The lark echoes in the air—

“But I would seek on earth below

A space for heaven to win,

To cheer one heart bowed down by woe,

To save one soul from sin.”

I left this hut, after taking a breath of fresh air, for another gipsy

_dwelling_ round the corner, picking my way among the masses of filth as

well as I could. Here another sight, not quite so sickening, but equally

heartrending, presented itself. A gipsy woman was squatting upon the

filthy boards, the father was sitting upon a rickety old chair without

any bottom in it; _i.e._, there were a few cords tied across which served

to hold up one or two dirty rags, and these were sunk so low that any one

sitting upon the chair could feel nothing but the rims, which were not at

all comfortable. Round the man and woman were six children of all ages

and sizes, partially dressed in filthy rags and old shoes, which seemed

to have been picked out of the ashes upon Hackney Marshes, all of which

were much too large for their little feet, and were stuffed with rags.

One little girl had a pair of cast-off woman’s shoes, possessing little

sole and almost less “uppers.”

The gipsy father was partially blind through having been in so many gipsy

combats. A kick over the eyes had not only nearly blinded him, but as B.

said, “I feel at times as if my senses were nearly gone. Thank the Lord,

I can see best when the sun shines clear.” On my approaching nearer to

where they were sitting the man got up and kindly offered me his _chair_,

which I accepted, notwithstanding the disagreeable surroundings. On the

walls of their _dwelling_ pieces of pictures and old newspapers were

pasted. There were parts of _The British Workman_, _Band of Hope

Review_, _Old Jonathan_, _The Cottager and Artizan_, _Churchman’s

Almanack_; in fact, they seemed to have upon the greasy walls a scrap of

some of the pictorial publications published by the Wesleyans, Baptists,

Church of England, the Unitarians, Congregationalists, the Religious

Tract Society, Cassell, Sunday School Union, Haughton and Co., Partridge

and Co., Dr. Barnardo, and others. I said to the poor man, “This is a

very tumbledown old place.” “Yes,” he said, “people say that it has been

built nine hundred years; and I believe it has, for the man who owns it

now says he cannot remember it being built.” I said, “How old do you

think the man is who owns it?” He answered, “Well, I should think that

he is fifty, for he has great grand-children.” Their only table

consisted of an old box, upon which, in a wicker basket, there were a

young jay and a blackbird which the gipsy woman was trying to rear. As

the young birds opened their beaks, almost wide enough to swallow each

other, the woman kept thrusting into their mouths large pieces of

stinking meat of some kind, about which I did not ask any particulars.

These little gipsy attractions and observations being over, I began to

inquire about things concerning their present and eternal welfare. I

found on inquiry that the only food this family had had to live upon

during the last two days had been a threepenny loaf and half an ounce of

tea. When I asked them what they did for a living they could scarcely

tell me. The man said, “I go out sometimes with a basket and a few

oranges in it, and I picks up a bit of a living in this way. Some of the

people are pretty good to me. As a rule we begs our clothes.

Occasionally I catches a rabbit or picks up a hedgehog. If I can scrape

together a shilling to buy oranges I generally manages pretty well for

that day. Our firing does not cost us anything, and in summer-time the

young uns picks up a lot of birds’ eggs out of the forest, which are very

nice for them if they are not too far hatched.” Just at this juncture a

practical demonstration took place as to how they dealt with the birds’

eggs. One of the boys, I should think of about seven years, came with a

nest of blackbirds’ eggs—poor little fellow he was no doubt hungry, for

he had had no Sunday dinner—which he placed into his mother’s hands. The

mother was not long before she began to crack them, and into the

children’s mouths they went, half hatched as they were, just as she fed

the young jay. I really thought that one of the youngsters would have

been choked by one of the half-hatched young blackbirds. With a little

crushing, cramming, and tapping on the back the poor Sunday dinnerless

gipsy child escaped the sad consequences I at one time feared would be

the result. To see a woman forcing food of this description down a

child’s throat is a sight I never want to see again. Hunger opens a

mouth that turns sickening food into dainty morsels. None of these poor

gipsy children had ever lisped a godly prayer or read a word in their

lives. The father said he would be glad to send the children to school

if they would be received there and they could go free. The whole of

these children were born in a tent upon a bit of straw among the low

bushes of Epping Forest. Some in the depth of severe winter, others in

the midst of drenching rains, and even when the larks were singing

overhead, with “roughish nurses and midwives” as attendants.

[Picture: Inside a house-dwelling gipsy’s wigwam, Pump Hill, Epping

Forest]

I found that this “gipsy-man” had been a Sunday-school scholar, but

somehow or other—he did not seem desirous of saying how—he got among a

gang of gipsies in early life. He left his praying mother for the life

of a vagabond among tramps, with a relish for hedgehogs, snails, and

diseased pork. He said he liked hedgehog-pie better than any other food

in the world. “Two hedgehogs will make a good pie,” he said. He also

said that he was once with a tribe of gipsy tramps, and he laid a wager

that he “could make them all sick of hedgehogs.” They told him he could

not. The result was he set off to a place he well knew in the

neighbourhood and caught twenty-one hedgehogs. These were all cooked,

some in clay and others turned into soup, and all the gipsies who ate

them “were made sick, excepting an old woman of the name of Smith.”

He next told me how to cook snails, which he liked very much, and wished

he had a dish before him then. The snails, he said, “were boiled, and

then put in salt and water, after which they were boiled again, and then

were ready for eating.” Feeling desirous of changing the subject, I

reverted to his Sunday-school experience, and asked if he could remember

anything he once read (he could not now read a sentence) or sung. All he

could remember, he said, was “In my father’s house are many mansions,”

and a bit of a song—

“Here we suffer grief and pain,

Here we meet to part again;

In heaven we part no more.

Oh! that will be joyful.”

My heart bled, and I felt that I could have wept tears of sorrow as I sat

in the midst of this family of our present-day gipsies. In these two

tumble-down wooden dwellings there were two men and three women and

twelve children growing up in the densest ignorance, barbarism, and sin.

I gave the mother and children some money wherewith to buy some food, and

I left them with gratitude beaming out of their dirty faces. In going

down the hill, a couple of hundred yards from this hotbed of sin,

iniquity, and wretchedness, I came upon a party of about one hundred and

fifty beautifully dressed and happy Sunday-school children tripping along

joyfully with their teachers by their side to an afternoon service in the

church close by. I could almost imagine them to be singing as I looked

into their cheery faces, and nothing would have given me greater pleasure

than to have sung out with them lustily—

“Merrily, merrily, onward we go.”

The five minutes’ trotting down the hill with this youthful encouraging

band brought my forty years’ joyous and soul-saving episodes of

Sunday-school life vividly before me, which had the soothing effect of

temporarily shaking off my late hour’s experiences with the gipsies, and

causing my heart to dance for joy.

A little later on I took the main road to High Beach and the “Robin

Hood.” I had not got far upon the way before I was accosted by three

semi-drunken, “respectable”-looking roughs, asking all sorts of insulting

questions; and because I could not point them to a “California,” but

rather to a “Bedlam,” I really thought that I should have to “lookout for

squalls.” They began in earnest to close round me. By a little

manœuvring, and the fortunate appearance of two or three gentlemen, I

eluded their clutches.

The road up the hill to the “Robin Hood” was literally crowded with

travellers, foolish and gay; cabs and carriages teemed with passengers of

the gentle and simple sort, roughs and riffraff, went puffing and panting

along. There were the thick and thin, tall and short, weak and strong,

all jostling together as on Bank Holidays. I could hardly realize the

fact that it was an English Sunday. In one trap, drawn by a poor bony

animal scarcely able to crawl, there were fifteen men, women, and

children, shouting and screaming as if it were a fair day—wild, mad, and

frantic with swill to their heart’s core. The gipsies were in full

swing. There were no less than fifty horses and donkeys running,

galloping, trotting, and walking, with men, women, and children upon

their backs. Half-tipsy girls seemed to have lost all sense of modesty

and shame. The long sticks of the gipsies laid heavily upon the bones of

the poor animals set the women and girls “a-screeching” and shouting,

sounds which did not rise very high before they were turned into God’s

curses.

I knew many of the gipsies, and, contrary to what I had expected, I did

not receive one cross look. The eldest son of a gipsy, named Pether, to

whom I shall refer later on, took me into his tea, gingerbeer, and pop

tent; and nothing would satisfy him but that I must have some gingerbeer

and cake, and while I was eating he handed me his fat baby to look at.

It certainly bade fair to become a bigger man than General Tom Thumb. I

touched the baby’s cheek and put a small coin in its tiny hand. I also

spoke a word of genuine praise to the young gipsy mother on account of

the good start she was making, and afterwards I shook hands with the

gipsy pair and bade them good-bye. To Pether’s credit be it said that,

although he owns horses, swings, cocoa-nuts, &c., he never employs them

on Sundays. His gipsy father had told him more than once that “there is

no good got by it. I have noticed it more than once, what’s got by

cocoa-nuts, swings, and horses on Sunday, the devil fetches before dinner

on Monday.”

Upon the forest, on God’s day of rest, there were no fewer than from five

hundred to one thousand gipsy children, not a dozen of whom could read

and write a sentence, or had ever been in a place of worship.

In going to my friend’s, the house-dwelling gipsy, for tea, in response

to his kind invitation, that we might have a chat together, I called to

see a gipsy woman of the name of B— whom I knew, as I also did her

parents, who had recently come to live in the place. When I arrived at

the wretched, miserable, dirty abode, I found that her gipsy husband had

been sent for, and was now “doing fourteen years”—for what offence I did

not attempt to find out—and that his place had been filled by another

idle scamp; and, if reports be true, he has also been sent for “to do

double duty,” and whose place also has been filled up in the social

circle with another gipsy. This gipsy woman has entered into a fourth

alliance, and, as one of the gipsies recently said, she has really been

“churched” this time. I saw much, smelt a deal, but said little; and,

after giving the poor child of six a trifle, I made haste to join my

friends the gipsies at tea.

When I was invited, my friend Pether said: “You could not mistake the

house. Over the door it reads, ‘J. Pether, the Ratcatcher and Butcher.’

If you ask any one in Loughton for ‘Scarecrow,’ ‘_Poshcard_,’

‘Shovecard,’ or ‘Jack Scare,’ they will direct you to my house. I am

known for miles round.” Of course I had no difficulty in finding my

friend, with so many names and titles. On arriving at the door my big

friend came hobbling along to open it. If my little hand had been a

rough, big, cocoa-nut that he had been going to “shie” with vengeance at

somebody’s head, he could not have given it a firmer grip. Fortunately

he did not break any bones in it. I had not been long seated upon the

bench before his “poorly” wife came downstairs. The best cups and

saucers were set on a coverless table, and the cake, which was a little

too rich, was placed thereon. By the side of the fireplace upon the

floor was their poor crippled son of about sixteen years, who had lost

the use of his arms and legs, but had retained his senses. Tea was

handed out to us, and I did fairly well. I enjoyed the tea, although I

felt pained and sorrowful to see a sharp youth confined at home under

such sad circumstances. They did their best to make me happy and

comfortable. At our table sat one of Mr. Pether’s sons, who was in the

militia. He had a kindly word for almost everybody in the regiment to

which he belonged, especially for the Duke of Connaught, who had a kindly

word for him. The Duke asked him one day if he would like to join the

Line, to which young Pether said “No.” “The Duke is a gentleman, and

pleases everybody,” said Pether, the young militiaman. “Verily, this is

a truth spoken by a gipsy soldier,” I said to Pether senior. “Yes,

governor,” said Mr. Pether; “and the Queen is a good woman, too.” To

which I replied, “There could not be a better; she is the best Queen that

England ever saw.” This brought a smile upon their faces over our hot

gipsy tea.

