“Oft have we lingered in the TENT,
The ‘pearl’ unbought,
The book unread, the knee unbent
The grace unsought.
Oft have despondency and shame
Our faith assailed,
And when we would confess Thy name
Our courage failed.”
CANON BATEMAN, _Sunday at Home_, No. 1267.
Among this mile and a half of gipsy vans there were some “nice and clean”
travelling homes. In one I found a good woman reading to her children by
the evening fire, and the kettle “singing on the hob.” As I paddled and
waddled over boot-tops in mud, in the midst of this vast concourse of
people young and old, never in my life did I so fully realize the case of
the poor man who had fallen among thieves, and the action of the priest
and Levite, and also that of the Samaritan. The whole scene depicted in
the good old book seemed to come before me as one vast panorama,
exhibiting human life under a variety of aspects. On the one hand, drawn
along the side of the road in the ditch for more than a mile and a half,
there were two hundred vans, carts, and tents, inhabited by a thousand
gipsy men, women, and children of all ages, mostly in the deepest depths
of wretchedness, ignorance, misery, and dirt—of many of whom it might be
said that they were thieves among thieves—had been travelling all
Saturday night or on Sunday morning to be at the fair in time for a good
place. Gipsies, showpeople, and others of this wandering class travel
chiefly on Sundays. Saturday nights and Monday nights are, as a rule,
their best nights. Some of them had with their poor bony horses, from
“shutting-up time” on Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, travelled over
forty miles, and most wretched spectacles they were. On the other hand,
and on the footpath, there were thousands of gentle and simple, rich and
poor, young and old, saints and sinners, ministers and their flocks,
moving to and fro, some of whom sneered at the gipsies, others mocked,
laughed, and joked. Some were disgusted, and others looked pensive and
sorrowful at the picture of an Oxford Lent carnival being spent in this
way on a Christian Sabbath in the centre of Christendom and civilization,
with its hundreds of Christian ministers within sight and call, who did
not answer to the voice of love or duty. Well might Washbourne cry out—
“Our hearts are broke, our harps unstringèd be,
Our only musick’s sighs and groans,
Our songs are to the tune of _lachrymose_,
We are fretted all to skin and bones.”
DR. GROSART’S “_Fuller Worthies_.”
After I had distributed my books, and wended my way to the end of this
long lane of sin and iniquity, I turned to look at the heartrending
sight. There were hundreds of gipsy men and women, some few of whom had
fallen from the paths of virtue, uprightness, and honesty, and some six
hunched to seven hundred poor gipsy children of all ages weltering in the
ditch. Not twenty children out of this vast number had been taught at
the knee of a kind, gentle, loving mother to lisp in tender, trembling
simple tones, to which heaven and the whole angelic host stoop to listen
with open ears, for fear one word might be lost—
“Lord Jesus teach a child to pray,
Who humbly kneels to Thee,
And every night and every day
My Friend and Saviour be.
“While here I live, give me Thy grace,
And when I’m called to die,
Oh, take my soul to see Thy face,
And sing Thy praise on high.”
My heart was almost ready to break, and the big teardrop forced its way
down my face. Just as I was turning away with a sad and aching heart, a
little sharp gipsy girl dark-eyed, of ten summers, clutched hold of my
hand and coat. She looked up into my face and said, “Eh, Mr. Smith,
don’t you know me? Don’t you remember giving me a little book and a
penny when I was very ill in our van upon the Leicester racecourse last
year? Mother and doctor said I should die, but you see I’m not dead yet.
My name is Smith. There are lots of gipsy Smiths.” Before she had
finished her interesting little story a large number of little gipsies
had gathered round me, among whom I had to distribute, with care and
tact, all the pictures and little books I had left. It was now dark.
Fires in old gipsy tin buckets and on the wet ground were to be seen;
sticks were crackling; lights shining under the vans and in the small
windows and through the crevices and over the top half of their doors;
their evening meals sent forth a variety of odours, ranging from snail
soup to red herrings, dead pig, and hashed venison. The barking and
growling of their lurcher dogs were heard more frequently and savagely.
The thousands of dripping star-gazers and sightseers, rough and smooth,
drunk and sober, had begun to get pleasingly less; rain was coming down
almost in torrents; nevertheless the children felt loath to leave me. To
the onlookers I could have said, with George Herbert—
“Rain, do not hurt my flowers, but gently spend
Your lovely drops. Press not to smell them here;
When they are ripe their odour will ascend,
And at your lodging with their thanks appear.”
“_Fuller Worthies_.”
With many caresses, thanks, and good wishes from the children, I groped
my way to my lodging with thankfulness, but in a wretched plight,
suffering from my lifelong enemy—giddiness. After five minutes’ chat
with my round-faced host I mounted, with a hot head, and cold wet feet,
“wooden hills,” and amongst the blankets and feathers I snoozed into a
fitful sleep, to be startled by wild dreams and nocturnal noises. In one
of my strange flights I found myself in a dark and dismal-looking place
like a chimney-sweep’s underground soot storehouse. How I got there was
a mystery I have never been able to solve. The only things I remember in
connection with my visit to this dark abode was, the good spirit led me
through alleys, by colleges, churches, chapels, synagogues, and schools
of every grade. Marks of civilization were everywhere visible on my
path. There were ministers and teachers on every hand. One little
narrow backway led me to a small narrow opening down some narrow, rugged
steps. As soon as I entered, a small door of the colour of the walls
instantly closed upon me as with a spring, and before I had time to look
back at the way by which I entered, I was in worse than a Roman or gipsy
maze. At first a cold, chilly sensation of fright and terror crept over
me. My hair seemed to rear bolt upright in a twinkle; but this soon
passed away after realizing the fact that I was among friends. There
were no windows except one dismal pane, through which the moonlight
gleamed. There were no candles. The grate was made up of bricks and
rusty crooked old bars of iron put loosely together without mortar. The
fender was of two long shin-bones, and the ends of it two thigh-bones of
a man. The fire was crackling with sticks and the bones of rabbits,
partridges, pheasants, and fowls. Beetles, cockroaches, toads, and
spiders were as thick as they could creep and stick. A dead pig’s skin
badly cured, with the bristles sticking on it in patches, was laid upon
the broken stones on the floor as a hearth-rug. In a large pot over the
fire there were boiling large pieces of diseased pork in a thickish
liquid, which was stirred every few minutes by an old “hag” with a
ham-bone. The uneven, broken walls of the room were covered with greasy
grime and filth, upon which were hung pictures of skeletons, death,
coffins, and cross-bones, and most horrible, murderous-looking men and
women.
In the centre of this large, deathly room there was a kind of long, low,
tumble-down table propped up with bricks, old tressels, and stones. The
top was sickly, dirty, loose, and uneven. Round the room there were
scores of men, women, and children, blackened with dirt, grease, and
grime, who had never been washed since they were ushered into the world,
sitting and squatting upon the floor. Their language was that of
thieving, robbing, cheating, lying, &c.; and their spare time—at least
some of them—while the cooking was going on, was passed with the devil’s
cards. For a few minutes all was as silent as death, and then the old
“hag” placed upon the table the pot which had been hanging over the fire,
after which she handed to each of us in the room an old broken mug, and
told us to help ourselves to what was in the pot. At this a general rush
took place; swearing and fighting was about to begin in earnest, with the
probability of it ending in murder without the outside world knowing of
it. I was about to begin my sickening share when I said to the lot of
them, “Now, chaps, women, and children, in my country it is usual for us
to say ‘grace’ before meat and thanks after it on occasions like this,
and, if you don’t mind, I’ll follow out the practice now.” Several of
the poor little lost creatures cried out, “That’s capital! if it’s
anything nice we shall like it. We’ve not had anything we like for a
long time.” I told them to be quiet, and then proceeded with, “Be
pleased, O Lord, to grant us—” “Stop! stop!” cried out the old “hag.”
