In the Sunday School Chronicle, December 19th, the kind-hearted editor makes the following allusions:—“Mr. George Smith stirs every feeling of pity and compassion in our hearts by his descriptions of the Gipsy Children’s Homes. It is one of the curious things of English life that the
distinct Gipsy race should dwell among us, and, neither socially nor politically, nor religiously, do we take any notice of them. No portion of our population may so earnestly plead, ‘No man careth for our souls.’ The chief interest of them, to many of us, is that they are used to give point, and plot, to novels. But can nothing be done for the Gipsy children? Christian enterprise is seldom found wanting when a sphere is suggested for it; and those who live in the neighbourhood of Gipsy haunts should be especially concerned for their well-being. What must the children be, morally and religiously, who bide, we cannot say dwell, in such homes as Mr. George Smith describes?
“‘In their own interest, and without mincing matters, it is time the plain facts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that the brightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Bible may have their influence upon the character of the little ones about to become in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside their hovels or sack huts, poetically called “tents” and “encampments,” but in reality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies, sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, and put a pleasant and cheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be seen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant, and wretched Gipsy children, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside their sack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of all ages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon a bed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little better than a manure-heap, in fact sometimes it is completely rotten, and as a Gipsy woman told me last week, “it is not fit to be handled with the hands.” In noticing that many of the Gipsy children have a kind of eye disease, I am told by the women that it is owing to the sulphur arising from the coke fire they have upon the ground in their midst, and which at times also causes the children to turn pale and sickly.’”
The following brief account of the Hungarian Gipsies of the present day, as seen by a writer under the initials “A. C.,” who visited the Unitarian Synod in Hungary last summer, is taken from the Unitarian Herald, bearing date January 9th, 1880, and in which the author says:—“Not far from Rugonfalva we came on a colony of exceedingly squalid Gipsies, living in huts which a respectable Zulu would utterly despise. Their appearance reminded me of Cowper’s graphic sketch, which I am tempted to quote:—
“‘I see a column of slow-rising smoke
O’ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal. A kettle, flung
Between two poles upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morsel—flesh obscene of dog,
Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined
From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race,
They pick their fuel out of every hedge,
Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unqueuched
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin,
The vellum of the livery they claim.’
“Transylvania is one great museum of human as well as natural products, and this singular race forms an interesting element of its motley population. It is supposed that the tribe found its way to Hungary in the beginning of the fifteenth century, having fled from Central Asia or India during the Mongol reign of terror. About the close of last century Pastor Benedict, of Debreczin, mastered their language, and on visiting England found that the Gipsies in this country understood him very well. There are now about eighty thousand of them in Transylvania, but three-fourths of this number have settled homes, and caste distinctions are so strong that the higher grades would not drink from a cup used by one of their half-savage brethren. On reaching the mansion of Mr. Jakabházi, at Siménfalva, who employs about one hundred and forty civilised Gipsies
on his estate, we had an opportunity after dinner of seeing them return in a long procession from the fields. Some of the women carried small brown babies, that appeared able to find footing anywhere on their mothers’ shoulders, backs, or breasts. These labourers are almost entirely paid in food and other necessaries, and if kindly treated are very honourable towards their master, and generally adopt his religion. When smarting under any grievance, they, on the contrary, sometimes change their faith en masse, and when conciliated undergo as speedy a re-conversion. The women are, as a rule, very fond of ornaments, and the men are, above all things, proud of a horse or a pair of scarlet breeches. Of late years they have in a few districts began to intermarry with the Wallachs, and the sharp distinction between them and the other races in Hungary will, no doubt, gradually disappear.”
The Weekly Times again takes up the subject, and the following appears on January 9th, 1880:—“We made a second expedition, with Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, on Sunday, in search of a Gipsy encampment; and though the way was long and tedious, and we were both lamed with walking before we returned at night, yet we had not gone one step out of our way. There is no encampment of these ancient and interesting people in the neighbourhood of the hundred odd square miles which composes the site of the metropolis, with which Mr. Smith is not acquainted, and to which we verily believe he could lead a friend if he was blindfolded. The way we went must remain somewhat of a secret, because the Gipsies do not care to see many visitors on the only day of the week which is one of absolute rest to them. All that we shall disclose about the way is, that we skirted Mount Nod, and for a short distance looked upon the face of an ancient river, then up-hill we clambered for many longish miles, until we turned out of a certain lane into the encampment. There was a rude picturesqueness in the gaping of the vans and tents. In
the foreground were the vans, to the rear the cloth kraals, with their smoky coverings stretched over poles; from a hole in the centre the smoke ascended, furnishing evidence that the open brazier was burning within. The vans protected the approach to the camp, just in the same way that artillery are planted to keep the road to a military encampment. Mr. Smith’s face seemed to be well known to these strange people, and we no sooner appeared in sight than the swinging door of every van was edged with faces, and forth from the strange kraals there crept child and woman, youth and dog, to say a kindly word, or bark a welcome to the visitors. But for the Gipsies’ welcome we might have had an unpleasant reception from the dogs. They were evidently dubious as to our character, their training inclining them to bite, if they get a chance, any leg wearing black cloth, but to give the ragged-trousered visitors a fawning welcome; so they sniffed again and again, and growled, until driven away by the voices of their owners. Perchance, during the remainder of the day, they were revolving in their intelligent minds how it had come to pass that the black cloth legs were received with evident marks of favour. Nor were they able to settle the point easily, for whenever we happened to look round the encampment during the afternoon, from the raised door-way of a kraal where we happened to be couched, we noticed the eyes of one or other of the four-footed guardians fixed intently on us. There were about twenty vans and tents in all; and each paid one shilling a week to the ground landlord. That money, with whatever else was required for food, was obtained by hawking at this season of the year, and trade was very bad. Winter must be a fearful experience for these children of the air, and the field, the summer sun, the wild flowers, and the fruits of harvest. Such rains as have descended, such snows as have been falling, such cold winds as have been blowing, must discount fearfully the joys of the three happier seasons of the year.