From time out of mind to the present day, country fairs have been
noteworthy resorts of gypsies of high or low estate. In this
connection—without even a passing thought of disparaging Romany
folk—one is irresistibly reminded of the passage:—
Wheresoever the body is, “thither will the eagles be gathered together.”
For fairs seem to possess a certain fascination for gypsies apart from
their recognition of such institutions as opportunities for doing
business. Horse-dealing is a line of business that is frequently
adopted by those who have the necessary capital, and so well qualified
are they as judges of horseflesh, and so expert do they become in the
art of presenting an animal to a prospective purchaser so that it
appears to possess all the points he desires, that “cute as a gypsy
horse-dealer” might well become a standard aphorism.
Stalls and side shows in the hands of Romany proprietors who need no
instruction in their particular style of oratory, and various forms
of amusement are also offered by the “people of Egypt,” most of whose
dusky daughters are adepts in the wiles that effect the transfer of
coin of the realm.
At most gatherings of this nature will be found good Romany types,
half-breeds and nondescripts, and it is a fact worthy of noting that
usually one hears the best and fullest Romany spoken by the best types
of the race, while the language of the half-and-half and mongrels is
not infrequently fearful jargon combining Romany jib of a sort, slang
and profanity, mixed in different proportions by different individuals,
and used with scant regard to either grammar or propriety.
Perhaps one would not be surprised at this if the conditions under
which their early life is passed be taken into consideration, for the
low, nondescript wanderers—from whom the Romanies for the most part
keep aloof—constitute an appreciable proportion of the entertainers
at most fairs and the like, and provide a school for the apt pupils of
the rising generation, in which they graduate in most of the unholy
attainments of the class.
However, fairs change as does all else in a changing world. I recall
a visit I paid to a fair in north Hertfordshire years ago, and a
brief description of some of the units in its composition will be
interesting in comparison with those of to-day. In this particular
instance Romany folk were well represented, the women at the stalls and
shooting galleries being as usual dressed in black; in their ears were
gold earrings, and nearly all wore black hats having ostrich feather
adornments. At one stall, presided over by a voluble “Egyptian,” was
a large brass arrow pivoted at the centre, like the needle of a large
compass; around this was ranged a tempting display of rock,—that
sweetstuff beloved of the juvenile who could even eat it after he had
“peeked” at the process of manufacture behind the van,—and this was
disposed in such a manner that no matter in what direction the arrow
pointed when it came to rest after being set spinning by the expectant
youngster, the proprietress was always able to see that it pointed to a
small piece of rock, so that the speculator received about the value of
a farthing in return for his penny; but let us entertain the charitable
supposition that this was done to create disgust for games of chance
and suppress an incipient taste for gambling. “Yes, my dear,” I can
imagine I now hear her saying, “it’s quite fair, we never cheat,—now,
young man, have another try.”
Nowadays, these polished brass arrows are seldom or never seen on the
stalls of sweet-stuff, for the law has looked into the matter.
At another part of the fair one might hear inspiriting music being
ground out of a wheezy old organ by a one-legged performer, while
hard by was a stall where small bundles of out-of-date magazines were
offered at a penny or twopence the parcel. Somewhat in the rear of this
stall stood a cheapjack who now and again essayed to revive the public
curiosity by playing a concertina, banging a tea-tray or smashing a
few plates. Further on was a man standing upon an upturned box, who
was trying to persuade his small circle of hearers to believe that
the only straightforward way of getting to heaven was by following
the directions given in a little book,—a few copies of which he had
considerately brought with him—for sale. Passing between the lines of
sweetmeat, gingerbread and toy stalls, presided over principally by
swarthy, black-haired women, a number of trifles, such as one would
look for in vain to-day, might be seen; but the item which might now be
considered as most distinctly marking a different age, was the small
bundles of toy whips selling at one penny each, every whip containing
enough real gutta-percha to make a golf ball and having a wooden
whistle at the handle end.
