“Pray to thy God
To help thee in thy trouble.”
A week or two after I saw the woman and her six children in a most
destitute condition. I gave the poor little things a good tea and cake
in my house, and subscribed my mite towards buying them another horse,
and advised them to make their way to Aberdare, in Wales, and take to
mining again, to send their children to school, for none of them could
tell a letter, and they were growing up worse than heathens.
Their first venture at a showman’s life was to exhibit the model and
paintings, and they hired a donkey-cart and set off to Aberdare. When
they got there the showman wrote to me, “I am sure you would have been
amused if you had been there to have seen us; for when we had our
establishment erected—which, by the way, was very small—we were too shy
at first to make an appearance outside; at last we made a resolution, and
began to shout. So we found out after we had broken the ice that we were
landed. On the first night we took enough to pay our month’s rent. This
gave us encouragement. We made a good many friends, and I became
notorious among my fellow workmen. They thought me an extraordinary man.
In three years I painted in oil colours thirteen pictures, three feet
square, of the interior of a coal-mine and different other subjects. . .
. The waxwork show owners we had accompanied left Wales for London.
Afterwards my wife went to Bristol and bought a barrel organ, and I had
what we thought a very nice little show, and a nice van and horse. But
alas! we did not know what travelling in the winter meant. We found very
soon that we could not show every night on account of the weather, and
also found that we could not get any credit. If we had no money there
was no bread. I shall never forget the first night we got ‘hard up.’
Dear sir, just fancy yourself going into a large town about eight o’clock
at night, and the rain coming down in torrents in the cold January month;
the houses shining with wet, and a horse to be fed and stabled—for we
kept it in a stable then—and six children to get a supper for, let alone
yourself, and not a penny in your pocket, and not a friend in the world
to speak to or to give you counsel. Well, that is just how we were
situated in the first January that we travelled. Dear sir, perhaps you
would say, ‘Why did you not make for your home?’ That would have been
the wisest plan, but we thought we would endure anything rather than go
back to be laughed at. Well, after my good wife had had a good cry, we
went to the pawnbroker’s and pledged my watch, thinking that we should be
able to redeem it again in a few weeks. We borrowed fifteen shillings,
so that with opening the show we could be helped on for a few weeks,
instead of which we met with a worse misfortune than ever. We lost our
horse at Pontypool. We pledged our organ for £2, and then trailed our
van to Swansea for Llanefni fair, thinking we should get money enough to
buy another. More next week. The children all send their love to you,
wishing you a merry Christmas.”
This man was at one time earning nearly £2 per week, and had a good home.
It will be found on close inquiry that nearly all our present-day showmen
have been in better circumstances, and rather than be laughed at for
their silly adventures by their friends, they are content to wander up
and down the world little better than vagabonds, and to train their
children for a tramp’s life. By travelling in vans, carts, and tents
they escape the school boards, sanitary officers, rent and rate
collectors; and to-day they are—unthinkingly, no doubt—undermining all
our social privileges, civil rights, and religious advantages, and will,
if encouraged by us, bring decay to the roots. I speak that which I do
know, from what I have seen and heard.
I had heard of a gipsy Smith who had settled down, and was now residing
in one of the “courts” of Daventry. I hunted him up, and found him in a
little cottage residing by himself. The cottage was nice and clean.
