Part V.

The sad Condition of the Gipsies, with Suggestions for their Improvement.

One thing that strikes me in going through the writings of those authors

in this country who have endeavoured to deal with the Gipsy question is,

their hesitation to tackle the Gipsy difficulty at home. On the surface

of the books they have written there appears a disposition to mince the

subject, at all events, that amount of courage has not been put into

their works that characterised Grellmann's work upon the Gipsies of his

own country. If an account similar to Grellmann's had appeared

concerning our English Gipsies a century ago, and energetic action had

been taken by our law-makers, instead of publishing an account of the

Hungarian and other Continental Gipsies, it is impossible to calculate

the beneficent results that would have accrued long before this, both to

the Gipsies themselves and the country at large.

[Picture: Inside a Gipsy Fortune-teller's van near Latimer Road]

One writer deals principally with the Scotch Gipsies, another with the

Spanish Gipsies, another is trying to prove the Egyptian origin of the

Gipsies, another is tracing their language, another treats upon our

English Gipsies in a kind of "milk-and-watery" fashion that will neither

do them good nor harm--he pleases his readers, but leaves the Gipsies

where he found them, viz., in the ditch. Another went to work on the

principle of praying and believing for them; but, I am sorry to say, in

his circumscribed sphere his faith and works fell flat, on account, no

doubt, of this dear, good man and his friends undertaking to do a work

which should in that day have been undertaken by the State, at least,

that part of it relating to the education of the Gipsy children.

The Gipsy race is supposed to be the most beautiful in the world, and

amongst the Russian Gipsies are to be found countenances, which, to do

justice to, would require an abler pen than mine; but exposure to the

rays of the sun, the biting of the frost, and the pelting of the pitiless

sleet and snow destroys the beauty at a very early age, and if in infancy

their personal advantages are remarkable, their ugliness at an advanced

age is no less so, for then it is loathsome and appalling:--"He wanted

but the dark and kingly crown to have represented the monster who opposed

the progress of Lucifer whilst careering in burning arms and infernal

glory to the outlet of his hellish prison." In our own country a number

of Gipsies sit as models, for which they get one shilling per hour. They

are not in demand as perfect specimens of the human figure from the crown

of the head to the sole of the foot; but few of them, owing to their low,

debasing habits, have arrived at that state of perfection. I know one

real, fine, old Gipsy woman who sits to artists for the back of her head

only, on account of her black, frizzy, raven locks. One will sit for her

eyes, another for the nose, another for the hands and feet, another for

the colour only. Alfred Smith sits for his feet, and there are others

who sit for their legs and arms. No class of people, owing to their

mixture with other classes, tribes, and nations, presents a greater

variety of models for the artist than the Gipsy. If an artist wants to

paint a thief he can find a model among the Gipsies. If he wants to

paint a dark highwayman lurking behind a hedge after his prey he goes to

the Gipsy. If he wants to paint Ajax he goes to the Gipsy. If he wants

to paint a Grecian, Roman, or Spaniard he goes to the Gipsy. Of course

there are exceptions, but if an artist wants to paint a large, fine,

intellectual-looking figure, with an open countenance, he keeps away from

the Gipsies and seeks his models elsewhere. Dregs among the Gipsies have

produced queens for the artists.

Gipsies with a mixture of English blood in their veins have produced men

with pluck, courage, and stamina, strongly built, with plenty of muscle

and bone. Two "bruisers" of the Gipsy vagabond class have worn the

champion's belt of the world; and, on the other hand, this mixture of

English and Gipsy blood has produced some fine delicate Grecian forms of

female beauty, dove-like, soft in eye, hand, and heart--the flashy fire

in the eye of a Gipsy has been reduced to the modesty and innocence and

simplicity of a child. Our present race of Gipsies, under the influence

of education, refinement, and religion, will, if properly and wisely

taken in hand and dealt with according to the light of reason and truth,

produce a class of men and women well qualified to take their share, for

weal or for woe, in the struggle of life.

Some first-rate songsters and musicians have been produced among the

Gipsies, and whose merits have been acknowledged. Perhaps the highest

compliment ever paid to a singer was paid by Catalini herself to one of

the daughters of a tanned and tawny skin. It is well known in Russia

that the celebrated Italian was so enchanted with the voice of a Moscow

Gipsy (who, after the former had displayed her noble talent before a

splendid audience in the old Russian capital, stepped forward and poured

forth one of her national strains) that she tore from her own shoulders a

shawl of cashmere which had been presented to her by the Pope, and,

embracing the Gipsy, insisted on her acceptance of the splendid gift,

saying that it was intended for the matchless songster, which she now

perceived she herself was not. No doubt there are many good voices among

our Gipsies; what is required to bring them out is education and culture.

Our best Gipsy songsters and musicians are in Wales.

The following is a specimen of a Gipsy poetic effusion, which my Gipsy

admirers will not consider an extraordinarily high-flown production--the

outcome of nearly one million Gipsies who have wandered up and down

Europe for more than three hundred years, as related by Borrow.

TWO GIPSIES.

"Two Gipsy lads were transported,

Were sent across the great water;

Plato was sent for rioting,

And Louis for stealing the purse

Of a great lady.

"And when they came to the other country,

The country that lies across the water,

Plato was speedily hung,

But Louis was taken as a husband

By a great lady.

"You wish to know who was the lady:

'Twas the lady from whom he stole the purse;

The Gipsy had a black and witching eye,

And on account of that she followed him

Across the great water."

Smart and Crofton, speaking poetically and romantically of Gipsy life,

say as follows:--

"With the first spring sunshine comes the old longing to be off, and soon

is seen, issuing from his winter quarters, a little cavalcade, tilted

cart, bag and baggage, donkeys and dogs, rom, romni, and tickni, chavis,

and the happy family is once more under weigh for the open country. With

dark, restless eye and coarse, black hair fluttered by the breeze, he

slouches along, singing as he goes, in heart, if not in precise words--

"I loiter down by thorpe and town,

For any job I'm willing;

Take here and there a dusty brown,

And here and there a shilling.

No carpet can please him like the soft green turf, and no curtains

compare with the snow-white blossoming hedgerow thereon. A child of

Nature, he loves to repose on the bare breast of the great mother. As

the smoke of his evening fire goes up to heaven, and the savoury odour of

roast hotchi witchi or of canengri soup salutes his nostrils, he sits in

the deepening twilight drinking in with unconscious delight all the

sights and sounds which the country affords; with his keen senses alive

to every external impression he feels that

"'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear,

'Tis sweet to listen as the night winds creep

From leaf to leaf.

He dreamily hears the distant bark of the prowling fox, and the

melancholy hootings of the wood owls; he marks the shriek of the

night-wandering weasel, and the rustle of the bushes as some startled

forest creature darts into deep coverts; or, perchance, the faint sounds

from a sequestered hamlet of a great city. Cradled from infancy in such

haunts as these 'places of nestling green for poets made,' and surely for

Gipsies too, no wonder if, after the fitful fever of town life, he sleeps

well, with the unforgotten and dearly-loved lullabies of his childhood

soothing him to rest."

The following is in their own Gipsy language to each other, and exhibits

a true type of the feeling of revenge they foster to one another for

wrongs done and injuries received, and may be considered a fair specimen

of the disposition of thousands of Gipsies in our midst:--"Just see,

mates, what a blackguard he is. He has been telling wicked lies about

us, the cursed dog. I will murder him when I get hold of him. That

creature, his wife, is just as bad. She is worse than he. Let us thrash

them both and drive them out of our society, and not let them come near

us, such cut-throats and informers as they are. They are nothing but

murderers. They are informers. We shall all come to grief through their

misdoings." Not much poetry and romance in language and characters of

this description.

"These Indians ne'er forget

Nor evermore forgive an injury."

The following is a wail of their own, taken from Smart and Crofton, and

will show that the Gipsies themselves do not think tent life is so

delightful, happy, and free as has been pictured in the imaginative brain

of novel writers, whose knowledge has been gained by visiting the Gipsies

as they have basked on the grassy banks on a hot summer day, surrounded

by the warbling songsters and rippling brooks of water, as clear as

crystal, at their feet, sending forth dribbling sounds of enchantment to

fall upon musical ears, touching the cords of poetic affection and lyric

sympathy:--"Now, mates, be quick. Put your tent up. Much rain will come

down, and snow, too--we shall all die to-night of cold; and bring

something to make a good fire, too. Put the tent down well, much wind

will come this night. My children will die of cold. Put all the rods in

the ground properly to make it stand well. The poor children cry for

food. My God! what shall I do to give them food to eat? I have nothing

to give them. They will die without food."