Tea was now over, and our chat began. The first thing I said to Mr.

Pether was, “How is it that you have become a gipsy with so many names?”

This question called forth a laugh and a groan. A laugh, because it

brought to his mind so many reminiscences of bygone days; and a groan,

because his gouty leg had an extra twinge from some cause or other, which

caused him to pull a wry face for a minute. I could not help smiling,

when with one breath he laughed out, “Ah, ah, ah, ah!” and in the next he

cried out, “Oh, oh! it almost makes me sweat.” “Well, to begin at the

beginning, sir, my father was a butcher and farmer, and he sent me early

to London—I think before I was nine years old—to be with an uncle, who

was a butcher. I was with him for a few years, but he was not very kind.

He used to put me to the worst and coldest kind of work, winter or

summer; and I was often put upon by his man and a young chap he had. The

chap used to plague me terribly, and call me all sorts of names; and I

was a lad that was tempery and peppery, and would not be put on by

anybody. One day the chap begun to leather me with a cow’s tongue, which

cuts like a knife, upon the bare skin. He leathered me so much that

blood ran down my arms and face. This got my blood up, and while he was

bending to pick up something I seized the poleaxe that stood close by and

struck him when no one was near with the sharp edge of it upon his head,

the same as I would a bullock, and felled him to the ground like an ox.

As soon as I saw blood flowing I made sure that I had killed him, and,

without waiting to pick up my clothes, I ran off as fast as my legs would

carry me, without stopping till I got to Harrow-on-the-Hill. I dirted my

clothes and coat and mangled them so that nobody could tell me, and I

changed my name to ‘Poshcard’ for a time. I then began to wander about

the lanes, and to beg, and to sleep in the barns and under stacks on the

roadside. Sometimes I could pick up a job at butchers’, doing what they

call ‘running guts’ for sausages and black pudding. My clothes at times

were all alive. When anybody gave me an old coat or shirt, socks or

boots, I never took them off till they dropped off. I have slept under

ricks in the winter till the straw has been frozen to my feet. Hundreds

of times I have slept between the cows for warmth, while they have lain

down in the sheds and cow-houses. I used to creep in between them softly

and snoozle the night away. The warmth of the cows has kept me alive

hundreds of times. I have at times almost lived on carrots. When

blackberries were ripe I used to eat many of them; in fact, I used to

steal peas and beans, or any mortal thing that I came near. Sometimes I

fell in with drovers. I have got in the winter-time under a hedge and

nibbled a turnip for my Sunday dinner. I was for some time with a

farmer, and used to mind his cattle, and he got to like me so much that

he used to place confidence in me. He would trust me with anything. One

time he sent me to sell a calf for him, but instead of returning with the

money I ran away and bought a suit of clothes with it. I durst not face

him again after that. For fourteen years I was wandering up and down

England in this way, daily expecting to be taken up for murder.

“I then joined a gang of gipsies of the name of Lee, and with them I have

lied, lived, stole, and slept, more like a dog than a human being. I

used to run donkeys all day, and when the old woman came home from

fortune-telling she would give me two pieces of bread and butter from

somebody’s table for my dinner and tea which some of the servant girls

had given to her. Among the gipsies I used to be reckoned the very

devil. I have fought hundreds of times, and was never beaten in my life.

The time when I was more nearly beaten than any other was with my

brother-in-law, a gipsy. We fought hard and fast, up and down, for

nearly an hour, and then we gave it up as both of us being as good as

each other. I have had both my arms broken, legs broken, shoulder-blades

broken, and kicked over my head till I have been senseless, in gipsy

rows. Oh! sir, I could tell you a lot more, and I will do so sometime.”

This terrible recital of facts—of the cruelty, hardships, wrong-doing of

present-day gipsy life—almost caused my hair to stand on an end whilst he

related the horrors of backwood and daylight gipsyism in our midst.

I asked Mr. Pether if the gipsies were on the increase in the country so

far as he knew. He answered—

“I should think they are very much. Gipsies seem to be in the lanes

everywhere. I have seen as many as five hundred tents and vans in the

forest before now at one time. There are not so many now, as you know;

but they have spread all over the country, because the rangers would not

allow the gipsies to stay upon the forest all night. Some of the gipsies

have made heaps of money by fortune-telling. Lord bless you! I knew the

family of gipsy Smiths, they seemed to have so much money that they did

not know what to do with it. They seemed to have gold and diamond rings

upon all their fingers. They took their money to America, and I have not

heard what has become of them since. Some of the family are left about

the forest now as poor as rats. The gipsies are a rum lot, I can assure

you. I do not know a dozen gipsies to-day who can read and write, and

none of them ever go, or think of going, to church or chapel.” “Have you

ever been in a place of worship since you ran away from home?” “No,”

said “Scare,” “except when I went with my old woman to be wed; and thank

God I can show the ‘marriage lines.’ Not many of the gipsies can show

their ‘marriage lines,’ I can assure you. I have not been in either

church or chapel, except then, for nearly fifty years.” I said, “Did you

ever pray?” “No,” said “Scare,” “but I swears thousands of times.

Mother prays for me and that has to do. She’s a good old creature.”

I said, “Now Mr. Pether, from what cause did you receive the name of

‘Scare’?” “Well, to tell you the truth,” said Mr. “Scare,” “at the edge

of the forest there was a little low public-house, kept by a man and his

wife, which we gipsies used to visit. In course of time the man died,

and the old woman used to always be crying her eyes up about the loss of

her poor ‘Bill;’ at least, she seemed to be always crying about him,

which I knew was not real—she did not care a rap about the old man—so I

thought I would have a lark with the old girl. In the yard there were a

lot of fowls, and just before the old girl went to bed—and I knew which

bed she slept in—I put up the window and turned one of the fowls into the

room and then pulled it gently down again, and I then stood back in the

yard. Presently the old girl, I could see by the light, was making for

her bedroom, which was on the ground floor. No sooner had the old girl

opened the door than the fowl began ‘scare!’ ‘scare!’ ‘scare!’ ‘scare!’

and ‘flusker’ and ‘flapper’ about the room. The old lady was so

frightened that she dropped the candle upon the floor and ran out in the

yard calling out ‘Murder!’ ‘murder!’ ‘murder!’ Of course I dared not be

seen and sneaked away. Early next morning I went to the house and called

for some beer. No sooner had I entered than the old girl told me that

she had seen her husband’s ghost on the bed, and it had almost frightened

her wild. It had made every hair upon her head stand upright. It was

her husband’s ghost, she was sure it was, she said; and nobody could make

her believe it was not; and from that night the old woman would not sleep

in the room again. She very soon left the public-house, and one of my

friends took it. From this circumstance I have gone in the name of ‘Jack

Scare.’” “Well, what have you to say about the name ‘Scarecrow,’ by

which you are known?” “Scarecrow,” said Mr. Pether, “was given to me

after I had fetched, in the dead of the night, a bough of the tree upon

which a man had hung himself a few days before. It arose in this way. A

man hung himself in a wood through some girl, and after he was cut down

and buried a gipsy I knew begged or bought his clothes for a little—I

could not say what the amount was, I think five shillings—and wore them.

Chaff, jokes, and sneers with that gipsy for wearing the dead man’s

clothes resulted in a bet being made for five shillings as to whether I

dare, or dare not, visit the spot where the man was hung at midnight

hour, and bring some token or proof from the place as having been there.

I went and fetched a bough of the very same tree, and from that

circumstance I have been called ‘scarecrow’ or ‘dare-devil.’

‘_Poshcard_’ or ‘_Shovecard_’ was given to me because I was always a good

hand at cheating with cards.” _Posh_ among the gipsies and in Romany

means “half,” and I suppose they really looked upon Pether as having half

gipsy blood in his veins.

“Well, how are you getting on now?” “Well, I am getting on pretty well,

thank God. I never work my horse on Sundays, and I do not cheat the same

as I used to do. Some days I earn £6 or £7, and then again I shall be

for days and days and not earn sixpence. I also go a rat-catching and

butchering for people, and they pays me pretty well; and sometimes I

fetches a hare or two. I am not particular if partridges or pheasants

come in my way. If you will let me know the next time you are this way I

will have a first-rate hare for you.” Of course I thanked him, but told

my friend that I was not partial to hares.

“Well now, Mr. Pether, let us come back again to the time when you ran

away, after felling the chap with the poleaxe. Did you kill the man?”

“No,” said Pether, “I have found out since that I did not kill him, but I

gave him a terrible scalp. He is dead now, poor chap. I have wished

many thousands of times since that I had not struck him, though he did

wrong in leathering me with a cow’s tongue.”

“How did your friends find you out at last?” “Well,” said Pether, “after

I ran away from home my mother advertised for me all over the country,

spending scores of pounds to no purpose. On account of my changing my

clothes and name, and travelling with gipsies and tramps, and becoming as

one of them, they could never find me out, till I had been away nearly

eighteen years. How I was found out arose as follows. One day I was

sitting in a beershop with some gipsies, when a man came in who knew me,

and he seemed to look, and look and eye me over, head and foot, from top

to bottom, as he never had done before. While he was looking at me, it

seemed to strike me at once that I was at last found out for the murder I

had always thought that I had committed. He went away for a little time

out of the public-house, and as it has been told me since, he went to the

telegraph office to send a telegram to my brother-in-law, who was in

London, not many miles away, to come down by the next train, for they had

found out who they thought to be their ‘Jack.’ He was not away very

long, and I was in twenty minds to have run out of the house; but as he

did not come back in a few minutes, I thought I was wrong in judging that

I had been found out. Lord bless you, sir, did not I open my eyes when

he came in again and brought one or two men with him, and sat down and

called for some beer. My legs and knees began to knock together; I was

all of a tremble, and I got up to go out of the house, but they called

for some beer and would not let me leave the place. For the life of me I

could not make it all out. Sometimes I imagined the new-comers were

detectives in disguise. They joked and chaffed and seemed quite merry.

I can assure you, sir, that I was not merry. I got up several times to

try to get out of the house, and to sneak away. He ordered some dinner,

and would have no ‘nay,’ but that I must join them. I tried to eat with

them, but I can assure you, sir, it was not much that I could either eat

or drink. Presently, after dinner, another man came into the room and

sat down and called for some beer. I did not know the man. It has

turned out since that the last comer was no other than my brother-in-law.

It flashed across me that I was at last found out, and no mistake. I was

a doomed man; and this surmise seemed to be doubly true when he took out

of his pocket a newspaper and began to read an advertisement giving the

description of me at the time I ran away. They now called me by my own

name, and asked the landlord to allow me to have a wash, which he readily

granted. When this was over and I was ready, they said, ‘Now, Jack, we

shall want you to go with us.’ Of course there was nothing for it but to

go. The worst was come, and I thought I must screw up courage and face

it out as well as I could. On our way we called at the telegraph office,

where one of the men sent something by telegraph. I did not know what.

I have since heard that it was a telegram to my mother, stating that they

had found her son ‘Jack,’ and they were on the way to her house with him.

On the way through London to go, as I thought, to the police-station, we

turned off the main street to go up a by-street. For the life of me I

could not tell where this was, except that they were going to change my

clothes, or put ‘steel buckles’ upon my wrists. We went into a tidy sort

of a little house, which I thought was the home of one of the detectives

who was with us. I was asked to sit upon the old sofa, and the men sat

round the fire. For a little while all was as still as death. Presently

I heard someone coming downstairs. The footstep did not sound like that

of a man. In a minute there stood before me a woman between fifty and

sixty years old. I thought I had seen the face somewhere, but could not

tell where. The voice seemed to be a voice that I had heard somewhere,

times back.