Next came two women attired as Sisters of Mercy at a tiny stall,
selling embroidered work for the benefit of some convent; prominent
among their goods were men’s braces of such gorgeous colouring as would
make a naked savage yearn for trousers in order that braces of such
splendour might be adequately displayed.
Hard by was a thimble-rigger and exponent of the purse trick, but he
too has been prohibited by law to pursue his unselfish profession, and
probably the gentleman who stood at a stall close to him has ere this
been obliged by statute to divert to some other channel his labours for
the public good.
Along the shelf just above the man’s head were arranged glass jars of
specimens in spirit. These were labelled in Latin, in order to impress
the more the rustics, who were his best customers. The specimens,
purporting to be of human origin, were in reality portions of domestic
animals, carefully selected with a view to the particular organism
simulated, all of which were described as having been extracted from
human patients by means of the wonderful medicines offered by the
proprietor, whose magnanimity—judging from his own statements—was
phenomenal. One of the specimens of which I have a very distinct
recollection, was stated to be an extraordinary tapeworm from a
client, while it was actually the bleached intestine of a common fowl.
Nevertheless this man did a roaring trade, a tribute to his “gift of
the gab.”
Now and again would be heard the raucous voice of a
disreputable-looking man who perambulated the fair, announcing that
the “last dying speech and confession” of a malefactor, executed on
the previous day at the county gaol, could be bought for one penny.
Luckily, opportunities of this nature no longer occur. Gone, too, is
the obliging individual who was so anxious to allow everyone to “prick
the garter”; a short description of the procedure may therefore prove
interesting:—
Firstly, the exponent produced a very long, narrow leather strap;
this he doubled so as to form a loop end; he then set it upon edge on
the ground and rolled up the remainder of the strap around it, making
several other loops as he proceeded; then he invited bystanders to
prick with a long metal pin which he provided the loop considered to
be the doubling of the strap. A necessary condition was that the garter
pricker put down any sum he pleased, and in event of the pin remaining
caught in the loop when the strap was unwound by the demonstrator,
he doubled the amount laid down, the total sum becoming the property
of the garter pricker; on the other hand, if the strap came away
entirely from the pin, then the amount staked passed over to the strap
manipulator, who could work the trick so as to win or lose at will.
The period of which I write was that of the old “roundabouts.” Prior
to the development of galloping powers by the wooden horses and the
use of electric light, the naphtha lamps which illuminated the fair
at night frequently blew out and they then added powerfully to the
characteristic smell of the fair.
Such then is the kind of school in which many of the wanderers, whose
parents obtain a livelihood at fairs, learn their early lessons;
but to the credit of the Romanies it must be said that, as a rule,
they have not taken part in such distinctly swindling concerns as
thimble-rigging, purse trick and the like, these ventures being mostly
conducted by the cockney element which finds its way to all large
fairs; in fact, the only Romany concern which partook of this nature
I can recollect, was the brass arrow on the stall of the woman who
dispensed the celebrated “fair rock.”
Notwithstanding the innumerable inducements to adopt the ways of the
gorgio house-dweller, tradesman, mechanic, sharper or swindler, the
traditional life of the Romany has been proof against them; pricking
the garter and thimble-rigging are of the past, the purse trickster
and others of that ilk have had their day; but the same Romany types
will be still found attending the same fairs, gaining a livelihood in
practically the same manner as fifty years ago. They boast that their
people will never die out,—an assertion that can, of course, be proved
by time alone,—but it is certain that various writers, during the last
hundred years, have spoken of them as a fast disappearing race, and
have stated that they would become merged in, or absorbed by, the main
population; it is to be feared, however, that those who could write in
this strain, had not closely studied the people, for, as a matter of
fact, there is scarcely greater reason to expect the Romanies to become
extinct as a people, than that the Jews should lose their racial
characteristics, while unbiassed investigation of the matter would seem
to urge the opinion that the type will persist.
