Or more touchingly than Esmeralda sung

“Shul, Shul, gang along with me;

Gang along with me, I’ll gang along with you.”

How much better it would have been for this scissor-grinding _posh_ gipsy

if he had followed the advice that had been given to him, and endeavoured

to lead the poor lost wanderer upon right paths to heaven instead of to

hell.

A gipsy’s charges for “grinding” and “setting” a pair of scissors vary

from twopence to two shillings and sixpence; all depends upon

circumstance and who owns them.

_Posh_ gipsies and others who encourage gipsy wrongdoing know it to be

misleading and evilsome; but it does not answer their purpose to speak

faithfully and truthfully about gipsy wrong-doing. Gipsy idleness, gipsy

frauds, gipsy cruelty, gipsy filth, gipsy lies, gipsy thefts, gipsy

cheating, gipsy fornication, and gipsy adultery, are looked upon by all

enlightened Englishmen and Christians as sins to be avoided and not to be

encouraged. And he who encourages the gipsies in this wrongdoing is an

enemy to the State, an enemy to God, an enemy to Christianity, and an

enemy to himself, for which he will be made to smart some day. Their

ill-gotten coin will burn their pockets and singe the hair of their head

with terrible vengeance.

To come again to the things I saw with my eyes shut while lying under the

shade.

Among the hundreds of gipsy children in this vast camp who were going to

ruin there were a few fast-goers, fools and fops, fraternizing with the

“gipsy beauties,” but no hand was put out to help to save the children

from woe. The “_gentlemen_” were too busy to soil their hands with the

poor-ragged, forlorn, neglected, forgotten, and forsaken gipsy children.

They might live like heathen and die like dogs. A thousand things must

be attended to, and the souls and bodies of the gipsy children might go

to hell for aught they cared.

Occasionally a gipsy child in this camp would begin to sing; but, as

Elton Summers in the _Christian World_ Magazine for 1877, says—

“More plaintive and low is its melody,

Till, faint with its own sad reverie,

It sinks to a whisper and dies.”

As I lay, I noticed a man, apparently about sixty years of age, with grey

hair, round features, and a load upon his back, coming through the gate

into the meadow. The nimbleness and elasticity of his step had well-nigh

gone. His clothes were ragged and worn. He staggered along, and as he

began to move among the gipsies they began to add to his load. Sorrow

had furrowed his cheeks and a paleness was upon his countenance. Every

few minutes he seemed to hesitate and stop, as if going to put his load

upon the ground, in order to move more quickly among them, and into a

resting tent at the edge of the meadow.

During one of his standstills I heard him with tears in his eyes saying

to himself, “Shall I put the load down? Yes, I think I will;” and then

he summoned up strength and courage and said, “No! no! I won’t put it

down till I’ve either carried it to where I want to carry it or die in

the attempt.”

Presently he staggered and fell heavily with his burden upon the sod. He

lay for a few minutes without any one noticing him. After he had lain

for some time a crowd began to gather round him. Some said, with a

chuckle and a grin, “He’s dead, thank God! We’ve done with him, thank

God! and hope he has got into a warm place.” Three or four gentlemen

pressed through the crowd to look at the old man; and as they were going

among the bystanders I heard them say to each other, “If he shows signs

of life we will give him a lift, but if he is going to die we will have

nothing to do with him. Let those see to him who like, we will leave him

to his fate, be it rough or smooth.” Like the priests and Levites of

old, they went on the other side.

Among the crowds in the ditches I noticed an old _posh_ gipsy woman from

South Carolina Street, with basket in hand picking up wasps, newts, and

weasels. One of the gentlemen noticed what she was doing, and questioned

her as to her movements and intentions. She replied as follows, “You

will see what I am going to do with them when I have gathered my

basketful. I hold in my pocket a bottle containing some mixture that

when once it is applied to the basket will cause them to buzz, sting, and

poison fearfully. For the matter of that a few others will help to do

the same thing; and when this is done I am going to empty them upon the

poor devil’s head to either poison or sting him to death. Several here

tried to do it before, but they were fools and did not go the right way

to work.” One gentleman said, “Has the poor fellow ever done you any

harm or wronged you in any way?” “Well, I don’t know that he has, but I

and a few others want to see the end of him.”

She filled her basket, and applied the mixture to the wasps, newts, and

weasels, and just as she was going to empty them upon the head of the

poor fellow, about dying, they turned and settled upon her own pate, and

away she went out of the crowd, and I have not seen her since. By the

side of the poor fellow lay a small bag of seeds which were to grow

bread, clothes, and comfort, which a few friends had collected to help

the old man on his journey. It was not long by the side of the old

pilgrim before up stepped a little dodger who had taken to gipsying,

named Philip Lamb, from Russia, who seized the small bag and off he

scampered. The last I saw of him was that he was tramping the country

with patches upon his breeches.

While this was taking place, three or four other gentlemen—real and not

shams—appeared upon the scene. For a few minutes they looked and stared

at each other, as if at a loss to know what it all meant, and what the

old man had done wrong. “Oh!” said one and another and another, “it will

never do to let the poor fellow die in this way;” and they at once set to

work to lighten his load, and to give him some nourishment. After

treatment of this kind for a little time, he began to come round again,

and smiles were to be seen upon his face and the faces of his friends.

Through one of the gates leading into this gipsy encampment I saw running

post haste a number of well-dressed young men and women of respectable

appearance, who were making their way to three or four men from the

Ionian Isles, who had disappointed society and society had disappointed

them. One man stood upon a little hillock, piping forth, in slap-dash

gipsy songs, backwood novels, boshy stories, and gipsy lore, the

beauties, delights, and loveliness of gipsy life in a way that caused a

shivering, aching pang to run through my system from the crown of my head

to the soles of my feet. He continued to tell of the pleasure of white

lies, and taking things that were not your own; and also in feeding upon

things, whether birds, beasts, fish, or game, that lived in the water

that God gave us, or upon the grass that He sent us. “God,” said these

gipsy sensualists, “knew nothing of gates, fences, locks, keys, bars, and

bolts.” These poor misguided young folks listened with open mouths, and

in the end they went into the gipsy tents. They doffed their cloth, put

on gipsy garbs, tanned and washed their faces in walnut water, and

sallied forth into the crowd cadging and begging, lying and stealing—as

only gipsies can.

Among the crowd of gipsies farther away there were two or three real

Romanys who had “begun to serve God,” and were distributing tracts among

the gipsy children, at which the scissor-grinding _push_ gipsy turned up

his nose.

On a little mound stood a little man with a _posh_ gipsy woman by his

side, telling those round him that gipsies were angels who had been

wafted from India to our midst by the heavenly breezes of the Celestial

City, and that their ragged and tattered garments were the robes of

Paradise, and whatever they did, however dark and evil, was done under

the influences of the good spirit of gipsydom. One little sharp-eyed

gipsy fellow, named Deliverance Smith, from Kaulo-gav (Birmingham),

called out to the _push_ gipsy, “Sir _posh_ Gorgio, do you mean to say

that these old rags I’ve got on have been made and put upon my back by

angels; and that when I swears, tells lies, fights, and steals, a good

spirit has told me to do so? because if you do, I say it is a lie, and

know better than believe your tale.” The _push_ gipsy called the little

fellow to him and said in a whisper, “I don’t mean what I say, but I must

say something to fill people’s mouths. These girls round me are fond of

a ‘lark,’ and I like them. I know nothing about the other gipsies. Keep

your mouth shut, and here’s sixpence for you.”

In some of the tents diseased _bálamo-mas_ (pork) was being cooked; in

others, _hotchi-witchi_ (hedgehogs), _kané-gros_ (hares), and _bouris_

(snails).

Some of the poor children had never been washed for weeks, except in

walnut-water, which, by continual using, gives them the artificial olive

hue amateur gipsies admire. Those who are sunfreckled are the hardest to

tan. For a time the sunfreckles are seen through the artificial sickly

yellow colour on their faces and hands. Some of the children told me

that they never undressed. The healthy appearance of former day gipsies

is fast passing away, and now, as a rule, they are pale, thin, and

sickly-looking. Many of the adults and children were much pitted with

the smallpox scars. They wore their clothes till they dropped off.

Outside the encampment stood a number of my friends looking on the scene,

a list of whom will be found in my “Canal Adventures by Moonlight” (p.

125), with recent additions since of a number of warm-hearted friends to

the cause of the canal and gipsy children.

Some few of the gipsies in this encampment had been married, and that was

the only time that they had ever been inside a church; not one gipsy,

young or old, had ever been inside a school of any kind. Schoolmasters

and ministers were almost unknown to them. They had more acquaintance

with policemen and jails than churches and chapels.

Connected with one of the gipsy camps of ragamuffins, I noticed in the

distance a tall, thin, unwashed, and emaciated girl of about fourteen

winters—it had been nearly all winter with her. The upper part of her

thin frame of skin and bones was dressed in a few shreds of rags, and

these were not sufficient to cover her bare, dirty bosom, which almost

looked the bosom of a skeleton; and on her feet were odd and worn-out,

cast-off drawing-room shoes, quite equal to the sad emergency of letting

as much mud and water upon her soles as they were to keep the poor lost

creature “high and dry” out of the muddy surroundings. She moved among

the gipsies with a “trash, trash,” and a most downcast and haggard look

of despair upon her face. “Despair” seemed to come with terrible

vengeance and prominence out of every word, form, movement, and gesture;

except when occasional relapses stole over her, and then the tear-drawing

sympathy shone and darted like darts of fire that pierced into the marrow

of my soul, bringing the flush and blush to my face, and tears to my

eyes, whether I would have them or no. No amount of “screwing up,” or

“bottling,” prevented this appearance upon my cheek. The poor girl had

fine Grecian features, with long, black, flowing hair, but it was matted

together with dirt and filth. With her arms uplifted, and her hands

buried scratchingly deep in her hair, she turned to look in the direction

where I lay. This was no sooner done than, a flash of hope lighting up

her thin face with smiles through her tears, she started to run towards

me as fast as she could, calling out, “My father! my father! my father!”