“What did you say? ‘O Lord?’ What do you mean? What is it? who is it?
and where does He come from? We’ve never heard the name before.” I
said, “Let me finish, and then I will tell you afterwards.” I began
again to say grace, and proceeded as follows: “Be pleased, O Lord, to
grant us Thy blessing with this food, for Jesus—” They now all jumped
upon their feet, and an old, grey-headed man, the picture of a Cabul
murderer, with Satan in his face and the devil in his eyes, along with
the wretched, ragged, lost, and emaciated little creatures, cried out,
“Who is Jesus? We have never heard of Him before. Does He live in a big
house? and has He plenty of rabbits, hares, game, and fowls in His
plantations? because we should like to know.” I told them, in a way that
excited their curiosity, as to who God was, and also as to who Jesus was.
They set to their midnight supper like a lot of pigs. I took a little,
but was far from enjoying it. When they had finished their supper they
put their mugs upon the floor, and the bones they gave to a number of
bony, hungry-looking dogs, a kind of cross between bulldogs, bloodhounds,
and greyhounds, which were ready for any kind of work between the death
of a keeper and a young rabbit. They reminded me very much of the big,
hungry wretch of a dog in Landseer’s “Jack in Office”—
“His lean dog scanned him by the three-legged stool.”
_Harris_.
The conversation after supper took place in a language which they thought
I could not understand, as to what was to be done on the morrow. I was
mute now for a time. The children were to look after and bring home all
the eggs, chickens, and fowls they could lay their hands upon. The men
were to bring in larger game; and the women were to hunt up the servant
girls. Each one had their work allotted them. As a kind of relief, and
in broken English, in which they thought I would gladly join them, a
number of the elder ones related how many times they had been “nabbed”
and sent to “quod.” Some of them related that they had been in the
“stone jug” three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and up to a
score times; yea, even with glee some of the children gave me an account
of the things they had stolen as they had passed from door to door on
their thieving rambles. Now was the opportunity, I thought, during a
lull in the conversation, to change the subject, and began to relate some
of the beautiful things I had seen and lovely countries I had passed
through; the loving smiles, gentle looks, and kind actions I had been
brought in contact with; the many real, good-hearted friends I had; the
many lovely flowers, delightful walks, and pleasant companions there were
ready to join the travellers travelling in my country; water was
rippling, birds were singing, sun was shining, and a land flowing with
milk and honey in view, with long life into the bargain. As I recited
these things to them they all—poor things!—stared with open mouths as
they had never stared before. They now drew close to me. Although the
odour was anything but agreeable, I kept on relating to them the
blessings and advantages of my country, till they one and all cried out,
with bated breath, “How far is it to your country, governor? Will it be
the same for us if we go?” I said, “Yes, my good friends, it will be so
for you and more. Will you go?” They now cried out, “We will go; but we
shall have to trust you to get us out of this place.” “All right,” I
said; “I will try to find a way out of this miserable hole somehow or
other for you.”
I began to puzzle my brains as to how their deliverance was to be
accomplished. For some little time I pondered the matter over, when it
occurred to me that at the bottom end of the dismal room I had noticed a
place upon the wall which looked like a door that had been plastered over
in somebody’s time by pieces of old rags and paper.
I drew near to it, and scanned it over more closely. After feeling round
the edges of it for a few minutes, one of the oldest and most
wretched-looking gipsies spoke out in hasty tones, and with an amount of
warmth that led me to hesitate for a moment to hear what further he had
to say. He stopped short. So I said, “Well, Righteous Palmer, what is
there behind this opening if I should proceed to find out?” “Oh, a lot,
I’m told by those who know. Our place is bad enough, as our old witch
knows, and you know, sir; but nothing like what there is behind that
there ‘opening,’” pointing with his finger, “and if I was you, my dear
good gentleman, I would not stir a peg to see any further. We should not
like to see any harm come to you. If it had been anybody else we should
not have minded a bit; we would as soon given him a chuck to Nick as look
at him, and been glad o’ the job, and ground his bones to powder, and
played at football with his skull.” I said, “Well now, Palmer, if you do
not mind, we will see.”
“If you do,” said Palmer, “and get into any trouble, or into a place out
of which you cannot get back, you must not blame us.” “Will you do what
you can to help me?” I said. “Oh yes, we will do what we can for you in
any way.” “All right,” I said. I now took out my pocket knife and began
to cut and pull some of the paper and old rags off what now was appearing
to be a door. The old witches, “hags,” and grey-bearded, bloated, and
thin, wretched-looking men, and swarms, almost, of poor emaciated
children, eagerly closed round me to see what it would end in. The
stinking fire was stirred up to cause fresh light; and in the meantime I
kept cutting away, which was no light task, for there were many old knots
and rusty nails to be faced. Some of the poor children cried out, “By
Jove, it is a door! Wonder where it leads to?” “All right,” I said,
“wait and we will see.” And I worked, tugged, and toiled, sometimes in
the midst of breathless silence, and at others in a gipsy noise loud
enough to drown my own voice and noise of my tinkering. At last the door
seemed to be pretty loose. Nervousness and fear seemed to creep over me
more than ever as I neared the end. Questions kept popping up in my
mind, “Where will it lead to? If it did not lead to an opening and
daylight,” I said to myself more than once, “I am a done man.” “Lord
help me,” I said, as I put my hand to the door to push it or pull it one
way or the other. At last I pulled it open. There was the faintest
light to be seen from somewhere, but I could not tell where. All the
gipsies came nearer to me, and I said to one of the strongest of them,
“Hold my hand, for I do not know where it will lead to. It will either
be to my ruin or your happiness.” “We will hold you,” cried one and all;
“you shan’t fall at any rate.” “Thank the Lord for this,” I said, and
with much trembling I took the first step, not knowing whether it was to
be downhill or uphill. In putting my feet out I felt my toe go against
something hard. I kicked again and again, and found it to be a stone
step. I then put my foot upon it. The gipsies were still at my coat
tail. I then put both feet upon it, and felt at the walls, which seemed
to widen out. A little more light was manifest, but still I could not
tell where it came from. I kept groping and feeling my way step after
step. More light of a yellowish tint, not of the cold moonlight hues,
was now becoming more visible. The gipsies, especially the children,
began to get eager to see the end of it. First one and then another of
them said more than once, “The light seems nice; I wonder where it comes
from?” The old gipsies were, with this light, made to look most
horrible, and slunk back, but the children stuck to me. A great wide
passage was now manifest; and altogether an uphill work was becoming more
pleasant and cheerful. The gipsy children seemed to be round me by
hundreds, and for the life of me I could not tell where they came from.
A more miserable lot could not be imagined. Some of the children cried
out, “Governor, it seems a long way to the top; how far is it?” Another
twenty steps brought us to the top in full face to the rising sun;
singing birds filling the air with their chanting; lovely flowers and
beautiful mansions, blossoming trees rich with bud, blossom, and
fragrance; groves, parks, and long walks without end. The deer were
bounding, cattle grazing, and the big lambs were calling out for their
mothers. In the long winding distance, at the top of a hill, stood a
golden city, whose mansions and palaces were built of large blocks of
precious stones, with an arch spanning over the whole composed of a
succession of rainbows, with rays of glory indescribable, anxiously
forcing their way to add lustre to the scene through the occasional
openings to be seen in the illuminated arch. My heart was so overjoyed
at having arrived at the top, and seeing vast crowds of little gipsy
children brought out of darkness, I began to sing out lustily, with tears
in my eyes—
“There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar.
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling-place there.”
Ami as if by magic, the children sang touchingly the chorus, in which I
joined—
“In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.”