My object in this part will be to deal with the Gipsy question in a hard,

matter of fact way, both as regards their present condition and the only

remedy by which they are to be improved. No one believes in the power of

the Gospel more than I do as to its being able to rescue the very dregs

of society from misery and wretchedness; but in the case of the Gipsies

and canal-boatmen they cannot be got together so as to be brought under

its influence. Their darkness, ignorance, and flitting habits, prevent

them either reading about Jesus or being brought within the magic spell

of the Gospel. When once the Gipsy children have learned to read and

write I shall then have more faith in the power of God's truth reaching

the hearts of the Gipsies and producing better results.

The following letter has been handed to me by the uncle, to show what a

little, dark-eyed Gipsy girl of twelve years of age can do.

Notwithstanding all its faults it is a credit to the little beauty,

especially if it is taken into consideration that she has had no father

to teach her, and she has chiefly been her own schoolmaster and mistress.

She is the only one who can read and write in a large family. Her books

have been sign-boards, guide-posts, and mile-stones, and her light the

red glare of a coke fire. I give the letter to show two things; first,

that there is a strong desire among the poor Gipsy children for

education; second, that there is that mental calibre about the Gipsy

children of the present generation that only requires fostering,

handling, educating, and caring for as other children are to produce in

the next generation a class of people of whom no country need be ashamed.

They will be equal to stand shoulder to shoulder with other labouring

classes.

(Copy of envelope.)

"JOB CLATAN

"Char bottomar

"at ash be hols in

"Darbyshere."

(Copy of letter.)

"febury 18 1880.

"Dear uncel and Aunt

"I wright these few li to you hoping find you all well.

"Fanny Vickers as sent you a rose father and Mother as sent there best

love to you I think it is very strang you have never wrote it is Twenty

year if live till may it is a strang thing you doant com to see her She

is stark stone blind and lives with son john at gurtain I hope and trust

you will send us word how you are getting Fanny mother is not only a

very poor crater somtimes Mother often thinks she should often like to

see your bazy and joby you might com land see us in the summer if we had

nothing elce I ca il find them something to eat if mother never see you

in this world she is hopining to see you in heaven so no more from your

afexenen brother and sister Vickers good buy * * * * Kiss all on you * *

* *"

In speaking of the Gipsies in Scotland sixty years ago, Mr.

Deputy-Sheriff Moor, of Aberdeenshire, says as follows:--"Occasionally

vagrants, both single and in bands, appear in this part of the country,

resorting to fairs, when they commit depredations on the unwary." Sir

Walter Scott, Bart., says of the Gipsies:--"A set of people possessing

the same erratic habits, and practising the trade of tinkers, are well

known in the Borders, and have often fallen under the cognisance of the

law. They are often called Gipsies, and pass through the country

annually in small bands, with their carts and asses. The men are

tinkers, poachers, and thieves upon a small scale," and he goes on to say

that "some of the more atrocious families have been extirpated." Mr.

Riddell, Justice of Peace for Roxburghshire, says:--"They are thorough

desperadoes of the worst class of vagabonds. Those who travel through

this county give offence chiefly by poaching and small thefts. All of

them are perfectly ignorant of religion. They marry and cohabit amongst

each other, and are held in a sort of horror by the common people." Mr.

William Smith, the Baillie of Kelso, and a gentlemen of high position,

says:--"Some kind of honour peculiar to themselves seems to prevail in

their community. They reckon it a disgrace to steal near their homes, or

even at a distance if detected. I must always except that petty theft of

feeding their shilties and asses on the farmers' grass and corn, which

they will do whether at home or abroad." And he further says, "I am

sorry to say, however, that when checked in their licentious

appropriations they are much addicted both to threaten and to execute

revenge." Mr. Smith always visited the Gipsies upon one of the estates

of which he had the charge, consequently he would be likely to know more

about them than most people. A number of other gentleman confirmed these

statements. By comparing these remarks with the statements of Mr.

Harrison in a letter published in the _Standard_ last August, backing up

my case, it will be seen that the Scotch Gipsies if anything have

degenerated. Mr. Harrison's letter will be found in Part II.

Much has been said and written with reference to their health and age.

For my own part I firmly believe that the great ages to which they say

they live--of course there are many exceptions--are only myths and

delusions, and another of their dodges to excite sympathy. From the days

of their debauchery, and becoming what are termed under a respectable

phrase for Gipsies, "old hags," they seem to jump from sixty to between

seventy and eighty at a bound. I was talking to one I considered an old

woman as to her age only a day or two ago, and she said, with a pitiful

tone, "I am a long way over seventy," and I asked her if she could tell

me the year in which she was born, to which she replied that she "was

sixteen when the good Queen was crowned."

The following case, related to me by the tradesman himself, at

Battersea--a sharp, quick, business gentleman, who boasted to me that he

had never been sold before by any one--will show faintly how clever the

Gipsy women are at lying, deception, and cheating:--Three pretty,

well-dressed Gipsy women went into his shop one day last summer, and said

that they had arranged to have a christening on the morrow, and as beer

got into the heads of their men, and made them wild, which they did not

like to see on such occasions, they had decided to have a quiet, little,

respectable affair, and in place of beer they were going to have wine,

cakes, and biscuits after their tea; and they ordered some currant cake,

several bottles of wine, tea, sugar, and other things required on such

occasions, to the amount of two pounds fourteen shillings. The Gipsies

asked to have the bill made out and the goods packed in a hamper. And

while this was being done the Gipsies said to the tradesman: "Now, as we

have ordered so much from you, we think that you ought to buy a mat or

two and other things of us." Without consulting his wife, he agreed to

buy one or two things, to the amount of eleven shillings, which the

tradesman had thought would have been deducted from their account; but

the Gipsies thought differently--and here was the craft--and said, "We

don't understand figures. You had better pay us for the mats, &c., and

we will pay you for the wine." The tradesman, who was thrown off his

guard, paid them the eleven shillings. With this they walked out of his

shop, saying that they would take the bill with them, and send a man with

the money and a barrow for the wine, cake, &c., in a few minutes, which

they did not, but left the tradesman a wiser but sadder man for spending

eleven shillings in things he did not require; and his remarks to me

were, "No more Gipsies for me, thank you. I've had quite plenty of

Gipsies for my lifetime."

Cases have been known when the Gipsy women have gone among the farmers'

cattle and rubbed their nostrils with some nastiness to such an extent as

to cause the cattle to loathe their food. The Gipsy in the lane--who of

course knows all about the affair--goes to the farmer and tells him he

can cure his cattle. This is agreed upon. All the Gipsy does is to

visit the cattle secretly and slyly, and rub off the nastiness he has put

on. The cattle immediately begin to eat their food, and the Gipsy gets

his fee. They kill lambs by sticking pins into their heads.

Tallemant says that near Peye, in Picardy, a Gipsy offered a stolen sheep

to a butcher for one hundred sous, or five francs; but the butcher

declined to give more than four francs for it. The butcher then went

away; whereupon the Gipsy pulled the sheep from a sack into which he had

put it, and substituted for it a child belonging to his tribe. He then

ran after the butcher, and said, "Give me five francs, and you shall have

the sack into the bargain." The butcher paid him the money, and went

away. When he got home he opened the sack, and was much astonished when

he saw a little boy jump out of it, who in an instant caught up the sack

and ran off. "Never was a poor man so hoaxed as this butcher." When

they want to leave a place where they have been stopping they set out in

an opposite direction to that in their right course. The Gipsies have a

thousand other tricks--so says one of the Gipsy fraternity named Pechou

de Ruby. Paul Lacroix says that when they take up their quarters in any

village they steal very little in its immediate vicinity, but in the

neighbouring parishes they rob and plunder in the most daring manner. If

they find a sum of money they give notice to the captain, and make a

rapid flight from the place. They make counterfeit money, and put it

into circulation. They play all sorts of games; they buy all sorts of

horses, whether sound or unsound, provided they can manage to pay for

them in their own base coin. When they buy food, they pay for it in good

money the first time, as they are held in such distrust; but when they

are about to leave a neighbourhood they again buy something, for which

they tender false coin, receiving the change in good money. In harvest

time all doors are shut against them, nevertheless they contrive, by

means of picklocks and other instruments, to effect an entrance into

houses, when they steal linen, clocks, silver, and any other movable

article which they can lay their hands upon. They give a strict account

of everything to their captain, who takes his share. They are very

clever in making a good bargain. When they know of a rich merchant

living in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communication

with him, and swindle him, after which they change their clothes, have

their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft

material, lest they should be heard, and gallop away. Grellmann

says:--"The miserable condition of the Gipsies may be imagined from the

following facts: many of them, and especially the women, have been

burned, by their own request, in order to end their miserable existence;

and we can give the case of a Gipsy, who, having been arrested, flogged,

and conducted to the frontier, with the threat that if he re-appeared in

the country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after three

successive and similar threats at three different places, and implored

that the capital sentence might be carried out, in order that he might be

released from a life of such misery." And he goes on to say that "these

unfortunate people were not even looked upon as human beings, for during

a hunting party the huntsmen had no scruple whatever in killing a Gipsy

woman who was suckling her child, just as they would have done any wild

beast which came in their way." And he further says that they received

"into their ranks all those whose crime, the fear and punishment of an

uneasy conscience, or the charm of a roaming life continually threw in

their path; they made use of them either to find their way into countries

of which they were ignorant, or to commit robberies which would otherwise

have been impracticable. They were not slow to form an alliance with

profligate characters, who sometimes worked in concert with them."

