At times, when business was slack, I entered lengthily into conversation with him as to what had been the cause of his getting into such a degrading position.
I learned from him that both he and his wife had received a good education. The man by trade was a carpenter, and the woman a dressmaker; but in an evil hour, instead of trusting to their own abilities, work, and common sense, they had taken the wrong turning, and from that time to the present they had been going down hill, and they could not tell how. All they seemed to realize was that they thought they were nearly at the bottom. Both have relations well off in the world; and both have the respect for their family not to disgrace it by vaunting their condition before the world, and making it known to their friends—only to a privileged few—the disgraceful social condition to which they had brought themselves. It is something heartrending, past description, to see a good tradesman and his dressmaking wife fooling their time away in idleness, wickedness, and sin, tramping the country, gambling with cocoa-nuts, living in vans, eating garbage, and trafficking in poor worn-out old horses and donkeys.
I found in further conversation with this unfortunate couple that gipsies have invented fresh machinations to kill farmers’ pigs, viz., to take the inside of an apple out and fill it with mustard; and as the women or children are going up to the farm-houses some of the apples stuffed with mustard are thrown among the pigs—pigs are fond of apples—and the consequence is the large quantity of mustard in the apple suffocates the pigs, and nobody, except the gipsies, know how it has been done. Some other members of the gang will visit the farm-house during the next day or two, under the pretext of buying up old dead carcases, out of which to render all the fat to make cart grease. The farmer replies, “Oh yes, we had a pig,”—or a cow, as the case may be—“died yesterday. You can have that for five shillings if you like to dig it. You will find it in the meadow next to the piggery.” “All right, guvernor, here’s the money.” Of course the gipsies fetch it, and it forms a relish for them for a long time. I have known of cases where the pig has been buried for five days, being unearthed, and turned into food for the big and little gipsies.
Mr. T— also told me how cows, calves, and bullocks are treated by the gipsies—the consequence is they are found dead the next morning in the fields—viz., two or three of the men will take a handful of hay and a rope, and when they have caught the cow, they will make it secure, and then the hay is forced into its throat, and a rope tied and twisted tightly round its mouth. When suffocation has completed its work, the hay is drawn out of its throat, and the nostrils are wiped clean. The gipsies then set off to their camp again. In a couple of days or so, according to a pre-arranged plan, some of the gang call upon the farmers to buy any dead cattle or pigs they may have to sell, and the result is, as in the case of the pigs suffocated with the mustard in the apples, the cow, calf, or bullock is taken to their tents or vans, perhaps a few miles away, and divided among the gipsies.
Some of the gipsies get a living by selling cart grease, which they say is pure fat, but which in reality is made up principally of potatoes, yellow turnips, and grease.
The gipsies have found out that “shot” is not so good to cure a broken-winded horse for one day only, as butter or lard—butter is preferable. The way they do it is to let the horse fast overnight, and then early next morning force a pound of butter down its throat. To cure a “roarer” a pint of oil is given overnight upon an empty stomach.
The earnings of cocoa-nut gamblers and others of the same class vary very much. Mr. T— told me that he and his wife went upon Northampton racecourse last races with only five shillings in their pockets, with which they bought some acids, juices, and scents; these, with plenty of water, they turned into “pine-apple champagne,” and the result was they made five pounds profit, and plenty to eat and drink, with a “jollification” into the bargain, the whole of which was spent in a fortnight, and they had to commence again, sadder but no wiser.
It is an error to say that gipsies do not rob each other; some of them have told me that they have been robbed fearfully by other gipsies, sometimes of as many as a hundred cocoa-nuts at a time.
While our conversation was going on some silly beings were knocking their heads against a boss, for which honour they paid their pennies. What a satire upon the fair, I thought. Thousands were running their heads against bosses more deadly in effect than the spring bosses at which they ran like fighting rams. I was not much afraid of the heads of the bossers giving way, my only fear was for their necks.
Behind me there was to be seen another crowd shooting at glass bottles in the air. These might be said to be “windy customers,” and as a rule they were full of “gas,” bombast, thin and showy; while those who faced the “boss” were thick-necked, with plenty of animalism about them, and ready for a row.
I did not see many gaudily and showily dressed gipsy girls at the fair, but I saw a large number of gipsy girls dressed as “farming girls,” “farmers’ daughters,” and servants, at work among the easy-going chaps. Some of the girls—or, I should say, women—held the hands of the “silly” in their hands, and they were pleasantly looking at the lucky lines with one eye, and bewitchingly into their faces with the other, while they told the geese their fortunes, and the pleasures and troubles they would have on account of “dark ladies” and “fair ladies,” against whom they were to be on their guard, or they would not marry the one they loved. In some cases “dark gentlemen” were trying to steal the affections of their young lady. As a rule gipsies prognosticate evil from “fair ladies” or “fair gentlemen.” Of course it would not do to be too heavy upon the “dark gentlemen” or “dark ladies.” A number of “shoe girls” were having their fortunes told also.
One of the gipsies had offended a man close to me from some cause or other, which had the effect of exasperating the “beery” man to such an extent that he bawled out, “You might rake hell out and scratch among the cinders, and you would not find a worse lot than gipsies.” “Hold, hold,” I said; “many of them are bad, at the same time you will find some good-hearted folks among them, a few of whom I know.” I now turned and had a long conversation with a gipsy from Kent, and the good woman with her husband both fell in with my idea of getting the gipsy children educated by means of a free pass book, and of having their vans registered. Although busy with the evening meal, it did not prevent her entering heartily and pleasantly into my plans for effecting an improvement in the condition of the gipsies and their children, and more than once, surrounded as she was with everything the opposite of heavenly, said, “Thank you, sir, thank you, sir; and may God bless you for your efforts to improve the gipsies.” I told her that all the gipsies were not so kindly disposed as to wish me success. “Never mind them, sir; all the right-thinking gipsies will say so.” “You have spoken the truth,” I said; “before you can apply a remedy to a festering sore the proper thing to do is to probe it to the bottom, and this I have been trying for a long time to do.” It is a thousand times better to get at the root of a sore than to plaster it over by misleading fiction and romance, as some masculine writers, fascinated by the artificial charms of gipsy beauties—so called—have been doing. In this late day such efforts to hoodwink thoughtful, loyal, and observing men, and others who have the welfare of the nation at heart, may well be compared to a man sticking a beautiful French butterfly upon a dead ox, and then going among a crowd of bystanders with a glib tongue, and cap in hand, trying to make them believe that the rotten dead ox was a mass of beautiful butterflies, which only required a shower of coppers and praises to cause them to fly.
No wonder at stable-boys and quacks, the sons of ministers, and others, becoming bewitched to the extent of having to face the frowns of friends on account of their gipsy-poaching proclivities.
My process may have been sharp and painful, and probably it is so now, but it will be found effective, enduring, and pleasing in the end. To deal with the evils of gipsying in a manner to excite the worst side of human nature may be pleasing for the present, but it will bring remorse and rottenness which no amount of misleading romance and pleasingly painted sin will be able to cover.
During the day I was informed by the gipsies that one young farmer had spent fifteen shillings in bowling for cocoa-nuts, and a youth not more than fourteen years old had spent five shillings similarly; this being so, it is not to be wondered at that our present-day gipsies should be on the increase at the rate they are. With fair weather, nuts cheap, cricketers out of the way, and “plenty of young uns,” it is a “roaring trade.”