The singing of this tune woke me up, and for the life of me I could not
tell where I was, or whether I was in the body or out of it. This matter
was soon settled by the “boots” knocking at my door, telling me that it
was a quarter-past five o’clock. I partook of a hasty breakfast, and by
six o’clock, with the musical bells chiming round me, I was among the
gipsies in the fair, some of whom were settling down to their quarters,
others were grumbling, and in not a few instances rows were brewing,
owing to the space allotted to them not being up to their anticipation.
On my way from my lodging to the town I passed a number of most wretched
spectacles drawn by donkeys and ponies, fit for the knacker’s yard.
Upon a tumble-down donkey-cart covered over with sticks and old sheeting,
drawn by a donkey dressed in harness not worth sixpence, which was tied
together with string and pieces of rope, there were women and six poor
half-dressed, half-starved, dirty, ragged children. The sight was most
pitiable. The little dirty faces, with matted hair, peering through an
opening in the rotten calico canvas, reminded me of a nest of young
rabbits, rather than human beings with immortal souls, endowed with
reason, thought, and intellect, and in the image of God, peeping out of
their hole among the dead grass. Oh! what a contrast, I thought, to the
architectural grandeur and beauty of the mansions on either hand as they
passed through the streets. Why and wherefore is the cause? But I must
not stop now to inquire. This problem I must work out later on.
The toll clerk with an amount of tact managed to squeeze the two hundred
and twenty vans and shows into the square, keeping fairly the worst kinds
in the background, and the best-looking with their faces towards
“Lunnun.” “I have,” said the clerk, “much to do to get them all placed.
After I have done all I can, I cannot keep them from rows and quarrels.
Sometimes it is worse than what you see now. There are many more vans
than there are in the fair this morning.” I said to him, “How many do
you think there are here this morning?” “Well, sir, there are
considerably over two hundred. I counted early yesterday afternoon in
one string between here and Somers Town, a hundred and seventy-two vans,
and others have been coming since.” At this juncture he spied a gipsy
with his van and establishment taking up their abode in the churchyard
under the tall trees. He said, “I must be off to stop them.” I followed
him to see how the bronzed old gipsy would take to his veto. Fortunately
he took to the dismissal with good grace, and more than once said, “Thank
you, my good gentleman.” This is one of the characteristics of the old
romantic gipsies, when they want anything by favour; seeing that it is
not in their power to get it either by craft or bounce, they can ask with
much grace, and in this way they often succeed. After the toll clerk was
gone I had a chat with the gipsy—who, to his credit, had good cattle
between the shafts of his vans. He said that he had at home—but did not
say where his home was—eleven grey horses, out of his stock of thirteen.
I took his statement with a pinch of salt, and moved off, leaving him to
mumble over a joke I left behind, while he changed his quarters.
Not far from this scene there stood at a van door a tall, bony,
dirty-looking man, in an almost nude state, and a lot of dirty, ragged
children, and the “old woman” washing, hard and fast, some dirty linen in
a tin bucket. It struck me that in this case, as with others, dispatch
was the soul of business, and I loitered about to see what “shifts” this
gipsy family would adopt. Scrub, rub, and a dash into the hot water went
the dirty linen. After two or three good rubs and tussels with the linen
in the bucket, she pulled it out and wrung it as if she was “screwing its
neck off.” When this was over she gave it a good shake, and handed it to
her “old man” without drying. The “old man” retired for a few minutes,
and then he appeared with a dirty white shirt on his back, sticking more
closely to his body than would have been agreeable to most people.
Fortunately the warm sun was shining, and by exposing it to the sun’s
rays during his pacing backwards and forwards in the square for an hour,
he presented a better spectacle. At night upon the stage, with his
painted face and coloured pantaloons, his grimy, smoke-coloured shirt
passed off fairly well. I could see that the poor children, who stood
round the door with matted hair, were to have the same measure dealt out
to them that was dealt out to the “old man.” I am not at all surprised
to find that diseases of various kinds should be creeping among our
present-day gipsies, the bulk of whom wash and dry their linen on their
limbs and bodies as above. Among the old gipsies rheumatic diseases were
not known, but it is not so now; and it cannot be wondered at when we
take into account that men, women, and children cause their bodies to do
in wet weather what the “clothes horse” should do, and in fine weather
what the “clothes line” should do. Such is “gipsy life” in this
nineteenth century, in this our enlightened England.
One of the horses belonging to one of the gipsy vans had had nearly
enough of it; and for the life of him the gipsy could not get the poor
old horse to stir a peg, except to kick, and this it could do as well, if
not better, than a “four-year-old.” I expected every minute to see the
van over on its side, and the woman and children sprawling in the road.
Fortunately, a few fellow-gipsy brothers put their shoulders to the
wheel, and wheeled it off to right quarters.
In other vans “rock” and “toffy” making was going on with vengeance.
I’ll take one case to show the kind of process carried out, and what
town’s children and others have to swallow during feasts, mops, and fair
time.
Surrounded by several vans and carts there was a fire in an old bucket,
round which stood men, women, and a lot of poor little gipsy roadside
Arabs. Presently into the pot over the fire—a large old kettle—a gipsy
woman puts a lot of the commonest dirty-looking sugar, and some butter,
or “butterine,” and when it has begun to boil, one of the children stirs
it with a dirty stick for a time. After the boiling process is over, it
is taken out and handed to the man or woman, as the case may be, to be
“pulled” or twisted into the long walking-stick shape you see on some of
the low, dirty gingerbread stalls attending fairs. A light-coloured
“rock,” or “toffy,” is made by adding lighter-coloured sugar and flour.
The light-coloured “rock” and the dark-coloured “rock” are then mixed and
twisted together, forming what is called the “scrodled rock.” The mixing
process gives the hands of the mixers a clean appearance inside,
contrasting strongly with the back of the hands, which at times, with
this class of folks, resemble very much in colour the backs of tortoises
or toads. George Herbert, in the “Fuller Worthies” Library, might almost
have seen and tasted some such like, when he wrote—
“A sweetmeat of hell’s table, not of earth.”
A few yards from this manufacturing process there were man, woman, and
two little children “as clean as pinks,” and a boy, who was scrubbing
himself, head and shoulders, down to the waist, till he was “all of a
white lather.” This case, and the few others I saw of a similar nature,
were the “new comers on the road.” I expect to hear of their rising as a
cow’s tail grows.
A laughable incident occurred while I was standing by watching the boy
scrub at his head as if he meant to fetch the hair up by “the roots.”
From beneath one of the vans a big black dog sallied forth down the fair
with a piece of white paper in its mouth, carefully wrapped up, and much
resembling a parcel of sandwiches. No sooner was the dog in the fair
than some of the gipsies were after it, crying out, “Stop it! Stop it!”
At first the dog would not listen; ultimately it stopped. The gipsies
came up to the frightened animal. Everybody expected the dog had run
away with something valuable in the shape of eatables, if nothing else.
One big gipsy cried out to the dog, “Down with it! Down with it!” The
dog did as it was told. This was no sooner done than the gipsy picked up
the paper, and began to carefully unwrap it, when, to the horror of the
gipsy and a few others who had taken part in the chase, and roars of
laughter of onlookers, it turned out to be a paper containing a few
bloaters’ heads and other unpalatable trifles. The parcel was dropped
much quicker than it was picked up. Another laugh burst forth. The
huntsmen pinched their noses and slunk away. One said, “I thought he had
got somebody’s grub.”