In this respect the gypsy must not for a moment be likened to the
aboriginal Australian, or to the Red man, for while they are gradually
but not the less surely being extinguished by the vices they have
adopted from the white man, the gypsy adapts himself to circumstances
to a certain extent but keeps more or less aloof from the “Gentile” and
is in little danger of becoming so civilized—if we may so term it—as
to lose in any degree his hold upon, or fidelity to, gypsydom, and down
to the present time he has falsified predictions by declining to die
off.
Most of the present-day fairs bring together a good sprinkling of the
“people of Egypt,” as the gypsies at one time called themselves, and
I have often met in my own locality some whom I have seen at similar
gatherings in other parts of the country. At one anniversary of the
local fair when a goodly number of my gorgio acquaintances happened to
be present, a Romany girl espied me as I sauntered along between the
stalls, and said as she slipped her arm through mine—
“Come along with me, my Rye; I’ll show you something to photo,” and
to the evident astonishment of those of my friends whose conduct was
regulated by Mrs. Grundy, I was escorted just out of the fair to where
an old woman was seated beside a ditch.
“There!” exclaimed my dusky guide, “she’ll make a good photo; she ain’t
long for this world, so you’d better get one now.”
Writing of fairs reminds me of an occasion when I looked up some
Romany acquaintances on the evening preceding a fair. There was every
prospect of a large gathering on the morrow, and quite a number of
gypsy families were on the ground. Work was finished for the day and
it was nearly dark as we sat around the fire. As we chatted mainly
in Romany, the youngsters—who had not yet been disposed of for the
night—evidently considered that their elders should not monopolize the
conversation and therefore kept up a running fire of questions, partly
with the hope that they might catch me tripping:—
“What’s a bokkra?”
“What are chokkars?”
“What’s tuv?”
“He dunno what mullo mas is, I sh’ think.”
“Do you know what a juggal is, my Rye?”
[Illustration: AROUND THE CAMP FIRE.]
“I say, what’s a gav mush?”
“Tell us what a baulo is.”
“You don’t know what a hotchi is, do you?”
And so on until one of the women was obliged to quiet them in order
that she might be heard.
“Lor’,” said she, “I could do with a hotchi (hedgehog) to-night,
couldn’t you, Rye? But p’r’aps you ain’t never tasted one.”
Here, a merry, laughing girl with a mischievous twinkle in her eye
interposed, saying:—
“Let me tell you how to cook ’em.
” ... first of all you pull off all the prickles one at a time with the
pincers——”
“Don’t you take no notice o’ her,” broke in her sister; “she’s
a-gettin’ at you; we don’t do nothin’ o’ the sort, we allus takes ’em
to the nearest barber’s and gets ’em shaved.”
Good-natured banter of this description constituted a fair proportion
of the talk that evening, although now and again conversation would
take a more serious turn. Meanwhile, one of the little ones had fallen
asleep in his mother’s arms, and she now proceeded to put him to bed;
however, he awoke during the process and as I stood at the caravan door
he suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, called out to me, “Goo’ night,
mush,” then as suddenly snuggled down to sleep.
When the woman returned to the fireside, she showed me a Bible, which,
she told me, she had carried about in the van for over twenty years,
but could not read a word of it. She also produced a book entitled “The
Traveller’s Guide,” a work issued by a colportage association; this
was, of course, equally useless to her unless some one could be found
who would read to her.
“If anybody starts readin’ to her,” said another of the company, “he’ll
get tired of the job before she’s done enough listenin’; why, she’d
stay up all night to have a book read to her.”
In connection with the reading of written or printed matter to gypsies,
a curious fact has many times come under my notice:—
Those who are unable to read see nothing extraordinary in the
possibility of recording, by means of written or printed characters,
all the sounds of the English language; but that one should be able to
write anything that may be spoken in the Romany tongue, and afterwards
to read it so as to reproduce the original speech, nearly always
occasions surprise.