When I went in I was invited to sit upon a chair. The old gipsy had just
come home with some work. He was lighting the fire, and I said to him,
“I suppose you could do very well with a _Hotchi-witchi_ just now, could
you not, Mr. Smith?” The old man turned up his bronzed face, and with a
laugh said, “I just could, my dear good gentleman. I was looking for one
this morning, but could not find one.” I said, “Could you do with a
_Kanéngro_?” The old man replied, “I could if I had one; but I never
goes after them now. I don’t much care for them. I would rather have
_Hotchi-witchi_.” After a general conversation for a few minutes, I
said, “How long have you given up travelling?” He replied, “Nearly
thirty years. I like it better now.” “How long have you lived by
yourself?” The old man’s lips began to pucker and tears came into his
eyes. After wiping his face, he said falteringly, “It is nearly four
years since I lost my dear good bedfellow. We had lived together over
forty years. She was a good creature, and I mean to meet her in heaven,
bless the Lord. I’ve been a bad one in my time, but I’ve given up all
bad ways, and have attended the Wesleyan chapel and the Salvation Army
nearly two years, bless the Lord; it was the best day’s work that ever I
did when I found Him.” The old gipsy now gave me a little of his
history. “My grandfather was a Welsh gipsy, and used to attend
Northampton and Daventry market and fairs with horses and ponies, and in
course of time my father and grandfather began to travel round the
midland counties and the Staffordshire Potteries. I was born under the
hedge in Gayton Lane, between Kingsthorpe and Boughton Green. The
gipsy’s lot is a hard one, I can assure you, my good gentleman. I’ve
seen a deal in my time. I attended Boughton Green fair for thirty years,
and for eighteen years of this time in succession I never knew two of my
cousins to leave the fair without fighting. I’ve seen murder upon the
‘Green’ more than once. It will never be known in this world how many
murders have been committed upon the ‘Green.’ There has been some
fearful bloodshed and rows done, I can assure you. The gipsies are very
vengeful and spiteful, if they ever take it in their heads to be so. Two
of my cousins, D— and N—, quarrelled, when they were children down
‘Spectacle Lane,’ over a few sticks.
“They parted, and never met each other again for twenty years, and then
it was at a Boughton Green fair. When the fair was over they went into a
field to have their old grievance out in blows. They had not been
fighting long before D— was put senseless upon the ground. N— went to
his tent, and after a few minutes I followed him, and said to my cousin,
‘N—, you have killed D—; you had better be off.’ He went then and there,
and has never been took. We buried my cousin, and the day I shall never
forget. It was a day, I can assure you. I don’t know where my cousin is
now, but I have seen him lots of times since then. The past is a blank,
but I mean to get to heaven to meet my dear good old creature. I wish I
could read; what a great pity it is that none of us poor gipsies can
read. Bless the Lord, although I cannot read I prize the Bible, God’s
book; it’s the best book in the world.” The old man now took down a
small pocket Bible off his kitchen shelf, and clasped it to his breast
and said, “Although I cannot read I puts it in my chair when I says my
prayers, and the dear Lord blesses it to my soul and makes me feel
happy.”
After partaking of a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter in the
humble “British Workman” in High Street, I made my way to the Byfield
carrier, Mr. W—, to secure my “berth” in his cart, which was pretty
closely packed with groceries, servants’ boxes and trunks, nails, balms,
and paraffin, “chaps,” girls, and their mothers. There seemed to be no
“cousins” in our party. I was pretty well wet through from head to foot,
and it was perhaps fortunate that we were closely packed, as by which
means I was, in all probability, prevented taking a severe cold. At a
jog-trot rate we began to move out of Daventry at the heels of a grey
horse, whose sides stuck out with fatness and with a “coat” as sleek as a
mole. Mr. W— looked well to his steed, while Mrs. W— chatted, joked, and
chaffed with her company inside. Up hills and down dales lay our course.
Parsons and squires, as usual, were the theme, in the first instance, for
conversation and gossip. The Rev. Mr. So-and-So was a very good man in
the pulpit but a bad one out of it, and a worse landlord. And they began
to enumerate cases of hardship inflicted by him. I must confess that I
should not like to be a clergyman with a large family in a small poor
parish with a small stipend, and with “charity money” to deal out to a
number of dissatisfied, idle, grumbling poor people. A clergyman
nowadays has to mix up with the grand and fashionable, to visit the poor,
dispense charity with smiles, write any number of letters for the
parishioners, assist the sexton, take a lead in the choir, preach his own
sermons, superintend the bell-ringers, keep the parish accounts, blow up
the roadmen, visit “new comers,” allay scandal, hush gossip, settle
squabbles, be liberal, stand insults, know everybody’s business, and know
nobody’s business. Must not pay too much attention to young ladies for
fear of trouble at home. He must be handsome, lovely, and charming, with
a rich melodious voice; hide the faults of evil-doers occupying big pews,
lecture evil-doers in little pews; never enter a “dissenting” chapel,
give Methodists the “cold shoulder” privately, fraternize with them
publicly; take wine with the rich, be teetotal among the poor; give the
“tip-top” price for his goods; and above all things, and under all
circumstances, the parson must never look cross. If at any time he feels
angry he must “keep it to himself inwardly and never show it.” These are
the qualifications for a minister of the gospel according to the ideas
and motives of Church dwarfs and Sunday saints.