When questioning one gipsy woman as to how many of the gipsies upon the ground could read and write—I roughly calculated the number of gipsies to be over a hundred men and women, and a hundred and fifty children—she answered me as follows: “Lord bless you, my dear good gentleman, I do not know more than three upon the green who can read and write. It would be a blessed thing if they could; but that will never be, as nobody takes any interest in us gipsies.”
It was tearfully sorrowful to see over a hundred and fifty children squatting about in bogs, dirt, filth, excitement, iniquity, and double-dyeing sin, groping their way to wretchedness and misery, without any hand being put out to save them.
So far as I could gather, not half a dozen of these gangs of un-English, lawless tramps and travellers had ever been in either day or Sunday school. And our civilizing “State” has not taken any steps for bringing the gipsy and other travelling children under school influence.
“Now, my lads, bowl away! All bad nuts returned; bowl away! Try your luck now, my young gentlemen; try your luck; bowl away!” Bang went a cocoa-nut off one of the stilts, flying in all directions, with the oil scattered to the winds. One thing has often surprised me, that the gipsies have not had frequently to carry cracked skulls, for some of the roguish “farmer chaps” seem to delight more in bowling at the gipsies’ heads than the cocoa-nuts at their feet. It is their quick-sightedness and dexterous movements that save them. No drone would do to be at the back of the “pegs,” or he would have to look out for his “pins.”
A little farther ahead there was a family of gipsies of the name of Smith, man, wife, and seven children, squatting upon the ground to take their evening meal. As soon as they saw me they heartily invited me to join them. Gipsies never invite any one to partake of a meal with them unless with the whole heart. They never ask you with their mouths to join them and in their hearts hope you will not. This is one of the favourable traits in their character. For a man they love they would rob a hen-roost to fill his belly, and they would spit in the face of the man they hate. When you are eating with them, or, in fact, doing anything with them, you must be as one of them, or you will have to look out for “squalls.” They can bear and respect the man or woman who, as a friend, speaks openly and plainly to them, but they will be down upon the man “like a load of bricks” who tries by cunning and craft to get “the best side of them.”
At the first interview they suspect that every stranger has some design upon them, and, as a consequence of ignorance and suspicion, they appear to be sullen and reserved. This feature of gipsy life wears off as they find out that you are a friend to them.
I accepted their invitation to tea in the midst of cocoa-nut establishments, steam horses, screeching of the whistles, horrifying music of a “hurdy-gurdy” organ, swing boats, and the screams of giddy girls and larking chaps, trotting donkeys, the galloping of “roaring horses and broken-winded ponies,” whose riders were half drunk and mad with rage, beating, kicking, slashing, swearing, and banging, till both the poor animals and their riders foamed at their mouths like mad dogs.
The old china was fetched up for me, which, Mrs. Smith said, was over a hundred years old. A good cup of tea was poured out, the thin bread and butter cut and laid upon a clean cloth, and I was just about to sit upon an old piece of dirty flannel that lay upon the grass—for the grass was at this time getting a little damp—when the good woman cried out, loud enough to shake one’s nerves, “My dear good gentleman, you must not sit down upon that.” “No, no,” Smith, the ungracious-nosed gipsy cried out in a voice as loud as his wife’s. “If you do you’ll get more than you bargained for. It’s all alive, don’t you see it?” Mrs. Smith saw that I was anxious to change quarters to the other side of the tent, and apologized for the filthy rag being there, by saying that “one of the children from one of the other vans had brought it, and had not taken it back again.” We were now seated, and I was enjoying my tea as well as I could—they said that “they hoped that I should look upon the tea as a fairing,” and as such I looked upon it and enjoyed it, for I was both hungry and thirsty—when a Northampton baker appeared upon the scene vending his bread. A little pleasantry was exchanged between the bread-seller, the gipsies, and myself about the size of the loaves, the dearness of the bread, and what was put into the flour before baking to make the loaves white, large, and showy. The conversation turned upon potatoes and alum, and the gipsy Smith discussed the quantity of potato and alum there was in the bread the baker had sold to them. This nettled the baker, and he said, “Bread mixed with potatoes and alum was good enough for pigs, but it—” The gipsy would not let him finish his sentence, but instantly sprang to his feet, and ran at the baker, and struck him on the breast with his tightened fist, calling out, “Do you mean to say that bread mixed with potatoes is good enough for pigs, and do you call us pigs? You reckon us as pigs, do you? You shall remember this or I am not Righteous Gipsy Smith.” And just as he was running at the half-frightened baker again Mrs. Smith stepped between them. An altercation took place, one of the most disgusting and sickening I ever knew. The baker’s wife now came up, and for a few minutes there was such a storm over the pot as I had never seen in my life. It bid fair to become a general melée. I was called in to decide who was in the wrong. This was no little difficulty, as the gipsy was excited by beer, and the baker by rage and fear. The end of it was I calmed them both down. The baker and his wife sped their way to Northampton, and the gipsy to the back of his van, to vent his bile and calm his passion, after which we sat down to finish our tea. This being over, and calm, peace, and quietness reigning, I gave the children some coppers and shook hands warmly with the gipsies, and thanked them, and then turned to another phase of gipsy life.
I began to think that it was quite time to look after my lodging for the night, and wended my way to Boughton village, some half-mile or more away. This was a work of no light undertaking. I first tried to find a clean bed in a quiet cottage, which, after tramping about from house to house, knocking, inquiring, had to be given up as impossible. The poor folks eyed me over from head to foot with wondering curiosity. They seemed to be puzzled as to my movements, and as to whether they should reckon me as a gentleman, or a bailiff, who had secreted in my pockets either a county-court summons or an execution. I next tried the “publicans and sinners.” At first they hesitated about giving me an answer; especially the innkeeper at the “Griffin.” They seemed to wonder whether I was or was not a parson, spying out the land. The landlady at the “Red Lion” was holding out encouragement, until the landlord, who might be made of vinegar and crabs, appeared upon the scene, calling out gruffly, “No, we can’t do wi anybodys;” and out I went, expecting to have a stone for my pillow under some wall or hedge-bottom upon the green. Fortunately I called at a cottage on the roadside, about a hundred and fifty yards from the green, to see if they could oblige me with a bed. After a minute’s hesitation, the good woman, who seemed to have a large heart and a good-natured face, said, “Yes, you look to be a gentleman, and we will try to accommodate you. Come in and make yourself at home. Will you have some tea?”
After a rest for a few minutes, and as the shades of evening were gathering round, I strolled upon the “green” and found Bacchus was on his throne with Atè, Discordia, Momus, and Mars as his attendants. Concordia, Harpocrates, and Pudicitia had not been upon the “green,” or, if so, they had been only for a very short time. Broken glasses, empty beer barrels, corks, pieces of paper, and stools upside down were to be seen on every hand. The perfume of burning paraffin, aroma of the beer barrel, and stench of the brandy bottle met me at every turn as I wended my way among the wicked, silly, larking, and foolish. Here and there could be seen girls scarcely in their teens, with the arms of half-drunk “chaps” round their waists—upon the table before them were “jugs of beer”—and opening their mouths wide as if they would be delighted at any one looking down their throats as they bawled out most disgusting songs. In one of the booths between forty and fifty boys and girls were larking together in a manner that made one shudder to think of the results. Some of them were threatening vengeance to their “Bills,” “Jacks,” or “Toms,” if they said a word to them when they got home.
