Gipsy Life Part 14

"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 G.o.d's wrath; the horses, mules, and donkeys in their unlawful possession are steeds upon which the Gipsies are riding to h.e.l.l; and the fortune-telling cards are burning the fingers of the Gipsy women; in one word, the curse of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p "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 fas.h.i.+on 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 G.o.d'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 part.i.tion between them, and only about seven feet of s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sociations of Gipsy life. Brandy and "fourpenny," or "h.e.l.l 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 pa.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 a.s.saulting 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 h.e.l.l. 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 appet.i.tes; 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 c.o.ke 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 c.o.ke 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 princ.i.p.al 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 c.o.ke 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 Oxfords.h.i.+re 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 "G.o.d 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 chast.i.ty, 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 ca.n.a.l-boats, in "Our Ca.n.a.l 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 appet.i.tes, propensity, and l.u.s.t 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 ca.n.a.l-boat women, but not a t.i.the 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 G.o.d 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 relations.h.i.+p. After a few hours, in many cases, of courts.h.i.+p, 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 ap.r.o.n 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 s.p.a.ce for man, wife, and six children.

These were of both s.e.xes, 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 "G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p. 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 c.o.ke 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 s.e.xes and of all ages. In another tent there were nine children of both s.e.xes 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 princ.i.p.al 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 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 cla.s.s 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. Ab.u.t.ting 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 'Ca.n.a.l 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 G.o.d?

Yes, we'll gather at the river, The beautiful, the beautiful river, That flows by the throne of G.o.d.

"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 G.o.d."

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 Bedfords.h.i.+re. 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 ca.n.a.l-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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses, 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sing 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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.