A century ago it was somewhat romantic, and answered very well as a

contrast to civilisation, to see a number of people moving about the

country, dressed in beaver hats and bonnets, scarlet cloaks and hoods,

short petticoats, velvet coats with silver buttons, and a plentiful

supply of gold rings. The novelty of their person, with dark skin and

eyes, black hair, and their fortune-telling proclivities, and other odd

curiosities and eccentricities, answered well for a time as a kind of

eye-blinder to their little thefts and like things; but that day is over.

Their silver buttons are all gone to pot. Their silk velvet coats, plush

waistcoats, and diamond rings have vanished, never more to return with

their present course of life; patched breeches, torn coats, slouched

hats, and washed gold rings have taken their places, and ragged garments

in place of silk dresses for the poor Gipsy women. The Gipsy men

"lollock" about, the women tell fortunes, and the children gambol on the

ditch banks with impunity, nobody caring to interfere with them in any

way. This kind of thing, as regards dash and show, is to a great extent

passed, and those men who put on a show of work at all, it is as a

general thing at tinkering, chair-mending, peg-splitting, skewer-making,

and donkey buying. The men make the skewers and sell them at prices

varying from one shilling to two shillings per stone; the wood for the

skewers they do not always buy. A friend of mine told me a couple of

months since that the Gipsies had broken down his fences with impunity,

and had taken five hundred young saplings out of his plantation for this

purpose. Chairs are bottomed at prices ranging from one shilling and

upwards. Some of them do scissor-grinding, for which they charge

exorbitant prices. Sir G. H. Beaumont, Bart., of Coleorton Hall, told me

very recently that one of the Boswell gang had charged him two shillings

for grinding one knife. Some of the women, who are not good hands at

fortune-telling, sell artificial flowers, combs, brushes, lace, &c. The

women who are good at fortune-telling can make a good thing out of it,

even at this late day, in the midst of so much light and Christianity,

and they carry it out very adroitly and cleverly too. Two or three

months ago I was invited by some Gipsy friends to have tea with them on

the outskirts of London. They very kindly sent for twopenny worth of

butter for me, and allowed me the honour of using the only cup and

saucer, which they said were over one hundred years old. The tea for the

grown-up sons and daughters was handed round in mugs, jugs, and basins.

The good old man cut my bread and butter with his dark coloured hands

pretty thin, but the bread for his sons and daughters was like pieces of

bricks, which, with pieces of bacon, he pitched at them without any

ceremony, and as they caught it they, although men and women, kept saying

"Thank you, pa," "Thank you, pa," and down it went without either knives

or forks, or very little grinding. We were all sitting upon the floor,

my table being an undressed brick out of some old building, and it was

with some difficulty I could keep the pigs that were running loose in the

yard from taking a piece off my plate, but with a pretty free use of my

toe I kept sending the little grunters squeaking away. After tea I felt

a little curious to know what was in the big old Gipsy dame's basket, for

I had an idea one or two hair-brushes, combs, laces, and other small

trifles which lay on the top of a small piece of oilcloth covering the

inside of the basket had, by their greasy appearance, done duty for many

a long day. I told the old Gipsy dame that I was going home the next

day, and should like to take a little thing or two for my little ones at

home, as having been bought of a Gipsy woman near London. The sharp old

woman was not long in offering me one or two of her trifles that lay on

the top of her basket, but these I said were not so suitable as I should

like. "Had she nothing more suitable lower down as a small present?"

After a little fumbling and flustering she began to see my motive, and

said, "Ah! I see what you are after. I will tell you the truth and show

you all." She turned the oilcloth off the basket, underneath of which

were "shank ends" of joints, ham-bones, pieces of bacon, and crusts.

"These," she said, "have been given to me by servant girls and others for

telling their fortunes, really lies, and I have brought them here for my

children to live upon, and this is how we live."

[Picture: Gipsy Fortune-tellers cooking their evening meal]

Fortune-telling is a soul-crushing and deadly crying evil, and it is far

from being stamped out. A hawker's licence, about the size of one of

these pages, covers a life-time of sin and iniquity in this respect. A

basket with half-a-dozen brushes, combs, laces, a piece of oilcloth, and

a pocket Bible, is all the stock-in-trade they require, and it will serve

them for a year. They generally prophecy good. Knowing the readiest way

to deceive, to a young lady they describe a handsome gentleman as one she

may be assured will be her "husband." To a youth they promise a pretty

lady with a large fortune. And thus suiting their deluding speeches to

the age, circumstances, anticipations, and prospects of those who employ

them, they seldom fail to please their vanity, and often gain a rich

reward for their fraud.

A young lady in Gloucestershire allowed herself to be deluded by a Gipsy

woman, of artful and insinuating address, to a very great extent. This

lady admired a young gentleman, and the Gipsy promised that he would

return her love. The lady gave her all the plate in the house, and a

gold chain and locket, with no other security than a vain promise that

they should be restored at a given period. As might be expected, the

wicked woman was soon off with her booty, and the lady was obliged to

expose her folly. The property being too much to lose, the woman was

pursued and overtaken. She was found washing her clothes in a Gipsy

camp, with the gold chain about her neck. She was taken up, but on

restoring the articles was allowed to escape.

The same woman afterwards persuaded a gentleman's groom that she could

put him in possession of a great sum of money if he would first deposit

with her all he then had. He gave her five pounds and his watch, and

borrowed for her ten more of two of his friends. She engaged to meet him

at midnight in a certain place a mile from the town where he lived, and

that he there should dig up out of the ground a silver pot full of gold

covered with a clean napkin. He went with his pickaxe and shovel at the

appointed time to the supposed lucky spot, having his confidence

strengthened by a dream he happened to have about money, which he

considered a favourable omen of the wealth he was soon to receive. Of

course he met no Gipsy; she had fled another way with the property she

had so wickedly obtained. While waiting her arrival a hare started

suddenly from its resting-place and so alarmed him that he as suddenly

took to his heels and made no stop till he reached his master's house,

where he awoke his fellow-servants and told to them his disaster.

This woman, who made so many dupes, rode a good horse, and dressed both

gaily and expensively. One of her saddles cost thirty pounds. It was

literally studded with silver, for she carried on it the emblems of her

profession wrought in that metal--namely, a half moon, seven stars, and

the rising sun. Poor woman! _her_ sun is set. Her sins have found her

out. Fortune-tellers die hard without exception, so I am told by the

Gipsies themselves.

Some time ago a gentleman followed several Gipsy families. Arriving at

the place of their encampment his first object was to gain their

confidence. This was accomplished; after which, to amuse their

unexpected visitant, they showed forth their night diversions in music

and dancing; likewise the means by which they obtained their livelihood,

such as tinkering, fortune-telling, and conjuring. That the gentleman

might be satisfied whether he had obtained their confidence or not, he

represented his dangerous situation, in the midst of which they all with

one voice cried, "Sir, we would kiss your feet rather than hurt you!"

After manifesting a confidence in return, the master of this formidable

gang, about forty in number, was challenged by the gentleman for a

conjuring match. The challenge was instantly accepted. The Gipsies

placed themselves in a circular form, and both being in the middle

commenced with their conjuring powers to the best advantage. At last the

visitor proposed the making of something out of nothing. This proposal

was accepted. A stone which never existed was to be created, and appear

in a certain form in the middle of a circle made on the turf. The master

of the gang commenced, and after much stamping with his foot, and the

gentleman warmly exhorting him to cry aloud, like the roaring of a lion,

he endeavoured to call forth nonentity into existence. Asking him if he

could do it, he answered, "I am not strong enough." They were all asked

the same question, which received the same answer. The visitor

commenced. Every eye was fixed upon him, eager to behold this unheard-of

exploit; but (and not to be wondered at) he failed! telling them he

possessed no more power to create than themselves. Perceiving the

thought of insufficiency pervading their minds, he thus spoke: "Now, if

you have not power to create a poor little stone, and if 1 have not power

either, what must that power be which made the whole world out of

nothing?--men, women, and children! that power I call God Almighty."

I have been told that the dislike they have to rule and order has led

many of them to maim themselves by cutting off a finger, that they might

not serve in either the army or the navy; and I believe there is one

instance known of some Gipsies murdering a witness who was to appear

against some of their people for horse-stealing; the persons who were

guilty of the deed are dead, and in their last moments exclaimed with

horror and despair, "Murder, murder." But these circumstances do not

stamp their race without exception as infamous monsters in wickedness.