One of the women struck up, as if she was determined to contribute her share to the debauch, in squeaking tones resembling that of a cracked tin whistle—
“We won’t go home till morning,
Till daylight does appear.”
A little ahead a rustle, commotion, and hubbub was going on; of course I must join in the crush. I could not get very near. When I inquired what was the matter, I was coolly told that “it was only a man and woman fight.” Thanks to the excellent body of policemen at hand, it was soon stopped. Another “turn” in the distance was taking place. A gipsy—a big, cowardly, hulking fellow—and an Englishman had long had a grudge against each other. The Englishman could not get the cowardly gipsy to “fight it out.” At last the Englishman offered the gipsy half a crown and a gallon of beer to let him have one “round” with him. The gipsy consented to this condition. The money was paid and the beer drunk, after which the gipsy wanted to back out of the bargain. Before the big gipsy would at the last minute undertake to fight the little Englishman, the gipsy stipulated that there was to be “no hitting upon the noses.” The Englishman did not like this shuffling, but he agreed to it, and they stripped for the encounter. For a few minutes they sparred about until the gipsy saw his opportunity to hit the Englishman full tilt upon his nose, which he did with a tremendous force sufficient to break it. When the gipsy was asked why he did it, he said, “I could not help it, my hand slipped.” A little farther on still, I came upon a policeman rolling an empty beer barrel from the policemen’s tent towards the beer stores.
The “sweets” and “sours” of Gipsy modern life
During the day I did not observe one “blue ribbon” policeman upon the grounds—nor, in fact, did I see one upon the course. No doubt there were many good and true men and women upon the “green” who had gone there purposely to sell their wares. Would to God that there had been more of them, and then there would have been less rows, and less cause for such a body of policemen. The pure gipsy rows—i.e., a number of gipsies joining in a general melée of an “up-and-down fight,” paying off old scores—were less this year than they have been known for a long time. Several times a row was imminent, but with a little tact and the common sense of the women—aye, and of the men too—it was averted. I observed a little more sulkiness than usual on the part of a few of the gipsies, but with a little pleasantry this passed off.
I retired from the hubbub for a few minutes, to stand against one of the huge trees growing upon the edge of the “green,” and while there I heard some gipsies chuckling over the “gingered” and “screwed” horses and ponies they had sold during the fair, and arranging which of their party should hunt the customer out the next day, to buy back for a five-pound note their palmed-off “broken-winded” and “roaring old screws” which they had sold for seventeen pound or twenty pound during the fair. A fine-looking broken-winded horse, “roarer” or “cribber,” with the mark intact, is almost a fortune for a gipsy. During two or three years “while he will go,” the “screw” is sold and bought in again scores of times. Many of the horse-dealing gipsies are dressed nowadays as farmers, and by these means they more readily palm off their “screws” upon young beginning town or street hawkers, carriers, and higglers.
Living in some of the vans of gipsies there were man, woman, and, in some instances, seven or eight sons and daughters of all ages. In other vans and tents there was a mixture of men, women, and children, not of the same blood relationship; and the same may be said of some of the travelling gingerbread hawkers.
Those of the hawkers who were rich enough to own a van slept in it “higgledy-piggledy,” “pell-mell,” and “all of a heap.” Those who had not vans, the men, women, and “chaps” slept upon the ground, under the stall boards, in a manner which would be a disgrace to South African civilization and Zulu morals.
In the midst of waning twilight and the gathering of sheets and rents, some of the gipsy women were preparing for their last meal before shutting the van doors and drawing to their tent curtains. Scores of poor little lost, dirty, ignorant, neglected, and almost naked, gipsy children gathered round me for “coppers” and “sweets.” After digging deep into my pocket for all I could find, and distributing them among the children, I bade the gipsy parents “good-night” and a “good-bye,” and then turned to have a chat and a “good-night” with George Bagworth, the steam-horse driver, and his wife, the “popgun” firer. George was dressed in his best large Scotch plaid suit from head to foot. His “hurdy-gurdy steam organ,” and “flying horses,” had winged married and single, men, women, and children, round and round, exhibiting their thick and thin legs, not modestly for the riders, but successfully for George and his sharp, good-looking, business wife. George was in good humour with himself and everybody else. He entered freely into conversation about his troubles and trials in former years, and of his successes, position, and future views.
He is very good to poor cocoa-nut gamblers. It often happens that some of the poor unfortunate fraternity arrive upon the “course,” “green,” or “fair” without a “tanner.” A wink of his wife’s eye prompts George to advance them sufficient money to give them a start. This—for there is honour among thieves—is paid back at the close of the fair, with many thanks. George pointed out to me again with pride the vans he had made, and with little greater pride to his artistic painting of the heathen gods and goddesses, which were the mainstays of his whirligig establishment.
George’s wife hung down her head at the non-success of her “popgun” galleries. “But it is no use ‘frettin’ and cryin’ over spilt milk,’” she said, while preparing their supper tea. “You’ll join us, won’t you, sir? you shall be made right welcome, and have the best we’ve got.” They fetched out their best antique china cup and saucer, and we three sat down to a box table with cloth cover to enjoy the twilight meal, with the twinkling stars overhead, and the gipsies’ lurcher dogs prowling about the tents and vans, snuffling and smelling after the odds and ends and other trifles. Speaking within compass, I should think there would not be fewer than thirty lurchers skulking under the stalls as eagerly as if after hares and rabbits. Of course George Bagworth’s joined in the scent and sniffle. “Mine host” was a poacher bred and born—at least he had a spell of it in his younger days among the woods, parks, spinnies, and plantations joining Leicestershire and Staffordshire coalfields. The twinkling star repast was finished; hubbub, din, screeching, yelling, fighting, singing, shouting, swearing, blaspheming, and loud oaths were dying out. Pluto seemed to be getting tired of his feast; Somnus was observed stealthily wending his way among Bacchus’s wounded followers, and the vast herds and tribes of poor, neglected, uneducated, and lost little children living in sin, pestilential, and vitiated atmosphere with dark—very dark—and black future before them, which the rising of a morning’s sun could not dispel.
As I wended my way to my lodgings I could not help thinking of Sennacherib’s army besieging Jerusalem with no Hezekiah to deliver.
I had now found my way to my lodgings. Round the family table in the cottage there were Mr. and Mrs. Gayton, “mine host and hostess,” and one or two friends. While the conversation was going on a party of drunken fellows were bawling out down the road some kind of song, which I could not comprehend. Mr. Gayton’s sister said it was a song she knew well; and with a little persuasion—notwithstanding Mrs. Gayton’s twitching, nervous manner and disinclination to hear it—the good woman struck up in a sweet but rather shrill voice, and in somewhat affecting tremulous tone, the song, as follows:
“Little empty cradle, treasured so with care,
Tho’ thy precious burden now has fled,
How we miss the locks of curly golden hair,
Peeping from the tiny snow-white bed.
