I've been a Gipsying / or, Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans

by George Smith

Question 27. “What number of travelling families are there in the country who would be called upon to take out annual registration certificates?”

I should think at a rough calculation there will be between six and eight thousand, which would yield a sum of £1,500 to £2,000 annually.

Question 28. “You refer in your Congress papers to the granting of a portion of land to certain classes of the gipsies who are desirous of settling down, on long leases at a nominal rent. Do you think the gipsies would agree to this plan?”

I do most assuredly—i.e., if any reliance is to be placed upon their own statements, and I think they are worthy of credence. In the first place, the land should be granted to those gipsies who have been on the road during the last twelve months only. Secondly, I would grant to each family of man, wife, and two children, four acres; this would, after the first year, enable a man to keep a cow and grow vegetables enough for the family. Supposing there were three thousand families, they would require 12,000 acres of waste land. To meet the expenses, and to provide ways and means, a society should be founded principally upon philanthropic and business principles combined, and this—or, better still, the Government—should grant small sums of money to the tenants by way of loan at a small interest, to enable them to erect a hut, and to provide food for the first year. Of course the money should be advanced gradually as the work and other things progressed. I should think that £100 for each family would be amply sufficient to tide them over the first year, to be spent as follows: £30 for the hut; £40 for one year’s keep; £17 for a little Welsh cow; £3 for pig and fowls; and £10 for tools and implements. The Society advancing the money should have a lien upon the land until all the money advanced had been paid back. Proper safeguards would have to be taken on all sides.

Question 29. “What would be the ultimate effect of this plan of allotting land to the gipsies and other travellers?”

The gain would be infinite. The men, women, and children would be drawn from a life of vagabondage, theft, and idleness to one of work and profit to themselves and the country’s good. Of course all would require time to work out. If the three thousand families were eating bread of their own earning, and cultivating twelve thousand acres of land which is at present bringing forth nothing but moor game and partridges, the results would be heavenly and eternal pleasure to themselves and the country. Any of my plans would be a thousand times better than destroying parental responsibility by taking their children from them by force and sending them to industrial schools, “and turning their parents loose” upon society to inculcate their idle, lying, cheating habits and customs into others they may be brought in contact with, who stand ready with open mouths to receive gipsy lies, damning tricks, cheating, and lore as gospel.

Question 30. “On behalf of the various Christian churches throughout the country, would you kindly tell us what steps you would take for improving the spiritual condition of the gipsies, canal boatmen, and other travellers? Would you organize a missionary society with a staff of officials, secretaries, travellers, agents, &c., with headquarters in London?”