Parsons were now dispensed with, and darkness was creeping over us as we
passed by Sir Charles Knightly, Baronet’s, beautiful estate at Fawsly.
The next leading topic of our dames and damsels was, as might be
expected, the appearance of certain ladies at the usual maidenhood ages.
We had not gone far before I knew most of the ages of the “young” dames
in the cart, who were much surprised to find that I was younger than they
were. “Lor bless me!” said one, “there is no accounting for looks
nowadays, for I was talking to a lady the other day, and telling her how
young she looked, and that I wished I had as good a black head of hair as
she had; but lor and behold you, when I went home with her, I found out
that the black hair was a wig, and her own hair was as white as mine. I
never was more astonished and surprised in all my life. I could not help
but stare at her, she did not look like the same woman, Mrs. W—; I should
not have known her if I had not known her so well, and what had made the
change. Since then I have guessed but little at women’s ages.” We now
pulled up to allow one or two of our party to get out. Our legs had been
so crushed and mixed up with each other’s that we were almost left in
doubt as to whose legs we were standing upon, Mrs. W— naïvely remarking,
as the young damsels were stepping down, “Now mind and see that you got
out upon your own legs; don’t run away with some one else’s.”
We were now seated, and off we began to jog again. We had not got far
before the company began to ask each other if they were “saved.” The
word “saved” is a word well known to me from childhood, and at its sound
I pricked up my ears, and began to ask questions about it. And the
answers I received were as follows: “Why, bless you, dear sir, have you
not heard of the great stir that has been going on among the children
connected with the Methodist and Congregational chapels in Byfield? We
are woke up at eleven o’clock at night by the children singing about the
streets Moody and Sankey’s and Salvation hymns—
“‘Only an armour-bearer, firmly I stand,
Waiting to follow at the King’s command,’ &c.
“‘I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above,’ &c.
“‘Who are these beside the chilly wave,
Just on the borders of the silent grave?’ &c.—
and away they go all round the village disturbing everybody. The young
things ought to be in bed. The girls have got so excited that they go
about shouting and singing in the daytime. One girl I knew went into the
garden to get some cabbages, and while she was getting them up, the devil
came to her, and told her that she was not ‘saved,’ and the girl knelt
down in the middle of the garden at dinner-time, and there and then began
to pray, cry, sing, and shout. After a time she jumped up and said she
was saved. ‘Then,’ said the girl, ‘Master Devil, I am saved.’ Another
girl went into the garden to get some potatoes, and the good, or some
other spirit, came to her, and said that unless she was saved all the
potatoes in the garden would go rotten. She there and then stuck the
fork into the ground, and began to pray to God to save her. She had not
prayed long before she got up and shouted out, ‘I am saved! bless the
Lord!’”
I asked how all this was brought about, and the answer I got was, that
“The children began to sing in the streets some hymns, and to hold
children’s prayer-meetings, under the direction of nobody but themselves;
and the movement began to spread about, and bigger folks attended the
meetings, and now the place is almost in an uproar; everybody is asking
each other, or nearly so, if they are saved.”—I kept putting in a word
for the children, bless their little hearts!—“Tea-meetings and
prayer-meetings are held, the chapels are filled, and it is all through
the children. I don’t like so much shouting and going on in this way.”
I hope the good work is still going on, notwithstanding the old woman’s
cold water.
It was now pitch dark, and we were winding our way down the narrow lanes
in Byfield to the carrier’s home, with whom and his good wife I was to
stay for the night, where we arrived “safe and sound,” but cold and damp.
On the hearth there were six beautiful cats, named after her husband’s
friends. A month before this they had eight cats; and Mrs. W— says next
year she hopes to keep a dozen. The big-hearted, genial woman is an
ardent admirer of animals. She said she never had but one valentine in
her life, inside of which were pictures of cats, dogs, rabbits, and
birds; and it was addressed to her as “Mrs. W—, Cat and Dog Fancier.”