When the dimpled cheeks and pretty laughing eyes,
From the rumpled pillows shone,
Then I gazed with gladness, now I looked with sighs,
Empty is the cradle—baby’s gone.“Baby left her cradle for the golden shore,
O’er the silvery waters she has flown,
Gone to join the angels, peaceful evermore,
Empty is the cradle—baby’s gone.”
After the first verse was ended I noticed again a little subdued and stifled sobbing, and the mistress of the house wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.
I could see that there was some cause for the tear-fetching tenderness and sympathy that was manifested, and I gently asked for information, and was told by the good people that during the last month two of the youngest babies had been sent for to live in the angel-world where no tears are seen and sighing heard. A melting, sorrowful sadness seemed to creep over me as I looked round the room. A parent cannot describe the feelings, and no one but a parent can feel them.
The cradle was empty in the corner; the lovely little birds had flown to sing in a lovelier clime. The tender-hearted mother gave way to a woman’s dewy feelings while another verse was sung, in which I could not help joining, owing to having passed through similar circumstances. I had lost more than one little tender lamb, and could enter feelingly into the motherly woman’s misfortunes. I said the children were not lost but gone before, where there are neither tears nor the pinchings of poverty. In the midst of the solemn scene I wended my way upstairs to my humble cot; my softened feelings, wet eyes, and scalding tears prevented me worshipping Morpheus till just as the candle was flickering out in the socket.
I then dropped into a dozing sleep to awake at opening day, after which I bade my friends the gipsies good-bye, and left “the mother bending o’er her beauty buds.”
On Saturday, September 4th, 1882, I found myself travelling southward by the aid of a carrier’s waggon and first, second, and third class railway carriages, surrounded by gentlemen, clergymen, tradesmen, farmers, cattle-dealers, labourers, soldiers, snobs, fops, and scamps, and ladies fat and thin, pretty, plain, reserved, lovable, and smiling; and as we neared London the sleeping, yawning, gaping, and slow movements seemed to be giving way to activity, bustle, restlessness, and anxious looks. Stopping, banging, and dashing, and on we sped. In the train I had a pleasant chat with the Rev. Mr. Gibbotson, vicar of Braunston, who related to me some of his experiences with canal-boat children and the gipsies. In one instance a gipsy charged him three shillings and sixpence for grinding his nail scissors; and in another instance a sharp, clever boat boy of twelve had passed the sixth standard, and was in a fair way of becoming a pupil teacher, but in six months spent among the canal children in floating up and down the country, he had learnt some of their wicked and bad habits, which had ruined his career. After changing carriages, I saw at one of the North London stations a woman, who must have imagined that she was in the country, creeping out of one of the compartments with her sweet-looking child of some four or five summers at snail speed, and as if changing would have done to-morrow. She quietly found her way to the carriage door and opened it very gently, and was about to step leisurely upon the platform when the train began to move off. Her eyes were now opened, and with a wild stare she tumbled the child upon the platform, and then in getting out herself she fell upon the footboard. Fortunately for herself and the child, the guard was close by at the time, and with the quickness of lightning he seized the child with one hand and its mother with the other and pulled them upon the platform, the child upon its face and the mother upon her back, and saved their lives in less time than I could twinkle my eye. The child cried, the mother screamed, and the last I saw of them, as we were rounding the curve, was that a porter was picking up the child, and the bewildered mother was gathering herself together as well as she could.
On my way I called at a large block of new mansions in course of erection, and which my son had in hand, and found a joke very nearly carried into tragical and awful effect. The “lift” was not working well, and a gentleman not of a classical or ministerial kind, rather than use his legs in going up the ordinary stairs, preferred using the temporary goods hoist, and said to one of the men as he was jumping into the cage against the wish of friends, “Jump in, and if we must go to hell, we may as well go together.” They had no sooner landed at the top of the building and just cleared the cage, than it dropped to the bottom of the building with terrific force, carrying destruction with it. One minute longer and they would both have been in eternity.
Having fairly landed in London, I made my way to the Religious Tract Society, and the Wesleyan Sunday-school Union, for some pictures, and books, and magazines for the gipsy children, which were gladly given to me, and with my bundles, bags, &c., I turned into my lodging in Museum Street well tired. Overnight I inquired of my host if I could get a ’bus or a cab that would take me to Paddington by nine o’clock on Sunday morning. At this question he shook his head and said, “The ’busses will not be running so early as eight o’clock, and the cabs, what few you will meet, will be on their way home; therefore you will have a difficulty in getting your packages to the station. And if you order one overnight it is ten to one if they will come.” From this answer I could see that my only course was to be up early enough to lug them to the station myself. Six o’clock on Sunday morning found me getting a cup of cold tea and a sandwich for my breakfast, after which I started down Oxford Street with my four parcels, weighing about three-quarters of a hundredweight. No ’busses were to be seen. Here and there were tired, straggling cabmen wending their way home. As I hailed them they shook their heads and on they went. I managed to carry my load about two hundred yards, and then turned off the street to rest, and to leave the few stragglers moving about Oxford Street wondering as to my movements. Not far from Tottenham Court Road I turned off the main street a few yards, and stood with my back to the solitary passers-by, putting a few notes into my pocket-book, when I was startled and somewhat surprised to find two tall young men at my elbow, and without a word one of them deposited upon the Religious Tract Society’s parcel a small book, entitled “A Cure for the Incurable,” which I picked up and read as follows:
“During the journey we were joined by a young man and woman, the latter evidently labouring under some distressing bodily infirmity. The young man took advantage of the vacated scats to place his afflicted companion in a recumbent position, carefully covering her feet with a shawl. I gently alluded to her appearing unwell. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she replied, ‘I am just dismissed from St. Thomas’s Hospital as incurable.’ The tone of her voice, and the tear which trickled down her pale cheek, instantly awakened my sympathy. Her four children, one a baby, and her dear husband, she said, made it ‘hard to die;’ but she believed God would care for the motherless ones, and cheer the lonely widower. ‘The doctors,’ she added, ‘say I may live some months, but that cure is impossible. So I thought I would rather be in my own cottage, where I could look at my children, and see the flowers outside my door, and have fresh air, than remain in the hospital; though I had everything of the best there, and great kindness shown me. But, ma’am, home is home; and my husband knows how to nurse me better than any one else. I know that I shall not live long; but I shall die at home, and God will comfort my dear husband, and will go through the dark valley with me.’ This brief interview was deeply touching to me, and my tears flowed with theirs.”
Just as I had finished the hasty glance through the little book, and was preparing for another “move on,” I noticed a tall, emaciated, half-clad young woman approaching me from the opposite side of the street. Such a picture of misery I have rarely seen. She did not seem to have more than one loosely-hung old garment upon her, which, as she walked, revealed the shape of her figure, which did not at all seem a bad one; moral deformities had not as yet, to all appearance, begun to tell heavily upon her frame. On presenting herself to me she said, in tones of despair, “Will you please give me sufficient to buy me a cup of coffee? I want it very bad, I can assure you, sir. Do, dear sir.” Her eyes were red either with drink, tears, or anguish. Poor lost soul! thought I; and on she went to ruin and death.
