Much ingenuity is sometimes displayed by the poorer families in adapting for their own use clothes which have been given to them.
The following incident, the principals in which are well known to me, is an amusing case in point:—
A gentleman gave a pair of his trousers to a gypsy. A week or so later, when out walking, he saw a small gypsy boy coming towards him, and “there seemed,” said he when relating the occurrence to me, “something very familiar about this boy’s dress, which at first puzzled me considerably, but afterwards, as the boy came nearer, I saw that he had made a complete suit from my old trousers; a little had been cut from the legs, the pockets had been turned inside out and the ends cut open, so that by getting into the garment and thrusting his arms through the pockets,—as sleeves,—he secured a sort of combination suit, trousers and coat in one; he had reduced the opening at the top by tying pieces of string from button to button, and to complete the garment and separate what I may perhaps call the blouse part from the trousers portion, he had tied a piece of cord around his waist.” Now the boy was small and thin and the gentleman to whom the trousers had belonged was of somewhat ample proportions, therefore the appearance of the boy, it is perhaps needless to add, was more ludicrous than can be well described, reminding one of the account given by Gypsy Smith of his first pair of trousers, which prompted inquiries as to whether he was going or coming, at what time the balloon was going up, and so on.
Ingenuity of a different type was shown by a gypsy who desired to attend the funeral of a relative and made the occasion an excuse for borrowing from a householder of my acquaintance a pair of black trousers to wear during the ceremony; his pretext of wishing to borrow the trousers, and for one day only, showed the diplomat, for he must have felt sure that if he could but get the trousers the owner would not trouble him to return them.
Gypsies do not forget acts of kindness to their folk, neither are they ungrateful, but will often endeavour to make some little return for sympathetic help extended to them. In connection with this I note as a curious psychological fact, that they will occasionally pilfer in order to present the proceeds of the theft to a benefactor, as a tangible proof of gratitude.
Upon one occasion a young fellow offered me some fine plums in return for a slight service I had rendered, all the circumstances pointing to his having stolen the fruit for the purpose on his way to see me.
We may then take it that pilfering from a gorgio is reckoned a venial offence,—a trifling matter, but failure to show proper appreciation of services rendered is considered “low down” behaviour and unworthy of a self-respecting gypsy.
In the field of scientific invention, it seems that the gypsy is not very likely to become a shining light, but that he nevertheless possesses considerable ingenuity in certain directions is shown by his turning to good account apparently useless native material in the manufacture of useful, ornamental and curious articles, and his brain is also fairly fertile in the way of dodges that will, now and again, yield a few pence. One of such dodges—evincing considerable astuteness, and some little knowledge of domestic economy on the part of its originator—was brought under my observation by a small gypsy boy asking if I would not “please buy one?” at the same time opening the lid of an old chocolate box and exposing to view a number of oddly shaped, flattish cakes differing slightly in size, each being about one and a half inches by one inch, and half-inch in thickness, all being curiously veined or marbled in drabs and browns and emitting a rather pleasant odour. At first, I was a good deal puzzled as to their composition, and was not helped much by the information volunteered by the boy, that they were for “keepin’ the morf away an’ takin’ iney mole outcher close.” This done into English would read—“keeping the moth away and removing iron-mould from your clothes.” A brief examination of the contents of the box enabled me to see through the fraud.
The little cakes had been prepared by breaking off projecting pieces from the deeply furrowed bark of the cluster pine, these had been shaved and bevelled with a knife until the pattern formed by the layers was sufficiently pronounced, and afterwards smoothed with sandpaper, so that unless one touched them he might easily mistake them for variegated tablets of soap; a few drops of scent—sprinkled probably from a penny bottle of synthetic “Eau de Lavande”—had completed the process of manufacture. I may add that as the boy had not been furnished with directions for use, he could not state how many penny pieces would be required to keep the “morf” away from a given space, nor how long the spell would last; with respect to the “iney mole,” one would expect an intensification rather than a diminution of the stain from the use of such an eradicator.
Most of my readers have probably seen, or, may possess, examples of work in wood or other material which has been built up within globes or bottles of water, the whole having been passed in and put together through a comparatively small neck or other aperture.