Efforts put forth to exterminate these Asiatic heathens, babble-mongers, and bush-ranging thieves, were not confined to England alone. King Ferdinand of Spain was the first to set the persecuting machine at work to grind them to powder, and passed an edict in the year 1492 for their extermination, which only drove them into hiding-places, to come out, with their mouths watering, in greater numbers, for fresh acts of violence and plunder. At the King’s death, the Emperor Charles V. persecuted them afresh, but with no success, and the consequence was they were left alone in Spain to pursue their course of robbery and crime for more than 200 years. In France an edict was passed by Francis I. At a Council of the State of Orleans an order was sent to all Governors to drive the Gipsies out of the country with fire and the sword. Under this edict
they still increased, and a new order was issued in 1612 for their extermination. In 1572 they were driven from the territories of Milan and Parma, and earlier than this date they were driven beyond the Venetian jurisdiction.
“It is the sound of fetters—sound of work
Is not so dismal. Hark! they pass along.
I know it is those Gipsy prisoners;
I saw them, heard their chains. O! terrible
To be in chains.”
In Denmark they were not allowed to pass about the country unmolested, and every magistrate was ordered to take them into custody. A very sharp and severe order came out for their expulsion from Sweden in the year 1662. Sixty-one years later a second order was published by the Diet; and in 1727 additional stringent measures were added to the foregoing edicts. Under pain of death they were excluded from the Netherlands by Charles V., and in 1582 by the United Provinces. Germany seems to have led the van in passing laws for their extermination. At the Augsburg Diet in 1500, Maximillian I. had the following edict drawn up:—“Respecting those people who call themselves Gipsies roving up and down the country. By public edict to all ranks of the empire, according to the obligations under which they are bound to us and the Holy Empire, it is strictly ordered that in future they do not permit the said Gipsies (since there is authentic evidence of their being spies, scouts, and conveyers of intelligence, betraying the Christians to the Turks) to pass or remain within their territories, nor to trade or traffic, neither to grant them protection nor convoy, and that the said Gipsies do withdraw themselves before Easter next ensuing from the German Dominions, entirely quit them, nor suffer themselves to be found therein. As in case they should transgress after this time, and receive injury from any person, they shall have no redress, nor shall such persons be thought to have committed
any crime.” Grellmann says the same affair occupied the Diet in 1530, 1544, 1548, and 1551, and was also enforced in the stringent police regulations of Frankfort in 1577, and he goes on to say that with the exception of Hungary and Transylvania, they were similarly proscribed in every civilised state. I think it will be seen by the foregoing German edict that there is some foundation for the supposition I have brought forward earlier, viz., that the persecution of the Gipsies in this country was not so much on account of their thieving deeds, plunder, and other abominations, as their connection with the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, and in the secrecy of their movements in going from village to village, undermining the foundation of the State, law, and order, civil and religious liberty. The only bright spot and cheerful tint upon this sorrowful picture of persecution which took place in our own country during these dark ages was the appearance of the Star of Elstow, John Bunyan, the Bedfordshire tinker, whose life and death forcibly illustrates the last words of Jesus upon the Cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
“’Twere ill to banish hope and let the mind
Drift like a feather. I have had my share
Of what the world calls trial. Once a fire
Came in the darkness, when the city lay
In a still sea of slumber, stretching out
Great lurid arms which stained the firmament;
And when I woke the room was full of sparks,
And red tongues smote the lattice. Then a hand
Came through the sulphur, taking hold of mine,
And the next moment there were shouts of joy.
Ah! I was but a child and my first care
Was for my mother.”—Harris (the Cornish poet).
Towards the end of the eighteenth century it became evident that edicts and persecutions were not going to stamp out the Gipsies in this country, for instead of them decreasing in numbers they kept increasing; at this time there
were supposed to be about 18,000 in the country. The following sad case, showing the malicious spirits of the Gipsies, and the relentless hand of the hangman, seemed to have had the effect of bringing the authorities to bay. They had begun to put their “considering caps” on, and were in a fix as to the next move, and it was time they had. They had never thought of tempering justice with mercy. A century ago, 1780, a number of young Gipsies were arrested at Northampton, upon what charge it does not appear. It should be noted that Northamptonshire at this time was a favourite round for the Gipsy fraternity as well as the adjoining counties. This, it seems, excited the feelings of the Gipsies in the county, and they sought to obtain the release of the young Gipsies who were in custody, but were not successful in their application to the magistrate; the consequence was—true to their instincts—the spirit of revenge manifested itself to such a degree that the Gipsies threatened to set fire to the town, and would, in all probability have carried it out had not a number of them been brought to the gallows for these threats. With this case the hands of persecution began to hang down, for it was evident that persecution alone would neither improve these Gipsies nor yet drive them out of the country. The tide of events now changed. Law, rigid, stern justice alone could do no good with them, and consequently handed them over to the minister of love and mercy. This step was a bound to the opposite extreme, and as we go along we shall see that the efforts put forth in this direction alone met with but little more success than under the former treatment. Seven years after the foregoing executions Grellmann’s work upon the Gipsies appeared, which caused a considerable commotion among the religious communities, following, as it did, the universal feeling aroused in the welfare of the children of this country by the establishment of Sunday-schools throughout the length and breadth of the land to teach the children of the working-classes reading and writing and
the fundamental principles of Christianity. After repeated efforts put forth by a number of Christian gentlemen, and the interest caused by the publication of Grellmann’s book, the work of reforming the Gipsies by purely religious and philanthropic action began to lag behind; the result was, as in the case of persecution, no good was observable, and the Gipsies were allowed to go again on their way to destruction. The next step was one in the right direction, viz., that of trying to improve the Gipsies by the means of the schoolmaster; although humble and feeble in its plan of operation, yet if we look to the agency put forth and its results, the Sunday-school teacher must have felt encouraged in his work as he plodded on Sunday after Sunday.
It may be said of Thomas Howard as it was said of the poor widow of old, he “hath done more than them all.” The following account of this cheerful, encouraging, and interesting gathering is taken from Hoyland, in which he says:—“The first account he received of any of them was from Thomas Howard, proprietor of a glass and china shop, No. 50, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. This person, who preached among the Calvinists, said that in the winter of 1811 he had assisted in the establishment of a Sunday-school in Windwill Street, Acre Lane, near Clapham. It was under the patronage of a single gentlewoman, of the name of Wilkinson, and principally intended for the neglected and forlorn children of brick-makers and the most abject poor.” At the present day Gipsies generally locate in the neighbourhood of brick-yards and low, swampy marshes, or by the side of rivers or canals. It was begun on a small scale, but increased till the number of scholars amounted to forty.