“No novelist, no writer whatever, has as yet _clearly_ explained the
curious fact that our entire nomadic population, excepting tramps, is
not, as we thought in our childhood, composed of English people like
ourselves. It is leavened with direct Indian blood; it has, more or
less modified, a peculiar _morale_.” “It is a muddle, perhaps, and a
puzzle; I doubt if anybody quite understands it” (p. 140).
Had Mr. Leland said that, with the exception of myself, “no writer
whatever” had even alluded to the phenomenon described, I believe he
would have stated what was true. I endeavoured to explain it in a
Disquisition of 171 pages, which he indirectly admitted he “carefully
read”; so that if I did not “clearly explain” the “puzzle and muddle” it
must have proceeded from a lack of intellect on my part, or on his in not
understanding me. Since then I have frequently expatiated on and
described it, but I am not aware that Mr. Leland has seen what I wrote on
these occasions. In _The Scottish Churches and the Gipsies_ I said that
the Gipsy problem “may at first present an aspect of a ‘labyrinth of
difficulties’”; but that to solve it “there is little intellect wanted
for the occasion, but such as it is it should be allowed to act freely on
the subject of inquiry” (p. 23). To judge of Mr. Leland’s works on the
Gipsies one would think that he had been indebted to no one for anything;
so that it is remarkable he should have complained that _novelists_
should not have “clearly explained” to him what he himself should have
told us—particularly as he spoke of his “great experience” among the
Gipsies—unless it appears that even to novelists he—as a professional
writer taking up a subject that came to his hand—has been indebted for
putting him on the track for repeating or illustrating an “oft-told
tale.” {18} We can easily imagine how Mr. Leland got “puzzled and
muddled” in contemplating his subject when he says so positively that the
Gipsies are disappearing as “British birds are chasing American ones out
of Philadelphia”; and that the mixed state of Gipsydom seen at Cobham
Fair “was old before the Saxon Heptarchy” (p. 140). What he said he
could find in “no writer whatever” was elaborately described in the book
which I published. That he used for his own purposes, and then
apparently turned round and threw out his heels at it.
I have spoken of Mr. Leland’s “confident assertions,” but I have space
merely to allude to some of them. Among these are the following:—That
there is no mystery about the origin of the Gipsies (p. 331), and that
“it is a matter of history that, since the Aryan morning of mankind, the
Romany have been chiromancing” (p. 225); that “among those who left India
were men of different castes and different colours, ranging from the pure
Northern invader to the Negro-like Southern Indian” (p. 24); that the
Gipsies in Egypt have lost their tongue (p. 296); that the English Gipsy
cares not a farthing “to know anything about his race as it exists in
foreign countries, or whence it came” (p. 34); and that there is hardly a
travelling company of dancers, musicians, singers, or acrobats, or
theatre “in Europe or America in which there is not at least one person
with some Romany blood” (p. 332). This at least is common, I dare say
very common. On one occasion I looked over the show-bill while in MS. of
an English Gipsy company who travelled in America with a small panorama.
{19a}
The conclusion which I drew of Mr. Leland after reading his Cyclopædia
article was that, apart from the language, he knew little of the _subject
of the Gipsies_. The knowledge of the language has given him the entrée
into the circle of a certain class of the Gipsies, leading to a
“flash-in-the-pan” knowledge of them; but not constituting him a reliable
guide on the whole question under consideration; for, in keeping with his
“confident assertions” generally, he disposes of it by saying that “the
child is perhaps born who will see the last Gipsy.” {19b}
As long as Mr. Leland has stuck to his subject he has confirmed what I
said in the work published by me, although he has made no acknowledgment
of it in any way. Even on the subject of the tinkers in England, he—so
far as he may be considered an authority—has confirmed what I said of
their being Gipsies of mixed blood:—“These are but instances of, I might
say, all the English tinkers. Almost every old countrywoman about the
Scottish Border knows that the Scottish tinkers are Gipsies” (p. 508).
He also speaks of John Bunyan having been a “half-blood Gipsy tinker” (p.
213). He was only justified in saying that he was of “mixed blood”; but
he made no allusion to my long argument (pp. 313 and 506–523) in defence
of it, which I published in _Notes and Queries_ on the 12th December,
1857, and illustrated it in two shorter articles in the early part of
1858, in which the outline of the _History of the Gipsies_ was given; so
that the question of Bunyan’s nationality has been before “all England”
for a quarter of a century unanswered.