Before I had time to turn round she was at my side, and had planted a

kiss upon my check. For a moment I was dumbfounded. I said to the lost

_posh_ gipsy child, “What is it you want, my dear? I am not your

father.” At this reply she looked wild and almost like a maniac, and

said, with her face buried in her hands, “I thought you was my father who

had come to fetch me out from among the gipsies.” And then she looked

again into my face and said, “Arn’t you my father? my father was so much

like you. He had white hair like you. Arn’t you my father? I wish I

could see my mother. Will she come for me?” I asked her to sit down by

my side, and to tell me who she was. She came a little nearer, and began

to tell me how it was she came to be among the gipsies. I will give her

tale as she related it to me:—

“When I was a little girl about four years old, I remember my mother

sending me for some milk to a house near to the old General Baptist

Chapel, Church Street, Deptford, {215} and while I was going down the

street some dark ragged women—the same you saw me with—asked me to go

down to the bottom of the street to look at some fine things, and on the

way they gave me a penny and some apples and a little doll. After

walking a long way we did not get to the bottom of the street, but we got

among a lot of children living under a cart cover by the side of the

hedge. They asked me to sit by the fire that was on the ground. I said

I wanted to go to my mother. It was getting dark, and I began to cry.

They kept saying that they would take me to my mother, and at night they

all got into a cart, and said they were taking me home to see my mother,

father, brothers, and sisters. We went a long way, and the way they took

me was not like Deptford, and I have not seen my mother and father

since.” The girl began to cry, and said, “I should like to see father,

mother, Polly, and Jim. It is a long time since I saw them. We used to

go to school together, Jimmy, Polly, and myself. My father used to take

me by the hand to school and chapel on Sundays, and they did sing such

nice hymns. I have seen father and mother cry lots of times. Father

used to say his prayers every night and morning. They don’t say prayers

where I live now. Will you take me to my father and mother? When will

you take me? Take me now, and I will give you everything I have in the

world. Please don’t go and leave me, and I will give you twenty, thirty,

forty, and fifty kisses. I will give you hundreds if you will take me to

my mother and father. I hope they are not dead. I hope Polly and Jim

are alive. Will you take me, please, sir?”

I told the poor little creature that I could not take her, but that I

would send three or four gentlemen for her shortly. At this she began to

sob out loudly, “Take me! take me! don’t leave me here!” I directed her

to pray to God for deliverance, for there seemed to be none from earth;

and with her eyes turned up to heaven she said with Sir John Davis:

“Lord! hear my prayer and listen to my cries,

Let not Thy gracious eye my tears despise.”

To which I said, Amen!

Large numbers of them had been in jail. Their short cropped hair and

other symptoms told the black tale.

All the vans, tents, &c., were not to be reckoned as teeming with human

wretchedness, squalor, dirt, filth, and sin. Some ditch and mossy bank

abodes were as clean as the circumstances would admit of, and the tent

and van dwellers were healthy-looking, plump, and clean.

A terrible row commenced among the gipsies over a dog, which ended in

bloodshed and murder. Right up at the far corner two men were digging a

hole about two feet six inches long, and twelve inches wide, and two feet

deep. After it was dug a woman stole stealthily along with a heavy

parcel in her arms, covered with a cloth, which might or might not have

been a dead dog. As the gipsy woman carrying the mysterious bundle

approached, one of the men withdrew to act as a kind of spy guard. For a

few minutes he looked about, and then called out crouchingly, and in a

loud whisper, “The skies are clear.” The woman ran with death in her

arms, the devil in her heart, and a hellish glare upon her features, and

deposited her load in the cold, cold ground without a tear or a sigh. No

mournful _cortége_ or funeral knell told the tale of what was going on.

Within three minutes all was levelled up, and the three departed—where I

don’t know; at any rate, I have not seen them since.

Immediately after this sad event I saw coming down the by-lane a School

Board officer, a sanitary officer, and a Christian minister. I watched

with longing eyes to see what they were going to do. They came nearer

and nearer, till they arrived at the gate leading into the meadow. For a

few minutes they stood at the gate, which was locked. I liked the looks

of them. They looked like brothers of mercy. Their countenances were

heavenly. I felt that I could have shouted “Glory.” I hastened to

unlock the gate, and the brothers of mercy walked in to lift the children

upon the path leading to heaven. Just at this juncture a thunderstorm

came on, and the dripping from the leaves overhead woke me up. For a few

minutes I did not know where I was, whether in the body or out of it.

Feeling as Anna Shipton felt when she wrote in the _Sword and Travel_ for

1871:—

“Thou knowest my way—how lone, how dark, how cheerless,

If Thy dear hand I fail in all to see;

Bright with Thy smile of love my heart is fearless

When in my weakness I can lean on Thee.”

I pulled myself together to deal with sad, terribly sad, facts, and

continued my walk to Long Buckby, my midday reverie in the land of

shadows, lying between dreams and visions, being over. On mounting the

hill leading into the town I met with a tall old man dressed in a

pauper’s garb, and with a “few slates off.” He said he had lived in a

cottage with the windows nailed up for seventy years. I asked him how

old he was. He answered, “Over seventy.” He next turned the compliment

upon myself, and said, “How old are you?” I said, “Fifty-one.” “Oh,”

said the old man, after looking at my once black hair, which my friends

tell me is now growing snowy white in the cause of the children, hastened

by the bleaching of hard struggles, conflicts, and fightings, “you are

older than me; I thought so.” I said “I did not think so.”

There are some quaint, ancient-looking houses in the town, evidently of

the time of the Commonwealth. These are built of stone at the bottom,

mud in the middle, and brick at the top, and they are thatched with straw

and end in smoke. In the centre of this “radical town,” peopled with

good-hearted folks, stands a very strong, tall, oak pole, some eighty

feet high, with a crown upon the top of it, which pole was taken many

years ago out of Earl Spencer’s park at Althorp. It is known by the name

of “the coronation pole.” The original “coronation pole” was put up when

George III. was crowned, and was cut down in William IV.’s time, owing,

as one of the very old townsmen said, “to his turning Conservative.” A

man named Hare, whom I had a chat with, helped to saw it down with a

“cross-cut” saw. It was sold publicly for two pounds, and the money

spent in drink in a public-house opposite. The present pole stands some

twenty yards from where the former one stood. The massive crown upon the

top of the pole is similar to the one worn by our blessed and noble

Queen, and long may it remain.

In the square, and beneath the shadow of the “coronation pole,” were some

six vans, &c. In three of the vans there were eighteen children of all

ages and sizes, seven men and women. None of the children could tell a

letter, but three of the men and women could read and write. One of the

travellers, the father of six of the children, had received his education

at the Bedford Grammar School. With these good-hearted people I had some

tea, and they gave me a cocoa-nut to take home for my family. I gave the

children some pictures and a few articles of clothing for one or two or

three of them, and then wended my way among the feasters and fair-goers.

In the “feast” there was a woman with a “rock stall,” who had been a

Sunday-school scholar, but was now gipsying the country with her two

sons. They slept under their stall at night. She said she thought that

God did, and believed he would, answer the prayers of backsliders before

any others, to which I said, “Amen; He does and will.” I left her with

tears in her eyes for a gossip with Mr. “Flash” and his dark-eyed, sharp,

business wife, who with steam horses and shooting galleries are making

money fast, so that they may “retire in their old age.” Mr. Flash’s

life, struggles, and various vicissitudes present plenty of material for

a backwood gipsy novel of the blunder-bosh kind.

Flash and his wife were just having a ham tea, and they invited me to

join them, which of course I did, and rubbed my hands quickly with

delight. It was a prime cut, the frizzling and frying of which brought

water to my teeth and a smacking of my lips. I was served with tea out

of one of their best old china cups, which was a treat every one had not

the pleasure of enjoying. After my gipsy rambles I thoroughly enjoyed

the late tea. They showed me their beautiful feather bed at the end of

the van, and unbosomed some of their successes and some of their trials

and hardships. I gave them a few pictures, which they said they should

have framed. They then filled my bag with “prize onions,” and I shook

hands with them, to meet again some day, perhaps at Bagworth or

Barleston, in Leicestershire, where Flash first saw daylight.

Not one of this batch of _posh_ gipsy travellers raised a murmur against

my plan for bringing about a free education for the gipsy and other

travelling children, and the registration of their vans.

Just under the glittering crown and “coronation pole” stood what, so far

as the underworks indicated, had been once an old fish cart, over the top

of which had been placed some half-barrel hoops, covered with old

tarpauling sheets. The outside woodwork consisted of pieces of orange

boxes, packing cases, &c., and was daubed over with paint little better

than a child would daub a pigstye door. The dirty patches and blotches

of glaring colours were laid on in an infinitely more zigzag fashion than

the trailmarks of snails and worms. The creaking _door_ was hung with

pieces of leather; in fact, the whole outside, together with the pieces

of old leather straps, and string-tied-together harness, old rags,

buckets, and boxes underneath, presented a sight that I shall never

forget. All this family of Y—ks wanted to make them perfect gipsies was

that they should pick up some gipsy slang, Romany, learn how to eat

hedgehogs, snails, and diseased pork, tell lies, gabble out fortunes,

poison fowls, choke pigs, throttle sheep, take all, by hook or by crook,

they could lay their hands upon, wash their faces in walnut water, roll

about in mud and filth, smoke and eat “black jack,” and adopt the gipsy

names of Smith, Lee, Boswell, Hearn, Lovell, Fletcher, Simpson, Draper.

With these gipsy traits brought out they would be enabled to live a

roving, lively, idle time of it to their hearts’ content. So say some

gipsy writers. What a contrast, I thought, as I saw some young ladies

standing at the window of a large house looking upon the scene only a few

yards away. There a piano, played by gentle, nimble fingers, was sending

forth sweet notes of heavenly, charming music sometimes at a galloping

pace, and at other times as the gentle murmuring of clear rippling waters

over bright and glossy pebbles, echoing love upon earth and peace and

goodwill in the air, turning the widow’s sorrowful tears, the business

parent’s troubles and care drops, into silver stepping-stones leading

onward and upward to heaven. For the life of me I could not help showing

my weakness by lifting up my eyelids to make room for the scalding tears

that wanted to force their way down my cheeks. The wide chasm there is

between human happiness and heaven and human woe and hell is something

horrifying and horrible. Would to God that our sensual, sensational, and

degrading backwood gipsy writers could be brought to see the mischief

they are doing by dragging the poor lost gipsies and other travellers

down to utter ruin, body and soul, for all time and throughout eternity,

by their damning, poisonous writings.