No. If such an organization was started it is my decided conviction that but little good would be the result. Missionaries, like other folks, desire to see the fruits of their labours, which, owing to the fluctuating habits of the boaters, gipsies, and others, they are unable to see. The only way in which missionary organization could work successfully would be to have a few vans and temporary booths, such as some of the show people use as “boxing establishments,” and to place them in charge of a good man and his wife, who would live in the van and visit some of the principal fairs in the country. Religious services and a Sunday-school could be conducted in the booths on Sundays, and a day-school for those children whom the law would allow to travel with their parents on week days, or at any rate on the morning of fair days. The man and his wife could conduct a religious service at nights, and also distribute during the day, when not engaged in the school, religious periodicals and other literature of the kind. By far the better plan will be for the various religious denominations in each town to set to work in right good earnest to remedy the evil as it comes periodically into their midst. Local missionary societies might be formed, composed of all sections of Christ’s Church, to erect a temporary wooden booth to stand side by side of the devil’s booths during fair time. Here religious services could be conducted by various societies in their turn. The members of the Church of England to have the use of the booth, say on Saturday; the Wesleyans, Monday; the Congregationalists on Tuesday; the Baptists on Wednesday; the Primitive Methodists on Thursday, and so on through the week, the various sections following each other in their proper order. Sometimes it would happen that the Wesleyans would have the booth on the Saturday night, and the Church of England on the Sunday. I am not a believer in a work of this kind being left to a few. It should be the duty of all Christians and philanthropists to help forward the cause of the children. Those who give money would give time too, if asked and set to work. As a rule the givers are the workers, if they know when to begin and how to begin. Another plan would be to follow the usual course carried out in missioning back streets, &c., viz., to sing, distribute tracts among the travellers, gipsies, and others, speaking at the same time faithful words of counsel, reproof, warning, caution. Whatever course is followed, the persons engaged in trying to improve the condition of the gipsies and others must not go about it in a kind of stand-off manner. When they want to shake hands with either canal boatmen or gipsies, their fingers must not be put out as if they were tied upon the end of a cold poker, and they were afraid of the rough grip of a gipsy crushing it to powder. A warm heart and a pleasant word are passports that will admit any man or woman into boat cabins, gipsy tents, and travellers’ rooms. A prying inquisitiveness these people abhor and detest, and they will resent it to the utmost. Any little matters relating to their lives, habits, &c., they will tell to friends whose object is their good without “pumping.” Whoever ministers to the boatmen, gipsies, or travellers must be prepared to eat at their tables, and drink out of their cups, even if it be on the ground among mud, out of a dirty basin, and served with dirtier hands. They do not think they are dirty, and those who visit them must, if they mean to do any good among them, shut their eyes and hold their tongues to things they do not like. Little acts of kindness are not forgotten by them, and a word of faithful reproof they will appreciate—i.e., if it comes from a man or woman who means their present and eternal welfare. I have said most hard and faithful things to them, as most people know, for which I have not at their hands been subjected to insult or abuse. In a few cases where I have been misunderstood, I have come in for my share, but afterwards they have been sorry for it. The electrical sparks of sympathy in their nature will not manifest themselves at the touch of selfish hands. It is only the love and sympathy in the hearts of those who visit them that brings out the finer feelings of the boaters and gipsies to perform deeds of love. I now say again, what I have often said before, that the best missionary agency for effecting their spiritual good will be the proper carrying out of an Act on the lines I have laid down. When once the children are taught to read, the next step should be to see that books of the right kind are placed in their hands, and, with the blessing of Heaven, the first step towards a moral reformation in the habits, lives, and customs of our gipsies, canal boatmen, and other travelling tribes and classes, will have been taken for their eternal welfare.

Question 31. “Can you give us any proof of gipsies having taken to civilized customs and usages, having risen in the social scale equal to other law-abiding subjects?”

I will only give you a few names. One of the best and sweetest singers who ever sang before the Russian nobility was a gipsy damsel. One of the best actresses that ever put her foot upon an English stage was a gipsy. A celebrated Scotch clergyman of this late day is of gipsy parentage; and so is also one of the present-day Wesleyan ministers. Some sculpture and carving in the large hall of the House of Commons is from gipsy hands; at any rate there was more than two-thirds of gipsy blood in the artist’s veins—I have been told that he was a thorough gipsy. The wife of one of our celebrated London architects is, or nearly so, of gipsy parentage; and the beautiful little songsters she can paint are most charming. You could almost imagine when you see her handiwork that you could hear the pretty little creatures warbling and piping forth God’s praises. They adorn many drawing-rooms. Recently I have heard of two gipsies in Surrey who own two rows of houses as a result of their civilized habits. Others could be named who have saved money, and are a credit to themselves and the country. John Bunyan was a gipsy, as every one knows who has read his work and studied his temperament, habits, character, early life, and surroundings. If there had never been a gipsy in the world but John Bunyan who had risen out of a wigwam, he would afford sufficient proof that gipsies, if taken by the hand, can step towards heaven, and draw others up after them. I knew a number of gipsies who have lived decent lives and have died happy in God. There are to be seen to-day gipsies wending their way to God’s house on Sundays, preparing themselves for the changes which await us all.