellers_, a
registry is made of them. Not a farthing do they contribute to the
government, imperial or local, though many of them are in a position to
do it, and can, without inconvenience, find from 40 to 80 pounds; or 100
pounds for a new-travelling van when they want one. Overcrowding and
numerous indecencies exist in galore among them, yet no representative of
the Board of Health troubles himself about the number of cubic feet of
air per individual there may be in their tent or van. Is this neglect,
indifference, obliviousness, or do the authorities believe that the
impurities and unsanitary exhalements are sufficiently oxidised to
prevent any disease? It is worthy of remark that they are not liable to
the epidemics which afflict others. The loss of a pony from a common
simultaneously with their exodus is a suspicious fact occasionally. They
live in defiance of social, moral, civil, and natural law, a disgrace to
the 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 population
have met deserved success, draws attention to the state of another
neglected class. Parliament, he says, which has lately been reforming so
many things, would have done well to consider the case of the Gipsies,
'our roadside arabs.' Of the idleness, ignorance, heathenism, and
general misery prevailing among these strange people he gives some
curious instances. One old man, whose acquaintance Mr. Smith made,
calculates that 'there are about 250 families of Gipsies in ten of the
Midland counties, and thinks that a similar proportion will be found in
the rest of the United Kingdom. He has seen as many as ten tents of
Gipsies within a distance of five miles. He thinks there will be an
average of five children in each tent. He has seen as many as ten or
twelve children in some tents, and not many of them able to read or
write. His child of six months old--with his wife ill at the same time
in the tent--sickened, died, and was "laid out" by him, and it was also
buried out of one of those wretched abodes on the roadside at
Barrow-upon-Soar, last January. When the poor thing died he had not
sixpence in his pocket.' An old woman bore similar testimony. 'She said
that she had had sixteen children, fifteen of whom are alive, several of
them being born in a roadside tent. She says that she was married out of
one of these tents; and her brother died and was buried out of a tent at
Packington, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. This poor woman knows about three
hundred families of Gipsies in eleven of the Midland and Eastern
counties, and has herself, so she says, four lots of Gipsies travelling
in Lincolnshire at the present time. She said she could not read
herself, and thinks that not one Gipsy in twenty can. She has travelled
all her life. Her mother, named Smith, of whom there are not a few, is
the mother of fifteen children, all of whom were born in a tent.' Mr.
Smith's conclusion (which will not be disputed) is that 'to have between
three and four thousand men and women, and eight or ten thousand children
classed in the Census as vagrants and vagabonds, roaming all over the
country, in ignorance and evil training that carries peril with it, is
not a pleasant look-out for the future.' He contends that 'if these poor
children, living in vans and tents and under old carts, are to be allowed
to live in these places, they should be registered in a manner analogous
to the Canal Boats Act of 1877, so that the children may be brought under
the compulsory clauses of the Education Acts, and become Christianised
and civilised as other children.'"
The _Illustrated London News_, October 4th, says:--"Among the papers to
be read at Manchester is one on the condition of the Gipsy children and
roadside 'arabs' in our midst, by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville,
Leicester. Here, indeed, is a gentleman who is certainly neither a
dealer in crotchets nor a rider of hobbies. Mr. Smith has done admirable
service on behalf of the poor children on board our barges and
canal-boats, and the even more pitiable boys and girls in our
brick-fields; and to his philanthropic exertions are mainly due the
recent amendments in the Factory Acts regulating the labour of young
children. He has now taken the case of the juvenile 'Romanies' in hand;
and I wish him well in his benevolent crusade. Mr. Smith has obligingly
sent me a proof of his address, from which I gather that, owing to a
superstitious dislike which the Gipsies entertain towards the Census, and
the successfully cunning attempts on their part to baffle the
enumerators, it is only by conjecture and guesswork that we can form any
idea of the number of Bohemians in this country. The result of Mr.
Smith's diligent inquiries has led him to the assumption that there are
not less than 4,000 Gipsy men and women, and from 15,000 to 20,000 Gipsy
and '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 Condition
of the Gipsy Children," appears in the _Daily News_, October 6th:--"At
the Social Science Congress Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, will
to-morrow open a fresh campaign of philanthropy. The philanthropic
Alexander is seldom in the unhappy condition of his Macedonian original,
and generally has plenty of worlds remaining ready to be conquered.
Brick-yards and canal-boats have not exhausted Mr. Smith's energies, and
the field he has now entered upon is wider and perhaps harder to work
than either of these. Mr. Smith desires to bring the Gipsy children
under the operation of the Education Act. Education and Gipsies seem at
first sight to be words mutually contradictory. Amid the mass of
imaginative fiction, idle speculation, and deliberate forgery that has
been set afloat on the subject of the Gipsies, one thing has been made
tolerably clear, and that is the intense aversion which the pure bred
Gipsy has to any of the restraints of civilised life. Whether those
restraints take the form of orderly and cleanly living in houses of brick
and of stone, or of military service, or of school attendance, is pretty
much a matter of indifference to him. Schools, indeed, may be regarded
from the Gipsy point of view as not merely irksome, but useless
institutions. Our most advanced places of technical education do not
teach fortune-telling, or that interesting branch of the tinker's art
which enables the practitioner in mending one hole in a kettle to make
two. Except for music the Gipsies do not seem to have much aptitude for
the arts; they are more or less indifferent to literature; and business,
except of certain dubious kinds, is a detestable thing to them. Their
vagrant habits, on the other hand, enable them, without much difficulty,
to evade the great commandment which has gone forth, that all the English
world shall be examined.
"The condition of the Gipsies is a sufficiently gloomy one. We may pass
over those degenerate members of the race who have elected to pitch
permanent tents in the slums and rookeries of great towns, because, in
the first place, they are degenerate, and in the second, their children
ought to be within reach of School Board visitors who do their duty
diligently. It is only the Gipsy proper who has the opportunity of
evading this vigilance. His opportunity is an excellent one, and he
fully avails himself of it. Gipsy households, if they can be so called,
are of the most fluid, not to say intangible character. The partnerships
between men and women are rarely of a legal kind, and the constant habit
of aliases and double names make identification still more difficult. As
a rule, the race is remarkably prolific, and though the hardships to
which young children are exposed thin it considerably, the proportion of
children to adults is still very large. Hawking, their chief ostensible
occupation, cannot legally be practised until the age of seventeen, and
until that time the Gipsy child has nothing to do except to sprawl and
loaf about the camp, and to indulge in his own devices. Idleness and
ignorance, unless the whole race of moralists have combined to represent
things falsely, are the parents of every sort of vice, and the average
Gipsy child would appear to be brought up in a condition which is the _ne
plus ultra_ of both. It is true that Gipsies do not very often make
their appearance in courts of
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