After a good warming and an excellent supper, “the good woman of the
house,” Mrs. W—, began to tell me a little of their family history, while
her good husband was seeing to his horses, which were petted like
children. My hostess related her story as follows: “My father lived to
be ninety-four years of age, and my mother died last August at the age of
ninety-two. I have had fifteen brothers and sisters, all of whom are
dead but three. I have not been out of mourning for sixteen years.” She
now fetched the photographs, walking-sticks, and other things of her
parents, for me to look at, and then continued her sorrowful story. “My
mother,” she said, “was a great sufferer for some years, but she bore it
all so meekly. She never murmured once during her illness, and was
always talking about heaven. Once she said to me, ‘Why don’t you kiss
your father? He is in the room and wants to shake hands with you; why
don’t you kiss him?’ Just before she died she called me to her and said,
‘I am going to die, my child. I am going to your father.’ And then she
said, faintly, ‘“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”
My girl, trust in Jesus. Come a little nearer to me.’ And she then
whispered in my ear, ‘Meet me in heaven,’ and passed away like a child
going to sleep.”
“What is this that steals upon my frame?
Is it death? Is it death?”
Tears were now forcing their way down the good woman’s face, and in the
midst of sobs and sighs a tremulousness was manifest, and she quietly
stole upstairs to pray, and to ask Jesus to dry her tears.
After she had left me I was upon the hearthstone alone. The ring-dove,
nineteen years old, perched in its cage by the fireside, began to
“coo—coo—coo;” the cats began to “pur—pur—pur;” the dog to snore; the
kettle to sing; and the lamp shed a cheerful light upon the whole. I
stole away to rest my weary bones upon a snowy-white feather bed, and
under an extra lot of blankets and fine linen sheets. How different, I
thought, as I wandered into dreamland, from the lot of the poor gipsy
child, whose sheets are old rags, and whose feathers are damp and almost
rotten straw, with mother earth for a bedstead, and the canopy of heaven
for curtains.
At seven o’clock I turned out and got my breakfast, and with the morning
dawn and a lovely sun shining in my face, I took a stroll through the
ancient village to stare at the loitering villagers, gaze at the thatched
roofs, eye over the tradesmen, to peep at a very ancient, curious,
antiquated stone upon the green, which the roots of a huge tree were
toppling over, enjoy the feast of some beautiful scenery, and make some
inquiries about the empty house pleasantly situated in the village. I
paid my bill—two shillings—and gave the little servant and mine hostess
some picture-cards and little books, and then seated myself in the
carrier’s cart to be drawn round the village before we trotted off to
Banbury fair. Out in the way, the nurse-girls, mothers, and children
shrieked out with laughter as they tossed upon their knees the
round-faced, chubby, live, kicking, squeaking balls of love, embodiments
of pleasure and trouble, singing and shouting—
“Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady get on a white horse,
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes.”
On the way and in carts there were crowds of human beings, pretty and
plain, big and little, tall and thin, short and stout, some dressed in
silks and black cloth, some in rags and tatters; some were smiling all
over their faces, and others looked as cross and sour as if they lived on
nothing but vinegar and crabs and slept on thorns and thistles. Lovers
and haters, pleasure-seekers and thieves, labourers, farmers, tradesmen,
and gentlemen, were hurrying helter-skelter to Banbury fair. Some were
crying, some were laughing, some were shouting, roaring, puffing, and
panting; others were in carriages, with liveried servants as attendants;
some were on horseback and donkeyback; others were in horse-carts,
donkey-carts, and waggons; and among the number there was a little thin
man of sixty winters, standing about two feet six high with his boots on,
and by his side was his wife, about five feet high, stout, plump, and
about thirty years old. I should not be surprised to hear that she had
“not agreed to stop again.” She was well able to carry him on her back,
as gipsies do their children, instead of which she looked down upon him
and allowed him to trudge along in the mud and rain. She had no love for
the little fellow, or she would have carried him in her arms; in fact,
she seemed inclined to walk on the other side of the road.
In the throng and crush we arrived at Banbury. I paid my fare—all the
way from Daventry, one shilling and sixpence—shook hands with my kind
friends, and made my way into the crowd of sightseers, gipsies,
mendicants, tramps, the fashionable, and the gay.