Inside the van, on the doorsteps, and upon the shafts of their old

tumbledown cart, there were man, woman, and five children. The father

and mother could read and write well, but not one of the children could

tell a letter, although of school age. The eldest girl of fourteen was

the picture of beauty, though terribly thin from the crown of her head to

the soles of her feet; but alas, alas! a few rags, ignorance, exposure,

poverty, dirt, and wretchedness were trying to do their best to spoil it.

The other children, so far as I was able to judge, were equally pretty.

Owing to my not being an amateur gipsy, a backwood gipsy slang and book

writer, of course I do not set myself up as a connoisseur in these

matters. The father was inside the old van stirring the boiling “rock,”

which was in an old saucepan upon a little six-inch square stove similar

to what I have seen in cobblers’ shops before now. He was a big strong

man, apparently capable of any amount of work. The rags of bedding were

grimy, greasy, and dirty to the last degree; in fact, soap and water did

not appear to have been brought to bear upon anything in the wretched

hole. How man, woman, and five children could sleep in such a place is a

mystery. God grant that it may be soon solved by the hand of our

legislators, philanthropists, and Christians of every grade.

The owner of this travelling van was an engineer and “fitter,” and could,

if he followed his employment, earn over two pounds per week. One

hundred and seventy pounds was paid by his parents as an apprenticeship

premium for him to learn the trade; but, sad to relate, it was ending in

his boiling “rock” upon the top of a stove in the midst of dirt and

filth. This precious dainty, composed of flour, sugar, treacle, and

grease, was to be dealt out by his wife and children by halfpennyworths

to little successful popgun firers. What an occupation and ending for a

tradesman in possession of strength, sense, and reason! He had been well

brought up by Christian parents, but got among loose company, whose chief

desire is to be unshackled and free.

The little gleam of light in favour of his future reform was that he

seemed to be ashamed of putting his head outside the van. His conscience

was not quite dead. May the thundering voice of heaven ring in his ears

till he cries out as the poor prodigal did, and once more settles down

again in the neighbourhood of Thirsk.

The woman had been a parlour-maid for three years in the family of R—, at

Sowerby Bridge, in Yorkshire, where this family hails from. She seemed a

hard-working woman, and one who tried hard to make her way, but possessed

with an idea that she should like to see some of the London gipsies. No

doubt by this time she is making her way there.

The hardships this poor woman and children had to pass through during the

last year are most heartrending.

During the whole of one month, with occasional assistance of the father,

they had pushed their van about Lincolnshire in the depths of dark, cold,

cold winter. They had no horse, and they presented a too wretched

spectacle for daylight travelling.

After their day’s work of popgun-firing and “rock”-selling at fairs,

feasts, and races they put one or two of the little children who could

not toddle alongside their van to _bed_—and bed it was—and commenced

crying, pulling and hauling their van up hill and down dale till they got

stuck fast at one of the Lincolnshire towns. By begging, cadging, and

starvation the woman managed to scrape two pounds and some three or four

shillings together, and off she started by rail from Heckington to

Spilsby fair to buy a horse. She had left the children without a morsel

of anything to eat. Every penny had been screwed and scraped together to

make up the two pounds. She wandered about the fair all day, but could

not succeed in buying a horse for two pounds. The horses were being

gradually driven off the ground, the poor woman had had only a dry crust

to eat, sat down and began to cry; in fact, while she was telling me her

sorrowful tale of hardship and suffering, tears rolled freely down her

face, and she kept breaking out in sobs and “The Lord love you” many and

very many times over, with such an effect upon my poor self that I had

but little rest that night. I was quite unnerved, and emptied my pockets

of what little money I had among the poor little _posh_ gipsy children.

While the woman was sitting in her sorrowful fix a man came up to her and

asked her what was the matter with her. The poor creature unbosomed

herself, and told him. They both there and then began to hunt up the old

horses left in the fair; finally they met with one for two pounds—the

grey old pony they had with them standing by the side of the cart when I

saw them—and an animal it was, such as one does not see every day for

bruises, humps, and hunches.

At four o’clock, with darkness creeping on, and a halter upon the pony’s

head, she commenced to tramp, dressed in rags and trashes, and almost an

empty craw, from Spilsby back to Heckington, a distance of between thirty

and forty miles. Fortunately there was a little moonlight for a good

part of the night, which enabled her to get upon the pony’s back to see

the guide-posts. Several times she took the wrong turning where there

was no guide-post to direct her, but by perseverance righted herself

again. The pony was a little lame, and she could not ride, and on they

tramped together, occasionally resting by the road side as the silent

hours of the cold winterly night quietly and leisurely passed into the

future unseen and unknown, except such of it as has been revealed to us

by the Great Creator Himself. About two o’clock the next day she arrived

at the van door with her old grey pony, and since then they have

travelled hundreds of miles together, sometimes pushing, and sometimes

pulling along the lanes of life. I asked her if she was not afraid to

travel along the lonely lanes and roads leading to Spilsby at the

midnight hour. She answered, “The Lord love you, I should at other

times, but I did not feel a bit afraid on this night. I wanted to get

home with the pony and to see my children, and this kept me a-going

forward. Since then,” said the poor woman, “we’ve had a hard time of it;

in fact, for the last two years we’ve had only six pennyworth of meat,

and six pennyworth of bacon in the van. We live on what we can pick up,

but chiefly on dry bread and tea.” She told me herself that for more

than a fortnight together she had on only an old dress, a chemise in

shreds, and a pair of old boots to move among the fashionable and gay at

the fairs, races, and feasts. Thank God for the hope that dwells within

the breasts of these at the bottom of the social scale that brighter days

will come. Her little girls had not been undressed and washed for weeks,

as they had nothing else to put on while they were being washed; and in

this way many thousands of English men, women, and children are drifting

into damning English gipsy customs, sins, and degrading and depraving

habits, beneath, and encouraged by, the smiles, winks, and gabble of our

backwood gipsy, gem collectors, and sentimental and sensational writers,

who do not care a straw for those whom they are enticing on to ruin, so

long as the gold and silver bits drop into their pockets.

It is time we roused ourselves, and, with Mr. Ellis in the _Quiver_ for

1878, cried out at the top of our voices, and in prayer from the depths

of our whole souls—

“Oh, help them, then, if ye are men,

Stretch out thine hand to save.

Let them not sink beneath the brink

O’ the surging ocean wave.”

Rambles among the Gipsies. Upon Bulwell Forest. At the Social Science

Congress, Nottingham.

“Not all in vain good seed I sow,

As up and down the world I go;

Scattering in faith the precious grain,

And waiting till the sun and rain

Of heavenly influence bid it grow.”

Rev. RICHARD WILTON, M.A.

_Christian Miscellany_, October, 1882.

SUNDAY morning, September the 24th, was most lovely and delightful. The

buzzing and darting bats were not to be seen. They had retired among the

ruins of old tumbledown walls, creaking doors, and thatch. The horrible

sneaking rats had crept into their holes, ashamed of daylight. The owl

had retired to a dark, dusky nook among the perishing barn stone walls,

to sleep and fatten upon its ill-gotten carrion and the tender bones of

the sweet chirping, variegated songsters that had been unfortunate enough

to come beneath its ravenous clutches. The bright sun was shedding its

light, tinged with a little of the autumnal golden hue, upon our rough,

rugged, and antiquated dwelling. The robin seemed more proud than ever

to show its beautiful red breast, and to get ready to pipe forth the

praises of Jehovah from the branches of the old yew trees near the

orchard. The swallows were darting by our windows, as if nervous about

their long flight, and anxious to have as many peeps at us as possible

before bidding us good-bye for their long journey far, far away. Our

fowls had, according to their usual custom on Sunday mornings, gathered

themselves together under the shed in the yard to listen to the

intonation of their friend “Tom.” The sheep and cattle were grazing in

the meadows, and sheaves of golden corn stood upright in the fields,

inviting the farmers to carry them home to fill the barns of the rich,

the coffers of the banker, the empty bellies of the poor widow, toilers

in the field and brickyard, dwellers in canal-boat cabins, and gipsy

tents, vans, and wigwams. Our village church bells had begun to ring,

and my wife was, of necessity, breaking the Sabbath by restoring with her

bodkin and thread some of my habiliments while I stood bolt upright, so

as to make me presentable at court, which process caused a twitter among

our “olive branches.” I now scraped together all the money I could, and

with my “Gladstone bag” in hand, containing among other things my

Sunday’s dinner, consisting of a slice of bread and butter and an apple,

and my seedy-looking overcoat, turned the best side towards London, I

started to the station. The bells were chiming and pealing soft and low,

and our little folks were tripping off to church with their curls

dangling down their backs, and dressed in their best “bib and tucker.”

On the way I came upon an Irishman sitting upon a stone minding some

sheep that were munching grass by the roadside. For his companion he

had, as the Rev. Mr. Vine says in the _Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_,

February, 1877,

“Naught but the sky, the rough hewn rocks,

Green belts of grass, and fleecy flocks.”

To me it seemed as if he had a small crucifix in his hand, and was

counting beads; if so, I interrupted him by calling out “Good morning,”

to which Pat responded, “Good morning, yer honour; an’ it is a fine

morning, yer honour.” I left him in his devotion, and next came upon a

couple of dirty shoemakers from Daventry, with as much watercress in

their arms as they could carry, stolen from the water-brook close by

while the farmers were in church and the dogs tied up.

I now ran against a youth from the station who was gathering

blackberries. At his feet, in the hedge-bottom, a hare was quietly

nestling. Poor fellow! he let his blackberries fall to grasp the hare,

which allowed him the moment’s pleasure of catching its tail, but, much

to the chagrin of the youth, did not leave it behind, forcibly

illustrating the case of the dog in Æsop’s Fables crossing a plank with a

piece of meat in its mouth, which it let fall to grasp the shadow. “Oh!”

said the flushed youth, “I nearly caught it.”