I have often jotted down jingles, verses or quaint sayings by the
simple method of phonetic spelling, and when, somewhat later, I have
read aloud what I had written, considerable surprise has been evinced.
“Ain’t it wonderful he can set it down in Romany,” says one who is
unable to spell even her own name.
A tolerably sharp ear and a good memory are needed to catch and record
many of the verses one hears, for gypsies generally speak rapidly, and
their rhymes and sayings are sometimes in poggado jib, a strangely
mixed or broken language that requires much practice to ensure fluency.
The following may be considered a good example of this jargon, which is
neither good Romany nor English:—
“Mande went to poov the gry,
All around the stiggur sty,
Mush off to Mande,
I takes off my chuvvel,
I dels him in the per,
So ope me duvvel dancin’,
Mande cours well.”
It is unnecessary to render this jingle into English, but it serves
to convey the sound of this curious language, for I have recorded it
phonetically, exactly as spoken, and in common with much of the verse
beloved of the bedouin Arab this specimen is more forcible than elegant.
During the same evening I heard a girl recite a rhyme which must be
very old; it has been printed many times, and is fairly well known to
the student of Romany; nevertheless, one seldom hears it at the present
day and I was pleased to know it had not been lost, as many old gypsy
verses have been. The words were as follows and they differ in one
respect only from those which have been printed, the last word being
pronounced cosh, not cost:—
“Can you rokkra Romany?
Can you play the bosh?
Can you jal adrey the staripen?
Can you chin the cosh?”
In this, the real significance of the questions lies, not so much in
their literal meaning as in their idiomatic interpretation; instead of
the questions being simply—
Can you speak the Romany?
Can you play the fiddle?
Can you go into the prison?
Can you cut the stick?
a gypsy would understand them to signify—
... Are you a master of the Romany tongue?
Can you hold your own in a lav-chingaripen, or argument, in that
language?
... Are you a master of the fiddle?
... Are you man enough to “face the music,” hear your sentence and do
your bit without flinching?
... Are you qualified to earn your living as a gypsy? For if you cannot
in one way or another “chin the cosh” to some purpose, on occasion,
then you will never be successful on the road.
The Romany tongue being no exception to the rule that idioms are one
of the principal stumbling blocks to students of languages other than
their own.
Around us, about the fair ground, weird lights now glimmered, moved
and disappeared, appeared again, wandered and went out, fires here and
there flared up for a minute, died down, flickered and left a glow
which dimly illuminated in an eerie fashion caravan, framework, and the
jumble of preparation for the morrow’s business.
Now and again some one threaded his way in the uncertain light, a man
stumbled over a peg in the shadow near me and relieved his feelings in
the customary manner; one of the party around our dying fire remarked
that “old Noah had got ’em again,” another, who seemed to have a
philosophy and a code of ethics of her own, sagely observed:—
“Swear words was sent for our use, and what I says is,—a man or woman
as swears and don’t mean nothin’ by it, will be forgiven, but not a
person as tells a lie.”
Here, it may be well to point out, that by gypsies it is often
considered permissible, if not praiseworthy, to tell lies of all sorts
and sizes to a gorgio, but a gypsy who tells a “whopper” to his own
folk is “an out-and-out bad ’un.”
At one period in our history it was considered to be right and proper
for all gentlemen to curse and swear, and to make use of every
description of curious or picturesquely worded blasphemy; to-day, the
prevalent conception of what constitutes a gentleman taboos profanity
in any guise, but an incident I recollect which is relevant to the
subject must certainly not go unrecorded:—
An old woman told a friend of mine that she _did_ like to hear her son
swear, as he “always swore so hearty it did her real good.” Probably,
every one will not be able to view the matter in the same light.