“The mystery was soon solved, the secret was soon out. As she looked

into my face, she cried out, ‘Art thou my son John, who ran away from his

place nearly twenty years ago, and for whom I have prayed every day since

that the Lord would bring you back to me before I died?’ And then she

came a little nearer, and looked into my face a little closer, and cried

out, ‘Thou art my son, John; bless the dear good Lord for preserving thee

all these years.’ I said, ‘Are you my mother?’ tremblingly. And she

took hold of me and put her arms round me, and clasped me closely to her,

and she cried and sobbed out for a minute or two, and then, with tears

streaming down her face upon my shoulder, said, while trembling and

almost fainting, ‘I am thy mother, my son John; let me kiss thee.’ And

she kissed me, and I kissed her. I cried, and she cried; I thought we

were not going to be parted again. We were in each other’s arms for a

few moments, and the man who brought the newspaper to the public-house to

recognize me, made himself known to me as my brother-in-law. Some of my

brothers came in the evening—and an evening it was. I shall never forget

our meeting while I live.” “And you could have sung from your heart,

Pether, ‘Come let us be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive

again, was lost and is found.’” “Yes I could. I always felt, and do so

still feel, that when I am gipsying, as you sometimes see me at ‘Robin

Hood,’ my mother’s prayers are heard by God. She is a good creature, and

is alive and lives with my sister at Battersea. I often go to see her.

She is a good creature.” Mr. Pether, while narrating his troubles,

difficulties, hairbreadth escapes, broke out frequently into sobs and

cries almost like a child.

I bade my friends the gipsies good-bye and, after giving the poor

crippled boy something to please him, I started to go to the station, but

found out that I should have an hour to wait. I therefore turned into a

Wesleyan Chapel to enjoy a partial service, at the close of which the

choir and the congregation, including a gipsy Smith and his wife, sung

with tear-fetching expression and feeling—

“Jerusalem my happy home,

Name ever dear to me;

When shall my labours have an end,

In joy and peace with thee?”

After this impressive service time, steam and “shanks’s pony” carried and

wafted me back to my friends in Victoria Park, none the worse for my

Sunday ramble among the gipsies.

Rambles among the Gipsies in Epping Forest.

AFTER being kept in bed at a friend’s house by pain and prostration for

forty hours, it was pleasant to tramp upon the green, mossy sward of

Nature in Victoria Park on a bright Easter Monday morning, with the sun

winking and blinking in my face through the trees on my way to the

station in the midst of a throng of busy holiday-seekers, dressed in

their best clothes, with all the variety of colour and fashion that can

only be seen on a bank-holiday. The fashions worn by the ladies ranged

from the reign of Queen Anne to that of the latest fantasy under our good

Queen Victoria, with plenty of room for digression and varieties

according to the individual taste and vagary. Some of the ladies’ pretty

faces were not without colour which makes “beautiful for ever.” There

were others who might almost claim relationship to Shetland ponies, for

their hair hung over their foreheads, covering their “witching eyes,”

making them like two-year old colts, and as if they were ashamed to show

the noble foreheads God had given them. Others were walking on stilts,

evidently with much discomfort, and with both eyes shut to the injury

they were inflicting upon their delicate frames and constitutions. This

class of young ladies evidently thought that high heels, pretty ankles,

and small feet, with plenty of giggle and bosh, were the things to “trap

’em and catch ’em.” Poor things! they are terribly mistaken on this

point. The things to “trap ’em and catch ’em” are graceful action,

modest reserve, soft looks, a heart full of sympathy, tenderness,

goodness, and kindness. Few young men can withstand these “fireworks.”

These are the things which make “beautiful for ever.”

The fashions adopted by the gentlemen were all “cuts” and “shapes.”

Naughty children vulgarly call them “young dandies”—“flashy fops” whose

brains and money—if they ever had any—vanish into smoke or the fumes of a

beer barrel. Their garments were covered with creases, caused by the

ironing process at their “uncle’s,” which certainly did not add to their

appearance, or the elegance of their figures. As they yawned, laughed,

shouted, and giggled upon the platform, with their mouths open—not quite

as wide as Jumbo’s when apples are thrown at him—it was not surprising

that flies fast disappeared.

There were others whose head and face had the appearance of having been

in many a storm of the “bull and pup” fashion. They wore pantaloons

tight round the knees and wide about the ankles, and coats made of a

small Scotch plaid, blue and black cloth, with pockets inside and

outside, capable of holding a few rabbits, hares, and partridges without

any inconvenience to the wearer. At the heels of these gentry, who

loitered about with sticks in their hands, skulked lurcher dogs.

Frequently I came alongside a young gentleman with an intelligent face,

marked by thought, care, and study, who evidently was taking an “outing”

for the good of his health. As he passed the vacant-minded part of the

throng and crush, he seemed to give a kind of side glance of pity and

contempt, and then passed along, keeping a sharp look-out after his

pockets.

Among the crowd of pleasure-seekers there was a large sprinkling of men

with premature grey locks and snowy white hair, betoking a life of hurry

and worry, thought, care, and anxiety, with several children jumping and

frisking round them with glee, delight, joy, and smiles at the prospect

of spending a day with their fathers in the forest free from school and

city life. As the lovely children were bounding along, it only required

a very slight stretch of imagination to read the thoughts of the good

father, and to hear him saying to the children, “I wish I was young

again, I should like to have a romp with you to-day; my heart beats with

joy at seeing you dance about. God bless you, my dear children; God

bless you! I am so glad to see you so happy.” And then tears would

trickle down the face of the early careworn father, at the thought of a

coming parting, when he would have to bid them good-bye, and leave them

in the hands of God and an early widowed mother, to get along as well as

they could in the midst of the cold shoulders of the friends of the

bygone prosperous times, who have received many favours at the hands of

the early grey-bearded father, but shudder at the thought of being asked

by the poor widow for a favour.

The children, with ringlets and flowing hair and bright eyes, now cling

to him and hold him by the tails of his coat and his hands, and begin to

sing as they speed towards the forest—

“The Lion of Judah shall break every chain

And give us the victory again and again;

Be hushed, my sad spirit, the worst that can come

But shortens the journey and hastens me home.”

And away they went out of sight among the tussocks of grass, little

hills, hedges, low bushes, and heather, to gather daisies and other wild

flowers, perhaps not to be seen again by me till we meet on the plains of

Paradise.

Among the crowd there were a number of men, who could not be mistaken by

any one who knows anything of literary work and literary men, trying to

get a “breath of fresh air” and a few wrinkles off their face, and to

come in contact with some one who could touch the spring of

pleasure—which by this time had been nearly dried up, or frozen up by

studying and anxiety—and bring a smile to the face.

I ran against one man who was evidently in deep trouble, and I began to

question him as to the cause of his sorrow, and he told me as follows:

“For many years I was a clerk in a solicitor’s office in the city, and on

my arrival home at night, I used to write stories and other things for

the papers, without pay, merely for pleasure. In course of time my

eyesight failed me, and I had to give up my situation. I thought I would

try to write a story for publication, so that I might maintain my family,

and keep them from the workhouse. I began the tale and finished it. I

made sure that I should have no difficulty in getting some publisher to

take it up and print it for me, and that I should make a fortune, and be

made a man; but to my surprise no one would look at it. I went from one

place to another, day after day, without any success, returning home

every night thoroughly broken down and dispirited, and to-day I have my

manuscript without any prospect of meeting with a customer, and am

strolling here to contemplate the next step.” I gave him a little

encouragement, and told him to cheer up—

“Behind a frowning Providence He hides a smiling face.”

We shook hands and parted.

I had not gone far before I overtook a woman in deep mourning, with four

children walking slowly along. There was no friskiness, liveliness, and

sport about this family. The two least hung as it were upon the skirts

of the poor sorrowful mother’s garments. Despair seemed to be written

not only upon their faces, but upon their clothes and actions. The

fountain of tears had been dried up, but not by the kindness of friends,

but by poverty and starvation, with all their grim horrors staring them

in the face, and with the terrible workhouse as the lot in store for

them, till there was scarcely any vitality left in their system from

which tears could be extracted either by kindness or sorrow. They seemed

to be the embodiment of pallor, languidness, and lifelessness. This poor

woman had had a good education; in fact, her manner and conversation

seemed to be that of a lady who had moved in good society; but alas,

overwork, worry, and death had early robbed her of a good husband, when

he was on the threshold of a first-class position and a fortune, and all

was gone! gone! and now “blank,” “blank,” “blank” seemed to be written

everywhere. I tried to console her best as I could, and left her.

I had now begun to mount the hills of Epping Forest with a different

phase of human life before and on either side of me. On the grass were

four gipsies and “Rodneys,” with dogs lying beside them. In all

appearance they had neither worked nor washed in their lives, and, as

they said, they were “too old to learn how now.” I had not got much

further before I was accosted by a gipsy girl, apparently about fourteen,

with a baby nearly nude, and covered with dirt and filth, draining the

nourishment of life from its dirty mother, who exposed her breasts

without the least shame. She saw that I noticed her, and without a

moment’s hesitation asked me if I wanted my “fortune told.” She said

that she would tell it to me for a trifle. Her father—to all

appearance—and brothers stood by, and acting either upon her own

instincts or a wink from them, she said, “I see you know it better than I

can tell you;” and away she sidled off to attend to her cocoa-nuts,

saying, after a round of swearing at four gipsy children, “I hope you

will give my baby a penny; that’s a good gentleman, do, and God will

bless you for it.”

I had not gone far up the hill before I found myself in company with a

forest ranger; and a rare good-looking fellow he was. He was a short

thickset man, and as round almost as a prize bullock. He said the

gipsies—so-called gipsies—were the plague of his life. They were

squatting about everywhere, breaking the fences and stealing everything

they could lay their hands upon. Before the last three years there were

hundreds of gipsies in the forest, living by plunder and fortune-telling,

and since they had driven them away, they had settled upon the outskirts

of the forest and pieces of waste land, some of which were rented by some

of the better class gipsies, and relet again to the other gipsies at a

small charge per week, who thus escaped the law. This good ranger said

there were no real gipsies at the present time in the country. They had

been mixed up with other vagabonds that scarcely a trace of the genuine

gipsy was left.

Some old gipsies were complaining very much because the price of

cocoa-nuts had been raised. “Until now,” said this lot of vagabond

gipsies, “we could get cocoa-nuts at one pound per hundred; now we are,

to-day, giving thirty shillings per hundred; and it is no joke when you

get some of those old cricketers at work among them. They bowl them off

like one o’clock.” “How do you do in such a case?” I asked. “Well,

sometimes we let them go on till they get a belly-full, and sometimes we

cries quits, and will have no more on ’em, and tell them to go somewhere

else, we are quite satisfied. You know, sir, better than I can tell you

that it is no joke to have your nuts bowled off like that. I feel

sometimes,” said one gipsy, with clenched fist raised almost to my face

and closed teeth, “that I should like to bowl their yeds off, and no

mistake. I feel savage enough to punch their een out, and I could do it

in a jiffy.” He now left me and bawled out, “Now, gents, try your luck,

try your luck; all bad uns returned.” There was a brisk trade, and a lot

of shoeless, dirty little gipsy children were scrambling after the balls,

and throwing to the winners the nuts they had won; every now and then

there would be a terrible row over a nut—whether it was properly hit, or

who was the rightful owner. “Bang” went a ball from a big fellow against

a cocoa-nut, sending it and the juice inside flying in all directions,

and the youngsters scrambling after the pieces. And then there would be

another bawl out by a gipsy woman, “Bowl again, gentlemen; try your luck,

try your luck; all good uns and no bad uns; bad uns returned.” I left

this lot of gipsies to pursue my way to the “Robin Hood,” where there was

a pell-mell gathering of all sorts of human beings numbering thousands.