In the train there were several gentlemen. One was reading the

_Christian World_, and another was reading a sporting paper. At Nuneaton

I had two hours to wait for the next train to Leicester. The interval

was spent in pacing backwards and forwards upon the platform, and in

eating with a thankful heart my Sunday’s dinner, which, not to say the

least of, was not too rich for my digestive organs.

I fared better than an old gipsy woman, Boswell, who, with her

daughter-in-law—a gipsy Smith from London—and their five poor

half-starved gipsy children, came to our door recently. The old woman,

Boswell, had only an outer old frock upon her, with two or three old rags

underneath. She had no “shift” on, as she said. This family of

travelling gipsies consisted of two men, mother and daughter-in-law, and

five children, the whole of whom “slept under their tilted barrow” at

Buckby wharf in a hedge-bottom. Not one of this lot could tell a letter.

At Nuneaton I conversed with a gentleman who gave me a little of his

history, some of which was remarkable, especially that part relating to

his courtship and marriage. “Ah!” said my friend with a tone of sadness,

“I had the misfortune to lose my wife by cruel death, and was left with

four little children to get through the world as best we could. It was a

sad blow, sir. I don’t know whether you have ever undergone such a

trial, but my experience of it is that it is one of the greatest

misfortunes that can ever befall mortal man, and I’ve nothing but pity

for the man who has had to undergo the sad loss. Oh! it’s terrible, sir.

After you have been toiling hard all day in the cold rain, frost, and

snow, and then to go home to find no one to warm your slippers, or to

speak a kind, soothing, and cheering word to you, was more than I could

bear. To sit and eat your bread and butter and drink your tea alone,

while the servants and the children were playing in the streets, was

enough to turn any man into a wild animal.” I said to him, “Certainly it

is a terrible ordeal, and one that I should not like to pass through.”

“Yes it is,” said my friend, almost in whimpering tones. “Well, how did

you get out of your sad difficulty?” I said. “Well, sir, things went on

for some months in a path in which there seemed nothing but vexation.

The servants were quarrelling, the children were neglected, and bills

seemed to be coming in without end; and while I was brooding over these

things one afternoon, in came a minister from Derby, and he saw the fix I

was in, and that I could not get him as nice a cup of tea as formerly;

and, to help me out of my difficulty, he said, ‘My dear brother, when the

proper time comes, I know where there’s a wife that will suit you.’ ‘Do

you?’ I said to my ministerial friend. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’ At this

I pricked up my ears, and he said, ‘I am going to their house for tea

next week, and if you like you shall go with me.’ ‘All right,’ I said.

Nothing more passed that evening on the subject. During the week he

wrote to me, asking me to meet him at Derby station. Of course I thought

I would go; they could not take anything of me, and I went. In going to

the house I began to get into a nervous stew. On the way my friend said,

‘Now there are two sisters in the house living with their mother. It

will be the one with a blue ribbon round her waist who I think will suit

you. After they have been in their room to dress for the afternoon she

generally comes out the first.’ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll keep my eyes

open.’ At the door the mother met us, and gave us a hearty welcome. The

young ladies were in their room, and I was playing with my fingers upon

the arm of the sofa. Presently a young lady came downstairs. Of course

I had my eyes upon the waistband, to see whether it was a blue one; but,

to my astonishment, it was green. In a few minutes the other young lady

came downstairs with the blue ribbon round her waist. I concluded that

this was the one my friend the parson had selected for me. Tea was got

ready, and instead of entering freely into the general conversation, I

kept looking first at one and the other of the young ladies at tea, and

playing with my fingers between time. When tea was over and the service

ended, on the way home my friend the parson said, ‘Well, which of the two

do you like best?’ ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I’m not particular; I’ll take to

either of them; but as the eldest is nearer to my age, I think I will

make love to her,’ taking it all as a joke. Nothing more was said.

During the next week I was a long way from home on business, and I

ventured to write to Deborah, telling her who I was, and what little game

I was up to, and asking her to meet me at the station to have a chat

together on the subject about which I wrote. The young lady was, so I’ve

been told since, dumbfounded, and said to her sister, ‘Of all the men in

the world I will not have him; I don’t like him a bit. He did not at all

seem to make himself comfortable at tea. I shall not go to meet him.’

‘Well,’ said the other sister with the green waistband, ‘If you don’t go

I shall. He will suit me.’ ‘Well,’ said the one with the blue

waistband, ‘if he will suit you he will suit me, and I will go to meet

him at the station.’ Accordingly I got out of the train, so that she

might know me again, and on we went to Derby and made matters square;

and—would you believe me, sir?—in three weeks from that time we were

married.” I said, “Well, bless me!” The rapidity of his courting

expedition almost took the wind out of me. The station bell now rang. I

jumped into the train, and as I was moving off towards Leicester I bade

my new friend good-bye; and he, in return, waving his hand, said, “I will

tell you the rest another day, and what we saw on our wedding tour in

London, Antwerp, Brussels, Mastricht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.” “All

right,” I said, and we puffed away, leaving quite a pother behind.

In the train were two young female “school teachers,” who had been a

“gipsying” to Coventry by the “special” from Leicester on the Saturday

afternoon, and, whether by accident or design, they had been left behind.

I questioned them about the suspicious circumstance attached to such a

course, to which they replied, “As soon as we arrived at the station, and

found that the train had been gone five minutes, we nearly cried our eyes

out. Fortunately we had friends in Coventry with whom we stayed all

night.”

I told them to be good girls and do better for the future, to which they

replied, “We will,” and I left them to make my way down Belgrave Gate to

my sister-in-law’s. After tea we went to St. Mark’s church, and heard a

smiling young curate, the Rev. A. F. Maskew, preach a good, practical,

telling sermon, on the occasion of returning thanks to Almighty God for

the success that has attended our army and navy and the termination of

the war in Egypt. The Rev. C. B. — was away on his holiday. After the

service the congregation stood up and heartily joined the choir in

singing, “God save the Queen.” To which I responded with all my heart,

“Amen! God bless our blessed Queen.”

Right always comes right. After service I took a walk, with “a young

lady” of some forty-five gentle summers and hard winters at my left side,

to visit the new park in the abbey meadows. The sight was most

enchanting. Few lovers were on the walks with their arms entwined round

each other’s waists. The artificial lakes, hills, and rockeries were

seen with solemn grandeur by the aid of distant lamps. The moving

murmuringly forward of the “soar” waters beneath our feet, as we stood on

the bridge, lighted up with silver streaks of distant lamps, and the

pealing forth of the soft, heavenly, riveting, and mesmerizing hymns and

chimes of the evening bells of St. Mark’s and St. Saviour’s, made me feel

that all the troubles, trials, opposition, misrepresentation, and

hardship I had passed through were suddenly transformed into pleasures,

leading up to the indescribable panoramic views that appeared before my

vision. As it passed away—or, I should say, I passed from it—another one

opened up which led me on and on in spirit to the heavenly rest and

everlasting beauty in store. The Rev. Richard Wilton says—

“Let Nature’s music still the ear delight,

And gracious echoes mortal cares allay,

Till “wood-notes” ’mid angelic warbling cease,

And “church bells” ring us to eternal peace.”

In a few minutes after this I was between the sheets, and I could have

said with John Harris, as sleep stole gently into my room—

“Hark! What is that? The spirit of the vale?

Or is it some bright angel by the lake?”

And the last I remember was, I was muttering over “by” “by” “the” “lake,”

“by” “by” “the” “the” “lake,” “la—la,” and I was bound fast to the bed.

A quondam friend bade me “good morning,” and then jumped into a “first

class” to recite his “R’s” and “S’s” so as to give them the finishing

touch correctly the next Sunday morning, while I enjoyed the honour and

pleasure of a “third.” We arrived together at Nottingham, and I made my

way to a “temperance hotel,” not half a mile from the station, with

“first-class” appearances outside, but with “third-class” bedroom

accommodation. My room was a “top back,” overlooking well-known old

friends, viz., bricks, tiles, terra-cotta, sanitary pipes, encaustic

tiles, &c, with a board in the corner covered with oilcloth for a washing

stand, and a tea saucer for a “soap tray.” The bed was hard, and the

blind was of a material that needed no washing; in fact, the room was

bare, cheerless, comfortless, and cold. I strolled into the

market-place, and was soon talking to some old-fashioned Staffordshire

gipsies with short skirts, and apparently, thick legs, heavy boots, with

plenty of colour about their “head-gear,” who, taking all things into

consideration, were not bad specimens of gipsies of the present day.

After this I spent a short time with my old friend, Mr. William Bradshaw,

a name which has been well known in the midland counties for many long

years. Writing and gossiping consumed the remainder of the day; and at

ten o’clock I mounted and climbed nearer heaven to rub my eyes again at

peep o’ day. Between four and five o’clock I was in and out of my hard

bed a dozen times, guessing the time and groping in the dark, for fear I

might miss the train to Bulwell Forest. At last I got so fidgety that I

was determined to get up, “hit or miss.” I dressed, and then went

downstairs to find my way out into the street; but, not having an angel,

like Peter, to open the doors for me, I had to ring and ring and shout

sufficient to awaken all in the house; if they had been as deaf as posts,

I could not have had a greater difficulty to awaken them. At last the

landlord made his appearance with his shirt on, and his hair on an end

like a frightened ghost. Owing to my early movements, and being a

suspicious-looking customer, I had to pay my bill, and out I went about

half-past five. My train started for Bulwell at six o’clock, and at six

thirty I was among the gipsies upon the forest. There were four vans

full of gipsies of all sorts and sizes, just turning out of their “bed;”

so dirty were they that I should not have been surprised if the “beds”

had run away with them. “Smiths” and “Winters” were the two prominent

names. “Bless me,” I said, there are “gipsy Smiths here, there, and

everywhere.” “Yes, you are right, my good mon,” said Mrs. Gipsy Winter

in a Staffordshire twang. In the four vans there would be twelve adults

and eighteen poor, rough, dirty, neglected little gipsy children, not one

of whom could read or write. The policeman said to me, “The gipsies that

come on this forest and about these parts are a rough, dirty, bad lot,

and no mistake. Nowt comes amiss that they can lay their hands upon, I

can assure you.” I had a chat with Mrs. Gipsy Winter, and told her what

my object was, viz., to bring their vans under registration, and also to

give their children a free education; to which she replied with delight,

“Lor, bless you, my good mon, I’m reight glad you big fokes are going to

do sommat in the way o’ givin’ our childer a bit o’ eddication, for

they’re nowt as it is. They are growin’ up as ignorant as osses; they

conner tell a ‘b’ from a bull’s foot. I conner read mysen, but I should

like our childer to be able to read and write. Han you got one o’ your

eddication pass books wi’ yer? cause if yer han, I’ll ha’ one.” I told

her that the Act was not passed authorizing the use of them; at which she

held down her head, and said, “I suppose we mun wait a long time fust.”

