I next came upon a gipsy tent, i.e., a few sticks stuck in the ground and partly covered with rags and old sheeting. The bed in this tent was a scattering of straw upon the damp, cold ground. Here were a man, woman, and four children. The woman and children were in a most pitiable condition. None could tell a letter. One of the children lay crouched upon a little straw—and it was a cold day—in one corner of the tent. Such a pitiable object I have never seen. It was very ill; it could not speak, stand, hear, or eat; and it was terribly emaciated. If ever sin in this world had blighted humanity, before me lay a little human being upon whom sin seemed to have poured forth its direful vengeance without stint or measure. With an aching heart I deeply sympathized with the gipsy woman and little gipsy children, whose sad condition is worse than the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse’s “Rob Rat,” which could scarcely be; and I did what I could to cheer them.
I visited a number of tents, and wandered among the poor children and gipsy dogs that were squatting about in the dark upon the cold, wet ground. One fine-faced gipsy Lee and his good gipsy wife have had a family of nineteen children, all of whom were born on the roadside; most of whom are now grown up and have large families. It is fearful to contemplate the number of gipsy wanderers and hedgebottom travellers from this family who are neither doing themselves or the country any good.
There were on the “Flats” at the gipsy fair about one hundred and thirty families in tents and in vans; and of this number there would be forty families squatting about with their lurcher dogs, ready for any kind of game, big or little, black or white, bound by bars or as free as the air. As a rule a gipsy’s list of game includes, according to Asiatic notions and ideas, all the eatable live or dead stock in creation that either he or his dog can lay their hands upon or stick their teeth into.
There must have been over four hundred gipsy and other travelling children going without education, and not one could ever have been in a Sunday school.
It was about 10.30. The mouths and hearts of those who were left began to breed venomous, waspish words. At any rate, all the more steady and sensible part of the sightseers were wending their way homewards. Others were making for the beershops and public-houses, and the riff-raff were loitering about for what they could pick up. Policemen seemed to be creeping upon the ground, buttoned up to the throat, and ready for any emergency.
A few yards from where I was standing I noticed, by the aid of gas, naptha, and paraffin, a gipsyish-looking man standing, opposite one of the cottages, with his arms folded over the palings. I soon found out that he was a gipsy, but had recently taken to house-dwelling, and was now engaged in labourer’s work with bricklayers. He invited me into his comfortably furnished house, and introduced me to his tidy wife, who was not a gipsy, and two good-looking little children. I had a few minutes’ chat with them. He gave me a short account of the suffering, trials, and hardships which he endured while tramping the country, and living in tents, and under vans, and on the roadside. “In early life,” he said, “when I was quite a child, I was placed with my uncle, who is a gipsy horsedealer, to live with him and my aunt, in their van. For a time they behaved well to me, and I slept in the van at nights. From some cause or other, which I have never been able to make out, I was sent to sleep under the van with the dogs’, and to lie upon straw with but little covering. My food now was such as I could pick up—turnips, potatoes, or any mortal thing that I could lay my hands upon. In the winter time I have had to gnaw and nibble a cold turnip for my dinner like a sheep. I used to have to run about in all weathers to do the dirty work of my uncle, mind his horses, ponies, and donkeys in the lanes and fields, for which he would not give me either food, clothing, or lodgings, other than what I looked out for myself. My clothing I used to beg, and, when once put upon my back, there they stuck till they dropped off by pieces. I had a hard time of it for many years, I can tell you, and no mistake. My uncle is now a gentleman horsedealer, and keeps his carriage and his servants to wait upon him. He is well known in London. If he meets or sees me in the streets he turns his head another way, and won’t look at me, though I helped to make his fortune. Every dog has its day, and my turn may come. We gave up drink, and I go to the church and chapel when I have the chance, and I am all the better for it, thank God. I may be as well off as my cruel old uncle some day.” I shook hands with this gipsy family, and bade them God speed, and turned again into the fair and among the gipsy tents. Some of the gipsy and other travelling children were running about picking up scraps and crumbs that had fallen from the bad man’s table. Every piece of paper that had the appearance of having been folded up was eyed over with eager curiosity and wonder by the poor little urchins before they would believe that it was full of emptiness.
The women were putting the little gipsies to bed, and their evening prayers in many cases were oaths. They had never been taught to lisp the evening prayer—
“Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me,
Bless Thy little lamb to-night;
Through the darkness be Thou near me,
Keep me safe till morning light.”
They threw off their outer garments, rolled under some old, dirty, filthy rags at one end of their little tent, crouching together like so many pigs, and snoozed and snored away till morning, except when they were trampled upon or wakened by their drunken gipsy parents. It is horrible to think that not one of this number, between six and seven hundred men, women, and children—so far as I have been able to make out—ever attended a place of worship on Sundays, or offered a prayer to God at eventide. Sin! sin! wretchedness, misery, and degradation from the year’s beginning to the year’s end! Would to God that a comet from His throne, as they sit under the starlight of heaven, would flash and flash upon their mental vision till they asked themselves the question, “Whither are we bound?” Christian England!