In elbowing my way through the crowd, a sharp, business-kind of a

gipsy-woman, well dressed and not bad looking, eyed me over, and,

thinking that I was “Johnny” from the country, said to a woman who was

near her, “You keep back, I mean to tell this gentleman his fortune.”

Three or four steps forward she took, and then stood full in front of me.

“A fine day, sir,” said the gipsy woman with a twinkle in her eye and a

side laugh, nudging to another gipsy woman at her elbow. “Yes, a very

fine day,” I said. She now drew a little nearer, and said in not very

loud tones, “Would you like to have your fortune told you, my good

gentleman? I could tell you something that would please you, I am sure.

There is good luck in your face. Now, my dear good gentleman, do let me

tell your fortune. You will become rich and have many friends, but will

have many false friends and enemies.” Just as she was beginning to spin

her yarn one of the B— gipsies came up. She was dressed in a glaring red

Scotch plaid dress, with red, blue, green, and yellow ribbons flying

about her head and shoulders; and in her arms was a baby which was

dressed in white linen and needlework. This gipsy woman was stout, dark,

and with round features, her black hair was waved like I have seen the

manes of horses, and her eye the opposite of heavenly. She now turned to

the gipsy woman who had accosted me and said, “Mrs. Smith, you need not

tell this gentleman his fortune, he knows more than we both can tell him.

This is Mr. Smith of Coalville, he had tea with us at K—.” “Oh,” said

the gipsy woman named Smith, “this is Mr. Smith of Coalville, is it?

I’ve heard a deal about him. I’ll go, or he’ll be putting me in a book.

Goodbye.” She put out her hands to shake mine, and then vanished out of

my sight, and I never saw her again in the forest during the day. I

suppose she fancied that I should be bringing her to book for

fortune-telling. I was now left with the gipsy B— and her baby. She

threw aside her shawl in order that I might look at the child, who was

apparently about four months old. Poor thing! it did not know that it

was the child of sin, for its parents were living in adultery, as nearly

all the gipsies do. This gipsy woman was earning money for herself, and

an idle man she was keeping, by exhibiting her illegitimate offspring and

telling silly girls their fortunes. Think about it lightly as we may,

fortune-telling is vastly on the increase all over the country, producing

most deadly and soul-crushing results. Just as I was touching the poor

baby’s face and putting sixpence in its hand, a gentleman connected with

the Ragged School Union came up with his two children. I found as we

travelled up the hill together that I was talking to Mr. Curtiss, the

organizing secretary of the Union, who was in the forest for an “outing,”

and could, no doubt, with Dr. Grosart say—

“I wonder not, when ’mong the fresh, glad leaves,

I hear the early spring-birds sing;

I wonder not that ’neath the sunny eaves

The swallow flits with glancing wing.”

When we reached the top of the hill, I took a sharp turn to the left, and

bid him and his two interesting sons goodbye.

I had not wandered far before I came upon a group of gipsy children,

ragged, dirty, and filthy in the extreme. One of them ran after me for

some “coppers.” I took the opportunity of having a chat with the poor

child, whose clothes seemed to be literally alive with vermin. I asked

him what his name was, and his answer was, “I don’t know, I’ve got so

many names; sometimes they call me Smith, sometimes Brown, and lots of

other names.” “Have you ever been washed in your life?” “Not that I

know on, sir.” The feet of the poor lad seemed to have festering holes

in them, in which there were vermin getting fat out of the sores, and the

colour of his body was that of a tortoise, except patches of a little

lighter yellow were to be seen here and there. “Do you ever say your

prayers?” “Yes, sir, sometimes.” “What do you say when you say your

prayers? Who teaches you them?” “My sister,” said the boy. “Tell me

the first line and I will give you a penny.” “I cannot, I’ve forgotten

them; and so has my sister.” “Can you read?” “No.” “Were you ever in a

school?” “No.” “Did you ever hear of Jesus?” “I never heard of such a

man. He does not live upon this forest.” “Where does God live?” “I

don’t know; I never heard of him neither. There used to be a chap live

in the forest named like it, but he’s been gone away a long time. I

think he went a ‘hoppin’ in Kent two or three years ago.” At this

juncture a Sunday-school teacher connected with College Green Chapel,

Stepney, whom I knew, came up, and we entered into conversation together.

The poor lad said he had not had anything to eat “since Saturday.” My

young friend gave him some sandwiches, and I gave him some “coppers,” and

we separated.

An old gipsy woman appeared upon the scene with two little ragged gipsy

children at her heels and a long stick in her hand, reminding me of the

“shepherd’s crook.” On her feet were two odd, old, and worn-out navvy’s

boots stuffed with rags, pieces of which were trailing after her heels.

Her dress—if it could be called dress—was short, and almost hung in

shreds; crooked and disgustingly filthy, she strutted about telling

fortunes. I said to the old hypocrite, “How old are you? you must be

getting a good round age.” With a quivering lip, trembling voice, and a

tottering limb and stick she replied, “If it please the Lord, I shall be

seventy-five soon.” “Which tribe of the gipsies do you belong to?” “I

belong to the Drapers.” She now altered the tone of her voice to that of

earnestness and said, “My good gentleman, I hope you have got a penny for

me; I’ve had nothing to eat to-day.” Her voice began to quaver again,

and, looking up towards the bright blue sky, “Now, my dear good

gentleman, please do give me a penny, and the Lord will bless you. I’ve

had a large family—nineteen children, and only three are dead.” I said,

“What will you charge me for telling me my fortune?” She seemed a

different woman in a minute, and replied in sharp tones, “You know it

better than I can tell you.” The old gipsy woman fancied that she “smelt

a rat,” and she turned away, with some hellish language to the little

gipsies, and was lost among the crowd of holiday-makers passing backwards

and forwards, drinking, swearing, gambling, fighting, racing, frolicsome,

funny, and thoughtful. The curtain was now drawn, and I left her to

pursue her satanic work among the simple, gay, and serious.

For a few minutes I stood in meditation and wonder, while the crowds of

gipsies were pursuing their work in fortune-telling and at the swings,

cocoa-nuts, donkey-riding, steam horses, &c. One young fellow I saw

among the gipsies was not of gipsy birth or gipsy extraction. It was

quite evident from his manner and tattered, black cloth dress, that the

young man was nearly at the bottom of a slippery inclined plane. His

figure brought to me a familiar scene of some twenty-five years ago, and

with which I was well acquainted. The young man reminded me of the only

son of a Methodist local preacher who had had the sole management of

extensive earthenware works in the — for a long term of years, and was

highly respected in the district. The young man had been petted and

almost idolized. This only son was highly educated, and in every way was

being prepared to take his father’s place at the works some day. His

sisters worked carpet slippers for him, and his mother warmed them before

he went to bed; and “good-nights” were given in the midst of loving

embraces, prayers, and kisses. Oftentimes they were given and said while

tears of thankfulness to God for having given them, as they thought, a

son who was to give them comfort, solace, and pride as they toddled down

the hill together, while the shades of evening gathered round them.

Every one in this Christian household thought no labour in winter or

summer, night or day, too much to be bestowed upon their darling son.

Alas! alas! this idolized boy, for whom thousands of prayers had been

offered to Heaven on his behalf, in an evil hour ceased to pray for

himself, and took the wrong turning or “sharp round to the left,” and the

last I heard of him was that he had fallen in with a gang of gipsies,

ended his days as a vagabond in a union in Yorkshire, and had brought his

parents with their early grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. His loving

sisters to-day are scattered to the winds. These recollections brought

tears to my eyes and a deep, deep sigh from the bottom of my heart.

I hung down my head, for I thought by the smarting of my eyes they would

tell a tale, and made my way on foot in the midst of clouds of dust to

Chingford, at the edge of the Forest, where Easter Monday was being held

in high glee. Among the people, gentle and simple, I met on my way was a

cartload of drunken lads and screaming wenches being drawn to the “Robin

Hood” and High Beech by a poor, bony, grey, old, worn-out pony, with

knees large enough for two horses, owing to its many falls upon the hard

stones without the option of choice. If it had not been that it had a

load of donkeys and little live beer barrels with their vent pegs drawn,

filling the air on this bright spring morning with

“We won’t go home till morning,

We won’t go home till morning,

Till daylight doth appear,”

it might have turned round and bawled out, “Am not I thine ass?”

Unfortunately for the poor dumb animal there was no one in its load that

had sense, except in response to a policeman’s cudgel, to understand the

meaning of “Am not I thine ass?” And away it hobbled and limped till it

was out of sight. By this time perhaps the poor thing has been made into

sausages, and sold to the “poor” as a rich treat for Sunday only.

One of this load of young sinners stood up in their midst—or I should say

was propped up—and, with his hat slouching backward in his neck, shouted,

“Mates, let’s give three cheers for Epping Forest.” “All right,” they

cried out, “Hip, hip, hurrah! hip, hip, hurrah!” Another bawled out,

“Let’s give three cheers for Easter Monday.” “Bravo, Jack; that’s it!”

shouted a third, as he lay “all of a heap” at the bottom of the cart.

“Hip, hip, hurrah! hip, hip, hurrah! hip, hip, hip—” but they could not

in this trial of strength get any farther. The “hurrah” was left for

another Easter Monday. By this time, owing to the fumes of the beer

barrel and the jolting of the cart, they had become such a “set out as I

never did see.” Out of this pell-mell cartload of sin one of the crew,

who needed a “slobbing bib,” cried out, “I—I—I say, Bill, let’s give

three cheers for your old cat.” “You fool, we have no old cat,” said

Bill. “I didn’t say you had.” “You did.” “I didn’t.” “You did,” said

Bill. “If you say so again, I’ll punch you.” “Punch away,” said Bill.

“Stop till we get to the ‘Robin Hood,’ and then I’ll show you who’s

master.” “Sit down, you fool,” said Bill; “you have not the heart of a

chicken.”

The Royal Road and Connaught Lake were beheld and passed over, and now,

after observing and star-gazing right and left, I was among the gipsies

to the left of the Forest Hotel. There was no mistaking them; for some

of the poor women with their babies in their arms showed the usual signs

of having been in the “wars,” by exhibiting here and there a “black eye;”

and without any signs of the maiden and virgin modesty, romantic,

backwood gipsy writers, who have never visited gipsy wigwams, say is one

of the peculiar traits of gipsy character. Here there were droves of

gipsies of all shades, caste, and colour, shouting, fighting, swearing,

lying, and thieving to their heart’s content, with hordes of children

exhibiting themselves in most disgusting positions in the midst of the

boisterous laughter of their beastly parents.

At one of the cocoa-nut stalls stood a big, fat, coarse gipsy woman with

black hair, big mouth, and a bare bosom. Hanging at one of her breasts

was a poor baby, as thin as a herring, and with festering sores all over

its face and body. To me they seemed to be the outcome of starvation,

poverty, neglect, and dirt. The woman said that “teething” was the sole

cause of the sores. This poor child ought to have been nourished in bed

instead of being on its way to the grave, which may be at the back of

some bush in the Forest, as I am told has been the case with numbers of

gipsy children before. Hundreds, and I might say thousands, of them have

been born among the low bushes, furze, and heather on Epping Forest

without a tithe of the care which is bestowed upon cats and puppies. If

children have been and are still being ushered into the world in such an

unceremonious manner, it may be taken for granted that they have been and

still are ushered out of the world “when they are not wanted” in an

equally unceremonious manner. Queer things come to my ears sometimes.