I started again, and had got nearly to Oxford Circus, and deposited my parcels upon the pavement, and was surveying things over in my mind, when I heard something chirping over my head. I could not tell where the sound came from. It was not crying, nor was it either singing or moaning. My curiosity was set at rest as I lifted up my head to look above. To my surprise, a young woman with lovely face, and head studded with “curling bobs,” was peeping out of one of the top bedroom windows and delightfully engaged in throwing kisses at somebody across the street. “Chirp,” “chirp,” “chirp,” owing to the stillness of the morning, sounded as distinctly as if they were near to me; at any rate the kisses were not for me, and on I trudged. As I passed Holles Street, people, young and old, with books under their arms and in their hands, were going to early Sunday morning prayer-meetings, or other religious services. What a contrast to a gathering of half-drunken hulking youths and men tumbling and quarrelling about Gilbert Street, I thought. After receiving not a few insults, I moved forward by stages till I arrived at the Marble Arch, about eight o’clock, with my face covered with perspiration, and my hands, arms, and shoulders tingling and aching with a kind of deadness and shooting pains. Scavenger carts were moving to and fro, carrying the filth and off-scouring of all nations. A coffee stall seemed to have been doing a good business, if the pell-mell gathering, sauntering array might be taken as a specimen of the quantity and quality of the coffee drinkers, who might be called the loitering customers of the “pub” in search of more substantial beverage than gin and beer. Near Southwick Crescent and Oxford Square I passed another coffee stall, more respectable in appearance than the one at Marble Arch, upon which was painted in large letters, “The Church of England Temperance Society.” I now began to try to make a further move, when a cabman hailed in sight, who looked as if he were going on the stand instead of coming off it. A bargain was struck, and he bowled me off at a rattling pace to the Great Western station, where I arrived about twenty minutes past eight o’clock, stiff and tired about my legs and arms. In pacing backwards and forwards upon the platform, I nudged, accidentally, the elbow of a porter who was taking his “swig” at a passenger’s whiskey bottle. Whether the neck of the bottle tilted against his teeth, or some of its contents went down his bosom instead of his throat, I could not tell. He did not say much about the accident, but his looks were “awful,” and my begging pardon could not turn them into a smile. Another porter said, “They could do without Sunday travelling if it were not for the London beer-drinkers. Shut up beershops and you will gag Sunday trains.”
Some thirty or forty city fishermen, with their rods and tins, were moving backwards and forwards waiting for the train; they were evidently going out for a spree. One round jolly-faced, good-looking porter said to me, “They are going out a-fishing, but it’s not many fish they catch. They catch something they don’t expect sometimes. They are not all fish that comes to their lines. ‘Many of the city fishermen gets a line and a tin, and goes into the country and calls themselves travellers, and turns into the first ‘pub’ they come to and then they booze all God’s day away, and keep us poor chaps at work all Sunday instead of going to church or chapel. Sunday travelling ought to be done away with; at any rate there ought only to be two trains a day each way, out and into London.” A porter then cried out, “Take your places for Slough, Reading, and Oxford.” I obeyed his call, and found myself sitting opposite an old friend, Mr. J. Seaman, from the Weekly Times. In the train the brandy bottle was pulled out by a man whose nose apparently had been too prominent upon his pugilistic-looking face at times for somebody’s bruising machine; at any rate there was an indent in it upon which cock robin could have sat very comfortably for an hour piping forth the curses of drink and its consequences, and the blessing of God’s Sabbath as a day of rest for man and beast.
In another corner was a young woman, dispensing liberally port wine to her new and old friends around her, bringing to the faces of some of them the alternate red blush and pale white, indicating that some monster was at work within them, telling them that it was wrongdoing. After a three hours’ pleasant chat on this bright summer’s morning, with my friend, I arrived at Oxford. After partaking of a cold lunch, I made my way with my arms full of pictures, books, and illustrated tracts, to the two hundred vans and covered carts outside Oxford, near Somers Town. By the time I had arrived the rain had begun to come down heavily. In wending my way among the nearly two-mile length of vans, shows, covered carts, and waggons, I found some old faces who gladly welcomed me. The road was little better than a puddle. Thousands of Oxonians were running to and fro, star-gazing, gossiping, laughing, shouting, and making fun on the roadside. With a vast number of them Sunday seemed as on other days. Little stalls of nuts, apples, plums, were on the footpaths. Notwithstanding the pouring rain, the poor little dirty gipsy children clustered round me in the vans and out of them for the pictures, books, &c. Poor lost souls! some of them, old and young, big and little, men and women, might not have been washed for months. Some of the “hobbledehoys, betwixt men and boys,” of Oxford tried to make as big fools of themselves as they could, and kept shouting out, “Now, governor, they will swallow your bag if you will give it ’em.” Some of the town’s children admired my pretty books, and closed upon me for some, which I am sorry to say I had to refuse, as they were for the big and little travellers. In the vans, &c., there would be an average of four children, two men, and two women, and out of this vast mass of travellers there would not be fifty who could read or write. “Of the persons,” says the Daily Telegraph, “who were committed to prison last year, 60,840 could neither read nor write. Ignorance and crime go hand in hand together. This is a fact beyond disputation.” In some of the vans I counted eight children, besides the men and women. In one van there was a man with a broken leg. In three other vans there were three men ill. Several of the women had bruises upon their faces, and two had black eyes, and the children were squatting about among the mud in the ditch.
“I was a taper smoking,
Lying by the footway,
Lease gleam of red away,
Smoke my thin flame choking.”Dr. Grosart, Sunday at Home.
Under the vans there were over a hundred lurcher dogs, ready for anything, including white-tailed rabbits, “shoshi,” long-legged hares, “kanégro,” and other trifles of this kind, down to a shin-bone of beef hanging loosely in a butcher’s shop—aye, and a piece of a man’s calf if he came too near to them and was not wanted. Gipsies’ dogs are so highly trained that they understand a gipsy’s looks; and I should not be surprised to hear that their dogs can “rocker” Romany. The dogs are perfectly masters of the art of killing hedgehogs, hotchi-witchi. Like their masters, they go stealthily to work and never “open.” Gipsy poachers have been known to clear a field of hares and rabbits and “bag their game” while the keepers have been lying in wait for them over the fence.
Among the vans I came across, for the first time, a “George Smith” a gipsy. I have met with any number of “John Smiths,” “Bill Smiths,” “Rily Smiths,” but never a “George Smith.” This led me to have a long chat with him and his wife. They are Oxfordshire gipsies, and from what I learned afterwards they are “tidy sort of folks.” I felt inclined to have a long conversation; in fact, I seemed to feel a greater interest in him on account of his being a “George Smith” gipsy. The good woman and her six children looked almost like pure gipsies, but such was not the fact. They could “rocker” a little only, and got a fair living by gambling in cocoa-nuts and horse-dealing. “George Smith” told me that he never went more than fifty miles from home, and when he bought and sold horses—of a third-rate kind—once he could do so the second time. All horse-dealing gipsies are not of this class. Gipsies often told me that they like to see fresh faces, fresh places, and fresh money. During my conversation with Mrs. Smith, she said formerly she liked hedgehogs; but since she had found out that “they liked beetles and snakes” her “stomach had turned against them.” She went on to say, “I am no doctor, but I am told by those who know, that the yellow fat inside a hedgehog, which you know, sir, is from the poison of snakes and adders; hedgehogs are dead on snakes and adders. Immediately a snake sees a hedgehog it kicks up a terrible row, and tries to scamper off as fast as it can. No more hedgehogs for me while I live; and I am sure our George will not have any.” Not one of this family of Smiths could tell a letter, although they sometimes sent their children to school a short time in the winter; but, as the good woman said, “Lord bless you, my dear gentleman, what bit they learn in the winter is gone again in the summer, and they are no better for it.” I told them my plan for meeting their case, viz., by the registration of their vans and a free education pass book for their children, with which they heartily agreed. I left them several pleasing children’s pictures, cards, &c., with which they were highly delighted, and I then made my way to quell a gipsy row further on, which I found to be, as usual, over the most trivial things. While I was busy among the gipsies I saw two young ladies, I might almost say angels, from Oxford, disregarding the rain, talking and distributing tracts among them. The tracts were not exactly of the right kind; children’s religious pictorial literature is what is the most pleasing, acceptable, and useful. Dry tracts are no better than waste paper; and it is almost a waste of time and money to distribute them. A little further on were three gentlemen from Oxford discoursing to a group of gipsy children, and no doubt they did some good; at least I hope so. If anything, their excellent well-meant remarks were not made sufficiently interesting, or brought down to the gipsy children and adults’ capacities. A wild, dry anecdote, badly told, and without a pleasing and practical application, will not do much good at any time.