“Yes,” I said, “it will not be this year.”

Mrs. Gipsy Winter had upon her finger a Masonic ring—_i.e._, a ring with

the “square” and “compasses” engraved upon it. Of course I felt sure she

was not a Freemason, and did not proceed to put her to the test. There

never was but one woman a Freemason, and the reason was that she secreted

herself in an old clock case while the ceremonies were being performed in

the Lodge “close tiled.” The only way out of the awkward difficulty was

to make her a Mason forthwith on the spot, and this—so Masonic squib and

report has it—was done. This report of “our Masonic sister” is to be

taken with a pinch of snuff.

I called to see a family of gipsy Woodwards who have taken a house and

are settling down the same as other folk. Those of their children that

are able to work are working at the coalpits close by, and the children

of school age are sent to school. In the course of time they will become

as other workers, helping on the welfare of the country, and at the same

time securing their own comfort and happiness. The house did not present

the appearance of a fidgety old maid’s drawing-room, but they are up the

first steps towards it. Time and encouragement will bring it round in

the sweet “good time coming.” “Wait a little longer, boys; wait a little

longer.”

It is complete bosh, nonsense, wickedness, and misleading folly for

frothy novelists to say that it is impossible for gipsies to settle down

to industrious habits and a regular life. I know full well they can, and

are willing, many of them, to settle down, if means be taken to bring it

about. I will only mention one case, to illustrate many others, viz., a

gipsy I know well, who is as pure a gipsy as it is possible to find at

this late day. The good old man has had a settled home for forty years,

and goes to hard work night and morning amongst the farmers, the same as

other labourers do. Aye, and many times he works late and early, dining

at times off a crust and a cup of cold water with a thankful heart in the

week-day, and sings God’s praises on Sundays.

To come back again to Bulwell Forest. After I had visited the Woodwards

I turned into a small coffee-shop to get a cup of tea; and while I was

enjoying the penny cup of tea with a halfpenny’s-worth of bread and

butter for my breakfast, the landlord said: “One of the young gipsy

rascals of the forest came into my shop last week, and made himself too

friendly and free with some things that lay upon the table, for which I

could have put him into jail; but I did not like to follow it up, and the

lot of them have made themselves scarce since.” Another old woman, a

seller of the _Nottingham Daily Journal_, _Nottingham Daily Guardian_,

_Express_, _&c._, said, “The gipsies often come into my house and want to

tell me my fortune; but I always tell them that I know it better than

they can tell me, and will have no cotter with them.”

I next came upon a gipsy named L—, who told me of a case of gipsy

kidnapping which took place at Macclesfield a year ago, viz., that of a

gipsy woman stealing a pretty little girl of tender years out of the

streets, belonging to a fairly well-to-do tradesman living in the town.

Although the child was advertised for a long time, and large rewards

offered, it was not to be found, till one day a gipsy girl went to one of

the shops in Macclesfield to sell some gipsy “clothes pegs.” The good

woman of the house came to the door. Although five long years had passed

away, tears had been dried up again and again, and hundreds of prayers

had gone upward to Him who hears prayers and sighs, and the child had

grown big and brown, and was dressed in rags and filth, the mother

recognized the poor gipsy child standing at her door hawking “pegs” as

her own dear little darling “Polly.” Without waiting for the lost child

to be washed, dressed, and its hair combed, she embraced her darling

little lost daughter covered in rags with fond kisses, which told a tale

through the gipsy dirt upon the child’s face, as only a tender-hearted,

loving mother can, and straightway called in her friends and neighbours,

and said, “Rejoice with me, for I have found this day my long-lost little

darling Polly.” A policeman was sent for, the kidnapping gipsy woman was

traced, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour in jail for her

wrong-doing.

I was also told of gipsies who are undergoing long terms of penal

servitude for horse-stealing, their favourite game—sheep stand second on

the list. Donkeys are very low down upon their list, as they are not

worth “shot and powder.” “If a gipsy should get ‘nabbed’ for stealing a

donkey, it would be looked upon in the eyes of the bobbies,” said my

gipsy friend, “like stealing a horse.”

A whirl, twirl, puff, and a whiz landed me upon the platform in the

“Health Department” at the University College, Nottingham, September 26,

1882, with my bags, books, and papers, among the large gathering of

Social Science magnates and doctors, to discuss—firstly, the Canal Boats

Act Amendment Bill of 1881, which I am humbly promoting; and secondly,

“The Conditions of our Gipsies and their Children, with Remedies.” Among

others upon the platform there were Mr. Arnold Morley, M.P., Mr. W. H.

Wills, M.P., Mr. Whately Cook Taylor, Chairman, one of Her Majesty’s

Chief Inspectors of Factories; Mr. H. H. Collins, Hon. Secretary of the

Health Department; Mr. J. Clifford Smith, Secretary to the Social Science

Association; and in the body of the hall there were Dr. Hill, the Medical

Officer of Health for Birmingham; Mr. Walter Hazell, Mr. Russell of

Dublin, and a large gathering of ladies, “too numerous to mention.”

I had expected to find a large opposition force confronting me,

consisting of those who would keep the canal and gipsy children in their

present degraded condition; but, like the Midianitish host, the breaking

of my cracked pitcher had frightened them out of their wits, and they had

scampered off to the hedges and ditches to skulk in front of me again

another day. No doubt with my papers, Gladstone bag, spectacles, &c., I

presented very much the appearance of “Mrs. Gamp” at her speechifying

table.

These are my papers with all their faults and living seeds, sown and

planted at the Master’s bidding, in the midst of much toil, hardship, and

persecution; which seeds will bring forth a little eternal fruit some

day—maybe, when my work is done, and I have been called home to rest with

the little ones.

_The Condition of our Gipsies and their Children_, _with Remedies_.

In the year 1514 the gipsies landed in Scotland from the Continent, and

from that date to the present time we have had in our midst over 30,000

men, women, and children with increasing numbers, going to and from our

villages, towns, lanes, and fairs, and mixing with the simple, wise, gay,

and foolish, leading the lives of vagabonds, demoralizing all they have

been brought in contact with, by their lying, plundering, dirty, filthy,

cheating, and crafty habits. In one word, the gipsies have been, and

still are, a disgrace to Christian civilization. Of course there are

exceptions among them, and I wish from the bottom of my heart that there

were more.

They live huddled together regardless of either sex, age, or decency,

under hedges, in tents, barns, or on the roadside, with but little regard

for marriage ceremonies.

Their food, in many instances, is little better than garbage and refuse,

and the most riff-raff of them bed themselves upon rotten straw.

We have also, at this late day, with sunny education gleaming on every

hand, over 30,000 poor gipsy children of school age growing up as

vagabonds, and not two per cent. of the whole able to read or write a

sentence.

If our present-day gipsies had been of the romantic type of some two or

three centuries ago, as pictured to us so beautifully by fascinating

novelists, we might have wandered down the country green lanes, and by

the side of rivulets, to admire their witchery, colours, and gipsy

traits, exhibited with much refined skill, artistic touch, and feeling by

gipsy writers; but the fact is, to state it plainly, the romantic gipsy

of novels and romance has been dead long ago, and neither the stage,

romance, nor imagination will ever bring him to life again in this

country.

Our gipsies of to-day are neither more nor less than ignorant, idle

tramps, scamps, and vagabonds. This I know full well, for I have found

it out over and over again, not by hearsay, but by mixing and eating with

them in their wretched abodes often during the last five years.

My sorrowful experience of them forty years ago, with casual

acquaintances since, and onward to 1878, has not brought any traits of

their character, as practised by them, that any sane-thinking, loyal, or

observing man can admire, and the sooner our legislators deal with our

gipsy vagabonds the better it will be for us as a nation.

Many of the gipsies have large hearts, and are most kindly, and they are

also clever and musical. These features of gipsy life I have witnessed

myself many times. The cause of their degraded position may be laid at

the door of our Christian apathy, legislative indifference, social

deadness, and philanthropic neglect.

The flickering and uncertain efforts of missionary agency will do

something towards reclaiming our poor lost wandering little brothers and

sisters, but not a tithe of what the social, sanitary, and educational

laws of the country can do.

In the paper I had the honour to read before this Congress at Manchester,

in 1879, I dealt more especially with the evils of gipsy life, only

referring briefly to my remedy, the substance of which I have published

in my “Gipsy Life,” and in various forms since 1878, and onward to this

date, which, with additional suggestions, are as follow:—

1. I would have all movable or temporary habitations registered and

numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements in a manner analogous to

that provided under the Canal Boats Act of 1877.

2. Not less than 100 cubic feet of space for each female above the age

of twelve, and each male above the age of fourteen; and not less than 50

cubic feet of space for each female under the age of twelve, and for each

male under the age of fourteen.

3. No male above the age of fourteen, and no female above the age of

twelve, should be allowed to sleep in the same tent, or van, as man and

wife, unless separate sleeping accommodation and suitable ventilation be

provided.

4. A registration certificate to be obtained, and renewable annually at

any of the urban or rural sanitary authorities in the country, for which

the owner of the tent, or van, shall pay a sum of 10s., commencing on the

first of January in each year.

5. The compulsory attendance at day schools a given number of times of

all travelling children, or others, living in temporary or unrateable

dwellings up to the age required by the Education Code, which attendance

should be facilitated and brought about by means of a free educational

pass book, procurable at any bookseller’s, for the sum of one shilling,

as I have suggested to meet the case of canal children.