What I wrote in _The Scottish Churches and the Gipsies_ is equally
applicable to Mr. Leland:—
“As I have said of Mr. Borrow, any one treating of such a subject as
the Gipsies should, so far as space allowed, ‘comment on and admit or
reject the facts and opinions of his case as discovered and advanced
by others,’ and not ‘put forth his own ideas only, as if nothing had
been said by others before or besides him’” (p. 12).—“I think that
what I have written and published on the Gipsies should have been
treated with more candour and courtesy, at least with more care and
consideration, by others who have done likewise, saying nothing of
the press. I also think that I have embraced almost all, if not all,
of the principles connected with the existence and perpetuation of
the race; so that others in discussing them should ‘comment on and
admit or reject’ what I have advanced, and I think proved, in place
of putting forth opinions apparently without due investigation” (p.
14).—“His illustrations of their language, in common with those of
other writers, are very interesting, . . . and the occasional, as if
accidental, remarks made by the Gipsies, at intervals, bearing on the
Gipsy question proper, are of importance” (p. 17).—“He gives us
nothing of the philosophy of the existence, history, perpetuation,
development and destiny of the tribe and its off-shoots. He seems to
use his eyes and ears only, and with those and his turn for writing
he has given us some really good sketches and scenes . . . But
besides using the eyes and ears in connection with such a subject, it
is necessary to exercise the intellect to discover and explain what
is not obvious or hidden, and illustrate the meaning and bearing of
what is described . . . His book however interesting parts of it may
be, is not calculated to serve any ultimate purpose of importance;
nor is it written in a regular or systematic manner . . . Nothing
can make a subject like that of the Gipsies attractive (if it can
ever be made attractive) to the better classes of readers, and
perpetuate an interest in it, but by treating it in such a way as
will combine a variety of facts, well arranged and illustrated, and
principles; out of which can be constructed a theory or system that
can be discussed and proved by a reference to the facts and
principles given . . . These writers are useful in their ways, but
beyond that they _spoil_ the subject of the Gipsies, in consequence
of the ‘utter absence in them of everything of the nature of a
philosophy of the subject’; which is peculiar to ‘all the works that
have hitherto appeared on the Gipsies’ (_Dis._, p. 532), so far as I
have seen or heard of them” (p. 18).—“A knowledge of the science of
race, in the essential meaning of the word, and especially as it
applies to the Gipsies, cannot be said to be even in its infancy.
Still, it might have been asked, what could two Scotch Gipsies
propagate, in body and mind, but Gipsies? They certainly could not
give origin to Jews or _common_ Scotch; but Gipsy Scotch or Scotch
Gipsy would infallibly follow” (p. 19).—“Of late years a number of
publications and articles, of more or less importance, on the Gipsies
have appeared in Great Britain. Some of these doubtless had their
origin in the work published by me in 1865, although no
acknowledgment was made of it in any way; and yet the most of the
_original_ MS. of it was prepared before Mr. Borrow had apparently
even thought of writing on the race” (p. 17), (that is, between 1817
and 1831).—“If they really have at heart the desire of knowing and
informing the public ‘all about the Gipsies,’ why do they so
persistently lead it inferentially to believe that the mass of
information on the subject, in all its bearings, published by me has
no existence? One would naturally think that they would grasp at it,
and illustrate and supplement it; and _prove_ anything in it to be
wrong that they allege or suppose to be so, and _let me hear of their
objections_” (p. 17).
With all his professed candour in regard to _all_ who have written on the
subject of the Gipsies, and cooperating with his “colleagues” in
connection with it, why did Mr. Leland not take it up from where it was
left by me, and used by him for his article in _Johnson’s Cyclopædia_!
In place of amusing the world with the fictions that the Gipsy race is
disappearing as “British birds are chasing American ones out of
Philadelphia,” and that “the child is perhaps born who will see the last
Gipsy,” he might have assisted me in “breaking down the middle wall of
partition” between them and the rest of the world; so that the Gipsy
race, at least in its off-shoots, may be acknowledged openly, and allowed
as such to take their places in society, as “men and brethren,” which in
many instances they do now, although unknown to the world.
Notwithstanding all that has been and could be said of Mr. Leland as a
writer on the Gipsies, and of the work under review, _The Gipsies_,
taking it all in all, is an interesting book, and deserves to be well
read. {21}
* * * * *