“Invitations to stoop and enter any ‘tent’ were freely tendered, and ‘peeps’ were indulged in with regard to a few. In one, a closed cauldron covered the brazier fire, and two men and a dog watched with unceasing vigilance. We tried to make friends here, but failed. There was a steamy exudation from the cauldron which filled the air with fragrance, and our curiosity overcame our prudence, but with no satisfactory result. ‘A stew,’ we suggested. ‘Yes! it was summut stewing.’ ‘Couldn’t we guess what it was?’ ‘Not soon,’ was the reply; ‘a few bones and a potato or two; perhaps a bit of something green. At such hard times they were mostly glad to get anything.’ But nothing more could be gleaned, and the two men and the dog never lost sight of the cauldron while the visitors remained. In a few cases the tents were pegged down all round, and across the top, upon a stout line, there hung a few articles fresh from the wash. The pegged cloth indicated that the female occupants were within, but ‘not at home,’ nor would they be visible until the wind had dried the garments that fluttered overhead. We tarried, and were made quite at home in another kraal, where we gleaned many interesting particulars of Gipsy life; and here we held a sort of smoking levée, and were honoured by the company of many distinguished residents in camp. We lay upon a bed of straw, which covered the whole of the interior, save a little space filled with the brazier, in which a fire of coke was burning; above was a hole, out of which the smoke passed. The straw had been stamped into consistency by the feet of the family; there was no odour from it, and in that particular was an improvement on the rush and straw floors in the English houses of which Erasmus made such great complaint. There was no chair, stool, or box on which to sit, and all of us reclined Eastern fashion in the posture that was most convenient. The owner of the kraal and his wife were very interesting people: the mother’s hair descended by little steps from the crown of her head, until it stuck out
like a bush, in a line with the nape of her neck, a dense dead-black mass of hair. She had been a model for painters many a time, she said, before small-pox marked her; and, since, the back of her head had often been drawn to fit somebody else’s face.
“‘When I come again what shall I bring you?’ said Mr. Smith, in most reckless fashion, to the Egyptian Queen. ‘Well,’ said she, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘if there is one thing more than another that I do want, it’s a silk handkercher for my head—a real Bandana.’ The request was characteristic. Of the tales we heard one or two were curious, one positively laughable, and one related to a deed of blood. Mr. Smith, going into a tent, found an aged Gipsy woman, to whom he told the object of his visiting the Gipsies, and what he hoped to accomplish for the children, and she forwith handed him a money gift. On more than one occasion a well-polished silver coin of small value, a penny, or a farthing has been quietly put into Mr. Smith’s hands, in furtherance of his work, by some poor Gipsy woman. The story which made us laugh was of a Gipsy marriage. It is one of the unwritten laws of Gipsy life that the wife works while the husband idles about the tent. The wife hawks with the basket or the cart and sells, while the husband loiters about the encampment or cooks the evening meal. But one young Gipsy fell in love with an Irish girl named Kathleen, and from the day of their marriage Tom never had an idle moment. In vain did he plead the usages of Gipsy married life. Kathleen was deaf to all such modes of argument, and drove her husband forth from tent and encampment, by voice or by stake, until she completely cured him of his idleness, and she remained mistress of the field. Whenever a young Gipsy is supposed to be courting a stranger, the fate of Tom at the hands of Kathleen is told him as a warning. During the afternoon we were continually exhorted to see ‘Granny’ before we left. Every one spoke of her with respect, and when we were
about to leave, Patience offered to show us ‘Granny’s tent.’ Repentance joined her sister, and before we were up and out of the tent opening, we saw Patience at a tent not far off; she dived head and shoulders through an opening she made, and then appeared to be pulling vigorously. Her activity was soon explained. We thrust our heads through the opening, and were face to face with a shrivelled-faced old woman, whose cheeks were like discoloured parchment, and whose hands and arms appeared to be mere bones. But her eye was bright, and her tongue proved her to be in possession of most of her faculties. She could not stand or walk, nor could she sit up for many minutes at a time, and the action of Patience was caused by her hastily seizing the old woman by her arms as she lay on her straw floor, and dragging her into a sitting position. If the old dame had been asleep, Patience had thoroughly aroused her. She greeted us with Gipsy courtesy, and told us she was ‘fourscore and six years of age.’ Her name, in answer to our query, she said was ‘Sinfire Smith.’ ‘Why, that’s the same as mine,’ said Mr. Smith. ‘O, likely,’ said Sinfire, ‘the Smiths is a long family.’ For four score and six years poor Sinfire has led a Gipsy life, and though her house now is only a tent, and her bed and bedding straw, she made no moan, and there was nothing she wished to have.”
“Farewell, farewell! so rest there, blade!
Entomb me where our chiefs are laid;
But, hark, methinks I hear the drum,
I would that holy man were come.”—Harris.“What sound is that as of one knocking gently?
Yet who would enter here at hour so late?
Arise! draw back the bolt—unclose the portal.
What figure standeth there before the gate?“He bears to thee sweet messages from Heaven,
Whispers of love from dear ones folded there,
And tells thee that a place for thee is waiting,
That thou shalt join them in their home so fair.”A. F. B.—“Sunday at Home.”
Part III.
The Treatment the Gipsies have received in this Country.