The following is a remarkable instance of the love of costly attire in a

female Gipsy of the old school. The woman alluded to obtained a very

large sum of money from three maiden ladies, pledging that it should be

doubled by her art in conjuration. She then decamped to another

district, where she bought a blood-horse, a black beaver hat, a new

side-saddle and bridle, a silver-mounted whip, and figured away in her

ill-obtained finery at the fairs. It is not easy to imagine the

disappointment and resentment of the covetous and credulous ladies, whom

she had so easily duped. With the present race of our gutter-scum

Gipsies the last remnant of Gipsy pride is nearly dead--poverty, rags,

and despair taking the place.

Gipsies of the old type are not strangers to pawnbrokers' shops; but they

do not visit these places for the same purposes as the vitiated poor of

our trading towns. A pawnshop is their bank. When they acquire property

illegally, as by stealing, swindling, or fortune-telling, they purchase

valuable plate, and sometimes in the same hour pledge it for safety.

Such property they have in store against days of adversity and trouble,

which on account of their dishonest habits often overtake them. Should

one of their families stand before a judge of his country, charged with a

crime which is likely to cost him his life, or to transport him, every

article of value is sacrificed to save him from death or apprehended

banishment. In such cases they generally retain a counsel to plead for

the brother in adversity. Their attachment to the horse, donkey, rings,

snuff-box, silver spoons, and all things, except the clothes, of the

deceased relatives is very strong. With such articles they will never

part, except in the greatest distress, and then they only pledge some of

them, which are redeemed as soon as they possess the means.

It has been stated by some writers, that there is hardly a Gipsy in

existence who could not, if desired, produce his ten or twenty pounds "at

a pinch." Some of those who work, no doubt, could; but it is entirely

erroneous, as many other statements relating to the Gipsies, to imagine

that the whole of them are as well off as all this. Smith tells us that

there is not one in twenty who can show one pound, much less twenty. A

Gipsy named Boswell travelled about in the Midland counties with a large

van pretty well stocked with his wares, and everybody, especially the

Gipsies, thought he was a rich man; but in course of time it came to pass

that he died, which event revealed the fact that he was not worth

half-a-crown. No class of men and women under the sun has been more

wicked than the Gipsies, and no class has prospered less. By their evil

deeds for centuries they have brought themselves under the curse of God

and the lash of the law wherever they have been.

"To our foes we leave a shame! disgrace can never die;

Their sons shall blush to hear a name still blackened with a lie."

Their miserable condition, the persecution, misrepresentation, and the

treatment they are receiving are due entirely to their own

evil-doing--lying, cheating, robbing, and murder bring their own reward.

The Gipsies of to-day are drinking the dregs of the cups they had mixed

for others. The sly wink of the eye intended to touch the heart of the

innocent and simple has proved to be the electric spark that has reached

heaven, and brought down the vengeance of Jehovah upon their heads. The

lies proceeding from their bad hearts have turned out to be a swarm of

wasps settling down upon their own pates; their stolen goods have been

smitten with God's wrath; the horses, mules, and donkeys in their

unlawful possession are steeds upon which the Gipsies are riding to hell;

and the fortune-telling cards are burning the fingers of the Gipsy women;

in one word, the curse of God is following them in every footstep on

account of their present sins, and not on account of their past

traditions. Immediately they alter their course of life, and "cease to

do evil and learn to do well"--no matter whether they are Jews or

barbarians, bond or free--the blessing of God will follow, and they will

begin to thrive and prosper.

Smoking and eating tobacco adds another leaden weight to those already

round their neck, and it helps to bow them down to the ground--a short

black pipe, the ranker and oftener it has been used the more delicious

will be the flavour, and the better they will like it. When their

"baccy" is getting "run out," the short pipe is handed round to the

company of Gipsies squatting upon the ground, without any delicacy of

feeling, for all of them to "have a pull." Spittoons are things they

never use. White, scented, cambric pocket-handkerchiefs are not often

brought into request upon their "lovely faces." They prefer allowing the

bottom of the dresses the honour of appearing before his worship "the

nose." Nothing pleases the Gipsies better than to give them some of the

weed. I saw a poor, dying, old Gipsy woman the other day. Nothing

seemed to please her so much, although she could scarcely speak, as to

delight in referring to the sins of her youth, of a kind before referred

to, and no present was so acceptable to her as "a nounce of baccy." She

said she "would rather have it than gold," and I "could not have pleased

her better." I doubt whether she lived to smoke it. I think I am

speaking within the mark when I state that fully three-fourths of the

Gipsy women in this country are inveterate smokers. It is a black,

burning shame for us to have such a state of things in our midst. In

nine cases out of ten the children of drunken, smoking women will turn

out to be worthless scamps and vagabonds, and a glance at the Gipsies

will prove my statements.

Eternity will reveal their deeds of darkness--murders, immorality,

torturous and heart-rending treatment to their poor slaves of women,

beastly and murderous brutality to their poor children. There is a

terrible reckoning coming for the "Gipsy man," who can chuckle to his

fowls, and kick, with his iron-soled boot, his poor child to death; who

can warm and shelter his blackbird, and send the offspring of his own

body to sleep upon rotten straw and the dung-heap, covered over with

sticks and rags, through which light, hail, wind, rain, sleet, and snow

can find its way without let or hinderance; who can take upon his knees a

dog and fondle it in his bosom, and, at the same time, spit in his wife's

face with oaths and cursing, and send her out in the snow on a

piercing-cold winter's day, half clad and worse fed, with child on her

back and basket on her arm, to practise the art of double-dyed lying and

deception on honest, simple people, in order to bring back her ill-gotten

gains to her semi-clad hovel, on which to fatten her "lord and master,"

by half-cleaned knuckle-bones, ham-shanks, and pieces of bacon that fall

from the "rich man's table."

The following is a specimen of house-dwelling Gipsies in the Midlands I

have visited. In the room downstairs there were a broken-down old squab,

two rickety old chairs, and a three-legged table that had to be propped

against the wall, and a rusty old poker, with a smoking fire-place. The

Gipsy father was a strong man, not over fond of work; he had been in

prison once; the mother, a strong Gipsy woman of the old type, marked

with small-pox, and plenty of tongue--by the way, I may say I have not

yet seen a dumb and deaf Gipsy. She turned up her dress sleeves and

showed me how she had "made the blood run out of another Gipsy woman for

hitting her child." As she came near to me exhibiting her fisticuffing

powers, I might have been a little nervous years ago; but dealing with

men and things in a rough kind of fashion for so many years has taken

some amount of nervousness of this kind out of me.

It may be as well to remark here that the Gipsy women can do their share

of fighting, and are as equally pleased to have a stand-up fight as the

Gipsy men are. One of these Gipsy women lives with a man who is not a

thorough Gipsy, who spends a deal of his time under lock and key on

account of his poaching inclinations; and other members of this large

family are on the same kind of sliding scale, and not one of whom can

read or write.

It is not pleasant to say strong things about clergymen, for whom I have

the highest respect; nevertheless, there are times when respect for

Christ's church, duty to country, love for the children and anxiety for

their eternal welfare, compels you to step out of the beaten rut to

expose, though with pain, wrong-doing. In a day and Sunday school-yard

connected with the Church of England, not one hundred miles from London,

there are to be seen--and I am informed by them, except during the

hop-picking season, that it is their camping-ground, and has been for

years--one van, in which there are man, wife, young woman, and a daughter

of about fourteen years of age; the young woman and daughter sleep in a

kind of box under the man and his wife. In another part of the yard is a

Gipsy tent, where God's broad earth answers the purpose of a table, and a

"batten of straw" serves as a bed. There is a woman, two daughters, one

of whom is of marriageable age and the other far in her teens, and a

youth I should think about sixteen years of age. I should judge that the

mother and her two daughters sleep on one bed at one end of the tent and

the youth at the other; there is no partition between them, and only

about seven feet of space between each bed of litter. In another tent

there is man, wife, and one child. When I was there, on the Sunday

afternoon, they were expecting the Gipsy "to come home to his tent drunk

and wake the baby." In another tent there was a Gipsy with his lawful

wife and three children. One of the Gipsy women in the yard frequently

came home drunk, and I have seen her smoking with a black pipe in her

mouth three parts tipsy. Now, I ask my countrymen if this is the way to

either improve the habits and morals of the Gipsies themselves, or to set

a good example to day and Sunday scholars. Drunkenness is one of the

evil associations of Gipsy life. Brandy and "fourpenny," or "hell fire,"

as it is sometimes called, are their chief drinks. A Gipsy of the name

of Lee boasted to me only a day or two since that he had been drunk every

night for more than a fortnight, his language being, "Oh! it is

delightful to get drunk, tumble into a row, and smash their peepers.