In addressing gipsies, and other people of this class, two things are needed to ensure success. There must either be the extreme earnestness or the extreme simplicity, and no man or woman can succeed in winning them over to virtuous paths unless these features are ever brought prominently out. They must either be as Paul preaching to the Athenians, or as Christ upon the Mount discoursing to the multitudes in deeply interesting parables, put with an irresistible force of love and simplicity; or as St. John the divine when surrounded by little children, preaching with but few words, but speaking volumes of love in sympathetic looks, melting tears, and gentle touches, reaching tender and obdurate hearts in a Christ-like fashion, with a power that the devil himself could not withstand. Love, earnestness, and child-like simplicity brought to bear upon any gipsy children who are sharp and clever will produce surprising heavenly results—aye, and from the gipsy men and women too. In the gipsy mine there is room for all workers.
“Working together in the sacred mine,
We trace the veins of ore beneath our feet,
Till riches unimaginable greet.”Richard Wilton, M.A., Sunday at Home, No. 1268.
Instead of working—
“Oft have we lingered in the TENT,
The ‘pearl’ unbought,
The book unread, the knee unbent
The grace unsought.
Oft have despondency and shame
Our faith assailed,
And when we would confess Thy name
Our courage failed.”Canon Bateman, Sunday at Home, No. 1267.
Among this mile and a half of gipsy vans there were some “nice and clean” travelling homes. In one I found a good woman reading to her children by the evening fire, and the kettle “singing on the hob.” As I paddled and waddled over boot-tops in mud, in the midst of this vast concourse of people young and old, never in my life did I so fully realize the case of the poor man who had fallen among thieves, and the action of the priest and Levite, and also that of the Samaritan. The whole scene depicted in the good old book seemed to come before me as one vast panorama, exhibiting human life under a variety of aspects. On the one hand, drawn along the side of the road in the ditch for more than a mile and a half, there were two hundred vans, carts, and tents, inhabited by a thousand gipsy men, women, and children of all ages, mostly in the deepest depths of wretchedness, ignorance, misery, and dirt—of many of whom it might be said that they were thieves among thieves—had been travelling all Saturday night or on Sunday morning to be at the fair in time for a good place. Gipsies, showpeople, and others of this wandering class travel chiefly on Sundays. Saturday nights and Monday nights are, as a rule, their best nights. Some of them had with their poor bony horses, from “shutting-up time” on Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, travelled over forty miles, and most wretched spectacles they were. On the other hand, and on the footpath, there were thousands of gentle and simple, rich and poor, young and old, saints and sinners, ministers and their flocks, moving to and fro, some of whom sneered at the gipsies, others mocked, laughed, and joked. Some were disgusted, and others looked pensive and sorrowful at the picture of an Oxford Lent carnival being spent in this way on a Christian Sabbath in the centre of Christendom and civilization, with its hundreds of Christian ministers within sight and call, who did not answer to the voice of love or duty. Well might Washbourne cry out—
“Our hearts are broke, our harps unstringèd be,
Our only musick’s sighs and groans,
Our songs are to the tune of lachrymose,
We are fretted all to skin and bones.”Dr. Grosart’s “Fuller Worthies.”
After I had distributed my books, and wended my way to the end of this long lane of sin and iniquity, I turned to look at the heartrending sight. There were hundreds of gipsy men and women, some few of whom had fallen from the paths of virtue, uprightness, and honesty, and some six hunched to seven hundred poor gipsy children of all ages weltering in the ditch. Not twenty children out of this vast number had been taught at the knee of a kind, gentle, loving mother to lisp in tender, trembling simple tones, to which heaven and the whole angelic host stoop to listen with open ears, for fear one word might be lost—
“Lord Jesus teach a child to pray,
Who humbly kneels to Thee,
And every night and every day
My Friend and Saviour be.“While here I live, give me Thy grace,
And when I’m called to die,
Oh, take my soul to see Thy face,
And sing Thy praise on high.”
My heart was almost ready to break, and the big teardrop forced its way down my face. Just as I was turning away with a sad and aching heart, a little sharp gipsy girl dark-eyed, of ten summers, clutched hold of my hand and coat. She looked up into my face and said, “Eh, Mr. Smith, don’t you know me? Don’t you remember giving me a little book and a penny when I was very ill in our van upon the Leicester racecourse last year? Mother and doctor said I should die, but you see I’m not dead yet. My name is Smith. There are lots of gipsy Smiths.” Before she had finished her interesting little story a large number of little gipsies had gathered round me, among whom I had to distribute, with care and tact, all the pictures and little books I had left. It was now dark. Fires in old gipsy tin buckets and on the wet ground were to be seen; sticks were crackling; lights shining under the vans and in the small windows and through the crevices and over the top half of their doors; their evening meals sent forth a variety of odours, ranging from snail soup to red herrings, dead pig, and hashed venison. The barking and growling of their lurcher dogs were heard more frequently and savagely. The thousands of dripping star-gazers and sightseers, rough and smooth, drunk and sober, had begun to get pleasingly less; rain was coming down almost in torrents; nevertheless the children felt loath to leave me. To the onlookers I could have said, with George Herbert—
“Rain, do not hurt my flowers, but gently spend
Your lovely drops. Press not to smell them here;
When they are ripe their odour will ascend,
And at your lodging with their thanks appear.”“Fuller Worthies.”