Gipsy morality, cleanliness, faithfulness, honesty, and industry exist

only in moonshine—with some noble exceptions—and in the brain of some

backwood romantic gipsy novelists, who have more than once been bewitched

by the guile of gipsydom detrimental to their own interests and the

welfare of our country. A “witching eye” has blindfolded hundreds to the

putrifying mass of gipsyism; and a gipsy’s deceitful tongue has thrown

thousands of “simple-minded” off their guard, and left them to flounder,

struggle, and die in the mud of sin, with a future hope worse than that

of a dog.

A tall fellow, almost like two six feet laths nailed together, now came

near, and began to abuse the poor woman in a most fearful manner for

having been away from the cocoa-nut stall attending to the needs of her

child. The swearing was most blood-curdling and horrifying. I left this

establishment to witness the cruel treatment the poor donkeys were

receiving at the hands of these vagabond gipsies, which is almost beyond

description. The thrashing, kicking, and striking with sharp pointed

sticks, to make the poor donkeys go faster with their loads of big and

little children on their backs, were enough to make one’s hair stand on

end.

[Picture: An English gipsy countess on the “look-out”]

I now turned from this scene of human depravity to the Forest Hotel to

recruit my inner man; this, after half an hour waiting, was accomplished

in a gipsy fashion, and with much scrambling. While entering a few notes

in my book, a gentleman, apparently of position and education, wheeled up

on his tricycle opposite to my window. He had not long dismounted,

lighted his pipe, and sauntered about for a rest, before a gipsy woman

wanted to make friends with him, I suppose to tell his fortune.

Fortunately he was proof against her “witching eyes,” forced smiles, and

“My dear good gentleman,” and turned away from her in disgust. She did

not understand rebuffs and scowling looks, and went away with her forced

smile of gipsydom hanging upon her lips and in her eyes among the crowd

to try her “practised” hand upon some one else not quite so wide-awake as

this gentleman upon the tricycle.

A lively change was soon manifest. Dancing among a pother of dust was to

be seen in earnest opposite the hotel windows, by a most motley crowd.

Fat and thin, tall and lean, young and old, pretty and plain, lovely and

ugly, danced round and round till they presented themselves, through

sweat and dust, fit subjects for a Turkish bath. The old and fat panted,

the young laughed, the giddy screamed, and the thin jumped about as

nimble as kittens, and on they whirled towards eternity and the shades of

long night.

I now retraced my steps along the Royal Road to the “Robin Hood,” and

while doing so I tried to gather, from various sources, the probable

number of gipsies, young and old, in Epping Forest on Easter Monday.

Sometimes I counted, at other times I asked the royal verderers, gipsies,

show people, and others; and, putting all things together, I may safely

say that there were thirty gipsy women who were telling fortunes, four

hundred gipsy children, and two hundred men and women, not half a dozen

of whom could tell A from B. Most of the children were begging, and some

few were at the “cocoa-nuts.” Some idea of the gipsy population in and

around London may be formed from this estimate, when it is taken into

account that holiday festivals were being held on the outskirts of London

at the same time, and in all directions. Upon Wanstead Flats, Cherry

Island, Barking Road, Canning Town, Hackney Flats, Hackney Marshes,

Battersea, Wandsworth, Chelsea, Wardley Street, Notting Hill, and many

other places, there must be fully 8000 gipsy children, nearly the whole

of whom are illegitimate, growing up as ignorant as heathens, without any

prospect of improvement or a lessening of numbers.

I had now arrived again at the High Beech and the “Robin Hood,” and found

myself jostled, crushed, and crammed by a tremendous crowd of people.

Publicans, fops, sharps, and flats, mounted upon all manner of steeds,

varying in style and breed from “Bend Or” to the poor broken-kneed pony

owned by a gipsy, were coming cantering, galloping, and trotting to the

scene. “What is all this about?” I said to “Jack _Poshcard_,” my old

friend the gipsy, who stood at my elbow. “Don’t you know, governor?”

said he. “We are going to have a deer turned out directly, and these are

the huntsmen, and pretty huntsmen they are, for I could run faster

myself.” While the preparations were going on my friend Jack said to me,

“Governor, if you will come up again some Sunday I will see that you have

a fine hare to take back with you.” While we were talking a hare showed

its white tail among the bushes on the side of the hill, and I fancied I

heard Jack smacking his lips at this treat in store for him.

There was a tremendous move forward taking place. The deer was turned

out, and these London _quasi_-huntsmen were after it as fast as their

steeds could carry them, dressed in fashions, colours, and shapes,

varying from that of a gipsy to a dandy cockney, holloaing and bellowing

like a lot of madcaps from Bedlam and Broadmoor, after a creature they

could neither catch, kill, cook, nor eat.

While the din and hubbub were echoing away among the lovely hills and

valleys of the forest, I wended my way to the station and to Victoria

Park in company, part of the way, with some policemen jostling some

youths off to the police station for disgraceful assaults upon young

girls.

I strolled in Victoria Park, in company with a friend, the Rev. R.

Spears, but no discord nor discordant noises were to be seen or heard.

The Sunday-school children had been enjoying themselves to their heart’s

content. The grass, in many places, was literally covered with sandwich

papers; and here and there a group of Sunday-school teachers were resting

after their hard day’s work to please and amuse the “little folks” in

their friskings and gambols in the fresh air. All this brings to my mind

most vividly the long term of years when I had had the charge of such

interesting gatherings, with their enchanting singing, sweet voices,

pleasant faces, and delightful chatter as the little ones danced and

bounded to and fro around me with mesmeric influence too powerful to

withstand; and at times I have felt an irresistible impulse prompting me

to shout out, “God bless the children!”

I had now arrived at the park-keeper’s gate on my way home. The fogs

were rising, the shades of evening were gathering around us, silence and

solitude were stealing over the scene, and behind me were four young men

singing, feelingly, as they followed me out of the park, in the old

evening song tune—

“Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day,

Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see,

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”

To which I said, Amen and Amen. “So mote it be.”

Rambles among the Gipsies upon Wanstead Flats.

EASTER Tuesday was cold, disagreeable, and damp. A London fog was

hanging overhead as I turned early out of my lodgings to visit Wanstead

Flats gipsy fair. Between the black fog and the rays of the sun a

struggle seemed to be taking place as to which influence should rule

London for the day, by imparting either darkness, gloom, and melancholy,

or light, brightness, and cheerfulness to the millions of dwellers and

toilers in London streets, shops, offices, garrets, cellars, mansions,

and palaces. The struggle did not continue long. Fog and mist had to

vanish into thin air at the bidding of the Spring sun’s rays, and black

particles of soot had to drop upon the pavement to be swept into the

London sewers by scavengers. For my own part I felt heavy all day

through fog and sunshine.

I duly arrived at Forest Gate, and began to wander among the gipsies,

“taking stock,” and indulging in other preliminaries before making a

practical “survey” of the whole.

During my peregrinations among the Wanstead Gonjos, Poshpeérdos,

Romani-chals, and Romany Ryes, I came upon a gentleman with whom I had a

long interesting conversation about the best means, plans, and modes of

dealing with our little street Arabs and other juveniles who have “gone

wrong,” or are found in paths leading to it. From my friend I gleaned

some interesting information relating to the early steps taken to bring

them back into paths of honesty, industry, and uprightness. Mary

Carpenter, of Bristol, worked hard, long, and successfully in this

direction. Although she has passed away, the fruits of her labour are

seen at Bristol and at other places in the country to-day, and will

continue green till the last trumpet shall sound, and we are called home

to live in an atmosphere where there is no sorrow, crying, wretchedness,

poverty, misery, or death, and where gipsy and canal children’s rags will

be transformed into angel robes, and their dirt and filth into angel

brightness and seraphic splendour.

About a century ago, an institution was set on foot in the Borough of

Southwark called the Philanthropic Society, date 1780, which provided a

home for the children of prisoners, who would otherwise have been thrown

upon the world to beg or steal as best they could. For a period of more

than half a century, the benevolent character of the society secured for

it a fair share of voluntary support from the public. For many years it

gathered together and educated both boys and girls—some of whom were

gipsy children. The former were taught trades, such as tailoring,

shoe-making, and rope-making. The girls were taught laundry work and the

duties of domestic life. It was found, however, by much experience,

sometimes painful, that the presence of both sexes, although kept as

separate as possible, was not advantageous, and therefore, early in the

present century, boys only were received. These were non-criminals

themselves—only the offspring of that class, and destitute.

When separate prisons were found necessary for the more successful

reclaiming, as it was hoped, of juvenile offenders, Parkhurst prison in

the Isle of Wight was used for that class. The experiment of keeping

young criminals together and away from older ones was considered so far

satisfactory that, in the year 1846, Sir George Grey, as Home Secretary,

resolved—no doubt at the instigation of Mary Carpenter, and as the result

of her agitation in this direction—on trying the experiment of relieving

the pressure arising from increased numbers by drafting those who had the

most reliable characters into an institution from which they might hope

to have more liberty, and ultimately, by continued good conduct, be

placed out in service, and so obtain their freedom. All the inmates of

Parkhurst prison were under sentence of seven or ten years’

transportation. The Home Secretary had twenty-five of those young

persons selected, and a conditional pardon from the Queen was obtained

for each, that they might be placed in circumstances to work their way

speedily to freedom. The buildings of the Philanthropic Society in

Southwark were selected for the experiment, and those juvenile criminals

were introduced to their new liberty, and associated with the

non-criminal boys then in the Institution. By that action the society

changed its character, and henceforth it became a Reformatory School,

still retaining its original name.

The experiment was both bold and wise; and to insure success an entire

change of management was required. Up to that time repression and terror

were too much exercised by the officials who had the care of the inmates.

A much more liberal and enlightened policy was resolved upon, and

education and home training were to be the substitutes. A large

schoolroom was erected on the premises, which were situated immediately

behind the Blind Asylum, and extended from the London Road on the east to

St. George’s Road on the west, all enclosed within high walls, having a

large chapel on the south-west corner, which served for both the inmates

of the institution and the general public. It was of the first

importance that in making this experiment properly qualified persons

should be placed in command. The Rev. Sydney Turner (the favourite son

of Sharon Turner, the historian) was the chaplain. The head master and

house superintendent was selected from St. John’s College, Battersea, and

Mr. George John Stevenson, M.A., was appointed to the responsible

position. Both the chaplain and the head master shared alike the deep

sense of the responsibility involved in the undertaking, as any amount of

failure would have been a disaster to be deplored in many ways. So that

it required a strong resolution on the part of those officials to secure

success. Mr. Stevenson had to assume the position of father of the

family, superintending the food, clothing, recreation, and education of

the inmates. A new and experienced matron took charge of the domestic

arrangements, and thus, from the very commencement of the new plans, the

inmates were made to share in the comforts designed to improve their

moral and social condition. All the old _régime_ was abandoned. It had

broken down completely so far as either elevating the inmates or securing

public patronage were concerned. The Government paid for each of their

boys a fixed sum, which supplied the finances required for working the

institution, and a cheerful prospect opened out from the beginning, which

was shared alike by the officers and those under their care. That some

of the more daring spirits should seek to trespass on the additional

liberty thus afforded them was natural; that some few should give

evidence of their innate desire for wrong-doing was not surprising. The

first who violated their agreement to obedience soon found that the

arrangements made with the police authorities were such as effectually

broke down all their schemes for hastening their liberty. Five or six of

the young rascals who escaped one Sunday evening just before bedtime were

speedily brought back either by the police or by the superintendent of

the institution early the next day, even when scattered over the

metropolis; this had a very deterring effect on such efforts in future.