What care we for the bobbies." They seldom if ever use tumblers. A

large jug is filled with this stuff, in colour and thickness almost like

treacle and water, leaving a kind of salty taste behind it as it passes

out of sight; but, I am sorry to say, not out of the body, mind, or

brain, leaving a trail upon which is written--more! more! more! Under

its influence they either turn saints or demons as will best serve their

purpose. The more drink some of the Gipsy women get the more the red

coloured piety is observable in their faces, and when I have been talking

to them, or otherwise, they have said, "Amen," "Bless the Lord," "Oh, it

is nice to be 'ligious and Christany," as they have closed round me; and

with the same breath they have begun to talk of murder, bloodshed, and

revenge, and to say, "How nice it is to get a living by telling lies."

Half an ounce of tobacco and a few gentle words have a most wonderful

effect upon their spirits and nerves under such circumstances. I have

frequently seen drunken Gipsy women in the streets of London. Early this

year I met one of my old Gipsy women friends in Garrett Lane, Wandsworth,

with evidently more than she could carry, and a weakness was observable

in her knees; and when she saw me she was not so far gone as not to know

who I was. She tried to make a curtsy, and in doing so very nearly lost

her balance, and it took her some ten yards to recover her perpendicular.

With a little struggling, stuttering, and stumbling, she got right, and

pursued her way to the tent.

In December of last year four Gipsies, of Acton Green, were charged

before the magistrates at Hammersmith with violently assaulting an

innkeeper for refusing to allow them to go into a private part of his

house. A terrible struggle ensued, and a long knife was fetched out of

their tents, and had they not been stopped the consequences might have

been fearful. They were sent to gaol for two months, which would give

them time for reflection. A few days ago two Gipsies from the East End

of London were sent to gaol for thieving, and are now having their turn

upon the wheel of fortune.

"Whirl fiery circles, and the moon is full:

Imps with long tongues are licking at my brow,

And snakes with eyes of flame crawl up my breast;

Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns,

And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands;

Great trunks have some, and some are hung with beads.

Here serpents dash their stings into my face,

All tipped with fire; and there a wild bird drives

His red-hot talons in my burning scalp.

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 minerals. Murther! Fire!"

Cries the Gipsy, as he rolls about on his bed of filthy litter, in a tent

whose only furniture is an old tin bucket pierced with holes, a soap-box,

and a few rags, with a poor-looking, miserable woman for a wife, and a

lot of wretched half-starved, half-naked children crying round him for

bread. "Give us bread!" "Give us bread!" is their piteous cry.

The Gipsy in Hungary is a being who has puzzled the wits of the

inhabitants for centuries, and the habits of the Hungarian Gipsies are

abominable; their hovels, for they do not all live in tents and

encampments, are sinks of the vilest poverty and filth; their dress is

nothing but rags, and they live on carrion; and it is in this pitiable

condition they go singing and dancing to hell. Nothing gives them more

pleasure than to be told where a dead pig, horse, or cow may be found,

and the Gipsies, young and old, will scamper to fetch it; decomposition

rather sharpens their ravenous appetites; at any rate, they will not

"turn their noses up" at it in disgust; in fact, Grellmann goes so far as

to say that human flesh is a dainty morsel, especially that of children.

What applies to the Hungarian Gipsies will to a large extent apply to the

Gipsies in Spain, Germany, France, Russia, and our own country. There is

no proof of our Gipsies eating children; but if I am to believe their own

statements, the dead dogs, cats, and pigs that happen to be in their way

run the risk of being potted for soup, and causing a "smacking of the

lips" as the heathens sit round their kettle--which answers the purpose

of a swill-tub when not needed for cooking--as it hangs over the coke

fire, into which they dip their platters with relish and delight. What

becomes of the dead donkeys, mules, ponies, and horses that die during

their trafficking is best known to themselves. No longer since than last

winter I was told by some Gipsies on the outskirts of London that some of

their fraternity had been seen on more than one occasion picking up dead

cats out of the streets of London to take home to their dark-eyed

beauties and lovely damsels. Only a few days since I was told by a lot

of Gipsies upon Cherry Island, and in presence of some of the Lees, that

some of their fraternity, and they mentioned some of their names, had

often picked up snails, worms, &c., and put them alive into a pan over

their coke fires, and as the life was being frizzled out of the creeping

things they picked them out of the pan with their fingers and put them

into their months without any further ceremony. I cannot for the life of

me think that human nature is at such a low ebb among them as to make

this kind of life general. At most I should think cases of this kind are

exceptional. Their food, whether it be animal or vegetable, is generally

turned into a kind of dirty-looking, thick liquid, which they think good

enough to be called soup. Their principal meal is about five o'clock,

upon the return of the mother after her hawking and cadging expeditions.

Their bread, as a rule, is either bought, stolen, or begged. When they

bake, which is very seldom, they put their lumps of dough among the red

embers of their coke fires. Sometimes they will eat like pigs, till they

have to loose their garments for more room, and other times they starve

themselves to fiddle-strings. A few weeks since, when snow was on the

ground, I saw in the outskirts of London eight half-starved, poor,

little, dirty, Gipsy children dining off three potatoes, and drinking the

potato water as a relish. They do not always use knife and fork. Table,

plates, and dishes are not universal among them. Their whole kitchen and

table requirements are an earthen pot, an iron pan, which serves as a

dish, a knife, and a spoon. When the meal is ready the whole family sit

round the pot or pan, and then "fall to it" with their fingers and teeth,

Adam's knives and forks, and the ground providing the table and plates.

Boiled pork is, as a rule, their universal, every-day, central

pot-boiler, and the longer it is boiled the harder it gets, like the

Irishman who boiled his egg for an hour to get it soft, and then had to

give it up as a bad job. Some of these kind-hearted folks have, on more

than one occasion, given me "a feed" of it. It is sweet and nice, but

awfully satisfying, and I think two meals would last me for a week very

comfortably; all I should require would be to get a good dinner off their

knuckle-bones, roll myself up like a hedgehog, doze off like Hubert

Petalengro into a semi-unconscious state, and I should be all right for

three or four days. "Beggars must not be choosers." They have done what

they could to make me comfortable, and for which I have been very

thankful. I have had many a cup of tea with them, and hope to do so

again.

One writer observes:--"Commend me to Gipsy life and hard living. Robust

exercise, out-door life, and pleasant companions are sure to beget good

dispositions both of body and mind, and would create a stomach under the

very ribs of death capable of digesting a bar of pig-iron." Their habits

of uncleanliness are most disgusting. Occasionally you will meet with

clean people, and children with clean, red, chubby faces; but in nine

cases out of ten they are of parents who have had a different bringing up

than squatting about in the mud and filth. One woman I know at Notting

Hill, and who was born in an Oxfordshire village, is at the present time

surrounded with filth of the most sickening kind, which she cannot help,

and to her credit manages to keep her children tolerably clean and nice

for a woman of her position. There is another at Garrett Lane,

Wandsworth; another at Sheepcot Lane, Battersea; two at Upton Park; one

at Cherry Island; two at Hackney Wick, and several others in various

parts on the outskirts of London. At Hackney Wick I saw twenty tents and

vans, connected with which there were forty men and women and about

seventy children of all ages, entirely devoid of all sanitary

arrangements. A gentleman who was building some property in the

neighbourhood told me that he had seen grown-up youths and big girls

running about entirely nude in the morning, and squatting about the

ground and leaving their filth behind them more like animals than human

beings endowed with souls and reason. When I was there it was with some

difficulty I could put my foot in a clean place. The same kind of thing

occurs in a more or less degree wherever Gipsies are located, and, sad to

relate, house-dwelling Gipsies are very little better in this respect.

Grellmann, speaking of the German and Hungarian Gipsies many years ago,

says:--"We may easily account for the colour of their skin. The

Laplanders, Samoyeds, as well as the Siberians, have bronze,

yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living from their childhood in

smoke and dirt, as the Gipsies do. These would long ago have got rid of

their swarthy complexions if they had discontinued this Gipsy manner of

living. Observe only a Gipsy from his birth till he comes to man's

estate, and one must be convinced that their colour is not so much owing

to their descent as to the nastiness of their bodies. In summer the

child is exposed to the scorching sun, in winter it is shut up in a smoky

hut. Some mothers smear their children over with black ointment, and

leave them to fry in the sun or near the fire. They seldom trouble

themselves about washing or other modes of cleaning themselves.

