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CHAPTER XII
GYPSIES, being human, must of necessity obtain in some way the wherewithal to sustain life. As the earning of bread by the sweat of the brow is not by any means the curse some people try to make it, it may be logical to refuse a helping hand while pretending to think that gypsies should consider themselves fortunate in that they have to work hard—with a capital H for the most part—to obtain barely sufficient to keep together body and soul, but such sophistries are never convincing or conclusive to those who regulate their work in the world by the golden rule.
There are scores of gypsies to-day who would gladly learn a “gypsy trade,” i.e. some handicraft that can be learned and plied without antagonism to the nomadic instincts of the people, such as, say, the work of a general whitesmith, or working cutler,—toy-making and so on.
There are, of course, horse-dealers, roundabout or show proprietors and other Romanies who are comparatively wealthy, and are quite outside the scope of these observations. Nevertheless, there are many in a different position who are not only willing but anxious to be doing something better than at present they know how; but—and there’s the rub—there exists among them the almost unconquerable suspicion of, and aversion to, the gorgio. Although it might, with apparent reason, be argued that any effort on their behalf should be, or would be, accepted by them, there would remain the incontestable fact that commensurate success would not result unless the instructor could speak to the gypsies in their own language, and demonstrated in every possible way that he was in sympathy with them. Moreover, no building of any kind at a distance from a camp would be likely to attract pupils,—probably not a gypsy would attend any institution however much he might desire the benefits to be obtained thereby. That there exists nevertheless the inclination to learn trades may be gathered from the remark made by a middle-aged gypsy, who, with a sweeping movement of his hand towards his eight to ten children, varying in age from twenty years to three, said to me, “Not one o’ them knows a trade, and winter’s coming on.”
A gypsy will always appreciate, and never forget kindness suitably tendered, that helps him to be independent of help; but he is liable to curse either the hand that doles out pharisaical charity, or the bigot who refuses help to one who does not belong to his sect.
Let us for a few moments consider the hard lot of the tent-dwelling gypsy family, the members of which make a few different articles in their season,—the wife, and possibly a child or two, after having assisted to make a stock, hawk the things around for sale while the man stays at home and makes more. When one takes into consideration the many weary miles tramped, the hours and days worked through, and the few pence realized for it all, it will be obvious that certain kinds only of home-made articles can be hawked about to advantage, that is to say, they must be of such kinds as can be made from raw material costing little or nothing beside labour to procure. Great ingenuity is displayed in piecing together all sorts of natural or manufactured odds and ends into something that shall be sufficiently novel, attractive or useful, to bring about the transfer of small coin from the gorgios to themselves. One day they will be selling—perhaps it would be more exact to say, trying to dispose of for next to nothing—little brooms neatly made of heather or whips made of plaited rushes, the Juncus communis of botanists. At another time they may be seen burdened with grass doormats, and it is not an uncommon occurrence for a gypsy woman to carry many miles in one day, a heavy baby on one side, and on the other a large basket of cottons, tapes, laces, etc., with one or more of these grass mats, while another child may have a reserve of two or three more. These mats, which are very often sold for threepence each, contain a really large quantity of dry grass stems tightly bound and woven together with strips of fresh bark of the bramble. Try and imagine the amount of work involved in the production of one of these threepenny serviceable mats:—