With many caresses, thanks, and good wishes from the children, I groped my way to my lodging with thankfulness, but in a wretched plight, suffering from my lifelong enemy—giddiness. After five minutes’ chat with my round-faced host I mounted, with a hot head, and cold wet feet, “wooden hills,” and amongst the blankets and feathers I snoozed into a fitful sleep, to be startled by wild dreams and nocturnal noises. In one of my strange flights I found myself in a dark and dismal-looking place like a chimney-sweep’s underground soot storehouse. How I got there was a mystery I have never been able to solve. The only things I remember in connection with my visit to this dark abode was, the good spirit led me through alleys, by colleges, churches, chapels, synagogues, and schools of every grade. Marks of civilization were everywhere visible on my path. There were ministers and teachers on every hand. One little narrow backway led me to a small narrow opening down some narrow, rugged steps. As soon as I entered, a small door of the colour of the walls instantly closed upon me as with a spring, and before I had time to look back at the way by which I entered, I was in worse than a Roman or gipsy maze. At first a cold, chilly sensation of fright and terror crept over me. My hair seemed to rear bolt upright in a twinkle; but this soon passed away after realizing the fact that I was among friends. There were no windows except one dismal pane, through which the moonlight gleamed. There were no candles. The grate was made up of bricks and rusty crooked old bars of iron put loosely together without mortar. The fender was of two long shin-bones, and the ends of it two thigh-bones of a man. The fire was crackling with sticks and the bones of rabbits, partridges, pheasants, and fowls. Beetles, cockroaches, toads, and spiders were as thick as they could creep and stick. A dead pig’s skin badly cured, with the bristles sticking on it in patches, was laid upon the broken stones on the floor as a hearth-rug. In a large pot over the fire there were boiling large pieces of diseased pork in a thickish liquid, which was stirred every few minutes by an old “hag” with a ham-bone. The uneven, broken walls of the room were covered with greasy grime and filth, upon which were hung pictures of skeletons, death, coffins, and cross-bones, and most horrible, murderous-looking men and women.
In the centre of this large, deathly room there was a kind of long, low, tumble-down table propped up with bricks, old tressels, and stones. The top was sickly, dirty, loose, and uneven. Round the room there were scores of men, women, and children, blackened with dirt, grease, and grime, who had never been washed since they were ushered into the world, sitting and squatting upon the floor. Their language was that of thieving, robbing, cheating, lying, &c.; and their spare time—at least some of them—while the cooking was going on, was passed with the devil’s cards. For a few minutes all was as silent as death, and then the old “hag” placed upon the table the pot which had been hanging over the fire, after which she handed to each of us in the room an old broken mug, and told us to help ourselves to what was in the pot. At this a general rush took place; swearing and fighting was about to begin in earnest, with the probability of it ending in murder without the outside world knowing of it. I was about to begin my sickening share when I said to the lot of them, “Now, chaps, women, and children, in my country it is usual for us to say ‘grace’ before meat and thanks after it on occasions like this, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll follow out the practice now.” Several of the poor little lost creatures cried out, “That’s capital! if it’s anything nice we shall like it. We’ve not had anything we like for a long time.” I told them to be quiet, and then proceeded with, “Be pleased, O Lord, to grant us—” “Stop! stop!” cried out the old “hag.” “What did you say? ‘O Lord?’ What do you mean? What is it? who is it? and where does He come from? We’ve never heard the name before.” I said, “Let me finish, and then I will tell you afterwards.” I began again to say grace, and proceeded as follows: “Be pleased, O Lord, to grant us Thy blessing with this food, for Jesus—” They now all jumped upon their feet, and an old, grey-headed man, the picture of a Cabul murderer, with Satan in his face and the devil in his eyes, along with the wretched, ragged, lost, and emaciated little creatures, cried out, “Who is Jesus? We have never heard of Him before. Does He live in a big house? and has He plenty of rabbits, hares, game, and fowls in His plantations? because we should like to know.” I told them, in a way that excited their curiosity, as to who God was, and also as to who Jesus was. They set to their midnight supper like a lot of pigs. I took a little, but was far from enjoying it. When they had finished their supper they put their mugs upon the floor, and the bones they gave to a number of bony, hungry-looking dogs, a kind of cross between bulldogs, bloodhounds, and greyhounds, which were ready for any kind of work between the death of a keeper and a young rabbit. They reminded me very much of the big, hungry wretch of a dog in Landseer’s “Jack in Office”—
“His lean dog scanned him by the three-legged stool.”
Harris.
The conversation after supper took place in a language which they thought I could not understand, as to what was to be done on the morrow. I was mute now for a time. The children were to look after and bring home all the eggs, chickens, and fowls they could lay their hands upon. The men were to bring in larger game; and the women were to hunt up the servant girls. Each one had their work allotted them. As a kind of relief, and in broken English, in which they thought I would gladly join them, a number of the elder ones related how many times they had been “nabbed” and sent to “quod.” Some of them related that they had been in the “stone jug” three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and up to a score times; yea, even with glee some of the children gave me an account of the things they had stolen as they had passed from door to door on their thieving rambles. Now was the opportunity, I thought, during a lull in the conversation, to change the subject, and began to relate some of the beautiful things I had seen and lovely countries I had passed through; the loving smiles, gentle looks, and kind actions I had been brought in contact with; the many real, good-hearted friends I had; the many lovely flowers, delightful walks, and pleasant companions there were ready to join the travellers travelling in my country; water was rippling, birds were singing, sun was shining, and a land flowing with milk and honey in view, with long life into the bargain. As I recited these things to them they all—poor things!—stared with open mouths as they had never stared before. They now drew close to me. Although the odour was anything but agreeable, I kept on relating to them the blessings and advantages of my country, till they one and all cried out, with bated breath, “How far is it to your country, governor? Will it be the same for us if we go?” I said, “Yes, my good friends, it will be so for you and more. Will you go?” They now cried out, “We will go; but we shall have to trust you to get us out of this place.” “All right,” I said; “I will try to find a way out of this miserable hole somehow or other for you.”
I began to puzzle my brains as to how their deliverance was to be accomplished. For some little time I pondered the matter over, when it occurred to me that at the bottom end of the dismal room I had noticed a place upon the wall which looked like a door that had been plastered over in somebody’s time by pieces of old rags and paper.
I drew near to it, and scanned it over more closely. After feeling round the edges of it for a few minutes, one of the oldest and most wretched-looking gipsies spoke out in hasty tones, and with an amount of warmth that led me to hesitate for a moment to hear what further he had to say. He stopped short. So I said, “Well, Righteous Palmer, what is there behind this opening if I should proceed to find out?” “Oh, a lot, I’m told by those who know. Our place is bad enough, as our old witch knows, and you know, sir; but nothing like what there is behind that there ‘opening,’” pointing with his finger, “and if I was you, my dear good gentleman, I would not stir a peg to see any further. We should not like to see any harm come to you. If it had been anybody else we should not have minded a bit; we would as soon given him a chuck to Nick as look at him, and been glad o’ the job, and ground his bones to powder, and played at football with his skull.” I said, “Well now, Palmer, if you do not mind, we will see.”