Experience also shows us that it is more their manner of life than

descent which has propagated this black colour of the Gipsies from

generation to generation." I am told, and I verily believe it, that many

of the children are not washed for years together. I have seen over and

over again dirt peeling off the poor children's bodies and faces like a

skin, and leaving a kind of white patch behind it, presenting a kind of a

piebald spectacle. Some of the children never take their clothes off

till they drop off in shreds. Many of the Gipsies, both old and young,

have only one suit of clothes. English delicacy of feeling and sentiment

for female virtue must stand abashed with horror at this kind of

civilisation in the nineteenth century of Christian England. I have seen

washing done on the Sunday afternoon among them, and while the clothes

have been drying on the line the women and children have been roasting

themselves before the fires in nearly a nude state. A Sunday or two ago

a poor Gipsy woman was washing her only smoky-looking blanket late in the

afternoon, and upon which she would have to lay that night. It was a

cold, wintry, drizzling afternoon, and how it was to get dry was a puzzle

to me. A Gipsy woman, named Hearn, said to me a few days ago, in answer

to some conversation relating to their dirty habits; "The reason for the

Gipsies not washing themselves oftener was on account of their catching

cold after each time they washed." She "only washed herself once in a

fortnight, and she was almost sure to catch cold after it." In some

things the real old Gipsies are very particular, _i.e._, they will on no

account take their food out of cups, saucers, or basins, that have been

washed in the same pansions in which their linen has been washed; so

sensitive are they on this point that if they found out that by an

accident this custom had been transgressed they would immediately break

the vessel to pieces. This is a custom picked up by the Gipsies among

the Jews in their wandering from India through the Holy Land. Another

practice they adopt in common with the Jews is, swearing or taking oaths

over their dead relations. The customs, practices, and words picked up

by them during their wanderings have added to their mystification. While

they will respect certain delicacy observed among the Jews, they will eat

pork, the most detestable of all food in the eyes of the Israelites, and

will even pay a greater price for it than for beef or mutton. An

Englishwoman, who had married a Gipsy named Smith, told me very recently,

in presence of her mother-in-law and another woman, that she had seen her

husband eat a small plate of cooked snails as a dainty. While the

daughter-in-law was telling me this, the old Gipsy mother-in-law, with

one foot in the grave, not far from Mary's Place, near the Potteries,

Notting Hill, was trying to make me believe what a choice dish there was

in store for me if I would allow her to cook me a hedgehog. She said I

should "find it nicer than the finest rabbit or pheasant I had ever

tasted." The fine, old, Gipsy woman, as regards her appearance, although

suffering from congestion of lungs and inflammation, and expecting every

moment to be her last, would joke and make fun as if nothing was the

matter with her. When I questioned her upon the sin of lying, she said,

"If the dear Lord spares me, I shall tell lies again. I could not get on

without it; how could I? I could not sell my things without lies." She

was rather severe, and this was a pleasing feature in the old woman's

character, upon a Gipsy who was pretending to "'ligious," and yet living

upon the money gained by his wife in telling fortunes. She said, "If I

must be ''ligious,' I would be ''ligious.' You might," said the old

woman, "as well eat the devil as suck his broth. Ah! I hate the fellow."

After asking her, and getting her interpretation of "God bless you" in

Romany, which is Mi-Doovel-Parik-tooti--and she was the only Gipsy round

London who could put the words in Romany--and some other conversation

accompanied with "coppers and baccy," &c., and to which she replied,

"Amen!" with as much earnestness as if she was the greatest saint outside

heaven, we parted.

Much has been said and written years ago about the chastity, fidelity,

and faithfulness of the Gipsies towards each other. This may have been

the case, and in a few exceptional cases it holds good now; but if I am

to believe these men themselves they are very isolated indeed, and what I

have said upon this point about the brick-yard _employes_ in my "Cry of

the Children from the Brick-yards of England," and also those living in

canal-boats, in "Our Canal Population," holds good, but with ten times

more force concerning the Gipsies. Immorality abounds to a most alarming

degree. Incest, wantonness, lasciviousness, lechery, whoring, bigamy,

and every other abomination low, degrading, carnal appetites, propensity,

and lust originate and encourage they practise openly, without the least

blush; in fact, I question if many of them know what it is to blush at

all.

I have heard a deal of disgusting, filthy language in my time among

brick-yard and canal-boat women, but not a tithe so sickening as among

some Gipsy women. I pitied them, and to look upon them as charitably as

possible I set it down to their extreme ignorance of the language they

used. A Gipsy at Upton Park last week named D--- gloried to my face in

the fact that he was not married. This same man has a brother not far

from Mitcham Common living with two sisters in an unlawful state.

Abraham Smith, a Gipsy at Upton Park, who is over seventy, and tells me

that he is trying to serve God and get to heaven, mentioned a case to me

of a Gipsy and a woman at Hackney Wick. The man has several children by

a woman now living with another man, and the woman has several children

by another man.

This Gipsy, S---, and his woman S---, turned both lots of their former

own children adrift upon the wide, wide world, uncared for, unprotected,

and abandoned, while they are living and indulging in sin to their

hearts' content, without the least shame and remorse. Inquire of whoever

I may, and look whichever way Providence directs me among the various

phases of Gipsy life, I find the same black array of facts staring me in

the face, the same dolorous issues everywhere. The words reason, honour,

restraint, and fidelity are words not to be found in their vocabulary.

My later inquiries fully confirm my previous statements as to two-thirds

living as husband and wife being unmarried. I have not found a Gipsy to

contradict this statement. Abraham Smith fully agrees with it.

The marriage ceremony of the Gipsies is a very off-hand affair. Formerly

there used to be some kind of ceremony performed by a friend. Now the

ceremony is not performed by any one. Of course there are a few who get

married at the church, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is

performed by the clergyman gratuitously. As soon as a boy has arrived in

his teens he begins to think that something more than eating and drinking

is necessary to him, and as the children of Gipsies are under no kind of

parental, moral, or social restraint, a connection is easily formed with

girls of twelve, some of them of close relationship. After a few hours,

in many cases, of courtship, they go together, and the affair so far is

over. They leave their parents' tents and set up one for themselves, and

for a short time this kind of life lasts. In course of time children are

born, the only attendant being, in many instances, another Gipsy woman,

or it may be members of their own families see to the poor woman in her

hour of need. If they have no vessel in which to wash the newly-born

child, they dig a hole in the ground, which is filled with cold water,

and the Gipsy babe is washed in it. This being over, the poor little

thing is wrapped in some old rags. This was the custom years ago, and I

verily believe the Gipsies have gone backwards instead of forwards in

matters of this kind.

The following brief account of a visit--one of many I have made to Gipsy

encampments at Hackney Marshes and other places during the present

winter--will give some faint idea of what Gipsy life is in this country,

as seen by me during my interviews with the Gipsies. The morning was

dark; the snow was falling fast; about six inches of snow and slush were

upon the ground--my object being in this case, as in others, viz., to

visit them at inclement seasons of the weather to find as many of the

Gipsies in their tents as possible, and as I closed my door I said,

"Lord, direct me," and off I started, not knowing which way to go.

Ultimately I found my way to Holborn, and took the 'bus, and, as I

thought, to Hackney, which turned out to be "a delusion and a snare," for

at the terminus I found myself some two and a half miles from the

Marshes; however, I was not going to turn back if the day was against me,

and after laying in a stock of sweets for the Gipsy children, and "baccy"

for the old folks, I commenced my squashy tramp till I arrived at the

Marshes; the difficulty here was the road leading to the tents being

covered ankle deep with snow and water, but as my feet were pretty well

wet I could be no worse off if I paddled through it. Consequently, after

these little difficulties were overcome, I found myself in the midst of

about a score of tents and vans of all sizes and descriptions, connected

with which there were not less than thirty-five grown-up Gipsies and

about sixty poor little Gipsies. The first van I came to was a kind of

one-horse cart with a cover over it; inside was a strong, hulking-looking

fellow and a poor, sickly-looking woman with five children. The woman

had only been confined a few days, and looked more fit for "the box" than

to be washing on such a cold, wintry day. On a bed--at least, some

rags--were three poor little children, one of whom was sick, which the

mother tried to prevent by putting her dirty apron to the child's mouth.

The large, piercing eyes of this poor, death-looking Gipsy child I shall

never forget; they have looked into my innermost soul scores of times

since then, and every time I think about this sight of misery the sickly

child's eyes seem to cry out, "Help me! Help me!" The poor woman said

it was the marshes that caused the illness, but my firm opinion is that

it was neither more nor less than starvation. The poor woman seemed to

be given up to despair. A few questions put to her in the momentary

absence of the man elicited the fact that she was no Gipsy. She had been

brought up as a Sunday-school scholar and teacher, and had been beguiled

away from her home by this "Gipsy man." She said she could tell me a lot

if I would come some other time. She also said, "Gipsy life as it is at

present carried out ought to be put a stop to, and would be if people

knew all." With a few coppers given to her and the children we parted.

In another tent on the marshes there was a man, woman, and six children.

The tent was about twelve feet long, six feet six inches wide, and an

average height of about three feet, making a total of about two hundred

and thirty-four cubic feet of space for man, wife, and six children.

These were of both sexes, grown-up and in their teens. Their bed was

straw upon the damp ground, and their sheets, rags. The man was

half-drunk, and the poor children were running about half-naked and

half-starved. The woman had some Gipsy blood in her veins, but the man

was an Englishman, and had, so he said, been a soldier. With a few

coppers and sweets among the children, and in the midst of "Good-byes!"

and "God bless you's!" I left them, promising to pay them another visit.