The first gipsy I met with was an old friend, “Righteous Smith”—which
name was printed on the van—and his large family, at a cocoa-nut
establishment. One of the daughters, dressed in lively colours, was in
charge of the balls, and shouting out to the “chaps” as they passed
forward, “Try your luck, gentlemen!” and the father shouted out, “Now,
gentlemen, bowl away! all bad nuts returned.” In response to their
bewitching entreaties some old cricketers tried their hand, and, much to
the chagrin of “Righteous Smith,” they sent the nuts “spinning away”
rather more freely than was profitable and pleasant for “Righteous,” to
the extent of putting his good name in the shade. This family of gipsies
have, I should think, about three parts of Romany blood in their veins.
Their van was a good one, and beautifully clean, and will pass muster
when the new order of things comes about, for which I am working night
and day, and which, I am thankful to say, is casting its shadows before
it. The eight cocoa-nut establishments were owned by cross-bred
Romanies, and one or two of the families lived in vans fairly clean.
There were over thirty families living in the vans attending the fair, in
which there would be an average of three children, one man, and one woman
in each van. In five of the vans there were two men and two women in
each. A number of those who owned small short shooting galleries and
“rock stalls” slept with their children under the stalls.
From this cocoa-nut going “concern” I strolled among the shows, bosh,
nonsense, and cheap Jacks. The introduction to one of the sparring
establishments was by an old woman screaming out, “We are just going to
begin.” By her side was a dandily dressed and painted doll, setting
herself off to the best advantage. On some steps between the two women
there stood a man painted as a fool, and dressed in tight indecent
sparring costume. “Darkey,” with his pug nose, short hair, low narrow
forehead, high cheekbones, deep sunken eyes, glistening fire like a black
glass bead in the centre of a white china button under the glare of a
lamp, which he frequently turned sharply, quickly, and inquisitively to
me as if anxious to know my movements. If he had been an uncaught thief,
and conscience was telling him that I was a detective, he could not have
eyed me over more quickly and closely than he did.
_Gentlemen_ with diamond rings, poachers, and blackguards formed the
company. A ring was formed, and “Darkey” and a “Johnny Straw” set to
work with their gloves “milling” each other, and just as their “savage”
was getting up, the curtain to outsiders was drawn. How long the big and
little fools kept at the “milling” process I did not stay to see. What
fools there are passing through the world as gentlemen, to be sure, to
witness such debasing exhibitions with “pure frolic” and laughter, while
their money is being drawn out of their pocket imperceptibly by idle
vagabonds.
Not far from this “boxing establishment” there was another “set-out”
waiting for a second dose of fools, with a “champion boxer” as a “draw.”
Money went freely into the coffers, while the owners of stalls upon which
useful articles were exposed for sale “had a bad time of it;” even the
celebrated “Banbury cake” was “a drug in the market.”
Over the door, as a sign at one of the shows belonging to Mr. Great
Frederick Little, where a nude man was exhibiting himself—“girls and
ladies not allowed to enter”—stood two calves’ heads over a skeleton, and
what surprised me most was that the good Banbury folks and country
Johnnies could not see the satire that was being played upon them.
“Calves and bones” for a sign; and I think, judging from the dejected
appearance of the people as they came out of the establishment, they felt
like “calves and bones” themselves; at any rate they did not look any the
wiser—certainly they looked sadder.
Turning from this concern, I was jostled into a crowd of folks to witness
a man named Turnover Snuff, Esq., dressed in best blue cloth, with gold
watches, guards, and rings, making fools of two well-dressed innocent
youths, whom he had called up from the crowd and dressed in rags to eat
buns for a prize, to be used as a “draw,” to enable him to pass off his
showy goods under various colours, dodges, and pretexts. While the
youths were forcing the buns down their throats he was cracking jokes,
which the people, with their mouths open, swallowed as gospel. What this
“Cheap Jack” said in action, if not in words, was, “Now, ladies and
gentlemen, you see that these two youths have come up here at my bidding,
to make fools of themselves, and to eat these buns I am forcing down
their throats, to cause you to twitter and laugh with your eyes shut to
the things that are to follow; so in like manner I want all of you to
shut your eyes and open your mouths to receive all the lies I want to
force down your throats, that I may extract the coin from your pockets
for my ‘Cheap Jack’ articles; so we will now proceed to business, ladies
and gentlemen.”
There were one or two exhibitions in the fair of a good genuine
character, and the rest were “rubbish,” of which it might be said of the
performers, as a writer in the _Sword and Trowel_ for 1876 says:
“See, I am as black as night;
See, I am darkness, dark as hell.”