6. The children to be at liberty to attend any National, British, Board,

or other day schools under the management of properly qualified

schoolmasters.

7. No child under thirteen years of age to be engaged in any capacity

for either hire or profit, unless such child shall have passed the “third

standard” of the Education Code.

8. No child or young person to work for either hire or profit on Sundays

under the age of sixteen.

9. Power to be given to any properly qualified sanitary officer, School

Board visitor, inspector, or Government official, to enter the tents,

vans, shows, or other temporary or movable dwelling, at any time, or in

any place, and detain them if necessary, for the purpose of seeing that

the law is properly carried out.

10. The Local Government Board to have power to appoint one, or two, or

more officials to see that the local authorities enforce and carry out

the Act; and also to report to Parliament annually.

11. All fines to be paid over to those authorities who enforce the Act

and the regulations of the Local Government Board.

12. As an encouragement to those gipsy wanderers who cannot afford to

have healthy and suitable travelling vans and other abodes, and who

desire to settle down from their wandering and degrading existence to

industrious habits the Government should purchase common or waste lands,

or allot lands of their own to the gipsies in small parcels upon a long

lease—say for ninety-nine years—at a nominal rent.

With these features embodied in an Act of Parliament, and properly

carried out by the local authorities, under the supervision and control

of the Local Government Board and Education Department, gleams of a

brighter day might be said to manifest themselves upon our social

horizon, which will elevate our gipsies and their children into a

position that will reflect a credit instead of a disgrace to us as a

civilized nation.

“And shall he be left in the streets to room,

An outcast live and wild?

‘God forbid!’ you say. Then help, I pray.

To provide for the [gipsy child].”

Rev. I. CHARLESWORTH, _Sword and Trowel_, 1671.

_The Canal Boats Act of_ 1877, _and the Amending Bills of_ 1881 _and_

1882. By GEORGE SMITH, of Coalville.

In 1877 an Act was passed entitled “The Canal Boats Act of 1877,” on the

basis sketched out by me in a paper I had the honour to read before this

Congress, held at Liverpool in 1876; and also in my letters, articles,

&c., which have appeared in the lending journals, and in my works since

the passing of the Act and onward from 1872 to this date.

After the Bill was drawn up, and during its progress through committee in

1877, several features were foreshadowed in the measure which led me to

fear that when passed it would not accomplish all we so much desired, and

these I pointed out to the late Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Right Hon.

W. E. Forster, Mr. Salt, Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government

Board; Mr. John Corbett, M.P., Mr. Pell, M.P., Mr. P. Rylands, M.P., Mr.

Sampson Lloyd, MP., Mr. W. E. Price, M.P., and many others; but rather

than yield to the opposition of the Canal Association, and the loss of

the Bill, I suggested that it should be passed, notwithstanding the

drawbacks that were in sight.

When Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Price, and others, at the fag end of

the session of 1877, put the question seriously to me, as to whether the

Bill should not be massacred along with the other innocents, I replied as

follows: “Push the Bill through Committee by all means. A piece of a

loaf is better than none. It has its defects, but if we do not get the

Bill passed this year we shall not be likely to do so next year. Let us

get the thin end of the wedge in. The operation of the Act will be to

bring about the registration of the canal boats, to give power to the

sanitary officers to enter the cabins, to secure the education of the

40,000 canal children, and also to prevent overcrowding in the cabins.”

The first step towards carrying out the Act, after five years’ continued

agitation and visits to various parts of the country, has been fairly

accomplished; and the sanitary officers, by the power given to them under

the Act, have done good by preventing, in some degree, the spread of

infectious diseases; but the main features of the Act, viz., the

education of the canal children, the prohibition of overcrowding in the

cabins, and the annual registration of the boats, are almost entirely

neglected.

The following are the failing points of the Act of 1877:

1. The Act to a great extent is permissive. 2. Proceedings cannot be

taken against the boatmen and boatowners for evading the regulations of

the Local Government Board—the most important of all. Breakers of this

Act can be brought under the lash of the law, but breakers of the

regulations cannot. 3. The Act of 1877 is placed in the hands of the

local registration authorities to carry out, consequently the expenses

fall upon the ratepayers, and the result is that the local sanitary

inspectors, or registration officers, have had but little added to their

salaries—in many instances nothing—and with strict orders not to go

beyond their town or city boundaries. Thus it will be seen that boats

plying between the registration districts, which are as a rule between

twenty and fifty miles apart, are left to themselves. 4. Another

oversight in the Act is the non-annual registration of the boats, and

consequently there have been no fees to meet the expenses. It was

intended from the first that there should be an annual registration of

the boats. 5. The want of power in the Act to enable the Local

Government Board to appoint officers to supervise, control, inspect,

enforce, and report to Parliament upon the working of the Act and the

regulations. 6. Another cause of failure in the Act has been owing to

power not having been given to inspectors to enter the cabins or inspect

the boats at any other time than “by day.” Boats are more or less on the

move by day, and it is only when they are tied up—which generally happens

after six o’clock—or when they are being loaded or unloaded, that the

local registration officer has an opportunity to see or to form any idea

as to what number of men, women, and children are sleeping and huddling

together in the cabins. 7. The Act does not give the School Board

officer power to enter a boat cabin. The education clauses of the Act

have, I might almost say, entirely failed: (_a_) owing to the

indifference manifested by the school authorities at which places the

boats are registered as belonging to; (_b_) the extra trouble they give

to the school attendance officers; (_c_) the facilities given and the

chances seized by the boatmen to get outside the town or city boundaries

with their children so as to elude the grasp or shun the eye of the

School Board officer. 8. The payment of a week’s school fees demanded

from the children who can only attend one or two days in the week. It is

not either fair, honest, or just to compel a boatman to pay more for the

education of his children than others have to pay. 9. Many boats in the

coal districts, with women and children on board, travelling short

distances, have escaped registration and inspection under the plea that

their boats are not used as dwellings. 10. Another very important reason

advanced by the registration authorities why the boatmen and boatowners

have not been prosecuted for breaches of the Act is that all the trouble

and expense attending prosecutions have had to be borne by the local

ratepayers, while the fines, in accordance with the Act of 1877, have

been paid over to the county fund, instead of the borough or local fund.

The Bill I am humbly promoting, and which has been before Parliament

during the last two sessions, supported by Lord Aberdare, Earl Stanhope,

Earl Shaftesbury, the Marquis of Tweeddale, Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., Mr.

Albert Pell, M.P., Mr. John Corbett, M.P., Mr. Thos. Salt, M.P., Mr.

Thos. Burt, M.P., and Mr. H. Broadhurst, M.P., provides a remedy for

these faulty places. 1. I would do away with the permissive features of

the Act of 1872. 2. Fines to be inflicted for breaches of the

regulations, as well as for breaches of the Act. 3. I give under the Act

the local registration authorities part of the registration fees. I

propose that the annual registration fee should be 5s. for each boat, one

half of this amount to go to the Government, and the other half to the

local authorities. 4. The registration of the boats to be annual. This

will be a very simple and inexpensive affair, no matter in what

registration district the boat happens to be at the time of the renewal.

5. I give under the Bill the Local Government Board power to appoint one,

two, or more officials to visit the canals in various parts of the

country, and to see to the proper enforcement of the Act, and to report

annually to Parliament. 6. I propose that the inspectors should have

power to enter a canal boat at any “reasonable hour.” 7. No child shall

be employed on a canal boat unless such child shall have passed the

“third standard.” 8. I propose that children, whom the regulations allow

to live in the cabins, should have a free educational pass book, which

would enable them to attend any day school while the boats are being

loaded and unloaded. 9. No child under the age of sixteen to work on a

canal boat on Sundays. 10. All boats upon which there is accommodation

for cooking or sleeping to be deemed to be used as dwellings. 11. All

fines to be paid over to those authorities who enforce the Act.

When the Canal Boats Act of 1877 is amended in accordance with the lines

I have laid down in the Bill, the stigma that has been resting upon the

country and our canal population, numbering nearly 100,000 men, women,

and children, during the last 125 years, will be in an easy way for

removal, without inconvenience or costing the country one farthing, and

the boatowners and captains not more than 2s. 6d. each per annum.

With the proper carrying out of the Act the 40,000 boat children of

school age, not ten per cent. of whom can read and write, will be

educated, and the boatmen’s homes made more healthy and happy;

industrious habits will be encouraged, and the country will also be made

richer by increasing the happiness of her water toilers upon our rivers

and canals.

“Oh, help them, then, if ye are men,

And, when thy race is run,

Turn not aside, nor think with pride

Thy work in life is done.”

ELLIS, _Quiver_.

My papers passed off in the midst of smiles and kindly and lengthy _press

notices_. Editors have always been more kind to me than I have deserved,

much more than I had anticipated. The fact is, I had expected some rough

handling, and armed myself with a few little rough, awkward facts.

Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the majority of my hearers were of

the gentler sex. Bless their dear hearts! Their encouraging smiles and

words have helped me through many a difficulty in pushing on with the

cause of the children. May God reward them a thousandfold.

The act was ended, and the curtain dropped. I therefore “picked up my

crumbs,” and bade my friends goodbye till—D.V. and if all’s well—we meet

again next year at Huddersfield. I then made my way to the station, and

home. Upon Leicester platform I met with a few old friends, who had

pleasant greetings for me, including Mr. Thompson, Mr. Fox, and a

literary friend, the Rev. W. L. Lang, F.R.G.S., who has given myself and

the cause I have in hand many lifts—bless him for it. Onward and upward

may he travel to the time when it shall be said, “It is enough.” And to

my many other friends who have helped me by their influence and with

their pens, I repeat the same thing over and over again.

My little stock of the “one thing needful” had begun to turn quite

modest, and crept into the corners of my pocket, so as to be scarcely

felt among the keys of boxes, drawers, cupboards, and lockers, knives,

and other pocket trifles. I took my ticket to Rugby, which left me with

one shilling. I had not gone far before my ticket was missing out of my

hand. I was in a minute “all of a stew.” Cold perspiration crept over

me. In a twinkle, before any one could say “Jack Robinson,” my hands

were at the bottom of my pockets using their force to persuade Mr.