Out of these twenty families only three were properly married, and only

two could read and write, and these were the poor woman who had been a

Sunday-school scholar and the man who had been a soldier, and, strange to

say, the children of these two people could not read a sentence or tell a

letter. No minister ever visited them, and not one ever attended a place

of worship. In a visit to an encampment in another part of London I came

across a poor Irishwoman, who had been allured away from her respectable

home at the age of sixteen by one of the Gipsy gang. When I saw her she

was sitting crying, with two half-starved children by her side, who,

owing to the coke fire, had bad eyes. Their home was an old ragged tent,

and their bed, rotten straw. When I saw them, and it was about one

o'clock, they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours. I sent for a

loaf for them, and they set to work upon it with as much relish as if

they had been gnawing at the leg of a Christmas fat turkey. The poor

Gipsy woman had been a Sunday-school scholar, and could read and write,

but neither her husband nor children could tell a letter. Her taking to

Gipsy life had broken her father's heart. Her eldest child, a fine

little girl of about seven years of age, had been taken from her by her

friends, and was being educated and cared for. A few weeks since the

little daughter was anxious to see her mother, consequently she was taken

to her tent; but, sad to relate, instead of the daughter going to kiss

her mother, as she would expect, she turned away from her with a shudder

and a shriek, and for the whole day the child did nothing but cry. It

would not touch a morsel of anything. The only pleasant look that came

upon its countenance was as it was leaving. As the poor child was

leaving the tent she would not kiss her mother or say the usual

"Good-bye" as she went away. This poor woman, as in the case of the

woman at Hackney, said she could tell me a lot of things, which she would

some time, and said, "Gipsy life ought to be put a stop to, for there was

something about it more than people knew," and I thoroughly believe what

this poor woman says. It is my firm conviction that there is much more

in connection with Gipsy life than many people imagine, or is dreamt of

in their philosophy. There is a substratum of iniquity lower than any

writers have ever touched. There are certain things in connection with

their dark lives, hidden and veiled by their slang language, that may not

come out in my day, but most surely daylight will be shed upon them some

day. They will kill and murder each other, fight and quarrel like

hyenas, but certain things they will not divulge, and so long as the

well-being of society is not in danger I suppose we have no right to

interfere. A query arises here. Their past actions back me up in this

theory. Upon Mitcham Common last week there were nearly two hundred

tents and vans. In one tent, which may be considered a specimen of many

others, there were two men and their wives, and about twelve children of

both sexes and of all ages. In another tent there were nine children of

both sexes and all ages, some of them men and women, and for the life of

me I cannot tell how they are all packed when they sleep--I suppose like

herrings in a box, pell-mell, "all of a heap." One of these Gipsy young

women was a model, and has her time pretty much occupied during the day.

I have been among house-dwelling Gipsies in the Midland counties, and

have found twelve to fifteen men, women, and children, squatting about on

the floor, which they used as a workshop, sitting-room, drawing-room, and

bed-room; although there was a bed-room up-stairs it was not often

used--so I was told by the landlady.

There is much more sickness among the Gipsies than is generally known,

especially among the children. They have strong faith in herbs; the

principal being chicken-weed, groundsel, elder leaves, rue, wild sage,

love-wort, agrimony, buckbean, wood-betony, and others; these they boil

in a saucepan like they would cabbages, and then drink the decoction.

They only go to the chemist or surgeon at the last extremity. They are

very much like the man who tried by degrees to train his donkey to live

and work without food, and just as he succeeded the poor Balaam died; and

so it is with the poor Gipsy children. It kills them to break them in to

the hardships of Gipsy life. Occasionally I have heard of Gipsies who

act as human beings should do with their children. A well-to-do Gipsy

whom I know--one of the Lees, a son of Mrs. Simpson--has spent over 30

pounds in doctors' bills this winter for his children's good. Not one

Gipsy in a thousand would do likewise.

Gipsies die like other folk, although before doing so they may have lived

and quarrelled like the Kilkenny cats among other Gipsies; but at death

these things are all forgotten, and a Gipsy funeral seems to be the means

to revive all the good they knew about the person dead and a burying of

all the bad connected with the dead Gipsy's life. I am now referring to

a few of the better class of Gipsies. Gipsies, as a rule, pay special

regard to the wishes of a dying Gipsy, and will sacrifice almost anything

to carry them out. I attended the funeral of a house-dwelling Gipsy,

Mrs. Roberts, at Notting Hill, a few weeks ago. The editor and

proprietor of the _Suburban Press_, refers to this funeral in his edition

under date February 28th, as follows:--"On Monday last a noteworthy event

took place in the humble locality of the Potteries, Notting Dale. In

this district are congregated a miscellaneous population of the poorest

order, who get what living they can out of the brick-fields or adjoining

streets and lanes, or by costermongering, tinkering, &c., &c. They dwell

together in the poorest and most melancholy-looking cottages, some in

sheds and outhouses, or in dilapidated vans, for it is the resort and

_locale_ of many of the Gipsies that wander in the western suburbs. Yet

all these make up a kind of community and live together as friends and

neighbours, and every now and again they show themselves amenable to good

influences, and characters of humble mark and power arise among them. To

those who sympathise with the poet who sings of the

"'Short and simple annals of the poor,'

we scarcely know a region that can be studied to greater advantage. In

the present instance it was the funeral of an old inhabitant of the Gipsy

tribe, one of the oldest, most respected, and loved of all the nomads,

and related in some way to many Gipsy families in London and the

neighbouring counties. Abutting from the Walmer Road is a good sized

court or alley called 'Mary Place,' and in a nook of one of the small

cottages here lived Mrs. Roberts for a number of years, who has been

described to us by one who long enjoyed her acquaintance as 'a very

superior woman, intelligent and happy Christian.' So that she must

indeed have shone in that humble and sombre spot as a 'gem of purest ray

serene,' though not exactly as the flower

"'Born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'

[Picture: Outside a Christian Gipsy's van]

For the comprehensive genius of Christian sympathy and labour had found

her out, and she was known and respected, and her influence was felt by

all around her. She lived for years a widow, but with five grown-up,

strong, and thrifty children--two sons and three daughters and troops of

friends--to cheer her latter days. The preliminaries--a service of song

conducted by Mr. Adams and his sons--were soon over, and the coffin being

lifted through the window was placed on the strong shoulders which had

been appointed to convey it to Brompton Cemetery, a distance of some

three miles. It was a neat coffin, covered with black cloth, and when

the pall had been thrown over it affectionate hands placed upon it two or

three large handsome wreaths of immortals white as snow, and so the

procession moved off followed by weeping sons, daughters, and friends,

and a host of sympathising neighbours, to the strains of the 'Dead March

in Saul.' _Requiescat in pace_. Among those present at this interesting

ceremony standing next to us, and sharing in part our umbrella, was a

gentleman whose name and vocation we were not aware until afterwards. We

were glad, however, to learn that we were unwittingly conversing with no

other than Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, the philanthropic

and well-known promoter of the 'Brick-maker's' and 'Canal Boatman's'

Acts, who has specially devoted himself to the improvement of the social

condition of these too-neglected people. He is now giving his attention

to the case of the Gipsies, and specially to the children, to whom he is

anxious to see extended among other things the provisions of the School

Board Act. The great and good work of Mr. Smith has already attracted

the attention of a number of charitable Christian people, and it has not

been overlooked by Her Majesty the Queen, who, with her accustomed care

and kindness, has expressed her special interest therein." She was a

good, Christian woman, and I think I am speaking within bounds when I say

that there is not one in five hundred like she was. Before she died she

wished for two things to be carried out at her funeral--one was that she

should be carried on Gipsies' shoulders all the way to Brompton Cemetery,

a distance of some miles; and the other was that Mr. Adams, a gentleman

in the neighbourhood, should conduct a service of song just before the

funeral _cortege_ left the humble domicile; both requests were carried

out, notwithstanding that it was a pouring wet day. The service of song

was very impressive, surrounded as we were by some two hundred Gipsies

and others of the lowest of the low, living in one of the darkest places

in London. Some stood with their mouths open and appeared as if they had

not heard of the name of Jesus before, and there were others whose

features betokened strong emotion, and upon whose cheeks could be seen

the trickling tears as we sung, among others:--

"Shall we gather at the river,

Where bright angels' feet have trod,

With its crystal tide for ever

Flowing by the throne of God?

Yes, we'll gather at the river,

The beautiful, the beautiful river,

That flows by the throne of God.

"Soon we'll reach the silvery river,

Soon our pilgrimage will cease,

Soon our happy hearts will quiver,

With the melody of peace.

Yes, we'll gather at the river,

The beautiful, the beautiful river,

That flows by the throne of God."