I now came upon Mr. Bachelor Nabob Brown, a chimney-sweeping gipsy—and a
most curious stick he was—in charge of a weighing machine and a few other
trifles. He was just turning out of his bed, which had been in his cart,
covered with a yellow sheet. Nine o’clock was the time he had promised
overnight to be ready for a stroll. He got up, gave himself a rub, yawn,
and a stretch, and set to work lighting his fire in the usual gipsying
drawing-room fireplace among the other gipsies. Of course washing was
out of the question. He boiled his water, stewed his tea, frizzled his
bloater, and then set to work upon his breakfast with a strong smell of
paraffin oil pervading the whole of the contents of his “larder.” Nabob
Brown combed his hair with his fingers, threw on his patched and ragged
old pilot Chesterfield, and off we started for a tramp to the outskirts
of Oxford. We had not gone far before he began to apologize for not
being dressed as a gentleman, and said, “You don’t mind, sir, do you, at
me walking along with you in this cut and figure?” I said, “Oh no, I do
not mind in the least. Very few know me personally in Oxford, but it
would make no difference to me if they did. If it would help on the
cause of the gipsy children, I would as soon have my dinner with a gipsy
as with a prince.” “All right, my friend,” said Mr. Nabob Brown; “I’m
glad to hear you say that. I know who I am talking to.” In going along
I said to Nabob, “I should like to know a little about your family.”
“All right,” he said; “that’s just what I wanted. Let me tell you, sir,
that the ‘Browns’ are amongst the best families in the land. In our
family are dukes, lords, M.P.’s, and squires without end, and never a one
has done anything wrong. They are all high-class and first-rate folks.
In everything that is good a ‘Brown’ starts it. I feel proud that my
name is ‘Brown.’” I said, “I thought Smith was not a bad name.” “They
are nothing like the ‘Browns,’” said Nabob. “Smiths stand second, Browns
stand first. I shall come in for a fortune one of these days before
long, and I shall not forget you. Will you give me your address?” I
said, “Yes, with pleasure; I shall be glad to have the prospect of a
fortune again for my children’s sake.” “All right, give me your card.”
I handed him my card, and the poor “cracked” fellow wrapped it up and put
it into his pocket.
Mr. Nabob Brown stopped, rubbed and scratched in the street, and
commenced again as follows:
“I am one of fifteen children, and the only one living, thank God. My
father was George Brown, who served thirty-five years in the Fifty-second
Light Infantry. He was present at the battles of Waterloo, Salamanca,
and Badajoz; after which he was pensioned off. He spent three years in
Chelsea Hospital, and was then taken to the soldiers’ madhouse at
Norwich, and there he died. People say that I am getting like him, but
they are fools and don’t know what they are talking about. I’m as
sensible as any man in the country—don’t you think so?” I told him I did
“not like answering questions of that kind without longer experience.”
“My father was of a drunken family, and it was in one of his drunken fits
when he tumbled me downstairs and put out one of the joints of my
backbone.” We now came to a dead stand opposite one of the colleges and
near to some large houses. People big and little, gentle and simple,
were passing to and fro. He now turned his back towards me and bent his
bead low to the wall. He then turned up the tail ends of his old coat,
exhibiting his under ragged garments, and took hold of my hand and poked
my finger into a small dent in the slight bend upon his back. Of course
I consented. He next took off his old hat and poked my finger into a
hole upon his head. All the time his tongue was going at the rate of
“nineteen to the dozen.” Mr. Nabob’s arms began to swing backwards and
forwards, and he shouted out, “I live by excitement; without it I should
die.” Children began to stare and gather round us, but before doing so I
said, “I suppose you cannot stand drink?” “Oh dear no! I have been
teetotal these twenty-five years, on and off, and am religions in my
heart, but I doesn’t always show it. I goes to church sometimes. I’m a
Church of England man; but then you know, sir, we in our profession
cannot do without telling lies sometimes. I’m giving up all bad things,
women and everything else. If it was not for being religious at my heart
I should have been dead long ago.” He now began to “dance and caper
about the road.” Fortunately we were close to the grounds round Christ
Church College, and very few saw his megrims.
We had now arrived opposite a small conservatory with some beautiful
flowers in view. The pretty flowers sent Mr. Bachelor Nabob Brown off at
a tangent. “Oh!” said Mr. Brown, “I love flowers. It is delightful to
be among flowers. I could die among flowers. I’m a first-rate
gardener.” The names he gave to some of the commoner sorts of flowers he
saw were anything but Latin or English. The small rivulet, green
meadows, tall trees, pleasant walks, with the burning sun shining
overhead, seemed to have excited Mr. Nabob’s dormant artistic qualities,
and he commenced to give me specimens of his musical abilities. After he
had done he said, “I never had any regular training, or I should have
been one of the ‘stars;’ as it is I can play the fiddle, concertina,
piano—in fact, I should not be stuck fast at anything. I consider myself
to be a regular musician, and no mistake. Oh, my back and my head, sir.
Let us sit down for a chat under one of these trees.” “All right,” I
said, “I am quite ready.” Several gentlemen and ladies paced backwards
and forwards, no doubt wondering who we were or what our movements meant.
Maybe, for aught I know, that some of them thought that we had dynamite
designs upon Christ Church College; or that we were “two poor wandering
lunatics.” Mr. Nabob Brown next poured forth his other
qualifications—adaptability and practice in photography, jewelling,
shop-keeping, selling tobacco, sweets, and fruits. His recital of these
things brought him upon his feet again; and he shouted out with his arm
aloft, “Would you believe me, sir? I lost over a hundred pounds in
‘dissolving views.’” I told him jokingly that I was not surprised at it.
“There were so many wicked men in the world who have not brains and force
of character sufficient to carry them through the difficulties of life,
and therefore their only course was to get upon somebody’s back and allow
themselves to be carried to a safe place. I have seen many men of this
class in my time.” “Right you are, sir. That is just how I have been
served through life. I have not only had my brains run away with, but my
coat off my back; aye, and one time a big black dog ran away with a piece
of my leg. Oh! oh!” shouted Brown, with a twinged face, “gipsies are
terrible devils. We are a bad lot, but I don’t like to tell everybody,
nor do I like to say all I know, or they would be down upon me at the
next fair, and I should have no peace in my life; I might as well be
hung. Give it the policemen; I don’t like them chaps, they are no good
to anybody. Blow me!” Nabob cried out as we came to a sudden stop on the
road, “I left my old umbrella in my cart when we started, and I’ll bet a
farthing it will be gone when we get back; let’s be off.” So we began to
trot off together, leaving the austere, grim walls of Christ’s College to
stand the rude and rugged storms of centuries from without, and the
assaults of dogmas, creeds, divinity, law, philosophy, moral force, and
logic from within. On our way he told me of the tricks practised by the
stall-keeping gamblers upon their wheels of fortune, and the hoodwinking
process the policemen undergo at fair times.
We had now arrived at the post office, and Brown said, “Just one word
before we part,” and I chimed in, “Perhaps never to see each other
again.” “I say, sir, I quite agree with you that all our travelling
children should receive a free education as you propose, and the
publicans should be made to pay for it. Good-bye, sir, and God bless
you,” and away he popped out of sight into the post office, and I
sauntered into the fair.
In charge of a gambling cocoa-nut concern I noticed a gipsy named I—,
with his hand tied up, which he said was brought about by
blood-poisoning. In the van were two brothers and one sister. Connected
with this family there were seventeen brothers and sisters, together with
father and mother, making a total of nineteen human beings. And only one
out of the whole could read and write, and this one, to his everlasting
credit, had early in life given up gipsying and put himself out as an
apprentice to engineering, and during his apprenticeship he had, unaided
by any teacher except his workmates, taught himself to read and write.
All honour to such men, be they gipsies, canal boatmen, or brickmakers.
As I noticed his good brother, who had run over to the fair for a day to
assist his lame brother and their sister, I could not help seeing the
vast contrast between the two men. Self-help and education had raised
one from a gipsy tramp to the position of an engineer at a salary of
thirty-five shillings per week, with his nights to himself.