The social history and improvements of our own country seem to have gone by irregular leaps and bounds. The Parliament, like the Times, follows upon the heels of public opinion in all measures concerning the welfare of the nation; and it is well it should be so. An Englishman will be led by a child; but it requires a strong hand and a sharp whip to drive him. One hundred and forty years ago the Wesleys and Whitfield caused a commotion in the religious world. Upwards of a century ago the first canal in this country was opened for the conveyance of goods upon our silent highways, and trade began in earnest to show signs of life and activity. A century ago Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, opened his first Sunday-school—the beginning of a system ever widening and expanding, carrying with it blessings incomprehensible to finite minds, and only to be revealed in another world. Nearly a century ago Raper’s translation of Grellmann’s “Dissertation on the Gipsies” was published, and which caused no little stir at the time, being the first work of any kind worth notice that had appeared. Seventy years ago an interesting correspondence took place in the Christian Observer upon the condition of the Gipsies, and various lines of missionary action were suggested; but no plan was adopted, and all words blown to the wind. Then, as now, people would look at the Gipsies
in their pitiable condition, and with a shrug of the shoulders would say, “Poor things,” and away they would go to their mansions, doff their warm winter clothing, put on their needleworked slippers, stretch their legs before a blazing fire in the drawing-room, and call “John” to bring a box of the best cigars, the champagne, dry sherry, and crusted port, and then noddle off to sleep. Sixty-four years ago Hoyland’s “Historical Survey of the Gipsies” made its appearance, a work that caught the fire and spirit of Grellmann’s, the object of both being to stir up the missionary zeal of this country in the cause of the Gipsies. Fifty years ago James Crabb began his missionary work among the Gipsies at Southampton, and for a while did well; but in course of time, owing to the Gipsies moving about, as in the case of “Our Canal Population,” the work dwindled down and down, till there is not a vestige of this good man’s efforts to be seen. About the same time that Crabb was at work among the Gipsies missionary efforts were put in motion to improve the canal-boatmen, and mission stations were established at Newark, Stoke-on-Trent, Aylesbury, Oxford, Birmingham, and other places, but fared the same fate as the missionary effort of Crabb and others among the Gipsies. Fifty years ago railways were opened, which gave an impetus to trade never experienced before. Fifty years ago the preaching of Bourne and Clowes was causing considerable excitement in the country. Nearly fifty years ago witnessed the passing of the Reform Bill, and the Factory Act received the Royal signature. Forty years have passed away since George Borrow’s missionary efforts among the Gipsies were prominently before the public, which, sad to say, shared the fate of Crabb’s, Hoyland’s, Roberts’, and Raper’s. From that day till now, except the spasmodic efforts of a clergyman here and there, or some other kind-hearted friend, these 20,000 poor slighted outcasts have been left to themselves to sink or swim as they thought well. The only man, except the dramatist and novelist, who has seemed
to notice them has been the policeman, and his vigilant eye and staff have been used to drive them from their camping-ground from time to time, and thus—if possible—made their lives more miserable, and created within them deeper-seated revenge, owing to the way in which they are carrying out the Enclosures Act. All missionary efforts put forth to improve the condition of the factory operative and canal-boatmen, previous to the passing of the Factory Act, nearly fifty years since, and the Canal Boats Act of 1877, were fruitless and unprofitable. The passing of the Factory Act has done more for the children in one year than all the missionaries in the kingdom could have done in their lifetime. Similar results are the outcome of the Brickyard Act of 1871, as touching the welfare of the children. And so in like manner it will be with the Canal Boats Act when properly carried out, the canal-boat children of to-day, in fifty years hence, will be equal to other working classes. From the days of Hoyland, and Borrow, and Crabb, down to the present time, but little seems to have been done for the Gipsies. With Crabb died all real interest in the welfare of these poor unfortunate people. The difficulties he had encountered seemed to have had a deterrent effect upon others. Missionary zeal, without moral force of law and the schoolmaster, will accomplish but little for the Gipsies at our doors; and it may be said with special emphasis as regards the improvement of the Gipsy children. From the days of the relentless, cruel, and merciless persecution the Gipsies received under the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, down to the present time, nothing has been done by law to reclaim these Indian outcasts and Asiatic emigrants. The case of the Gipsies shows us plainly that hunting the women and children with bloodhounds, and dragging the Gipsy leaders to the gallows, will neither stamp them out nor improve their character and habits; and, on the other hand, it appears that the love-like gentleness, child-like simplicity, and religious fervour of the circumscribed influence
of Crabb and others, about this time, did but little for these poor, little, dark-eyed, wandering brethren of ours from afar. The next agents that appeared upon the scene to try to elevate the Gipsies into something like a respectable position in society were the dramatists and novelists. These flickering lights of the night have met with no better success, in fact, their efforts, in the way they have been put forth, have, as a rule, exhibited Gipsy life in a variety of false colours and shades, which exhibition has turned out to be a failure in accomplishing the object the authors had in view, other than to fill their coffers and mislead the public as to the real character of a Gipsy vagabond’s life; and thus it will be seen, I think, that the Gipsies and their children of to-day present to us the miserable failure, of bitter persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the efforts of Christianity alone at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and more recently the novelist and dramatist as a means in themselves, separately, to effect a reformation in the habits and character of the Gipsy children and their parents.