They did not believe in what a writer in “The Christian Life” says—

“Obscured life sets down a type of bliss,

A mind content both crown and kingdom is;”

but rather in what a writer in _The Sunday at Home_ for 1878 says—

“Then while the shadows lingering cloked us,

Down to the ghostly shore we sped.”

Those who exercised more patience and discretion were allowed to spend a

day with their relatives and to begin to familiarize themselves with the

sweets of liberty; and these, after a few months’ experience, were sent

out into the world to make a new start in life in such occupations as

they had learned during their confinement; or those who preferred a

seafaring life were placed in the merchant service. A number of gipsy

children, sad to relate, have found their way into our present-day

reformatories, industrial schools, and like places.

When at Bristol in 1882, inspecting along with a number of ladies and

gentlemen the training ship, the superintendent pointed out to me several

little gipsies who had been placed under his charge to become either “men

or mice.”

The first year’s experience was of the most gratifying character. The

Home Secretary, the Earl of Carlisle, the Bishop of Oxford, and other

distinguished persons, visited the institution; and, desiring to become

acquainted with the details of the daily experience, sought an interview

with Mr. Stevenson, on whom depended mainly the results of the

experiment. The effect of those personal investigations was shown by the

too early dispatch of a much more numerous company of young transports

from Parkhurst. The design was to relieve a heavy pressure felt there;

but it had the effect of increasing the difficulties in the Reformatory

School in Southwark. With the enlarged operations the official staff had

to be increased, and the same superintendence worked out the same results

on a larger scale after a little undue tension on both mind and body.

The young persons reclaimed by that process found ready openings all over

London, and these were frequently visited by the superintendent during

the hours the inmates were at work. The education, conducted by Mr.

Stevenson and an assistant, did not occupy more than two or three hours

daily, so that handicraft operations might have, as it required, more

time for exercise.

The first reformatory school for young criminals in the metropolis was,

at the end of two years’ experience, a marked and decided success. The

mental strain on the superintendent was great and continuous, the duties

allowed of no respite for vacation; but as great and permanent advantages

were hoped for by the Home Government, all connected with the institution

worked for that result, and they had the satisfaction of seeing it. At

the end of two years it was resolved to give the institution a more

agricultural character, after the example of one established at Mettray,

in France, whose founder visited the Philanthropic, in Southwark, during

its new experience. To carry out that plan the erection of the

Philanthropic Farm School at Red Hill, Reigate, was undertaken. At that

time the trustees of the old endowed school on Lambeth Green required a

head master, and, unsolicited on his part, Mr. Stevenson was unanimously

elected to that office, visiting only occasionally the new establishment,

which required officers with agricultural experience; and it was

gratifying to him to know that the foundations so broadly laid were

successful on a larger scale in working the permanent reformation of

juvenile criminals out in the open country than they could possibly be in

the crowded metropolis.

The success of this plan for dealing with juvenile criminals makes it

evident that a wise statesmanlike plan of educating the gipsy children

would turn them into respectable and useful members of society, instead

of their growing up to make society their prey.

* * * * *

To come back to the gipsies upon the “Flats,” I bade my friend good-bye,

and began in earnest to carry out the object of my visit.

I had not been long on the ground—_marshy flats_—before I saw a young man

scampering off to a tumble-down show with a loaf of bread and two red

herrings in his arms. He had no hat upon his head, and his hair was cut

short. His face was bloated, presenting a piebald appearance of red,

white, and black, with a few blotches into the bargain. His foolish

colouring paint, jokes, and antics had dyed his skin, stained his

conscience, and blackened his heart. His clothing consisted of part of a

filthy ragged shirt and a pair of patched and ragged breeches. They

looked as if the owner and the tailor were combined in one being, and

that the one who stood before me. The stitches in his breeches could not

have presented a stranger appearance if they had been worked and made

with a cobbler’s awl and a “tackening end.” His boots in better days

might have done duty in a drawing-room, but were now transformed. With a

laugh and a joke I captured my new friend, and notwithstanding that he

had his dinner in his arms, we entered into a long chat together.

I soon found out that he was the “old fool” of the show, with which he

was connected, and was known among his fraternity as “Old Bones,”

although he did not seem to be over twenty years old. His salary for

being the “old fool,” young fool, a fool to himself, and a fool for

everybody, was four shillings a week and his “tommy,” or “grub,” which,

as he said, was “not very delicious” at all times. I asked “Old Bones”

why he was nicknamed “Old Bones.” He said, “Because some of our chaps

saw me riding upon an old bony horse one day, with its bones sticking up

enough to cut you through, and the more I wolloped it the more it stuck

fast and would not go.” When I heard this, one of the ditties I know in

the days of my child slavery in the brickfield came up as green as ever—

“If I had a donkey and it would not go,

Must I wollop it? No, no, no!”

“Our chaps,” said Bones, “laughed at me. I had to dismount and let the

brute take its chance; and from that day I have been named ‘Old Bones.’”

“I’m not very old, am I?” he said, and began to kick about on the ground.

But I would not let him go, for I wanted to learn something of his

antecedents. He had been a gutta percha shoemaker, and could earn his

pound or more per week, but preferred to tramp the country as an “old

fool,” live on red herrings, dress in rags, and sleep on straw under the

stage. Before he had quite finished his story, another man, dressed in a

suit of dirty, greasy, seedy-looking, threadbare, worn-out West of

England black cloth, joined us. “Old Bones,” after a good shake of the

hand, vanished to his show, red herrings, and “quid of baccy,” and I was

left alone with my second acquaintance. I was not long in finding out,

according to his statement, that he was a “converted Jew,” and had been

to the “Cape” and lost £5000 in the diamond fields, and had come home to

“pull up” again, instead of which, he had gone from bad to worse, and was

now tramping the country with an old showman as a “fire king,” and

sleeping under the stage among old boxes, rags, and straw. His real name

was —, but was passing through the world as W—. Strange to say, I knew

his brother-in-law, who is a leading man in one of the large English

towns.

When I asked the “fire king” how he liked his new profession, he said,

“Not at all; at first it was dreadful to get into the taste of the

paraffin and oil. After you have put the blazing fusees into your mouth,

they leave a taste that does not mix up very well with your food.

Paraffin is a good thing for the rheumatics. I never have them now.” I

questioned him as to the process the mouth underwent previous to the

admission of lighted fusees. “If you keep your mouth wet,” he replied,

“have plenty of courage, and breathe out freely, the blazing fire will

not hurt you.” My new friend had much of a suspicious cast upon his

features; so much so, indeed, that in one of his tramps from Norwich to

Bury St. Edmunds, in one day he was taken up three times as “one who was

wanted” by the policeman, for doing work not of an angelic kind.

In a van belonging to the owner of “a show of varieties,” there were

eight children, besides man, wife, and mother-in-law. The showman could

read, and chatter almost like a flock of crows; but none of the children,

including several little ones, who assisted him in his performances,

could either read or write, except one or two who had a “little

smattering.” The showman quite gloried in having beaten the Durham

School Board authorities, who had summoned him for not sending his

children to school, while temporarily residing in the city. He defied

them to produce the Act of Parliament compelling him as a traveller to

send his children to school. The school authorities had sued him under

their own by-laws, and as they could not produce the Act, he came off

with flying colours.

Business was slack with this showman, and he undertook to introduce me to

all the “showmen and shows” in the gipsy fair. Of course, I had only

time to visit a few of the _best_ specimens. The first show, which was

to be a pattern of perfection, was “boarded.” I must confess I did not

much like the idea of mounting the steps, in the face of thousands of

sightseers, to pass through “fools,” jesters, mountebanks, and painted

women dressed in little better than “tights,” and amidst the clash of

gongs and drums. I kept my back to the crowd, slouched my cap, buttoned

up my coat to the throat, hung down my head, and crept in to witness one

of the “Sights of London.” After I had duly arrived inside, I was

introduced to my friends the leading performers, amongst whom were the

smallest huntsman in the world and the youngest jockey. While we were

fraternizing, a row commenced between two of the leading women connected

with the show. Two travelling showmen—brothers—had married two

travelling showwomen—sisters—among whom jealousy had sprung up. Tears

and oaths were likely to be followed by blows sharp and strong and a

scattering of beautiful locks of hair. I seemed to be in a fair way for

landing into the midst of a terrible row between the two masculine

sisters, whose arms and legs indicated no small amount of muscular

strength, while their eyes blazed with mischief. One of the dressed

showmen, an acrobat, came to me and said, that I was not to think

anything of the _fracas_, the women had had only a little chip out, they

would be sobered down in a little time. The women came round me with

their tale, but I thought it the wisest plan not to interfere in the

matter, and kept “mum,” for fear that I might get my bones into trouble.

Happily the policeman appeared upon the scene, and before the curtain

dropped, and the performing pony had finished his antics, I had with my

showman friend made myself scarce. He said he was very sorry, and

apologized for having introduced me to his friends under such

circumstances. I could see he was chopfallen at the result, as this was

a “going concern” in which all parties engaged were to be held up to me

as paragons of perfection in the performing and showing business.

My showman friend, according to his own statements, had been almost

everything in the “show” line, ranging from that of a tramp to an “old

fool.” To my mind he was well qualified for either, or anything else in

this line of business, with will strong enough to drag his eight children

after him; at any rate, himself and his large family were going fast to

ruin.

I now visited wax-work shows, and saw the noble heads of the great and

good arranged side by side with those of notorious murderers and scamps,

reminding me very much of what is to be the lot of all of us in our last

resting-place. I had the opportunity of seeing the greatest horse alive,

“dog monkeys,” “tight-rope dancers,” performing “kanigros,” “white

bears,” “stag hunt,” “slave market,” “working model of Jumbo,” “fat

women,” acrobat dancers, female jugglers, Indian sack feat, female

Blondin, cannon firing, and a lifeboat to the rescue. My friend wanted

his tea, and left me now to pursue my way as best I could. For a few

minutes I stood and looked at the scene; under the glare of their lamps

actors pulled their faces, performed their megrims, danced their dances,

chuckled, winked, shouted, and rattled their copper and silver, as the

simpletons stepped upon the platform to “step in and take their places

before the performance commenced.” Of course all the shows in the fair

were not to be classed in the black list. In some of them useful

information and knowledge were to be gained. It was the debasing

surroundings that had such a demoralizing effect upon the young folks.

Turning from the shows I began again to visit the vans. In one van owned

by a Mr. B. there were a man, woman, and nine children, four of whom were

of school age. The woman had been a Sunday-school teacher in her early

days, but, alas! in an evil hour, she had listened to the voice of the

charmer, and down she began to travel on the path to ruin, and she is

still travelling with post haste, unless God in His goodness and mercy

hath opened her eyes. She told me that she would have sent four of the

children to school last winter while they were staying with their van at

Brentwood, but the school authorities would not allow them without an

undertaking that the children should be sent for one year. They were on

Chigwell Common all last winter, and could have sent their children to

school. She said they were often a month in a place, and would be glad

to send the children to school if means were adopted whereby the children

could go as other children go. None of them except the poor woman could

tell a letter. She had been brought up in a Church of England Sunday

school, and could repeat the creeds, &c. “Sometimes,” she said, “I teach

the children to say their prayers; but what use is it among all those bad

children and bad folks? It is like mockery to teach children to pray

when all about are swearing. I often have a good cry over my Sunday

dinner,” said the poor woman, “when I hear the church bells ringing. The

happy days of my childhood seem to rise up before me, and my

Sunday-school hours, and the sweet tunes we used to sing seem to ring in

my ears.”

“Oh, come, come to school,

Your teachers join in praises

On this the happy pearl of days;

Oh, come, come away.

The Sabbath is a blessed day,

On which we meet to praise and pray,

And march the heavenly way;

Oh, come, come away.”

