“Such a question is entertained by the Gipsies even at the present
day, for they naturally think of the Jews, and wonder whether, after
all, their race may not, at some time, have been connected with them.
I have heard the same question put by Gipsy lads to their parent (a
very much mixed Gipsy), and it was answered thus:—‘We must have been
among the Jews, for some of our ceremonies are like theirs.’” (p.
511).
I presume that no one will question the assertions that Bunyan was a
tinker, and that English “tinkers” are simply Gipsies of more or less
mixed blood. Put together these three ideas—his description of his
“father’s house,” and their not being Jews, but tinkers, that is, Gipsies
of mixed blood—and you have the evidence or proof that John Bunyan was of
the Gipsy race. If people are _hanged_ on circumstantial evidence,
cannot the same kind of proof be used to explain the language which
Bunyan used to _remind_ the world who and what he was, at a time when it
was death by law for being a Gipsy, and “felony without benefit of
clergy” for associating with them, and odious to the rest of the
population? From all that we know of Bunyan, we could safely conclude
that he was not the man to leave the world in doubt as to who and what he
was. He even _reminded_ it of what it _knew well_; but with his usual
discretion he abstained from using a word that was banned by the law of
the land and the more despotic decree of society, and concluded that it
perfectly understood what he meant, although there was no necessity, or
even occasion, for him to do what he did. {12}
Why then say that there is an “absolute want of evidence” in regard to
Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race, and that it is “totally incapable
of proof”; and assert that it is a _fact_ that his ancestors were “landed
proprietors,” and that there might be better grounds for holding that
Bunyan was of _Norman_ origin than of _Gipsy_ descent?
Bunyan was either of the Gipsy race (of mixed blood) or of the native
one. I have given the proof of the former—proof which, I think, is
sufficient to hang a man. Where is the proof of his having been
something else than of the Gipsy race? And if there is no proof of that,
why assert it? What Bunyan said of his family was _proof_ that he was
_not_ of the _native_ race. Asserting as a _fact_ that, from the
surname, his ancestors were ordinary natives of England, and landed
proprietors at that, is nearly as unreasonable as to maintain that every
English Gipsy of the name of Stanley is nearly related to the Earl of
Derby because _his_ name is Stanley.
Like any one charged with an offense unbecoming Englishmen, almost any of
them will protest that _he_ has no prejudice against the name of Gipsy,
and that “he would not have the smallest objection to believe that Bunyan
was one of the race if the fact was only proved by sufficient evidence”;
while at the same time he will retain and manifest his prejudices, and
entirely ignore the evidence, or refuse to say in what respect it is
deficient, and believe the opposite, or something entirely different from
it, without a particle of proof in its favour, or entirely _disproved_ by
Bunyan’s admission in regard to his “father’s house.”
The Gipsy subject will not always remain in its present position. It
will sooner or later have a resurrection, when some one will see who were
the “goats” on the occasion. Bunyan will occupy a very important
position in what is now represented by the following extract from my
Disquisition on the Gipsies, published in London in 1865:—
“It is beyond doubt that there cannot be less than a quarter of a
million of Gipsies in the British Isles, who are living under a
grinding despotism of caste; a despotism so absolute and odious that
the people upon whom it bears, cannot, as in Scotland, were it almost
to save their lives, even say who they are!” (p. 440).