On that night before the fair I renewed acquaintance with a number of
gypsies whom I had last seen in the strawberry country, and much was
talked of that related to happenings since that date and our mutual
arrangements for meeting again in the hop gardens, a relation of which
would be wearisome to the general reader, but the following snatches of
conversation and jottings from my notebook of this date are not devoid
of interest as they cast a sort of side-light on the character of the
Romanies:—
... The words “dear” and “dearie” are frequently used,—“take that dear
little bird in, it’s getting cold” (referring to a caged gold-finch,
hanging outside caravan).
... “Yes, it’s dreadful to think of the dear little children wanting
food” (referring to German atrocities in Belgium).
... “You go and witch yourself,” said a girl to an older relative,
during a brief display of temper; the woman to whom this was addressed,
turned to me and observed:—
“Ain’t that a dreadful thing to say to anybody, eh, Rye? She’s a devil,
she is.”
... Upon seeing a photograph of girls boxing, a woman remarked:—
“No, I don’t like to see women boxing, it’s too much like men. Women
should be women, and men should be men, I think.”
... “Yes, if I had more money I should buy a bicycle. I know where
there’s a good secondhand one I can buy for seven-and-six, but I can’t
afford it.”
... “I reckon some of the newspapers make a lot o’ money, why I heard
this morning of a man as buys four newspapers a day!”
The sound of the distant church clock striking the hour of ten was the
signal for parting salutations.
“Kushti rarde!”
“Kushti rarde, my Rye!”
A quarter of an hour later and not a sound broke the silence of the
fair ground,—a lull before the storm,—for on the morrow all would be
bustle and noise and other evidence of a determination to “make good”
while the opportunity lasted.
On the morning after the fair, by ten o’clock, no vestige of caravan,
tent or gypsy was to be seen,—otherwise, additional rent would have
been charged,—scarcely a sign was visible of the numerous fires that
had been there on the previous night, for most of these had been made
in large iron baskets, cylindrical iron containers some three feet or
so in height, or similar receptacles, in order that the fire should
not be in actual contact with the herbage, or a fine for burning the
grass would have been added to the rent for the ground; one fire I had
noticed was in a galvanized bath raised upon bricks from the ground.
The caravans, or as the gypsies frequently term them, living wagons,
are most interesting structures; they vary greatly in design, build
and fittings, and may cost anything between a few pounds and several
hundreds. Some of the travelling showmen appear to spare no expense in
the general “get up” of their homes, and while a liking for a kind of
barbaric splendour is not uncommon, the interior fittings of a few of
the best class of these portable houses are elaborate and costly, if
not exactly palatial, and it must be conceded to the gypsy,—well-to-do
or otherwise,—that in constructing his house on the common-sense
lines which are the outcome of experience he succeeds in solving the
problem of a house on wheels that will fulfil all reasonable, or even
extraordinary demands, far better than do the designers of some of the
touring vans one occasionally sees.
In bygone times, donkey caravans were used, many of them being little
more than covered carts, and to-day similar vehicles of a slightly
modified form may be seen drawn by horses or ponies, the vehicles being
too cumbrous and heavy to allow of a donkey being used as the draught
animal. I have, however, seen a pony between the shafts and a donkey
hitched on to the outside to assist.
The simplest form of what may be termed the covered van type of
dwelling is shown by the second van from the front in the Illustration.
The top or tilt is usually removable so that the owners may use it as
a tent, leaving the van free for ordinary purposes. I know a family
possessing a van of this description, who, during fruit picking,
contract for carrying to rail by means of the van while the tilt is
pegged down to the ground and utilized as a sleeping apartment.
I have been fortunate in obtaining in the one photograph, four
different classes of living wagon. The tilt of the simplest type is
composed of arched ribs covered with canvas or tarpaulin, that of
the foremost, and altogether more substantial vehicle is composed of
similar ribs which are covered with narrow planking, and this, in turn,
is covered with painted canvas.
[Illustration: TYPES OF LIVING WAGON.]