I next turned again to my friend George Smith, the gipsy, who, with his
wife and six children, were attending to their cocoa-nut concern. George
Smith was just having his lunch, to which he invited me. Of course I
joined him, notwithstanding the crush of the fair. Smith did not know of
more than one gipsy among all their relations who could read and write.
Early in the morning I paid a visit to one of the vans, and there saw a
woman and her six little girls, and one little boy about three years old,
in a most wretched, dirty condition. They were thin, and some of their
young faces looked prematurely old. She knew me, and the poor slave of a
mother seemed ashamed of their condition. I gave them a lot of pictures,
cards, &c., and left them to make their way. It was heartrending to see
the poor pretty children scan the pictures, anxious to know what they
were about, but unable to tell a letter. Despair seemed to come over
their faces, as they turned them over and over and from side to side.
Later on in the afternoon I again paid a visit to them. Of course in the
morning I was behind the scenes; but in the afternoon more phases
appeared; they were in “public.” In the van was wretchedness and misery,
and all the other evils attending such a course of life; but on the
“boards” they were fairies, dressed in lively pretty colours, dancing,
skipping, and riding about, not from love, but from pressure and force.
You could see as the six pretty children danced about that their smiles
were forced. I saw them about six months since, and I now noticed a
marked haggard change in their features. The husband had the “light end
of the stick.” He fared well, and did well, and worked but little. I
could hear the chaps round me say of the mother, as she moved to and fro
upon the platform, or outdoor stage, and whose fanciful dresses were none
too long, that it was her “legs” that drew the crowds round their
establishment. Others said she was “well limbed.” She certainly was
more presentable in the evening than in the morning. In my opinion it
was the little girls who were the mainstay of the concern.
I could not help noticing the vast number of clergymen moving about. The
prettily dressed, and not bad-looking woman had charms for some of
them—old and young. She had a good head of black hair, as most gipsies
have. Probably her witching eyes and tresses tickled the fancies of the
clerical onlookers. One grave-looking clergyman walked up the fair very
sedately, not seeming to notice such nonsense, but I could see him
glancing out of the corner of his eye at the woman and her children as
they danced about. It may be that he was there for the same purpose as I
was, viz., to see both sides of gipsying, the evil and the good. If such
was the case, I am sure that he found it like the Irishman found his
wife, nearly “all bad and no good.”
In the fair, and with smiling looks, pleasant tongue, and busy hand, was
Mr. Wheelhouse, the Oxford city missionary, trying to sell his heavenly
books. A few came and looked, and turned away, notwithstanding the low
prices at which he offered his soul-saving wares. Trash! bosh! Dash and
a splash into the Oxford English gipsying was what the crowd wanted, and
some of them had it to their heart’s content, with shadows of the
morrow’s sorrows hanging over them as they dived deep into sin.
Occasionally the missionary would have a customer, which caused him to
smile like a full-blown rose.
The good old man, as he gave me a parting grip, said, “God bless you in
your noble work. I’ve long wanted to see you. God bless you, good-bye,”
and he gave me an extra squeeze, and I then jostled into the crowd.
I noticed three or four of the most respectable gipsy-looking men
soliciting subscriptions. It could not be for taxes, I thought, for
gipsies never pay taxes—at least those who do not hawk and don’t live in
houses. I inquired what their loss was, and I was told that a young
woman, one of the mainstays of one of the establishments in the fair, had
been burnt to death the previous week in one of the vans. The organ,
van, and contents had gone to the winds, and the poor woman’s charred
black remains consigned to the cold, cold sod, and tears and black crape
left to tell the tale. How she came to her untimely end was not fairly
cleared up at the inquest. When the great book is opened it will be made
clear. I gave them some silver, and when they asked in what name it was
to be entered, of course I told them, and they opened their eyes with
wondrous curiosity and amazement. I shook hands with them, and for some
minutes I was lost in the crowd. I suppose they had been told by wicked
outsiders that I had nothing but hard words for the gipsies and
travellers.
A big, idle, hulking-looking fellow of a gipsy now “boned” me. He wanted
me to lend him a shilling—as he said—for his wife and children. I
tackled him. I asked him what he was doing in the fair. He said he was
a collier out of work. I asked him to let me look at his hands. After
shuffling about a little he let me look at his hands. I could see
plainly that he was not a collier. I said, “You have not had a
‘coal-pick’ in your hands to work with it in your life.” At this he
seemed to get into a rage. I said, “The marks you show me have been done
upon the ‘wheel of fortune’ in the ‘stone jug.’” This he did not deny.
When I asked him about the prices colliers have per ton for getting coal
he was nonplussed. I said, “Now, before I give you anything, I want to
see your wife and four children,” and away we started to find them, on
their way to Banbury. I turned back; but still the fellow was boring me
to lend him a shilling, and he vowed and vowed that he would repay me the
amount. At this juncture he bolted into a stationer’s shop for a piece
of paper, upon which he wanted me to write my address, so that he might
send me the shilling back. I followed him into the shop, and quite a
scene ensued. The gipsy tramp could neither beg a piece nor buy it. At
last, after ten minutes’ wrangling over a piece of paper, the shopman
gave him an old envelope, and we came out of the shop. Nothing would
serve his purpose but that I was to write my address. So to please, and
to get rid of the ignorant, idle, dirty scamp, I wrote upon the recently
begged old envelope, “Jupiter Terrace, Moonlight Street, Starland.” The
fellow wrapped it up very carefully, and put it into his pocket, and I
then gave him sixpence and left him, telling him that he was to send the
amount in postage stamps, as I could not get post-office orders cashed at
the address I had given him. I expect the sixpence and the gipsy tramp
are on the wing still.
In the fair there were over fifteen gambling tables—_i.e._ tables upon
which there were all kinds of gipsy nick-nacks and fairy trifles, some of
which were sold and others gambled for. On the table there was a large
painted wheel, something like a clock-face or compass, with a swinging
finger or hand. Round the outer edge of the wheel stood a lot of things,
chiefly ornamental children’s toys in fern cases, fancy boxes, and other
ornaments. Those who wanted to “try their luck” had to put down a penny
opposite the thing they fancied. When several had done this, and the
pennies were studded about the wheel, then swing went the finger round
and round till it stopped—seldom where the pennies were. The finger
seemed to either just go past the mark or to stop short of it. All
blanks and no prizes seemed to be the order of the day. I saw one lady
dressed in silk, with a lot of young women, girls, and boys round her,
gamble several shillings away on the “wheel of fortune.” It was a most
pitiable sight to see the vast numbers of well-dressed young persons and
children receiving their first lessons in gambling, in the shadows of
churches and colleges. I was told, by those who knew, that the “wheels
of fortune” and “shows” made more money than all the other things in the
fair put together. It was a sunny fair for the gambling stall-keepers,
but not for the patron saint under whose auspices it was held. I rather
fancy the saints of bygone days, to whom the colleges and churches were
dedicated, would look down upon the assembly with abashed countenances at
the work of sin going on under the shadow of the Oxford sacred precincts,
and, it would seem, had retired in favour of Discordia, Momus, Mars, et
Pluto. The big and little gamblers could win when the proprietors
thought well to allow the smiles of fortune to descend upon them.
Fortune’s smiles consisted in the pressing of the stall-keeper’s thigh
against a stud, that operated underneath the top of the table against the
swivel upon which the finger or hand was placed, and he could stop it
whenever he liked. After many blanks he would let one of his fools
occasionally win, just to encourage others.
