“Hark! Don’t you hear the rumbling of its wheels?
Nearer it comes and nearer! Oh, what light!
The tent is full; ’tis glory everywhere!
Dear Jesus, I am coming! Then she fell—
As falls a meteor when the skies are clear.”
After this solemn but interesting event nothing further seems to have been done by either Christian or philanthropist towards wiping out this national disgrace, and the Gipsies were left to follow the bent of their evil propensities for several years, till Mr. Crabb’s reading of Hoyland and witnessing the sentence of death passed upon a Gipsy at Winchester, in 1827, for horse-stealing.
Mr. Crabb happened to enter just as the judge was passing sentence of death on two unhappy men. To one he held out the hope of mercy; but to the other, a poor Gipsy, who was convicted of horse-stealing, he said, no hope could be given. The young man, for he was but a youth, immediately fell on his knees, and with uplifted hands and eyes, apparently unconscious of any persons being present but the judge and himself, addressed him as follows: “Oh, my Lord, save my life!” The judge replied, “No; you can have no mercy in this world: I and my brother judges
have come to the determination to execute horse-stealers, especially Gipsies, because of the increase of the crime.” The suppliant, still on his knees, entreated—“Do, my Lord Judge, save my life! do, for God’s sake, for my wife’s sake, for my baby’s sake!” “No,” replied the judge, “I cannot; you should have thought of your wife and children before.” He then ordered him to be taken away, and the poor fellow was rudely dragged from his earthly judge. It is hoped, as a penitent sinner, he obtained the more needful mercy of God, through the abounding grace of Christ. After this scene Mr. Crabb could not remain in court. As he returned he found the mournful intelligence had been communicated to some Gipsies who had been waiting without, anxious to learn the fate of their companion. They seemed distracted.
On the outside of the court, seated on the ground, appeared an old woman and a very young one, and with them two children, the eldest three years and the other an infant but fourteen days old. The former sat by its mother’s side, alike unconscious of her bitter agonies and of her father’s despair. The old woman held the infant tenderly in her arms, and endeavoured to comfort its weeping mother, soon to be a widow under circumstances the most melancholy. “My dear, don’t cry,” said she; “remember you have this dear little baby.” Impelled by the sympathies of pity and a sense of duty, Mr. Crabb spoke to them on the evil of sin, and expressed his hope that the melancholy event would prove a warning to them, and to all their people. The poor man was executed about a fortnight after his condemnation.
Mr. Crabb being full of fire and zeal, set to work in right good earnest, and succeeded in forming a committee at Southampton to bring about a reformation among the Gipsies. He also enlisted the sympathy of other earnest Christians in the work, and for a time, while the sun shone, received encouraging signs of success, in fact, according to his little work published in 1831, his labours were attended with blessed results among the adult portion of the Gipsies.
Owing to the wandering habits of the Gipsies, discouragements, and his own death, the work, so far as any organisation was concerned, came to an end. No Elisha came forward to catch his mantle, the consequence was the Gipsies were left again to work out their own destruction according to their own inclinations and tastes, as they deemed best, plainly showing that voluntary efforts are very little better than a shadow, vanishing smoke, and spent steam, to illuminate, elevate, warm, cheer, and encourage the wandering, dark-eyed vagabonds roving about in our midst into paths of usefulness, honesty, and sobriety.
Thus far in this part I have feebly endeavoured to show that rigid, stern, inflexible law and justice on the one hand, and meek, quiet, mild, human love and mercy on the other hand, have separately failed in the object the promoters had in view. Justice tried to exterminate the Gipsy; mercy tried to win them over. Of the two processes I would much prefer that of mercy. It is more pleasant to human nature to be under its influence, and more in the character of an Englishman to deal out mercy. The next efforts put forth to reform these renegades was by means of fiction, romance, and poetry. Some writers, in their praiseworthy endeavours to make up a medicine to improve the condition of the Gipsies, have neutralised its effects by adding too much honey and spice to it. Others, who have mistaken the emaciated condition of the Gipsy, have been dosing him with cordials entirely, to such a degree, that he—Romany chal—imagines he is right in everything he says and does, and he ought to have perfect liberty to go anywhere or do anything. Some have attempted to paint him white, and in doing so have worked up the blackness from underneath, and presented to us a character which excites a feeling in our notions—a kind of go-between, akin to sympathy and disgust. Not a few have thrown round the Gipsy an enchanting, bewitching halo, which an inspection has proved nothing less than a delusion and a snare. Others have tried to improve this
field of thistles and sour docks by throwing a handful of daisy seeds among them. It requires something more than a phantom life-boat to rescue the Gipsy and bring him to land. Scents and perfumes in a death-bed chamber only last for a short time. A bottle of rose-water thrown into a room where decomposition is at work upon a body will not restore life. Scattering flowers upon a cesspool of iniquity will not purify it. A fictitious rope composed of beautiful ideas is not the thing to save drowning Gipsy children. To put artificially-coloured feathers upon the head of a Gipsy child dressed in rags and shreds, with his body literally teeming with vermin and filth, will not make him presentable at court or a fit subject for a drawing-room. To dress the Satanic, demon-looking face of a Gipsy with the violet-powder of imagery only temporally hides from view the repulsive aspect of his features. The first storm of persecution brings him out again in his true colour. The forked light of imagination thrown across the heavens on a dark night is not the best to reveal the character of a Gipsy and set him upon the highways for usefulness and heaven. The dramatist has strutted the Gipsy across the stage in various characters in his endeavour to improve his condition. After the fine colours have been doffed, music finished, applause ceased, curtain dropped, and scene ended, he has been a black, swarthy, idle, thieving, lying, blackguard of a Gipsy still. Applause, fine colours, and dazzling lights have not altered his nature. Bad he is, and bad he will remain, unless we follow out the advice of the good old book, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Would to God the voice of the little Gipsy girl would begin to ring in our ears, when she spoke with finger pointed and tears in her eyes:—