It has frequently been stated that the Gipsies never allow their poor to

go into the union workhouses; this statement is both erroneous, false,

and misleading. Clayton, a Gipsy, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, told me only the

other day that he knew an old Gipsy woman who was living in the Melton

Mowbray Union Workhouse at the present time, and mentioned some others

who had died in the union, a few connected with his own family. Abraham

Smith, a respectable and an old Christian Gipsy, mentioned the names of a

dozen or more Gipsies of his acquaintance who had died in the union

workhouse, some in the Biggleswade Union, of the name of Shaw. There was

a time when there was a little repugnance to the union, but this feeling

has died out, thus adding another proof that the Gipsies, in many

respects, are not so good as what they were fifty years or more ago; and

this fact, to my mind, calls loudly for Government interference as

regards the education of the children. Abraham Smith also further stated

that nearly all the old people belonging to one family of S--- had died

in the workhouse in Bedfordshire. Another thing has forced itself upon

my attention, viz., that there seems to be a number of poor unfortunate

idiots among them. I know, for a fact, of one family where there are two

poor creatures, one of whom is in the asylum, and of another family where

there is one, and a number in various parts where they are semi-idiotic,

and only next door to the asylum. These painful facts will plainly show

to all Christian-thinking men and women, and to others who love their

country and seeks its welfare, that the time has arrived for the Gipsies

to be taken hold of in a plain, practical, common-sense manner by those

at the helm of affairs, and placed in such a position as to help

themselves to some of the blessings we are in possession of ourselves.

During all my inquiries, when the Gipsies have not fallen in with all I

have said with reference to Gipsy life, they have all agreed without

exception to the plan I have sketched out for the education of their

children and the registration of their tents, &c.

In the days of Hoyland and Borrow the Gipsies were very anxious for the

education of their children and struggled hard themselves to bring it

about. Sixty years ago one of the Lovells sent three of his children to

school, at No. 5, George Street, taught by Partak Ivery, and paid

sixpence per week each with them; but the question of religion came up

and the children were sent home. The schoolmaster, Ivery, said that he

had had six Gipsy children sent to his school, and when placed among the

other children they were reduceable to order. It is a standing disgrace

and a shame to us as a nation professing Christianity that at this time

we had in our midst ten to fifteen thousand poor little heathen children

thirsting for knowledge, and no one to hand it to them or put them in the

way to help themselves. The sin lays at some one's door, and I would not

like to be in their shoes for something. While this dense ignorance was

manifest among the poor Gipsy children at our doors we were scattering

the Bibles all over the world, and sending missionaries by hundreds to

foreign lands and supporting them by hundreds of thousands of pounds

gladly subscribed by our hard-working artisans and others. Not that I am

finding fault with those who take an interest in foreign missions in the

least--would to God that more were done for every nation upon the face of

the globe--but I do think in matters relating to the welfare of the

children we ought to look more at home.

With reference to missionary effort among the Gipsies, I must confess

that I am not a strong advocate for a strictly sectarian missionary

organisation to be formed with headquarters in London, and a paid staff

of officials, to convert the Gipsies. If the act is passed upon the

basis I have laid down, the result will be that in course of time the

Gipsies will be localised. I am strongly in favour of all sections of

Christ's Church dealing with our floating population, whether upon land

or water, in their own localities, and in a kind of spirit of holy

rivalry among themselves, if I may use the term. For the life of me I

cannot see why temporary wooden erections, something of the "penny-gaff"

style, should not be erected upon race-courses, and in the market-places

during fair time, in which religious services could be held free from all

sectarian bias, and which could be called the Showman's or Gipsy's

Church. There are times when a short interesting service could be held

without coming in collision with the steam whistles of the

"round-abouts," "big drums," reports from the "rifle galleries," the

screams and shouts of stall-keepers; and at any rate, I think it would be

better to have a number of organisations at work rather than one, dealing

both with our Gipsies and canal-boatmen. In whatever form missionary

effort is put forth, it must go further than that of a clergyman, who

told me one Sunday afternoon last year, after he had been preaching in

the most fashionable church in Kensington, to the effect that, if any of

the large number of Gipsies who encamped in his parish in the country,

and not far from the vicarage, "raised their hats to him as he passed

them, he returned the compliment." Poor stuff this to educate their

children and to civilise and Christianise their parents.

It is my decided opinion that if the Gipsy children had been taken hold

of at that day, and placed side by side with the children of other

working classes, we should not by this time have had a Gipsy wigwam

flitting about our country; fifty years' educational influences mean, to

a great extent, their present and eternal salvation. A tremendous

responsibility and sin hangs, and will hang, about the necks of those who

have in the past, or will in the future, shut the door of the school in

the face of the poor Gipsy child, and turn it into the streets to perish

everlastingly. I am confident the Gipsies will do their part if a simple

plan for its accomplishment can be set in motion. Harshness, cruelty,

and insult, rigid, and extreme measures will do no good with the Gipsies.

Fiery persecution will only frustrate my object. God knows, they are bad

enough, and I have no wish to mince matters, or to paint them white, as

fiction has done. I have tried--how far I have succeeded it is not for

me to say--to expose the evils, and not individuals, thoroughly, in

accordance with my duty to my God, my country, and my conscience, without

partiality, bias, or fear, be the consequences what they may. To write a

book full of glowing colour, pictures, fancies, imagination, and fiction,

is both more profitable and pleasant. The waft of a scented

pocket-handkerchief across one's face by the hand of a fair and lovely

damsel is only as a fleeting shadow and a passing vapour; they quickly

come and they quickly go, leaving no footstep behind them; a shooting

star and a flitting comet, and all is in darkness blacker than ever.

Somehow or other the Gipsies will, if possible, encamp near a school, but

they lack the power to enter, and some of them, no doubt, could send

their children to school for a few days occasionally; but the Gipsies

have got it in their heads that their children are not wanted, and this

is the case with the show people's children. Last autumn I saw myself an

encampment of Gipsies upon Turnham Green; there were about thirty Gipsy

children playing upon the school-fence, not one of whom could either read

or write. The school was only half full, and the teacher was looking

very pleasantly out of the door of the school upon the poor, ignorant

children as they were rolling about in the mud. In another part of

London a Gipsy owns some cottages, with some spare land between each

cottage; upon this land there is her own van and a number of other vans

and tents, for which standing ground they pay the Gipsy woman a rent of

one shilling and sixpence per week each. Neither herself nor any of the

Gipsies connected with the encampment could tell a letter, and there were

some sixty to seventy men, women, and children of all ages; and the

strange part of the thing is, the Gipsy woman's tenants in her cottages

were compelled by the School Board officer to send their children to

school, while the Gipsy children were running wild like colts, and

revelling in dirt and filth in the neighbourhood. A similar state of

things to this exists in a more or less degree with all the other

encampments on the outskirts of London. At one of the large encampments

I tried to find if there were really any who could read and write, and to

put this to the test I took the _Christian World_ and the _Christian

Globe_ with me. The Gipsy lad who they said was "a clever scholard" was

brought to me, and I put the _Christian World_ before him to see if he

could read the large letters; sad to say, instead of _Christian World_,

he called it "Christmas," and there he stuck and could get no further. I

have said some strong things, and endeavoured to lay bare some hard facts

relating to Gipsy life in the preceding part of this book, with a view to

enlist help and sympathy for the poor children, and not to submit the

Gipsy fathers to insult and ridicule.

[Picture: Four little Gipsies sitting for the Artist outside their tent,

dressed for the occasion, and who can neither read nor write]

From the mode of living among the Gipsies, the mother is often

necessitated to leave her tent in the morning, and seldom returns to it

before night. Their children are then left in or about their solitary

camps, having many times no adult with them; the elder children then have

the care of the younger ones. Those who are old enough gather wood for

fuel; nor is stealing it thought a crime. By the culpable neglect of the

parents in this respect the children are often exposed to accidents by

fire, and melancholy instances of children being burnt and scalded to

death are not unfrequent. One poor woman relates that two of her

children have thus lost their lives by fire during her absence from her

tent at different periods, and some years ago a child was scalded to

death at Southampton.

The following account will faintly show something of the hardships of

Gipsy children's lives:--It was winter, and the weather was unusually

cold, there being much snow on the ground. The tent, which was only

covered with a ragged blanket, was pitched on the lee side of a small

hawthorn bush. The children had stolen a few green sticks from the

hedges, but they would not burn. There was no straw in the tent, and

only one blanket to lay betwixt six children and the frozen ground, with

nothing to cover them. The youngest of these children was three and the

eldest seventeen years old. In addition to this wretchedness the smaller

children were nearly naked. The youngest was squatted on the ground, her

little feet and legs bare, and gnawing a frozen turnip which had been

stolen from an adjoining field. None of them had tasted bread for more

than a day. The moment they saw their visitor, the little ones

repeatedly shouted, "Here is the gemman come for us!" Some money was

given to the eldest sister to buy bread with, at which their joy was

greatly increased. Straw was also provided for them to sleep on, four

were measured for clothes, and after a few days they were placed under

proper care. The youngest child died, however, a short time after in

consequence of having been so neglected in infancy.