I was put up to this move by one of the gipsies, but with strict
injunctions that I was not to let the “cat”—_i.e._, my informant—“out of
the bag.” When I told my friend the gipsy that gambling of this kind was
against the law, “Yes,” he said, “and the ‘bobbies’ are down upon us in
some places for it; and they would no doubt have been so here, but they
have been ‘squared.’” When he talked about “squaring,” I thought I would
“try” him and “prove” him, but found him to be blank. I found out that
this “squaring” process consisted in blinding the policemen with
“silver-dust.” The fact is this kind of gambling is growing to an
alarming extent in the country under the policemen’s noses, and this they
know right well, and take no steps to stop it. Of course the Oxford
police as a body of men could not be held accountable for the dereliction
of duty by a few of them. As a whole they are a fine lot of village
soldiers.
I next turned my step towards one of the shows. There was upon the
platform, or stage, a sharp little fiery woman beating the drum—which
sounded like a kitchen table—and bawling out till she was hoarse, “Now,
ladies and gentlemen, if you want to see the best show in the fair, now
is your time; they are just going to begin. Come up quick, and take your
places,” and she banged again at the old drum as if she was going to
knock the bottom out. Beside the sharp, ready-tongued woman stood
“Boscoe,” dressed, daubed, and painted like a Red Indian, whose rough
visage and broken nose had the appearance of having been in many a
“fisticuffing” encounter. Although he was daubed over, I recognized him
as one with whom I had had a long chat on Sunday afternoon, and who
pleasantly received some of my books for his children. Boscoe noticed me
in the crowd, and gave me a few of his sly winks while the megrims were
going on. Close to “Boscoe” stood a tall, wretched, half-starved,
red-faced looking man, the picture of a beer-barrel in his face, with
red-herring tendencies from the shoulders downwards. On the ground there
were his wretched, lantern-jawed wife and their six ragged children.
Their home was a donkey cart covered over with rags, and a bed of rags
was what those eight human beings had to lie upon, and I could have said
with Burns—
“Oh, drooping wretch, oppressed with misery!”
and as she stood cowering and trembling I could have said with Crashaw,
“Oh, woman!—
“‘Upwards thou dost weep;
Heaven’s bosom drinks the gentle stream.’”
I should like to have whispered in her ear, “Weep on, poor woman, weep
on. Weep on, poor children, weep on. Your tears will bring down the
mighty arm of the Great Living Father, which shall deliver you from this
wretched tramping life of misery and degradation. Look up! look up! His
hand draweth nigh. The Friend of the children hears the children’s
cries, and woe be to the nation or people who step in to prevent the
gipsy children receiving the embraces of a loving heavenly Father.”
After the performance “Boscoe” came off the stage and invited me to go
into the “show,” which invitation I accepted, and was led in by the side
door. I witnessed “Boscoe’s” tricks, such as eating fire, making leaden
bullets, putting a red-hot poker down his throat, and drawing a red-hot
bar across his tongue, and the bending of red-hot iron bars with his
feet. “There are dodges in every trade, except rag-gathering,” said the
old rag-woman the other day, as she sat by the side of the brook, wetting
her rags before she sold them. The acrobat performances of a poor boy
about twelve were cruel in the extreme. After one of his movements I
could see that the poor thin-faced lad was suffering intense pain by his
twinging and limpy walk. This poor specimen of humanity could not read
or write a sentence. To bend, twist, twirl, and contort the limbs and
bones of a poor child to bring smiles upon the faces of fools—for they
are no better who witness such exhibitions—is hellish, and money gotten
in this way provides those engaged in it with “workhouse” and “spittles”
uniform. Other performances, such as a pony telling fortunes, &c.,
brought the entertainment to a close. On coming away old “Boscoe” came
off the stage to shake hands with me among the crowd, which circumstance
seemed to puzzle some of the bystanders.
I had a turn round with the gingerbread and toy stall-keepers, and I was
not long among them before I found out two old “backsliders,” one of whom
was from Northampton, and until two years ago was a “member of a class.”
Now, with her son, she was tramping the country, and attending fairs and
races in the daytime, and sleeping under their stall at night! A chat
with her about old times, and the “blessed seasons” she once had, and the
peace of mind she once enjoyed, brought scalding tears to her eyes, as
copiously as if I had been talking to her of the death of a darling
rosy-checked, curly-headed little boy, whose little wax taper flickered
out as its soul was being wafted to Paradise in the midst of a convoy of
angels. The good woman with quivering lips said, “Do you remember giving
me, sir, at Long Buckby, a little book and a picture card?” I said,
“Yes.” “Well, I sent them to my son, who is a soldier in South Africa,
and they pleased him very much.” I could see that I could press the
subject a little nearer home, and I said to her, “How do you get on with
this kind of life? How do you manage to say your prayers at night?”
“Well,” she said, “this kind of life is not the right thing, and I am not
what I ought to be; but somehow or other I say my prayers at night, and
feel safer after it. I hope to give up travelling and settle down
again.” While moistened sorrow was reddening her eyes, I said in
substance if not in words—
“’Tis a star about to drop
From thine eye, its sphere;
The sun will stoop to take it up.”
With a deep, deep-drawn sigh she bade me good-night several times over,
and the curtain dropped.
I now came upon a man and woman sitting at a weighing machine. (I might
state that I was weighed at two different weighing machines in the fair.
Nabob Brown’s machine put me down at eleven stone ten pounds, and F—’s
machine showed that I weighed twelve stone and eleven pounds.) Both
looked above the ordinary kind of gipsies. The clean, good-looking woman
was nursing a baby, and trying the weight of “ladies and gentlemen,” and
the man was “ringing” his cheap fashionable sticks off to those who would
try “three throws a penny.”
This couple, I soon found out, were Primitive Methodist “backsliders.”
Their names were F— although they were known among the travellers as W—.
His father was one of the oldest local preachers in the Brinklow
district. He had worked hard in the cause of the Great Master, and had
succeeded in raising a “Band of Hope,” two hundred members strong, in one
of the London districts; but in the fulness of his heart, and in what
turned out to be an evil moment for him, he admitted another “brother” as
a co-secretary, who, instead of helping my friend the gipsy in the good
work, supplanted him, and “collared” the tea-cake, at which the committee
winked. This worked up the tender feelings of my gipsy friend to such a
pitch that he withdrew from the society he had raised, and took the
downhill turning, and in this course both he and his wife are, at the
time of writing this, gipsying the country. Richard Crashaw says—
“These are the knotty riddles
Whose dark doubts
Entangle his lost thoughts
Fast getting out.”
I asked my friend F— a few questions about the gipsies he had been mixed
up with. Among other questions was the following. “Now, Mr. F—, how
many gipsies and travellers have you known, during your travels, to
attend a place of worship on Sundays?” “Well, sir,” said Mr. F—, “you
ask me a straightforward question and I will give you a straightforward
answer. I do not remember ever having seen one.” I said, “This state of
things is truly awful.” “Yes,” he said; “it is no more awful than true.
I’m getting tired of it, and I think I shall settle down this next
winter.”
A long conversation with them both brought out tears, downcast looks, and
sighs, which contrasted somewhat strangely with the yelling “fools,”
“clowns,” and simpletons in the fair. I gave them and their children
some books, pictures, &c., and they in return gave me a walking stick as
a “keepsake,” which I shall preserve; and after shaking hands several
times over, I toddled off into the fair, to wander among the vans with my
“keepsake” stick in my hand, gently tapping the gipsy children as they
turned up their smiling faces.
It was now about eleven o’clock, the buzz and din of fools, wise men and
simple, was getting gradually less. The echo was getting fainter and
fainter. The crowd was thinning. Policemen seemed to be numerous; the
gipsies dogs were sneaking from under the vans, and prowling after bones
and thrown-out trifles. The swearing of drunken gipsies was heard more
distinctly than ever. The gipsy women—some of whom had “had a little too
much”—were loud in their oaths and hard words. In many instances blows
threatened to be the outcome. Children were screaming, and big sons and
daughters were quarrelling.