Most of the caravans are the work of professional wagon builders,
and vary in accordance with the ideas of the client and the sum he
is prepared to spend. Occasionally the gypsy constructs his own
habitation, and in such case usually purchases the under-carriage and
ironwork; he obtains most of his woodwork ready sawn, and executes the
greater part of the ornamental work, bevelling and so on, with the
knife, in the use of which he is an adept.
With regard to interior arrangement, there is, of course, as great, or
even a greater, difference in the cost and care expended on different
caravans than is apparent in the matter of exterior, but there is
withal a certain similarity in the disposition of the essentials. As
one enters the wagon, the fireplace is usually on the left hand, one
of the principal reasons for this being that when travelling, and
conforming to the rule of the road, the chimney protruding from the
roof is not liable to be damaged or broken off by the lower branches
of wayside trees, etc. Small ordinary, American, “Hostess” or other
stoves are fitted, but I recollect seeing in a caravan a stove that
consisted only of a piece of sheet-iron bent to a rough cylinder
tapering to a chimney, the lower part having a piece cut away and a
grid affixed therein. The family had no trouble to keep out the winter
cold, for this rather primitive stove would burn almost anything, the
van included if not carefully looked after. Almost invariably the
beds are across the van at the far end so that the weight is over the
hind wheels; usually they are raised some little distance from the
floor—the open space beneath being variously utilized, sometimes as a
sleeping apartment for the children, at others it is enclosed and has
doors for use as a cupboard. Plain or glass-fronted corner cupboards
may be found, and in some I have seen good pieces of old china, genuine
stuff, not the reproductions which are to be seen so frequently
nowadays.
Notwithstanding the fact that these things are highly prized and are
regarded as heirlooms by their owners, I have known valuable cups and
other articles to be in everyday use by both van and tent dwellers,
and he would be a brave dealer who—in some cases at least—ventured a
second time to attempt bargaining for possession.
“What a pity!” exclaims the connoisseur.
[Illustration: CARAVAN, SHOWING FIREPLACE.]
“Why shouldn’t I?” retorts the gypsy, “my people have always worked
hard for all they’ve had, and so have I. If I love the beautiful
shapes and colours of the old china that’s belonged to my people
time out of mind, that’s more than these nobs would; they don’t care
twopence for what’s beautiful in ’em, they only want ’em so they can
say I’ve got something nobody else can get and it cost me hundreds of
pounds.” The gypsy has a love for beauty of form, quaintness of design
and richness of colour, and if his worldly goods are few, he still has
his _lares et penates_, and if to use them in a legitimate way gives
him pleasure, “why,” as he asks, “shouldn’t he?”
For the preservative painting and exterior decoration of the caravan,
the most popular colours are green and yellow, a preference which may
perhaps be attributed to a reflex action on the mind of predominant
colours in nature they know and love so well.
Gypsies know well how to drive a bargain; despite this, or perhaps
because of it, the cheapest colour is not always used, as the
proprietor of the van has an eye to the lasting brilliance of the
colour. I know of an instance when a colour dealer offered a Romany
man a choice of lemon-coloured paints varying from fourpence to half a
crown the pound, and although the van owner appeared to be a good deal
exercised in mind as to the propriety of using a high-priced article,
which in appearance seemed exactly like the low-priced, he eventually
purchased the most expensive, it being explained to him that it would
retain its original brilliance for years, while the lower qualities
would probably fade in a short time. I did not see this van after it
had been painted, but it was, I believe, entirely of the brightest
lemon chrome procurable. As I have already indicated, green is favoured
by many as the principal colour for the outside of the van, and in
effect it is usually much less aggressive.
The Romany love of brilliant colour is, after all, but another Oriental
characteristic which persists, and, upon reflection, one cannot fail to
be impressed with the idea that it is not consistent to decry the taste
of the Romanichal as barbarous and at the same time select a mustard
colour for one’s own motor-car.
[Illustration: A GOOD TYPE OF CARAVAN.]