There is much more sickness among the Gipsies than is generally known, especially among the children. They have strong faith in herbs; the principal being chicken-weed, groundsel, elder leaves, rue, wild sage, love-wort, agrimony, buckbean, wood-betony, and others; these they boil in a saucepan like they would cabbages, and then drink the decoction. They only go to the chemist or surgeon at the last extremity. They are very much like the man who tried by degrees to train his donkey to live and work without food, and just as he succeeded the poor Balaam died; and so it is with the poor Gipsy children. It kills them to break them in to the hardships of Gipsy life. Occasionally I have heard of Gipsies who act as human beings should do with their children. A well-to-do Gipsy whom I know—one of the Lees, a son of Mrs. Simpson—has spent over £30 in doctors’ bills this winter for his children’s good. Not one Gipsy in a thousand would do likewise.
Gipsies die like other folk, although before doing so they may have lived and quarrelled like the Kilkenny cats among other Gipsies; but at death these things are all forgotten, and a Gipsy funeral seems to be the means to revive all the good they knew about the person dead and a burying of all the bad connected with the dead Gipsy’s life. I am now referring to a few of the better class of Gipsies. Gipsies, as a rule, pay special regard to the wishes of a dying Gipsy, and will sacrifice almost anything to carry them out. I attended the funeral of a house-dwelling Gipsy, Mrs. Roberts, at Notting Hill, a few weeks ago. The editor and proprietor of the Suburban Press,
refers to this funeral in his edition under date February 28th, as follows:—“On Monday last a noteworthy event took place in the humble locality of the Potteries, Notting Dale. In this district are congregated a miscellaneous population of the poorest order, who get what living they can out of the brick-fields or adjoining streets and lanes, or by costermongering, tinkering, &c., &c. They dwell together in the poorest and most melancholy-looking cottages, some in sheds and outhouses, or in dilapidated vans, for it is the resort and locale of many of the Gipsies that wander in the western suburbs. Yet all these make up a kind of community and live together as friends and neighbours, and every now and again they show themselves amenable to good influences, and characters of humble mark and power arise among them. To those who sympathise with the poet who sings of the
“‘Short and simple annals of the poor,’
we scarcely know a region that can be studied to greater advantage. In the present instance it was the funeral of an old inhabitant of the Gipsy tribe, one of the oldest, most respected, and loved of all the nomads, and related in some way to many Gipsy families in London and the neighbouring counties. Abutting from the Walmer Road is a good sized court or alley called ‘Mary Place,’ and in a nook of one of the small cottages here lived Mrs. Roberts for a number of years, who has been described to us by one who long enjoyed her acquaintance as ‘a very superior woman, intelligent and happy Christian.’ So that she must indeed have shone in that humble and sombre spot as a ‘gem of purest ray serene,’ though not exactly as the flower
“‘Born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.’
For the comprehensive genius of Christian sympathy and labour had found her out, and she was known and respected, and her influence was felt by all around her. She lived for
years a widow, but with five grown-up, strong, and thrifty children—two sons and three daughters and troops of friends—to cheer her latter days. The preliminaries—a service of song conducted by Mr. Adams and his sons—were soon over, and the coffin being lifted through the window was placed on the strong shoulders which had been appointed to convey it to Brompton Cemetery, a distance of some three miles. It was a neat coffin, covered with black cloth, and when the pall had been thrown over it affectionate hands placed upon it two or three large handsome wreaths of immortals white as snow, and so the procession moved off followed by weeping sons, daughters, and friends, and a host of sympathising neighbours, to the strains of the ‘Dead March in Saul.’ Requiescat in pace. Among those present at this interesting ceremony standing next to us, and sharing in part our umbrella, was a gentleman whose name and vocation we were not aware until afterwards. We were glad, however, to learn that we were unwittingly conversing with no other than Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicester, the philanthropic and well-known promoter of the ‘Brick-maker’s’ and ‘Canal Boatman’s’ Acts, who has specially devoted himself to the improvement of the social condition of these too-neglected people. He is now giving his attention to the case of the Gipsies, and specially to the children, to whom he is anxious to see extended among other things the provisions of the School Board Act. The great and good work of Mr. Smith has already attracted the attention of a number of charitable Christian people, and it has not been overlooked by Her Majesty the Queen, who, with her accustomed care and kindness, has expressed her special interest therein.” She was a good, Christian woman, and I think I am speaking within bounds when I say that there is not one in five hundred like she was. Before she died she wished for two things to be carried out at her funeral—one was that she should be carried on Gipsies’ shoulders all the way to Brompton Cemetery, a distance of some miles; and the
other was that Mr. Adams, a gentleman in the neighbourhood, should conduct a service of song just before the funeral cortége left the humble domicile; both requests were carried out, notwithstanding that it was a pouring wet day. The service of song was very impressive, surrounded as we were by some two hundred Gipsies and others of the lowest of the low, living in one of the darkest places in London. Some stood with their mouths open and appeared as if they had not heard of the name of Jesus before, and there were others whose features betokened strong emotion, and upon whose cheeks could be seen the trickling tears as we sung, among others:—