Half-past eleven arrived, and the inmates of the two hundred and twenty
vans and shows, numbering about a thousand men, women, and children, were
bedding themselves down in their, in many instances, wretched abodes. As
I wandered among them at midnight hour I felt a cold chill of horror
creeping over me, and nightly dewdrops of sorrow forcing their way down
my face. To witness the sight I saw was enough to cause the blood to
freeze in any man’s veins. One of the most hellish sights upon earth is
a dirty, drunken, swearing woman putting her children to bed upon rags
undressed and unwashed, and with a flickering candle dying in the socket.
Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters all lying mixed together,
numbering on an average four, six, eight, ten, and twelve men, women, and
children, of all ages and sizes, in the space of a covered waggon, is
what ought never to be allowed in any civilized country, much less
Christian England, which spends millions in trying to convert the Indian,
civilize the savage, transform the Chinaman, Christianize the African,
and in preparing the world for the millennium which is to follow the
redeeming efforts of Christ’s followers. Oh! haste happy day, when
John’s vision shall dawn upon us with all its never-ending transcendent
splendour, tenderness, and heavenly reality. {161}
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain, for the former things are passed away.”
Not half a dozen of this thousand human beings would be offering up an
evening prayer other than that of hell. The backsliding woman from
Northampton and her son had crept for the night under their stall. Of
course she had said her prayers, as she had told me, according to her
wont, by the side of their stall, or may be after she had drawn their
tent covering round them for the night; at any rate I left them to have
one other peep at my friends the gipsies F— before wending my way to my
lodgings. On arriving at the van I saw a flickering light in the
windows. The top window was nearly shut. The woman had had _a little
too much_, but not sufficient to drive her wild or out of her senses.
The husband had been “cross” with her. They had finished their midnight
meal. The poor little children were almost “dead sleepy,” and for a
minute or two all was quiet, and then I heard the backsliding mother
teaching the poor sleepy children as they knelt down in the van to
repeat,
“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me,
Bless Thy little lamb to-night,
Through the darkness be Thou near me,
Keep me safe till morning light.
“Let my sins be all forgiven.
Bless the friends I love so well,
Take me when I die to heaven,
Happy there with Thee to dwell.
For Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”
They now fastened their van top door down and bade me good-night. Their
dog had snoozled under their home on wheels. Fogs and chills were
creeping round. The policeman’s tramp was to be heard, and with
death-like silence reigning I crept between the cold sheets to toss and
tumble about till the bright morning sun appeared, to fasten upon my
heart the sights of the previous day at the Oxford St. Giles’s fair, not
to be removed till eternity dawns upon my soul with heaven in full view.
To, as Marianne Farningham says in _The Christian World_—
“A land where noises of the earth
For evermore shall cease,
Where the weary ones are resting
In the calm of perfect peace.”
Rambles Among the Gipsies at Hinckley Fair.
HINCKLEY September fair has for many long years been regarded as one of
the greatest “screw” fairs in England, and as a place where many gipsies
annually gather together to follow their usual and profitable occupation
of horse-dealing. At this fair they buy all the good-looking “screws”
they can put their hands upon, and palm and physic them off, temporarily,
as sound horses. They both, as one told me, “make their market” and
“make hay while the sun shines” at this fair. A thorough old “screw”
knows as if by instinct the scent of gipsy pantaloons; and by some means,
known only to a few, the horses find their way back into gipsy hands
again.
With these facts before me, I was prompted to pay the gipsies a visit at
their Eldorado. The morning was like a spring morning. The sun shone
cheerfully, lovely, and warmingly, and was fast drying up the mud. On my
way to the station some slovenly waggoner had left some thorns in the
way, which I threw over the fence and passed on. I had not gone far
before I found, on a rising hill, a large piece of granite in the centre
of the road, which some idle and careless Johnny had left behind him. I
rolled it out of the way and sped along. On the top of the hill a coal
higgler had left a large lump of coal in the way—or it had jolted off
while he was asleep, or akin to it. This I deposited among the thistles
and nettles in the ditch, where it remained for some weeks. While I was
clearing these little troublesome and somewhat dangerous things out of
the way, the skylark was singing cheeringly and sweetly overhead as of
spring-time. My gipsy friends would say that these were forebodings and
prognostications, ruled by the planets, which indicated joys and
troubles, pleasure or sorrows for the travellers, according to the amount
of silver and gold there was floating about within their reach. How I
was guided by the Creator and the planets, and with what success I
pursued my course, will be seen before I have done rambling.
At the station a poor woman was in a difficulty. She had promised to
have tea with her long-absent daughter, at the “feast” at four o’clock
the same day; but, unfortunately, the train would not take her to the
“feast.” Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the porters, the good
woman got into the train and said, “I shall go,” and she sped her way,
but not to the “feast.”
A mother’s love sees no difficulties and fears no dangers, and will draw
more tears from the human fountain than any other force on this side
heaven.
At Nuneaton there was the usual long time to wait; after which I duly
arrived at the “screw fair.”
At the entrance there was gipsy — and his wife—with their six lost little
children, and the probability of a seventh being soon added—setting up
their stall.
As I neared them, the poor woman met me and said, “I don’t know what to
do; I ought not to be here in this market-place like this. I am liable
to be down at any minute, and I don’t know one in the place. I wish our
Jim had settled down last spring. It is a hard lot to be a gipsy’s
wife,” and she began to cry. “Nobody knows what I have had to put up
with since I took to travelling. Why, bless you, dear sir, it would make
your heart ache if I were to tell you a tenth part of what myself and the
children have gone through. Between Hilmorton and Ashby St. Ledgers will
never be forgotten by me. It was a cold night, at the back end of the
year; rain came down in torrents. We had only an uncovered cart for all
of us to sleep in down one of the lanes. The children crouched under the
cart upon the ground like dogs. Our Jim, myself, and three of the
children slept, or lay down, in the body of the cart with our dripping
clothes on us. We drew an old torn woollen rug over us, and did the best
we could, shivering and shaking till morning. The children cried, and
were half starved to death. I cannot tell you, if I went down upon my
knees, of a twentieth part of our sufferings and hardships on that night,
and hundreds of other nights besides. I had a black eye, and was black
and blue on many parts of my body. Our Jim was very cruel at that time;
but he has not been so bad lately.” Her husband, Jim, is about three
parts a gipsy, or between a _posh_ and a Romany chal. He has six
children by his first wife, living with their grandmother near Epping
Forest, who are left to gipsy and take care of themselves. I don’t think
that he would be a bad sort of a man if it were not for “drink” and gipsy
companies. The only one who can read in this family is the poor woman,
and that is only very little. With tears in her eyes she said, “I often
read the little books you gave me, to our Jim at bedtime, till he cries,
sometimes like a baby. My heart is at times ready to break when I see
how our children are being brought up.” Business was beginning to look
up with them, and I made myself scarce for a time. Such sad,
heartrending instances of gipsy neglect, depravity, poverty, and
wretchedness would be impossible if our Government would carry out my
plans for reclaiming them, and Christians and philanthropists would do
their duty towards drawing them into the arms of the State and the fold
of God.
I had not gone far before a terrible row was echoing in the air from a
stall lower down the market, between two gipsy women and a “potato
master.” The gipsy women said the potato master had promised them three
roasted potatoes for a halfpenny, and he had only given them two. A
fight, hair-pulling, and bloodshed seemed to be in a fair way for being
the outcome of this trumpery dispute, and would have taken place if the
policeman had not put in an appearance. As it was the fracas ended, for
the present, in nothing worse than threats of vengeance, oaths and curses
being poured upon the head of the potato seller without stint or measure.
I now turned into the horse fair, and had scarcely got many yards before
I found myself roughly jostled in the midst of a gipsy row over a dog.