And, with a deep-drawn sigh, she said, “Ah! they will never come again;

no, never! I should like to meet all my children in heaven; but with a

life like this it cannot, and I suppose will not be.” I gave the

children some little books and some coppers, and then bade her good-bye

with a sad and heavy heart, which I sometimes feel when I witness such

sorrowful sights. Among the crowd of sightseers were, gaudily dressed in

showy colours, a number of “gipsy girls,” anxious to tell simpletons

“their fortunes;” and I rather fancy a goodly number listened to their

bewitching tales and lies. Dr. Donne, in “Fuller’s Worthies,” says of

gipsies—

“Take me a face as full of frawde and lyes

As gipsies in your common lottereyes,

That is more false and more sophisticate

Than our saints’ reliques, or man of state;

Yet such being glosed by the sleight of arte,

Faine admiration, wininge many a hart.”

I next came upon a gipsy tent, _i.e._, a few sticks stuck in the ground

and partly covered with rags and old sheeting. The bed in this tent was

a scattering of straw upon the damp, cold ground. Here were a man,

woman, and four children. The woman and children were in a most pitiable

condition. None could tell a letter. One of the children lay crouched

upon a little straw—and it was a cold day—in one corner of the tent.

Such a pitiable object I have never seen. It was very ill; it could not

speak, stand, hear, or eat; and it was terribly emaciated. If ever sin

in this world had blighted humanity, before me lay a little human being

upon whom sin seemed to have poured forth its direful vengeance without

stint or measure. With an aching heart I deeply sympathized with the

gipsy woman and little gipsy children, whose sad condition is worse than

the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse’s “Rob Rat,” which could scarcely be; and I did

what I could to cheer them.

[Picture: Two English gipsy princesses “at home”]

I visited a number of tents, and wandered among the poor children and

gipsy dogs that were squatting about in the dark upon the cold, wet

ground. One fine-faced gipsy Lee and his good gipsy wife have had a

family of nineteen children, all of whom were born on the roadside; most

of whom are now grown up and have large families. It is fearful to

contemplate the number of gipsy wanderers and hedgebottom travellers from

this family who are neither doing themselves or the country any good.

There were on the “Flats” at the gipsy fair about one hundred and thirty

families in tents and in vans; and of this number there would be forty

families squatting about with their lurcher dogs, ready for any kind of

game, big or little, black or white, bound by bars or as free as the air.

As a rule a gipsy’s list of game includes, according to Asiatic notions

and ideas, all the eatable live or dead stock in creation that either he

or his dog can lay their hands upon or stick their teeth into.

There must have been over four hundred gipsy and other travelling

children going without education, and not one could ever have been in a

Sunday school.

It was about 10.30. The mouths and hearts of those who were left began

to breed venomous, waspish words. At any rate, all the more steady and

sensible part of the sightseers were wending their way homewards. Others

were making for the beershops and public-houses, and the riff-raff were

loitering about for what they could pick up. Policemen seemed to be

creeping upon the ground, buttoned up to the throat, and ready for any

emergency.

A few yards from where I was standing I noticed, by the aid of gas,

naptha, and paraffin, a gipsyish-looking man standing, opposite one of

the cottages, with his arms folded over the palings. I soon found out

that he was a gipsy, but had recently taken to house-dwelling, and was

now engaged in labourer’s work with bricklayers. He invited me into his

comfortably furnished house, and introduced me to his tidy wife, who was

not a gipsy, and two good-looking little children. I had a few minutes’

chat with them. He gave me a short account of the suffering, trials, and

hardships which he endured while tramping the country, and living in

tents, and under vans, and on the roadside. “In early life,” he said,

“when I was quite a child, I was placed with my uncle, who is a gipsy

horsedealer, to live with him and my aunt, in their van. For a time they

behaved well to me, and I slept in the van at nights. From some cause or

other, which I have never been able to make out, I was sent to sleep

under the van with the dogs’, and to lie upon straw with but little

covering. My food now was such as I could pick up—turnips, potatoes, or

any mortal thing that I could lay my hands upon. In the winter time I

have had to gnaw and nibble a cold turnip for my dinner like a sheep. I

used to have to run about in all weathers to do the dirty work of my

uncle, mind his horses, ponies, and donkeys in the lanes and fields, for

which he would not give me either food, clothing, or lodgings, other than

what I looked out for myself. My clothing I used to beg, and, when once

put upon my back, there they stuck till they dropped off by pieces. I

had a hard time of it for many years, I can tell you, and no mistake. My

uncle is now a gentleman horsedealer, and keeps his carriage and his

servants to wait upon him. He is well known in London. If he meets or

sees me in the streets he turns his head another way, and won’t look at

me, though I helped to make his fortune. Every dog has its day, and my

turn may come. We gave up drink, and I go to the church and chapel when

I have the chance, and I am all the better for it, thank God. I may be

as well off as my cruel old uncle some day.” I shook hands with this

gipsy family, and bade them God speed, and turned again into the fair and

among the gipsy tents. Some of the gipsy and other travelling children

were running about picking up scraps and crumbs that had fallen from the

bad man’s table. Every piece of paper that had the appearance of having

been folded up was eyed over with eager curiosity and wonder by the poor

little urchins before they would believe that it was full of emptiness.

The women were putting the little gipsies to bed, and their evening

prayers in many cases were oaths. They had never been taught to lisp the

evening prayer—

“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me,

Bless Thy little lamb to-night;

Through the darkness be Thou near me,

Keep me safe till morning light.”

They threw off their outer garments, rolled under some old, dirty, filthy

rags at one end of their little tent, crouching together like so many

pigs, and snoozed and snored away till morning, except when they were

trampled upon or wakened by their drunken gipsy parents. It is horrible

to think that not one of this number, between six and seven hundred men,

women, and children—so far as I have been able to make out—ever attended

a place of worship on Sundays, or offered a prayer to God at eventide.

Sin! sin! wretchedness, misery, and degradation from the year’s beginning

to the year’s end! Would to God that a comet from His throne, as they

sit under the starlight of heaven, would flash and flash upon their

mental vision till they asked themselves the question, “Whither are we

bound?” Christian England!

“Up! a great work lies before you,

Duty’s standard waveth o’er you.

Stretch a hand to save the sinking

Carried down sin’s tide unthinking.”

“The pangs of hell,” as the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon says in the _Christian

Herald_, March 31, 1880, “do not alarm them, and the joys of heaven do

not entice them” to do their duty. With tears of blood I would say, Oh

that the voice of Parliament and the action of the Government were seen

and heard taking steps to educate the poor gipsy children, so that they

may be enabled to read and repeat prayers—even if their parents have lost

parental regard and affection for their own offspring.

The business of the day was now over, and it was evident that the time

had arrived for “paying off old scores.” The men and women had begun to

collect together in groups. Murmurings and grumblings were heard. The

tumult increased, and presently from one group shouts of “Give it him,

Jock” were echoing in the air, disturbing the stillness of the night.

Thumps, thuds, and shrieks followed each other in rapid succession. I

closed in with the bystanders. Blood began to flow from the “millers,”

who looked murderously savage at each other. Thus they went on “up and

down Welsh fashion” for a few minutes, till one gipsy woman cried out,

“He’s broken Jock’s nose, a beast him.” The policeman came now quietly

along as if his visit would have done on the morrow. One woman shouted

out, “Bobby is coming, now it is all over.” To me it looked as if

“Bobby” did not like the job of quelling gipsy rows; if he had to quell

them it would seem that he had rather they let off some of the steam got

up by revenge, spite, and beer before he tackled them.

While this gang of gipsies were separating, another row was going on near

to a large public-house, to which I hastened, and arrived in time to see

one of them “throw up the sponge.” There were no less than half a dozen

fights in less than half an hour. It was now half-past eleven, and I

began to think that it was quite time that I looked out for my night’s

lodging, so I entered into council with the policeman. We visited

eating-houses, coffee-houses, lodging-houses, public-houses, and shops in

Forest Gate without success. The policeman advised me to walk to

Stratford. This I could not do, for I began to feel rather queer and

giddy; my only prospect was either to pass the night at the station, on

the “Flats,” or return by the last train. No time was to be lost. I

hastily took my ticket, and almost rolled and tumbled down the steps and

into the train, which took me to Fenchurch Street Station, in a somewhat

bewildered state as to my next move forward. For a minute or two I stood

still, lost in wonder. The policeman soon appeared on the scene with his

“Please move on” and gruff voice. I told him I wanted to “move on,” if

he would tell me where to move to. “There are,” answered the policeman,

“plenty of shops to move into in London, if that is what you mean. It

depends what sort of shop you want. If you have got plenty of money,

there is the ‘Three Nuns.’” And he also pointed out one or two other

first-class places in Aldgate. I bade the policeman good night, and went

across the street to look at the “Three Nuns,” which was being closed for

the night. The outside of the place indicated to me that I should have

to dip more deeply into my pocket than my financial position would allow,

and I turned to look for fresh quarters in Aldgate. It was now past

twelve o’clock, and all the places, except one or two, were closed. On

the door of an eating-house and coffee-shop I espied a light, and thither

I went. Fortunately the servants were about, and the landlady was

enjoying her midnight meal. A bed was promised, and after a long chat

with the landlady and some supper, I was shown into my room, the

appearance of which I did not like; but it was “Hobson’s choice, that or

none.” There were two locks upon the door, and I had taken the

precaution to have plenty of candles and matches with me. It looked as

if a broken-down gentleman had been occupying it for some time, who had

suddenly decamped, leaving no traces of his whereabouts. There was but

little clothing upon the bed, and the springs were broken and “humpy.” I

turned into it to do the best I could till morning. The smell of the

room was that of sin. The rattling about the stairs during the whole of

the night was not of a nature to produce a soothing sensation. I felt

with Charles Wesley, when he wrote

“God of my life, whose gracious power

Through varied deaths my soul hath led,

Or turned aside the fatal hour,

Or lifted up my sinking head.”

It would have been helpful if I could have sung out in this miserable

abode, for such it was to me—

“My song shall wake with opening light,

And cheer the dark and silent night.”

I tossed about nearly all night, and at seven o’clock I turned out to get

an early breakfast, and to make my way back to “Wanstead Flats” to have a

last peep at my gipsy friends. I arrived about eight o’clock. Some of

the show folks and show keepers must have had but little sleep, for I

found them moving off the Flats for a run out to their country seats,

leaving behind them the seeds of sin, sown by ignorance, fostered by an

evil heart, and watered by oaths and curses.

I turned in to have another chat with my gipsy friends, who had taken to

house-dwelling, and to listen to their pretty little girl singing as only

children can sing

“Whither, pilgrims, are you going?”

which caused me to undergo a process of screwing up my feeling, and

winking and blinking to avoid any sign of weakness becoming visible.

What a blessed future there would be for our gipsies and other vagabonds,

if all their children could sing with tear-fetching pathos, “Whither,

pilgrims, are you going,” in a way that would bring their parents often

to their knees!

I bade them good-bye, and made my way back to London and home. I was far

from well, and it was fortunate I had sent word over-night to my wife,

asking her to meet me part of the way from the station, as I was coming

by the last train.

The night was dark, very dark and wet, and with a giddy sensation

creeping over me, I stepped out of the train and began to wend my way

home, reeling about like a drunken man. I staggered and walked fairly

well for more than half the distance, till I felt that I must pull up or

I should tumble. For a few minutes I stood by a gate, my forehead and

hands felt as cold as a lobster, with a clammy sweat upon them. I felt

at my pulse, but the deadness of my fingers rendered them insensible to

the throbbings of the human gauge fixed in our wrists.

Not a star in the heavens was visible to send its little twinkling cheer.