In the fair I ran against the sanitary and local canal boat inspector—Mr.
Daniel Dixon—whom I asked to give me his independent views of the gipsies
and show-people attending the fair. In company with the medical officer
of health he visited the vans, and the following particulars may be taken
as a fair sample and average of the thirty vans in the fair, in
accordance with what he says:
“According to promise, I forward you the particulars of our visits to the
shows and vans visiting our fair on Thursday; and I also took a little
more trouble to be along early on Friday morning. I was certainly
astonished to see the people turn out of some of these places, some of
the smaller vans turning out the greatest number. I give you a few
instances of the number who turned out of the smaller vans. In Nos. 1,
2, 6, 13, and 19 there were 5 men, 5 women, and 22 children, making a
total of 32 in the 5 vans. Education totally neglected. They were
dirty, neglected, and uncared for. One van was as clean as could be
expected.
“In 1879, 40 vans visited our fair.
“In 1880, 50 vans visited our fair, in which there were 38 men, 32 women,
and 43 children.
“In 1881 there were 130 persons in 36 vans. While some of the vans were
remarkably clean and well fitted up, there were some totally unfit for
habitation, and certainly ought not to be allowed. The gipsy tribe was
fairly represented, and evidently some of them are fairly blest with an
amount of property which surprises me. There were a few surly people who
did not like our visit, and gave us unmistakable signs of displeasure,
but the majority were civil.
“If you can devise a plan whereby these people can receive _any_
education, you will render valuable service, morally and religiously, to
society at large.”
After referring to the value of the Canal Boats Act, and the amendments I
propose, Mr. Dixon said that he should be pleased to further my efforts
at any time.
A minister of the town writes me to say that a number of vans left the
town on Thursday night or early on Friday morning. In the 15 vans he
visited he found 48 children and 22 men and women, only six of whom could
read and write a little. The rest were growing up as ignorant as
heathen, and with the exception of two of the vans, dirt and wretchedness
abounded in their _homes_. He said also that the conduct of the gipsies
and other travellers at this fair has been better than in former years.
Notwithstanding the reports that have been in circulation, enough to
shake the nerves of timid folks, I am received kindly and civilly by all
the gipsies. One gipsy woman named Smith in a jocular term said, “Mr.
Smith, we have been told that you are going to take all our children away
from us and send them to school; you will require a mighty big school,
bigger than any in the world, to hold them, I can assure you.”
A few yards from where we were standing there was a van, into which I was
invited to tea by the poor woman, the “mistress of the _house_.” In this
wooden tumble-down house upon wheels, about 9 ft. long by 5 ft. wide, and
6 ft. high, there were man, wife, and seven children in a most dirty and
heartrending condition. The youngest was a baby only three weeks old,
and was born in the van at Weedon.
I had a long chat with the good-natured woman. As I sat upon an old sack
at the bottom of the van, with the children in rags and dirt creeping
round me, and in the midst of an odour not at all pleasant to the
olfactory organs, I felt as if my heart was almost ready to break at the
sight of human woe and misery before me. To say that I could have wept
hot briny tears would not convey in language telling enough the strong
feeling of sympathy that crept over me, to the extent of almost freezing
the blood in my veins. For a moment I seemed to lose sight of everything
else in the fair, and it was with some difficulty I could refrain from
crying out, as I stepped from amongst the poor little forgotten and
neglected children, and out of this gipsy house, with a cocoa-nut which
“Jack” would thrust into my bag, “Good Lord! when shall these sad things
and these wretched and pitiable sights come to an end? Would to God that
the trumpet which is to bring to life the dead would begin to ring! ring!
ring! and thrill into our ears a nervous, disquieting solo, keeping on
and on till it has awoke us all up—aye! ministers, philanthropists,
Christians of every grade, moralists, members of Parliament, cabinet
ministers, and peers—to a sense of our duty towards the little and big
heathens at our own door, before our fate becomes as that of Belshazzar
and Babylon.”
“Oh say, in all the bleak expanse
Is there a spot to win your glance
So bright, so dark as this?
A hopeless faith, a homeless race.”
“_Lyrics of Palestine_,” _Religious Tract Society_.