Mrs. Gipsy Winter had upon her finger a Masonic ring—i.e., a ring with the “square” and “compasses” engraved upon it. Of course I felt sure she was not a Freemason, and did not proceed to put her to the test. There never was but one woman a Freemason, and the reason was that she secreted herself in an old clock case while the ceremonies were being performed in the Lodge “close tiled.” The only way out of the awkward difficulty was to make her a Mason forthwith on the spot, and this—so Masonic squib and report has it—was done. This report of “our Masonic sister” is to be taken with a pinch of snuff.
I called to see a family of gipsy Woodwards who have taken a house and are settling down the same as other folk. Those of their children that are able to work are working at the coalpits close by, and the children of school age are sent to school. In the course of time they will become as other workers, helping on the welfare of the country, and at the same time securing their own comfort and happiness. The house did not present the appearance of a fidgety old maid’s drawing-room, but they are up the first steps towards it. Time and encouragement will bring it round in the sweet “good time coming.” “Wait a little longer, boys; wait a little longer.”
It is complete bosh, nonsense, wickedness, and misleading folly for frothy novelists to say that it is impossible for gipsies to settle down to industrious habits and a regular life. I know full well they can, and are willing, many of them, to settle down, if means be taken to bring it about. I will only mention one case, to illustrate many others, viz., a gipsy I know well, who is as pure a gipsy as it is possible to find at this late day. The good old man has had a settled home for forty years, and goes to hard work night and morning amongst the farmers, the same as other labourers do. Aye, and many times he works late and early, dining at times off a crust and a cup of cold water with a thankful heart in the week-day, and sings God’s praises on Sundays.
To come back again to Bulwell Forest. After I had visited the Woodwards I turned into a small coffee-shop to get a cup of tea; and while I was enjoying the penny cup of tea with a halfpenny’s-worth of bread and butter for my breakfast, the landlord said: “One of the young gipsy rascals of the forest came into my shop last week, and made himself too friendly and free with some things that lay upon the table, for which I could have put him into jail; but I did not like to follow it up, and the lot of them have made themselves scarce since.” Another old woman, a seller of the Nottingham Daily Journal, Nottingham Daily Guardian, Express, &c., said, “The gipsies often come into my house and want to tell me my fortune; but I always tell them that I know it better than they can tell me, and will have no cotter with them.”
I next came upon a gipsy named L—, who told me of a case of gipsy kidnapping which took place at Macclesfield a year ago, viz., that of a gipsy woman stealing a pretty little girl of tender years out of the streets, belonging to a fairly well-to-do tradesman living in the town. Although the child was advertised for a long time, and large rewards offered, it was not to be found, till one day a gipsy girl went to one of the shops in Macclesfield to sell some gipsy “clothes pegs.” The good woman of the house came to the door. Although five long years had passed away, tears had been dried up again and again, and hundreds of prayers had gone upward to Him who hears prayers and sighs, and the child had grown big and brown, and was dressed in rags and filth, the mother recognized the poor gipsy child standing at her door hawking “pegs” as her own dear little darling “Polly.” Without waiting for the lost child to be washed, dressed, and its hair combed, she embraced her darling little lost daughter covered in rags with fond kisses, which told a tale through the gipsy dirt upon the child’s face, as only a tender-hearted, loving mother can, and straightway called in her friends and neighbours, and said, “Rejoice with me, for I have found this day my long-lost little darling Polly.” A policeman was sent for, the kidnapping gipsy woman was traced, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour in jail for her wrong-doing.
I was also told of gipsies who are undergoing long terms of penal servitude for horse-stealing, their favourite game—sheep stand second on the list. Donkeys are very low down upon their list, as they are not worth “shot and powder.” “If a gipsy should get ‘nabbed’ for stealing a donkey, it would be looked upon in the eyes of the bobbies,” said my gipsy friend, “like stealing a horse.”
A whirl, twirl, puff, and a whiz landed me upon the platform in the “Health Department” at the University College, Nottingham, September 26, 1882, with my bags, books, and papers, among the large gathering of Social Science magnates and doctors, to discuss—firstly, the Canal Boats Act Amendment Bill of 1881, which I am humbly promoting; and secondly, “The Conditions of our Gipsies and their Children, with Remedies.” Among others upon the platform there were Mr. Arnold Morley, M.P., Mr. W. H. Wills, M.P., Mr. Whately Cook Taylor, Chairman, one of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspectors of Factories; Mr. H. H. Collins, Hon. Secretary of the Health Department; Mr. J. Clifford Smith, Secretary to the Social Science Association; and in the body of the hall there were Dr. Hill, the Medical Officer of Health for Birmingham; Mr. Walter Hazell, Mr. Russell of Dublin, and a large gathering of ladies, “too numerous to mention.”
I had expected to find a large opposition force confronting me, consisting of those who would keep the canal and gipsy children in their present degraded condition; but, like the Midianitish host, the breaking of my cracked pitcher had frightened them out of their wits, and they had scampered off to the hedges and ditches to skulk in front of me again another day. No doubt with my papers, Gladstone bag, spectacles, &c., I presented very much the appearance of “Mrs. Gamp” at her speechifying table.
These are my papers with all their faults and living seeds, sown and planted at the Master’s bidding, in the midst of much toil, hardship, and persecution; which seeds will bring forth a little eternal fruit some day—maybe, when my work is done, and I have been called home to rest with the little ones.