If the bright brilliant guiding lamps of heaven had receded ten degrees

backwards into the dark boundless space, the heavens could not have been

darker. Everything was as still as death, and I did not seem to be

making any headway at all. Neither sound of man nor horse could be

heard. Oh! how I did wish and pray that somebody would pass by to give

me a lift. I made another start, and had got as far as a heap of stones

on the side of the road, when I felt that if I were to swoon, or to have

a fit, or die, it would be better to be off the road. I was just going

to sit upon the heap of stones, and had dropped my “Gladstone bags,” when

I heard the patter of some little feet in the distance. I pricked up my

ears, and shouted out as loud as I could, “Halloo, who’s there.” The

answer came from my wife and little folks, “It is we.” I was steadied

home between them, and found to my joy a good fire and supper awaiting

me. I then thanked God for all His mercies and retired to my couch,

feeling as Richard Wilton, M.A., felt when he penned the following lines

for the _Christian Miscellany_, 1882—

“Some fruit of labour will remain,

And bending ears shall whisper low,

Not all in vain.”

Rambles among the Gipsies at Northampton Races.

IN the midst of doubts and perplexities, sometimes inspired with

confidence and at other times full of misgivings, and with my future

course completely hidden from me as if I had been encircled by the

blackest midnight darkness, with only one little bright star to be seen,

I mustered up the little courage left in me; and with great difficulty

and many tears of sorrow and disappointment, I started by the first

train, with as light a load of troubles as possible under the

circumstances, to find my way to Northampton races, to pick up such facts

and information relating to the poor little gipsy tramps that Providence

placed in my way, or I could collect together.

After the usual jostling, crushing, and scrambling by road and rail,

smoke, oaths, betting, gambling, and swearing, I found myself seated in a

tramcar in company with one gentleman only, and, strange to say, of the

name of “Smith,” but not a “gipsy Smith,” nor a racing “Smith,” of whom

there are a few; in fact, there are more gipsies of the name of “Smith”

than there are of any other name. It may be fortunate or unfortunate for

me that I cannot trace my lineage to a “gipsy Smith,” and that my

birthplace was not under some hedge bottom, with the wide, wide world as

a larder that never needed replenishing by hard toil. All required of

the “gipsy kings” of the ditch bank, now as in days of yore—so long as

the present laws are winked at, and others intended to reach them are

shelved—is to “rise, kill, and eat,” for to-morrow we die, and the devil

take the hindmost. My friend Mr. Smith was left in the car, and I sped

my way upon the course. I had not been long in wandering about before I

was joined by a respectable-looking old man, who evidently had done his

share of hard work on “leather and nails,” and was on the lookout for

ease and fresh air during the remainder of his pilgrimage to the one of

two places in store for him. After a few minutes’ conversation about the

“ities” and “isms” rampant at Northampton, and our various views upon

them, we separated at the edge of the gipsy encampment, wigwams, squalor,

and filth. I took the right turning—at least I have no doubt about its

proving so in the long run—and he took the left turning; and to this day

we have not run against each other again.

The gipsies, _Push_-gipsies, and Gorgios were hard at work putting up

their tents and establishments, and I in the meantime walked and trotted

the course in a morning’s airing fashion, coming in contact occasionally

with a sceptic, infidel, and freethinker. These were turned away in my

rough fashion, and my wandering racing meditations brought forth some of

the following seeds of thought as I paced backwards and forwards upon the

turf. At any rate they are problems, maxims, and aphorisms—such as they

are—that have appeared before my vision in my gipsy rambles as I have

been working out my gipsy plans, and are, I think, as worthy of a place

here as the misleading gipsy lore and lies we have read and heard of.

Some of these will probably die as they bud into life, others may keep

green for a little time, and there may be a few that will live and cause

a few wanderers to take notes of the journey:

Little, cramped, and twisted ideas of God are the outcome of froth and

foam, set in motion by thwarted conceit and mortified vanity.

Vaunted scepticism is the poisonous fungus of decaying minds and rotten

ideas.

Infidelity is hellish divinity gone mad.

Nihilists and Fenians are crawlers, who crawl out of rotten heaps of

wrongs, which the light of day turns into devil-flies, with fiery hate in

their eyes and poisonous stings in their tails.

Socialists and Communists are the rotten toads of society, whose love for

the country’s welfare consists in inflating themselves till they burst,

like the frog in the fable.

Infidels and sceptics are the devil’s bats, with one of their wings

cropped shorter than the other.

The froth, foams, and fumes of sceptics and infidels are only a little

hellish mist that temporarily dims our eyeglasses, which the sun of truth

dispels with laughing smiles.

The soft tears of love are the nightly mist-drops of heaven, which the

dawn of the eternity turns into the everlasting snowdrops of paradise.

Our godly prayers sent heavenward are preserved by our heavenly Father,

and will, on our arrival on the shores of paradise, become the merry

pealing bells of heaven which will chime through eternal ages.

In the spirit of disobedience there is an unseen power that can draw down

the greatest curse of Heaven.

The spirit of love is a heavenly wand that causes everything to laugh and

dance that comes under its influence.

The spirit of hate is a Satanic rod of such baneful influence that it

withers and kills everything that it touches.

Our loving, trickling tears of penitence and contrition are being

collected by God to form the pure, transparent streams and rivers of joy

and gladness which are to run through the celestial city; and those whose

lot it has been to shed many upon earth will have increased happiness in

heaven from the fact that they have contributed more largely to make

heaven more beautiful and lovely by adding to the refreshing streams of

paradise.

The prayers of trouble of God’s children upon earth are being reset in

heaven to angelic music, which, on our landing upon the heavenly shores,

are to be our songs of joy and praise.

Selfish, hollow, hypocritical, sleek-tongued deceivers are the four-faced

and four-headed Satanic demons of society. Their home is among the mud;

they can smile in the sunshine; but their deeds are dirty and poisonous.

They are difficult to catch, but more difficult to hold when caught.

Pop-gun liberality, when it is the outcome of a little, bad heart,

selfishness, and pride, may be compared to bubbles rising upon putrid

waters. In the distance, and with a smiling sun, the various colours

present a beautiful enchanting appearance; but as you near them the

blackness, fitfulness, and stench is observable, and you turn away

disgusted.

A double-headed face without eyes is he who spends a lifetime in wrecking

others to hoard up ill-gotten gold, which, when in the last extremity and

in fear of being wrecked himself, he throws overboard to some benevolent

object, trusting to God’s lovingkindness and tender mercies to turn it

into a lifeboat that will bring him safe to land.

As the sun is the centre of our solar system of heavenly bodies, giving

light to the eleven illuminating planets of various colours, Mercury,

Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, and the

_Georgium Sidus_ moving round it, so in like manner is LOVE the centre of

the heavenly graces, giving light and beauty to the eleven Christian

characteristics, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

meekness, industry, honesty, temperance, and chastity.

Every action of retaliation is a bunch of hard prickles, and it has in

the centre of it a wasps’ nest, and the buzzing of the wasps can be heard

and their stings felt by the bystanders; while every act of love is a

collection of perfumed, fragrance-scented oils, with a cooing dove on the

top as a guard.

Retaliation and revenge are a dark cave, sending forth sulphurous fumes

and the groans of hell; while forgiveness and love are a lovely garden of

fragrant flowers, with cooing doves and rippling water-brooks in the

midst, sending forth heavenly music.

As the process of “inoculation” applied to flowers gives to us the most

beautiful coloured, tinted, edged, and lovely flowers, so in like manner

it is with the Spirit of Christ. When once the Spirit of Christ is

brought into contact with our human nature, refined sentiment and

feelings—the Christian graces—soon become manifest.

As the wind and storm shake off the fruit which has the least hold upon

the tree, so in like manner it is with the members of Christian Churches

and the State. Those members and citizens the most careless, loveless,

and cold, who have the least hold upon the Church, God, and the State,

storms and persecution readily bring to the ground.

Death-wishers, with evil hearts, in pursuit of a good man, are the

parents and life-bearers of immortal fame, which will sit upon the object

of their malice, hate, and spite as a crown of precious jewels; and that

which they intended and still intend to be the arrow of death God has

turned and is turning into a tree of life, ever budding, blossoming, and

teeming with endless delicious fruits.

Hope is the magic Luna of heaven let down and swinging to and fro in

earth by golden cords, which answers to the call of young or old, rich or

poor, wise or simple, learned or ignorant, and transfers darkness into

light, hell into heaven, and devils into saints. Under its power poverty

becomes riches, tears of sorrow songs of joy, sickness health, and death

life.

The last man stands the first on a backward course.

An idle man is the devil’s standard-bearer, and works harder and does

more service by his example than any man in the black force.

The first man who arrives at the top of a hill is the man to live the

longest, see the most, and enjoy the most happiness.

Mysterious actions, according to the intent of the author, are either the

seeds of life or the seeds of death.

As fire and cooking brings out the sweetness of food to make it

digestible, so in like manner the fiery trials of affliction bring out

the sweetness of a Christian character, making his path through life

pleasant, agreeable, and profitable.

Private prayer is the Christian’s log, which indicates the rate he

travels towards heaven, and Christlike acts of benevolence are the

log-book in which his speed is registered.

When a professing Christian dances about among the members of Christian

Churches solely for the sake of trade and filthy lucre, it may be taken

as an indication that he has stuck a broom upon his masthead, and is open

for sale to the highest bidder.

Birds, bees, and wasps pick the finest and sweetest fruit, so in like

manner naughty men, women, and children pick at the sweetest children of

heaven whom God loves and smiles upon.

False, misleading sentiment is the devil’s tonic sol-fa, set to music to

suit his hearers.

To keep out of fogs is to live on a hill, so in like manner to keep out

of damping thoughts and foggy doubts about God’s ways and doings is to

live high up in His favour.

As atmospheric influences round marshy spots, rushy swamps, and low

meadows produce a meteoric light called “Jack-o’-Lantern,” which in the

distance looks beautiful to outsiders flitting about in the dark, carried

by an unseen hand, but which is dangerous to follow, so in like manner it

is with scientific Christianity apart from the Gospel.

A scientific Christian held up as a light without Christ is a

“Will-o’-the Wisp” Christian.

Fawners and flatterers are like dogs that have worms in their tails and

wag them to strangers; they are not to be trusted.

A backslider is a tree with three parts of the top cut down, leaving

sufficient above ground to serve as a warning to others, or as a post

upon which to hang a gate to prevent others passing that way.

If a writer wishes to add lustre to his literary fame, he will best

succeed in his purpose by turning “French polisher,” instead of becoming

a literary thief.

To polish and give artistic touches to a crude cabinet, bringing out its

beauty and defects, showing the knots and grain, gives credit to the

artist; while to run away with the rough and unpolished jewels it

contains, claiming as his own that which belongs to another, brings

disgrace and ruin.

To drive successfully along the crooked and zigzag lanes of life, time

and space must be taken to go round the corners. Fools can drive along a

straight level, but it takes a wise man to round the down-hill corners

without a spill over.

Gilt and crested harness does not improve the quality of a poor

emaciated, bony, half-starved horse; so in like manner a few Oxford and

Cambridge gilt touches put upon a sensual, backwood gipsy romantic tale,

will not improve the condition of our gipsies and their children.

* * * * *

My wandering meditation being over, I now drew myself up to a gipsy

“grand stand.” To all sensible, good men it appears as a _horrible fall_

rather than the “grand stand.” Thousands of young men and women, trained

by Christian, godly parents, have been brought to ruin by its rotten

foundation and evil associations. It is a “stand” from which men and

women can see—if they will open their eyes—the wrath of God, the roads to

destruction, and the “course” to hell.