The gipsy horse-dealer had a lurcher dog with him, which was owned by a
collier. The collier said his dog had been stolen by some gipsies about
two months ago. High words, carrying mischief and blows, were flying
about thick and fast, and bade fair to end in bloodshed and the pulling
of the dog limb from limb. The dog preferred his old master to the
gipsy. This the gipsy saw, and at the approach of the police the pair
withdrew to a public-house to “square” matters. In the end the collier
came out with his dog, which he said “had won more handicaps than any dog
in the county,” and off he started home, with a smile instead of blood
and bruises upon his face, and the dog wagging its tail with delight at
his heels, much to the chagrin and discomfiture of the gipsy.
While I was among gipsy horse-dealers I made the best use of my eyes for
a little time, and one of the first dodges of the gipsies was to hire a
country Johnny to ride one of their “screws” up and down the fair. Of
course the gipsies kept clear away, hoping thereby to draw the attention
of customers to the horse as one that a farmer had no further use for.
Johnny had very nearly sold the horse to a higgler, but “at the last
pinch” the question of reducing the amount Johnny was to sell it for, by
one pound, necessitated an appeal to the gipsy owner, who was not far
away. The higgler saw the dodge of the gipsy and he withdrew his offer.
The gipsy’s blessing was given, but the higgler did not mind it, and he
went to seek other quarters for horseflesh.
A little higher up the fair there stood a man with two horses, who was
evidently a small farmer in somewhat needy circumstances. It might be,
for anything I knew, that he was wanting some money to pay for the
cutting of his corn, which was ripening very fast. The horses looked
like two thoroughly good sound horses, although aged. The price he asked
for the best-looking was £25, and £20 for the other. The gipsies saw
that this farmer was very anxious to sell. A big, good-looking gipsy
came up to him and said, “What for the big horse? Now, then, speak the
lowest price you will take for it in a word.” The farmer said, “£25.”
“Nonsense,” said the gipsy; “you must think everybody is either a fool or
asleep. I’ll give you a ‘fiver’ for it, and it is dear at that price.”
To one of his gipsy mates he said, “Jack, jump across it and ride it up
the fair.” Jack jumped across the horse, and off they started at a
rattling pace, almost frightening people out of their wits who were in
the way. After going up and down a few times several gipsies clustered
round the horse when it and its gipsy rider had cleared to outside the
throng of the fair. The group stood for a few minutes, and then the
horse was brought back and given up to the owner. The bargain was not
struck, and the gipsies cleared away. In the course of ten minutes the
horse began to get very restless, kick, and plunge about. Sometimes it
seemed as if it wanted to lie down. It would then begin to cringe and
kick, much to the danger of the lookers on. The owner said that a
horse-fly was on it somewhere. He stroked and tapped it, but all to no
purpose. Presently another gipsy came up, evidently one of the gang, and
said to the farmer, “Why, governor, your horse has either got the
‘bellyache’ or an inflammation; it will be dead in half an hour; what
will you take for it at all risks? Now, speak your lowest figure at
once.” The farmer said, very much “chopfallen,” “A little time ago I
asked £25, but I suppose I must take less than that now.” The gipsy saw
his chance, and at once said, “I will give you a ‘tenner,’ and not a
farthing more; say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and I’m off.” The horse was
still kicking about. The farmer, much dejected, said, “I suppose you may
as well have it.” The bargain was struck and the kicking horse led away.
In going up the fair a group of gipsies clustered round it with evident
glee. A few hours afterwards I saw the horse led off quietly enough from
Hinckley fair at the heels of a gipsy. No doubt the horse had been
doctored by the gipsies in some way when they first took it in hand and
while it was surrounded by the first group.
In another instance a countryman bought a horse of a “farmer-looking”
gipsy and paid the money, when, just before the horse was handed over to
the purchaser, another gipsy came upon the scene and claimed the horse as
his own, and, apparently, threatened vengeance and the gaol to be the
doom of the man who had sold the horse. The two gipsies now began to
pull each other about—without any bones being broken or blood flowing—and
to wrestle and struggle for the possession of the horse. The country man
had parted with his money and he had not got the horse, nor any prospect
of it. Another gipsy came up and suggested that the whole business
should be ended by the countryman having his money back except ten
shillings and the payment of “glasses round.” To this arrangement the
countryman assented, and they turned into the public-house to carry out
the bargain. What sharp men and fools there are in the world, to be
sure, to be met with on gipsy fair ground!
As usual there were gipsy Smiths in the fair, and without much difficulty
I ran against one who was the proprietor of a popgun establishment and
two shillings’ worth of “toffy” stuck round a wheel of fortune. I had a
long chat with him between the “cracks,” and elicited the fact that he
had twice tried gipsying in Ireland, but it resulted each time in a drawn
game. He only visited four fairs. Irish soil and poverty are not suited
for the development of gipsying. The fact is, Irishmen are too wide
awake for the vagabond gipsies, and they are too much taken up with the
matter-of-fact everyday life to listen to idle lying, misleading,
romantic, wheedling tales designed to draw the money out of their
pockets. At one of the fairs in Ireland my gipsy friend took four
shillings, with a prospect of losing his tent, bag and baggage. If he
had been one of Arabi’s Egyptian ragamuffin soldiers frightened from
Tel-el-Kebir he could not have decamped more quickly from the land of St.
Patrick. The pleasure fairs of England and the fashionable squares of
London, and the watering-places on the coasts are places and palaces
where gipsy _kings_ and _queens_ thrive best.
They fatten and thrive fairly well in some places in Scotland. One
cannot but smile sometimes at the ease with which some of them go through
the world. If their cleverness was turned into legitimate channels and
honourable business transactions, they would soon be a credit to
themselves and to us as a nation. It is a thousand pities that in these
educational days there are narrow-minded croakers who, under the guise of
friends—though in reality their worst enemies—are trying to keep the
gipsy children in ignorance; but their object is easily seen by those who
stand by and are looking quietly and thoughtfully on. These false
friends smile in gipsy faces while they are robbing them of their lore to
fill their empty coffers, and this the gipsies will see some day.
Gipsy Smith and myself began to enumerate all the vans in the fair,
together with those living in them. There were about thirty gipsy vans,
shows, covered carts, &c. In one of the vans there were eight children
besides adults. In another van there were seven children besides adults.
Altogether we counted over one hundred travelling children in the fair,
not three of whom could read and write. Smith said that in all his
travelling experience he had not known either gipsy, showman, auctioneer,
or traveller ever attend a place of worship from fair grounds. “Sundays
as a rule,” said Smith, “are spent in travelling with their families from
town to town and from place to place.” Gipsy Smith lived and travelled
with his wife in a covered pony-cart. There were four “Aunt Sally”
stalls, which dealt out cigars to children for successful “throws.” The
gipsies are to-day doing more to encourage gambling and smoking than is
imagined by ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishmen. The former saps
the morals and the latter the minds and constitutions of those who are
simple enough to indulge in them.
Before I had done talking with gipsy Smith the Salvation Army brass band
from Leicester, with “Captain” Roberts from the headquarters, one of the
staff officers, hailed within sight and sound, and as I had not had the
opportunity to spend an evening with the Salvation Army, to see and hear
for myself something of the proceedings, I joined in the procession as an
outsider. Some of the people made an eye-butt of me at which they
stared. Crowds were gathering round the band as it played in martial
strains—if Mr. Inspector Denning had been there from the House of Commons
better order could not have been kept—
“Hark! hark! my soul, what warlike songs are swelling
Through all the streets and on from door to door;
How grand the truths these burning strains are telling
Of that great war till sin shall be no more.”
And then the vocal band with their voices would join in singing the
choruses with exciting strains and gesture—
“Salvation Army, Army of God,
Onward to conquer the world with fire and blood.”