“If you do,” said Palmer, “and get into any trouble, or into a place out of which you cannot get back, you must not blame us.” “Will you do what you can to help me?” I said. “Oh yes, we will do what we can for you in any way.” “All right,” I said. I now took out my pocket knife and began to cut and pull some of the paper and old rags off what now was appearing to be a door. The old witches, “hags,” and grey-bearded, bloated, and thin, wretched-looking men, and swarms, almost, of poor emaciated children, eagerly closed round me to see what it would end in. The stinking fire was stirred up to cause fresh light; and in the meantime I kept cutting away, which was no light task, for there were many old knots and rusty nails to be faced. Some of the poor children cried out, “By Jove, it is a door! Wonder where it leads to?” “All right,” I said, “wait and we will see.” And I worked, tugged, and toiled, sometimes in the midst of breathless silence, and at others in a gipsy noise loud enough to drown my own voice and noise of my tinkering. At last the door seemed to be pretty loose. Nervousness and fear seemed to creep over me more than ever as I neared the end. Questions kept popping up in my mind, “Where will it lead to? If it did not lead to an opening and daylight,” I said to myself more than once, “I am a done man.” “Lord help me,” I said, as I put my hand to the door to push it or pull it one way or the other. At last I pulled it open. There was the faintest light to be seen from somewhere, but I could not tell where. All the gipsies came nearer to me, and I said to one of the strongest of them, “Hold my hand, for I do not know where it will lead to. It will either be to my ruin or your happiness.” “We will hold you,” cried one and all; “you shan’t fall at any rate.” “Thank the Lord for this,” I said, and with much trembling I took the first step, not knowing whether it was to be downhill or uphill. In putting my feet out I felt my toe go against something hard. I kicked again and again, and found it to be a stone step. I then put my foot upon it. The gipsies were still at my coat tail. I then put both feet upon it, and felt at the walls, which seemed to widen out. A little more light was manifest, but still I could not tell where it came from. I kept groping and feeling my way step after step. More light of a yellowish tint, not of the cold moonlight hues, was now becoming more visible. The gipsies, especially the children, began to get eager to see the end of it. First one and then another of them said more than once, “The light seems nice; I wonder where it comes from?” The old gipsies were, with this light, made to look most horrible, and slunk back, but the children stuck to me. A great wide passage was now manifest; and altogether an uphill work was becoming more pleasant and cheerful. The gipsy children seemed to be round me by hundreds, and for the life of me I could not tell where they came from. A more miserable lot could not be imagined. Some of the children cried out, “Governor, it seems a long way to the top; how far is it?” Another twenty steps brought us to the top in full face to the rising sun; singing birds filling the air with their chanting; lovely flowers and beautiful mansions, blossoming trees rich with bud, blossom, and fragrance; groves, parks, and long walks without end. The deer were bounding, cattle grazing, and the big lambs were calling out for their mothers. In the long winding distance, at the top of a hill, stood a golden city, whose mansions and palaces were built of large blocks of precious stones, with an arch spanning over the whole composed of a succession of rainbows, with rays of glory indescribable, anxiously forcing their way to add lustre to the scene through the occasional openings to be seen in the illuminated arch. My heart was so overjoyed at having arrived at the top, and seeing vast crowds of little gipsy children brought out of darkness, I began to sing out lustily, with tears in my eyes—
Ami as if by magic, the children sang touchingly the chorus, in which I joined—
“In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.”
The singing of this tune woke me up, and for the life of me I could not tell where I was, or whether I was in the body or out of it. This matter was soon settled by the “boots” knocking at my door, telling me that it was a quarter-past five o’clock. I partook of a hasty breakfast, and by six o’clock, with the musical bells chiming round me, I was among the gipsies in the fair, some of whom were settling down to their quarters, others were grumbling, and in not a few instances rows were brewing, owing to the space allotted to them not being up to their anticipation. On my way from my lodging to the town I passed a number of most wretched spectacles drawn by donkeys and ponies, fit for the knacker’s yard.
Upon a tumble-down donkey-cart covered over with sticks and old sheeting, drawn by a donkey dressed in harness not worth sixpence, which was tied together with string and pieces of rope, there were women and six poor half-dressed, half-starved, dirty, ragged children. The sight was most pitiable. The little dirty faces, with matted hair, peering through an opening in the rotten calico canvas, reminded me of a nest of young rabbits, rather than human beings with immortal souls, endowed with reason, thought, and intellect, and in the image of God, peeping out of their hole among the dead grass. Oh! what a contrast, I thought, to the architectural grandeur and beauty of the mansions on either hand as they passed through the streets. Why and wherefore is the cause? But I must not stop now to inquire. This problem I must work out later on.
The toll clerk with an amount of tact managed to squeeze the two hundred and twenty vans and shows into the square, keeping fairly the worst kinds in the background, and the best-looking with their faces towards “Lunnun.” “I have,” said the clerk, “much to do to get them all placed. After I have done all I can, I cannot keep them from rows and quarrels. Sometimes it is worse than what you see now. There are many more vans than there are in the fair this morning.” I said to him, “How many do you think there are here this morning?” “Well, sir, there are considerably over two hundred. I counted early yesterday afternoon in one string between here and Somers Town, a hundred and seventy-two vans, and others have been coming since.” At this juncture he spied a gipsy with his van and establishment taking up their abode in the churchyard under the tall trees. He said, “I must be off to stop them.” I followed him to see how the bronzed old gipsy would take to his veto. Fortunately he took to the dismissal with good grace, and more than once said, “Thank you, my good gentleman.” This is one of the characteristics of the old romantic gipsies, when they want anything by favour; seeing that it is not in their power to get it either by craft or bounce, they can ask with much grace, and in this way they often succeed. After the toll clerk was gone I had a chat with the gipsy—who, to his credit, had good cattle between the shafts of his vans. He said that he had at home—but did not say where his home was—eleven grey horses, out of his stock of thirteen. I took his statement with a pinch of salt, and moved off, leaving him to mumble over a joke I left behind, while he changed his quarters.
Not far from this scene there stood at a van door a tall, bony, dirty-looking man, in an almost nude state, and a lot of dirty, ragged children, and the “old woman” washing, hard and fast, some dirty linen in a tin bucket. It struck me that in this case, as with others, dispatch was the soul of business, and I loitered about to see what “shifts” this gipsy family would adopt. Scrub, rub, and a dash into the hot water went the dirty linen. After two or three good rubs and tussels with the linen in the bucket, she pulled it out and wrung it as if she was “screwing its neck off.” When this was over she gave it a good shake, and handed it to her “old man” without drying. The “old man” retired for a few minutes, and then he appeared with a dirty white shirt on his back, sticking more closely to his body than would have been agreeable to most people. Fortunately the warm sun was shining, and by exposing it to the sun’s rays during his pacing backwards and forwards in the square for an hour, he presented a better spectacle. At night upon the stage, with his painted face and coloured pantaloons, his grimy, smoke-coloured shirt passed off fairly well. I could see that the poor children, who stood round the door with matted hair, were to have the same measure dealt out to them that was dealt out to the “old man.” I am not at all surprised to find that diseases of various kinds should be creeping among our present-day gipsies, the bulk of whom wash and dry their linen on their limbs and bodies as above. Among the old gipsies rheumatic diseases were not known, but it is not so now; and it cannot be wondered at when we take into account that men, women, and children cause their bodies to do in wet weather what the “clothes horse” should do, and in fine weather what the “clothes line” should do. Such is “gipsy life” in this nineteenth century, in this our enlightened England.
One of the horses belonging to one of the gipsy vans had had nearly enough of it; and for the life of him the gipsy could not get the poor old horse to stir a peg, except to kick, and this it could do as well, if not better, than a “four-year-old.” I expected every minute to see the van over on its side, and the woman and children sprawling in the road. Fortunately, a few fellow-gipsy brothers put their shoulders to the wheel, and wheeled it off to right quarters.
In other vans “rock” and “toffy” making was going on with vengeance. I’ll take one case to show the kind of process carried out, and what town’s children and others have to swallow during feasts, mops, and fair time.