The first gipsy I met with was an old friend, “Righteous Smith”—which name was printed on the van—and his large family, at a cocoa-nut establishment. One of the daughters, dressed in lively colours, was in charge of the balls, and shouting out to the “chaps” as they passed forward, “Try your luck, gentlemen!” and the father shouted out, “Now, gentlemen, bowl away! all bad nuts returned.” In response to their bewitching entreaties some old cricketers tried their hand, and, much to the chagrin of “Righteous Smith,” they sent the nuts “spinning away” rather more freely than was profitable and pleasant for “Righteous,” to the extent of putting his good name in the shade. This family of gipsies have, I should think, about three parts of Romany blood in their veins. Their van was a good one, and beautifully clean, and will pass muster when the new order of things comes about, for which I am working night and day, and which, I am thankful to say, is casting its shadows before it. The eight cocoa-nut establishments were owned by cross-bred Romanies, and one or two of the families lived in vans fairly clean. There were over thirty families living in the vans attending the fair, in which there would be an average of three children, one man, and one woman in each van. In five of the vans there were two men and two women in each. A number of those who owned small short shooting galleries and “rock stalls” slept with their children under the stalls.
From this cocoa-nut going “concern” I strolled among the shows, bosh, nonsense, and cheap Jacks. The introduction to one of the sparring establishments was by an old woman screaming out, “We are just going to begin.” By her side was a dandily dressed and painted doll, setting herself off to the best advantage. On some steps between the two women there stood a man painted as a fool, and dressed in tight indecent sparring costume. “Darkey,” with his pug nose, short hair, low narrow forehead, high cheekbones, deep sunken eyes, glistening fire like a black glass bead in the centre of a white china button under the glare of a lamp, which he frequently turned sharply, quickly, and inquisitively to me as if anxious to know my movements. If he had been an uncaught thief, and conscience was telling him that I was a detective, he could not have eyed me over more quickly and closely than he did.
Gentlemen with diamond rings, poachers, and blackguards formed the company. A ring was formed, and “Darkey” and a “Johnny Straw” set to work with their gloves “milling” each other, and just as their “savage” was getting up, the curtain to outsiders was drawn. How long the big and little fools kept at the “milling” process I did not stay to see. What fools there are passing through the world as gentlemen, to be sure, to witness such debasing exhibitions with “pure frolic” and laughter, while their money is being drawn out of their pocket imperceptibly by idle vagabonds.
Not far from this “boxing establishment” there was another “set-out” waiting for a second dose of fools, with a “champion boxer” as a “draw.” Money went freely into the coffers, while the owners of stalls upon which useful articles were exposed for sale “had a bad time of it;” even the celebrated “Banbury cake” was “a drug in the market.”
Over the door, as a sign at one of the shows belonging to Mr. Great Frederick Little, where a nude man was exhibiting himself—“girls and ladies not allowed to enter”—stood two calves’ heads over a skeleton, and what surprised me most was that the good Banbury folks and country Johnnies could not see the satire that was being played upon them. “Calves and bones” for a sign; and I think, judging from the dejected appearance of the people as they came out of the establishment, they felt like “calves and bones” themselves; at any rate they did not look any the wiser—certainly they looked sadder.
Turning from this concern, I was jostled into a crowd of folks to witness a man named Turnover Snuff, Esq., dressed in best blue cloth, with gold watches, guards, and rings, making fools of two well-dressed innocent youths, whom he had called up from the crowd and dressed in rags to eat buns for a prize, to be used as a “draw,” to enable him to pass off his showy goods under various colours, dodges, and pretexts. While the youths were forcing the buns down their throats he was cracking jokes, which the people, with their mouths open, swallowed as gospel. What this “Cheap Jack” said in action, if not in words, was, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, you see that these two youths have come up here at my bidding, to make fools of themselves, and to eat these buns I am forcing down their throats, to cause you to twitter and laugh with your eyes shut to the things that are to follow; so in like manner I want all of you to shut your eyes and open your mouths to receive all the lies I want to force down your throats, that I may extract the coin from your pockets for my ‘Cheap Jack’ articles; so we will now proceed to business, ladies and gentlemen.”
There were one or two exhibitions in the fair of a good genuine character, and the rest were “rubbish,” of which it might be said of the performers, as a writer in the Sword and Trowel for 1876 says:
“See, I am as black as night;
See, I am darkness, dark as hell.”
In the fair I ran against the sanitary and local canal boat inspector—Mr. Daniel Dixon—whom I asked to give me his independent views of the gipsies and show-people attending the fair. In company with the medical officer of health he visited the vans, and the following particulars may be taken as a fair sample and average of the thirty vans in the fair, in accordance with what he says:
“According to promise, I forward you the particulars of our visits to the shows and vans visiting our fair on Thursday; and I also took a little more trouble to be along early on Friday morning. I was certainly astonished to see the people turn out of some of these places, some of the smaller vans turning out the greatest number. I give you a few instances of the number who turned out of the smaller vans. In Nos. 1, 2, 6, 13, and 19 there were 5 men, 5 women, and 22 children, making a total of 32 in the 5 vans. Education totally neglected. They were dirty, neglected, and uncared for. One van was as clean as could be expected.