THE profession of the Gypsies, according to a reverend Spanish professor,
whom Borrow quotes, is idleness; and by their proverb _Butin hi
dinilenge_ (Work is for fools) the German Gypsies plead guilty to the
charge. In this respect the coppersmiths were exceptional, for among
them diligence raged almost as an epidemic fever. The missionary of the
eight-hours day would not have found a welcome in their camp, nor the
agent of a Sabbath-observance society any encouragement. On all days of
the week, at all hours of the day, the rhythmic tap of their hammers and
the muffled gust of their bellows preached eloquent sermons on industry,
while knots of busy women, sewing, washing and cooking, gave an equally
striking object-lesson in the same subject.
Nor did they seek to compensate by recreation for long hours of labour.
The young people showed a certain skill in games like knuckle-bones or
pitch-and-toss, and took a slight interest in boxing and wrestling but
seldom practised them. Only on rare occasions did they and their elders
play cards or visit music-halls, and the gramophones which several
families possessed were little heard. If they danced it was when there
was a prospect of extorting baksheesh from visitors, and the
ill-remembered tales and songs which they sold to collectors of such
curiosities seemed to be rather what they had heard others tell or sing
than what they cherished for their own amusement. Unlike many of their
brethren they were not entertainers, and they had no strong desire to be
themselves entertained.
Judged from a trade-union point of view, or even from that of a
picture-palace proprietor, this excessive devotion to work would be
regarded as a symptom of savagery; yet, as increasing productiveness and
wealth, it might with equal justice be taken as a sign of advanced
civilization. In one respect, however, the Gypsies were undoubtedly
primitive, and that was in their faith in parliaments. When day had
faded into night and toil had ceased, if they were not eating their
irregular meals or drinking glasses of tea made in samovars whose hours
of work were scarcely less than their own, the coppersmiths were holding
interminable divans. In wet or cold weather parliament assembled within
a tent; but on warm evenings sessions were held in the open air, the
members sitting in a ring cross-legged on the ground or lolling on beds
of eiderdown. Although the children were kept at a distance these
meetings were not councils of elders, since the young men as well as the
old were present. Their wives and daughters sat apart engaged in womanly
occupations, for there was in the tribe no need to blow a “trumpet
against the monstrous regiment of women.”
Probably Kola, the chief, would not have permitted the constant presence
of inquisitive visitors when important matters were under discussion, or
would have changed the subject on their arrival. In any case to have sat
evening after evening, as it were in the distinguished strangers’
gallery, listening to debates which were only half intelligible, was an
entertainment drearier than any of his visitors was prepared to face.
Thus it is impossible to decide whether these parliaments had legislative
and judicial functions, or whether, as Kola’s privy council, they were
only deliberative and advisory. When strangers were present Fardi
sometimes improved the occasion by producing a little ragged map of the
world to question them about the amenities of different countries. It
was a projection after the method of Mercator, in which Greenland
appeared, grossly exaggerated, as an attractive patch of bright colour
equal in size to the whole of Europe and pleasantly unspotted by the
names of icy mountains or any other geographical complexities. This
image of Greenland had for Fardi the same attraction as the bellman’s
chart for the Snark-hunting crew, and he was convinced only with
difficulty that, the climate being intolerable and the natives poor, he
was unlikely to do there a great trade in mending copper pots. To
parliament, too, Kola exhibited his first large payment in British money,
a big bundle of Bank of England notes. His subjects passed them from
grimy hand to grimy hand, tugged them viciously, held them up to the
light, and then delivered judgment: “Ugly notes, but tough paper.”
The discussions were as solemn as those of the mother of parliaments at
Westminster, and much more sincere, although they were neither opened
with prayer nor encumbered by any decorative formalities. If the chief
was chairman—and he sometimes enthroned himself upon an upturned
cauldron—his services were seldom required either to keep order, which
was amply secured by the native dignity of the members, or to direct a
debate that had no tendency to stray from the one subject which was
uppermost in all their minds. Generalities that had no concrete
application to their trade did not interest them, and they would have
refused to send a representative to the congress which was held in
Hungary in 1879 to deliberate on the common interests of Gypsies
everywhere. Sometimes when Russians visited the camp the coppersmiths
would listen so eagerly to long accounts of events in the outside world
that it seemed as though the divan was their newspaper or club, and stood
to them in the same relation as the “crack i’ the kirkyard” to Scottish
farm-folk a century ago, or as his favourite public-house to the British
workman. But in truth only those facts really interested them which
affected their work and industry, and most of what they heard passed in
at one ear and out at the other. They were greedy for knowledge of the
wealth of nations, the size of cities, or the trades by which towns
prospered; they collected scraps of paper on which chance acquaintances
had scribbled the addresses of factories; and in fact all their
conversation and all their thoughts were concerned with the problem of
work and where to find it.