“Ticket” to turn up; but no! it was not to be found. Fortunately a

porter came panting after me and asked if I had not lost my ticket. He

had lifted a ton weight off my shoulders, and I thanked him very much.

At Rugby I spent my last coin in copies of the _Times_, _Standard_,

_Daily News_, _Telegraph_, _Daily Chronicle_, _and Morning Post_. In

nearing our old antiquated village along the lovely green lanes, little

village children were to be seen gathering blackberries. The sun was

shining most beautifully in my face. The autumnal tints and hues were to

be seen upon the trees. The gentle rustling wind brought the decaying

and useless leaves hesitatingly and in a zigzag fashion to the ground, as

if they were loath to leave the trees which had given them birth, before

settling among the mud to be trampled upon by tramps and gipsies. While

climbing the last hill, with a heavy heart and light pocket, weighed on

all sides with nervous hope, trembling doubts, and anxious fears, I never

more fully realized the force of John Wesley’s hymn, as I tried to hum it

over. In soft but faltering accents I might have been heard by the

village children singing—

“No foot of land do I possess,

No cottage in this wilderness.

A poor wayfaring man,

I lodge awhile in tents below,

Or gladly wander to and fro,

Till I my Canaan gain.”

The first thing that caught my eye upon my library table was a letter

from Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., in which was enclosed a cheque to aid in

building a Good Templar hall at Northampton, about which I had written.

This was duly sent to Mr. Hollowell, the secretary. Underneath Mr.

Morley’s letter lay one from a friend, Mr. Frank A. Bevan, of 54, Lombard

Street, enclosing a small cheque on behalf of himself, Lord Aberdare, and

a number of friends, to help me in my work, and to provide for the daily

wants of my little ones, till we arrived at the next stile on our rough,

steep, and somewhat zigzag journey. The sight of his cheque sent a

thrill of joy through my soul, and I could not help shouting out,

“Thanks! a thousand times.”

Light again dawned at eventide, and we were enabled to retire to rest

singing God’s praises as the candle flickered in the socket.

In my “Gipsy Life” I have shown, among other things which have never been

mentioned by any gipsy writer before, the following particulars. First,

the cause and probable date of the gipsies leaving India; second, the

route by which they travelled to Europe; and third, the cause of their

persecution after their arrival in England from the continent.

My gipsy paper did not give universal satisfaction to everybody outside

the congress. My plain matter-of-fact statements raised the ire of a few

little narrow-souled mortals, who had not the courage to appear in their

own dress, and borrowed other people’s clothes—_shooba Rye_, &c.—to

crouch in while they fired their popguns at me. Just as they were trying

to swallow my papers, an article appeared in the _Morning Post_, stating

that I “knew more than any man in England about the gipsies.” This was

more than _O Bongo_, _ho_, _no tïckno chavo_ could stand. Editors are

not like most mortals, they have a perfect right to say what they please

about anybody and everybody. They and other literary friends have been

more than kind to the cause of the children and my unworthy self, for

which I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Without their help I

could not have got along. I sent the following letter to the _Morning

Post_, bearing date October 11, 1882, relating to “_Shooba Rye_,” _O

Bongo_, _hó_, _no tïckno chavo_:

“Your correspondent complains that I do not know sufficient of the

gipsies. My congress papers and my ‘Gipsy Life’ show that I know a

little. It is evident I know more than is pleasant to him, or he would

not have hastily snatched up some one else’s badly-fitting night-dress to

sally forth with his farthing candle in hand to put a ‘sprag’ into my

wheel. Such backward movements are too late in the day to stop the sun

of civilization and Christianity shedding its rays upon the path of the

poor gipsy child and its home.

“I do not pretend to know more than forty years everyday practical

observation and insight into the real hard facts of the conditions of the

women and children employed in the brickyards and canal boats, and the

dwellers in gipsy tents and vans can give me.

“Two days ago I came upon a family of gipsy ‘muggers,’ father, mother,

and four children, travelling in a cart. The poor little children, whose

ages ranged from four to twelve years, were stived up in a box on the

cart, which box was 5 ft. long by 2 ft. 9 in. wide by 3 ft high, or about

eleven cubic feet of space for each poor child. The children were all

down with a highly infectious disease, carrying it from a village, where

it had been raging, to Daventry and Northampton. I gave the children

some apples, but the poor things said, ‘We are all ill and cannot eat

them.’ None of these children could tell a letter. These are facts and

not fiction; inartistically dressed, I admit, and without the flowers of

poetical imagination to adorn them. Knowledge gained under the

circumstances in which I have been placed, will, I think, be found nearly

as valuable in improving the condition of neglected and suffering

children as imaginative, unhealthy backwood fiction spun by the yard

under drawing-room influences and by the side of drawing-room fires can

be. At any rate, I have tried for many long years in my rough way to

look at the sad condition of the women and children whose cause I have

ventured to take in hand with both eyes open, one to their faults, and

the other to their virtues; and also with a heart to feel and a hand to

help, as my letters, papers, and books will show to those who have the

patience to read them.

“I have not been content to sit upon mossy banks by the side of rippling

rivulets, with a lovely sun shining overhead, and beneath the witching

looks and mesmeric smiles of lovely damsels, swallowing love and other

tales as gospel.

“It is time the hard facts and lot of our gipsies and their

children—_i.e._, those travelling in vans, shows, and tents—were

realized. It is time we asked ourselves the question, ‘What are the vast

increasing numbers—over 30,000—of children tramping the country being

trained for?’

“The fact is this: Parliament, Christians, moralists, and philanthropists

have been content for generations to look at the gipsies and other

travellers of the class through glasses tinted and prismed with the seven

colours of the rainbow, handed to us by those who would keep the children

in ignorance and sin, instead of taking them by the hand to help them out

of their degrading position. My plan would improve their condition,

without interfering with their liberty to any amount worth naming,

considering the blessed advantages to be derived by the gipsies and

others from it.

“No amount of misleading sentiment will stop me till the case of the poor

children is remedied by the civilizing measures of the country—viz.,

education, sanitation, and moral precepts—extended to them by an Act of

Parliament, as I have described in other places, which could be carried

out, and a system of free education established, by means of a pass book,

without any inconvenience or cost worth mention. Why should our

present-day canal and gipsy children be left out in the cold?”

“’Tis not the work of force, but skill,

To find the way into man’s will:

’Tis love alone can hearts unlock;

Who knows the Word he needs not knock.”

RICHARD CRASHAW, “_Fuller Worthies_.”

Rambles Among the Gipsies at Daventry and Banbury Fairs.

THE eleventh of October, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two dawned

upon “Old England” while rain was coming down too drearily, drizzly, and

freely for either man or beast to be comfortable. Foggy, cold, and murky

November seemed desirous of making its advent earlier than usual. Not a

songster was to be seen nor an autumnal chirp heard round our dwelling.

Long dark nights had begun to creep over nature. “The last rose of

summer,” the Queen of English flowers, was drooping its head and

withering up, and the leaves were dwindling down to nothingness. The

lanes were strewn with dying leaves which had done their duty nobly and

well.

Through the low and heavy clouds the voice and footsteps of children, as

they trotted off with their milk tins, seemed to echo in my ears, and

other sounds to hover round me, carrying with them a kind of hollow

sepulchral sensation, telling me that summer was dead and autumn was

preparing nature for the winter shroud, which was undergoing the process

of weaving by angelic hands.

The sound of the thresher’s flail was heard in the barn, calling out

“Clank,” “Clank,” “Clank,” “Thud,” as it struck the corn and barn floor,

causing the precious grain to fly like a shower of small pellets against

the doors. Not a gleam of sunshine was to be seen. Summer and winter

seemed during the last fortnight to have been struggling with each other,

in the death-throes of nature for the mastery. Genial summer had to give

way to savage winter, and little robins piped forth the victory.

Everywhere seemed cold, damp, and covered with melancholy. As we

meditated upon the surroundings, our carrier drove to our door with his

van, into which I got, and seated myself in one of the corners almost out

of sight. A patent “four-wheeler” of this kind I had not been used to,

and our little folks did their best to try to persuade me not to try the

experiment. We had not gone many yards before eggs, boxes, whiskey

bottles, butter, and onions were handed to our carrier for carriage and

safe custody to Daventry fair. Fat and thin women were closely packed

round me. Welton is a noted village for fat women, which may be the

result of the excellent water. While our village blacksmith was putting

some of his handiwork into the carrier’s van, the scene brought vividly

to my mind Longfellow’s poem. He might have seen the very spot.

“Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;

The smith a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.”

I mumbled the verse over to myself as we jogged along. To have repeated

or bawled it out in such “close quarters” would have been worse than

putting one’s head into a hatbox.

After the usual “picking up” and “calling” we began to slowly trot off

with our load. We had not got far before our village dames, damsels, and

companions began to indulge more or less in the usual village gossip and

jokes. Big heavy old women could indulge in sprightly conversation as

freely as if they were “four-year-olds.” Pleasantry was exchanged as to

who was to sit next to our driver, so as to keep his back warm. Village

parsons and squires were the first upon the programme. Then came a long

rigmarole about the old maids and maidens, poachers, slovens, slatterns,

fashions, Jacks, Jims, and Pollies. Everybody knew everybody’s business,

ranging from the death of Polly Jones’s cat to Squire Brown’s fine horse.

Good masters were passed over with “He’s not a bad sort of man to work

for, and he’d be better if he had more to do with.” Bad masters were

mentioned with a curl of the lip, a scowl and a shake of the head, ending

with “He’s a bad ’un; my man shouldn’t work for him at any price, if I

could help it.” Mrs. So-and-So, and Miss So-and-So were “snappy old

things,” “niggardly, mean, and miserable;” “nobody has a moment’s comfort

near them.” “Oh!” said one, on the road, “did you see Miss Jenny Starch

on Sunday with her new bonnet on? Didn’t she look mighty fine? Wasn’t

she a stuck-up thing? Nobody could come near her with a fork.” “Did you

see,” said another, “the three poor little children running about the

streets this morning, almost naked, in rags and dirt? The mother is

idle, and the father drinks. They both want horsewhipping, and if I

could have my own way I would give it them.” “Yes,” said another, “and

serve them right.” “Did you see,” said another, “the Misses So-and-So in

church on Sunday? They looked quite pretty. When you can just catch

them in the right temper, they are so nice and pleasant. What a thing

this money is, isn’t it? Money buys fine feathers, and fine feathers

make fine birds.” “Anybody can be made pretty, nowadays, if they have

only the money,” said a stout dame, who had a big red face under a little

bonnet, and must have weighed little short of eighteen stone. We were

passed on the road by two “screwy” old maids from Bonnybrook, “trotting

off to market” in a green pony carriage, sitting like Jack and Jill, one

before and the other behind, bolt upright and as still as posts, looking

out of the corner of their eyes. As we were mounting the hill going into

Daventry the question of “leaving” was brought upon the carpet, and it

came out that all of them were satisfied with their “old masters,” and

were going to “stop again at the old wages.” I am afraid their “old

masters”—husbands—will have a little difficulty in getting rid of them.

They like the “old shop” too well to budge. The process of riddance, “My

dear husband,” and a stream of tears would have to be faced before they

“cleared out.”

I had not been long in the “mop” before I was face to face with a

good-looking, but somewhat eccentric, and good-natured popgun owner,

named Mott, at one of the stalls. One passage of Scripture after another

he repeated in rapid succession with breathless speech, until quite a

crowd gathered round us in the drizzling rain. After my friend—who has

been on the road attending fairs for forty years—had finished his speech,

his wife handed to him a newspaper, out of which he read my letter as it

appeared in the _Daily News_, bearing date September 5th, 1882, which

will also be found in page 161. The newspaper had been given to them by

a dirty, wretched, filthy-looking family of travelling show folks from

London, whose corns and consciences had been touched to the quick. After

he had read it, and had given it to his wife again, I expected a “rather

hot reception,” especially after a paragraph which has been going the

round of a few of the papers, to the effect that I must look out for

trouble from “light and dark gentlemen.” As the paper passed from his

hands I looked rather anxiously into his face to see what the effect

would be. To my surprise, the index of his soul showed pleasure, and not

anger; and in unmistakable tones he said, “You are quite right, sir, and

I thank you for it. It is rather warm, but your object is right—there is

no mistaking that. I quite agree with your plans, and so does every

right-thinking man. The traveller’s and other gipsy children ought to be

educated. God bless you, sir, I know what religion is; I am an old

backslider. I was once a leading member among the Baptists, but I

chipped out over a little thing, and now me and my old woman are

travelling the country in our van, and doing this sort of thing. There

is one thing I should like to say, sir; I never creep into my bed in the

van without saying my prayers to my heavenly Father. I feel to sleep

better after it. It soothes me a little.” Tears were making their way

down the grey-haired traveller’s face; and I think it would have been a

blessed thing for him if I could have introduced him into a Methodist

prayer-meeting, as a stepping stone that would lead him out and on to the

paths he trod in the days of yore, crying out from the depths of his

soul, in the language of a writer in the _Christian Life_ for October

14th, 1882—

“Thou art a rock, to which I flee;

With all my sins I come to Thee,

And lay them down, Lord, at Thy feet,

Before the shining mercy-seat.

Thou art a fortress strong and high,

To which for shelter all may fly,

Sure there to find a safe retreat,

Beneath the sacred mercy-seat.”

After shaking hands with this couple I bade them goodbye, and gave them

something to read during the dark hours of winter, something in which are

buried seeds of a bright spring-time for them both, if they will only

follow out the directions given. I then strolled into the fair. I had

not gone far before I came upon an old brickmaker, and from him I gleaned

some facts showing how wretchedly the Brickyard Act of 1871 is being

carried out. After chatting with him for some minutes he apparently took

stock of my hair, which has, thank God, grown almost white in the cause

of suffering children. Mr. Brickmaker turned quite poetical, and in

parting said—

“Take stock, Mr. Knock,

That’s what I have to say, Mr. Grey,”

and he then sidled and smiled away into the crowd.

I had not been long moving to and fro among the gipsies before I learned

that two gipsies, whose head-quarters were a few miles from Daventry,

were undergoing transportation, one for sheep-stealing, and the other for

horse-stealing. The horse-stealing gipsy was caught in his own trap,

owing to his being too clever and daring. It came about as follows: A

publican and farmer a few miles from here had a fine, beautiful, young

black horse, to which the gipsy took a fancy; and it so happened with

this gipsy, as with other gipsies of this class, that he had not too much

money to spare for purchasing purposes. An old idea ran fresh through

his brain, which was, that he could with but little trouble make the

horse his own, without money and the bother and trouble of giving back

the “shilling for luck” on the completion of the purchase. Accordingly

he sallied forth one dark night and took the beautiful animal out of the

field, not far from Daventry, and kept it “in close confinement” for

three days to undergo doctoring, at the end of which time the stolen

horse was quite a different looking animal. The horse now had a white

star upon its forehead, and two white fetlocks. Its tail and mane were

shortened, and, with the assistance of “ginger,” it put on quite a sharp,

frisky appearance. In the meantime he heard that the owner of the horse

was much in want of one. “Now,” thought the gipsy, “here’s a fine chance

for turning money over quickly, and getting rid of an animal that would

turn ‘a tell-tale’ if kept too long.” Consequently the gipsy mounted his

steed, and off he trotted to the publican. On arriving at the door he

called the innkeeper out to look at a horse that he had for sale, “good,

quiet in harness, sound in wind and limb, a good worker, without a

blemish, and cheap.” The publican liked the looks of the horse very

much, and he asked the gipsy to trot him up and down the road; and off

the horse bounded, frisked, and danced about quite lively. The action of

the horse was all that was desirable, and the price “right.” In the end

the horse was sold, glasses round given, the “luck shilling” returned,

the horse was put into the stable, and the gipsy became scarce.

Three days after the “white star” and “white fetlocks” were not to be

seen, and the horse began to look “quite different.”

It was brought plainly home to the publican that he had bought back his

stolen horse. The gipsy was “hunted up,” tried, and sentenced to a “long

term,” where horses are not to be had.

In the fair, or “mop,” there were eight vans, in which there would be

about sixteen men and women and thirty children living and sleeping; and,

so far as I could gather, only about four could read and write, and these

were adults, none of whom were teaching their children anything that

would be helpful to them in after life.

Connected with one of the “Aunt Sally” establishments there were man,

woman, and three little neglected children, with no other sleeping

accommodation than a “bottom” of straw spread under the stall, covered

with an old sheet, and warmed in the winter by an oil lamp. The poor

woman was the picture of poverty, despair, degradation, and misery.

Their stall and “Aunt Sally” were pushed through the country on a small

“hand cart.” The family hailed from Leicester, and were in a most

wretched, dirty, and ignorant condition. As soon as I saw the man I

thought I could recognize his features as those of a _posh_ gipsy I had

seen before; and it turned out to be true, for he was no other than a

“fishman” who had more than once carried my fish to the station.

In the “mop” I came across a man and woman with four children who hailed

from a village a few miles from Daventry, and who had taken to gipsying

and were singing in the streets in the midst of mud and drenching rain—

“Beautiful Zion, built above,

Beautiful city that I love,

Beautiful gates of pearly white,

Beautiful temple, God its light.”

Three of these children were of school age, but could not read or write a

letter.

When I questioned the man about putting the children into the union

workhouse, and the wrong he was doing to them in bringing them up as

tramps, he said “he could not help that; they must look out for

themselves as they got bigger, and help to do a little for him.” By

singing about the streets they got him some “baccer and a little

vittles.” In 1882 at the “mop” I met with a showman, named S—, and his

wife and six children, living in a wretched tumbledown van; the small

windows were broken, and rags, dirt, and filth abounded in every nook and

corner. The father had had a religious “bringing-up” by Christian

parents in Cornwall, and for many years earned a good living in Wales as

a miner, and was a member of a Christian Church. The sharp, good-looking

woman, although dirty and dejected enough to banish looks and spirits to

the winds, waves, and realities of eternity, bore up fairly well under

the wretched surroundings. She had, previous to her marriage, for many

years been a “lady’s maid” in a good “religious family,” and was well

educated. The man was ingenious and clever, and had during his spare

moments and hours in Wales made the working model of a coal-mine, which,

at the instigation of “_religious friends_,” he began to exhibit in

public. The success that attended him in the first instance led him to

think that he was on the high way to a fortune. He acted upon the advice

of his “_Christian friend_” and others, instead of his own common sense,

and bought a van in which to place his handiwork, and “took to the road.”

A downhill one for himself and his large family it has been ever since,

and they are now gipsying, and cursing the day upon which he took and

followed the advice of a shortsighted—to say the least—“_Christian

friend_.”

In giving advice, God-fearing Christian men and women above all others

should look well ahead, and to all the surroundings of the case, before

deciding the fate of a family. Advising a parent to break up a settled

home and comfortable livelihood to tramp the country among gipsy

vagabonds and tramps, I consider little less than murder.

In making their way one Sunday from a village to attend the “mop,” they

got stuck fast at the bottom of a hill with an old bony emaciated horse

that would not draw “a man’s hat off his head.” The poor little children

dressed in dirt and rags, and scarcely able to toddle, had to set to work

to drag and carry the old boards, rags, and other things belonging to

their “show” to the top of the hill. After hours of toil, interrupted by

the constant striking and chiming of church bells on the bright autumn

Sunday morning, they were able to make another move.

Their show consisted of the working model of the mine, one of their

youngest children, nearly naked, with a Scotch plaid over its shoulder

being exhibited as a “prize baby.” In addition it included a boxing

establishment. The man had not the build and stamina to lead the “ring,”

and they had to wait for the “millers” to pair themselves before a boxing

exhibition could take place.

They had not been in Daventry long before this backsliding showman, who

had taken to gipsying, was wanted by _Shórokno gáiro Garéngro_ for

cruelty to his horses. The result was that he had to “do a month” in

Northampton gaol. No doubt the poor misguided showman would feel in his

cell as John Harris puts it—

“Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears

Like crackling coals, and frogs strut up and down

Like hissing cinders: wasps and waterflies

Scorch deep like melting mineral. Murther! save!

What shall a sinner do?”