At four o’clock, with darkness creeping on, and a halter upon the pony’s head, she commenced to tramp, dressed in rags and trashes, and almost an empty craw, from Spilsby back to Heckington, a distance of between thirty and forty miles. Fortunately there was a little moonlight for a good part of the night, which enabled her to get upon the pony’s back to see the guide-posts. Several times she took the wrong turning where there was no guide-post to direct her, but by perseverance righted herself again. The pony was a little lame, and she could not ride, and on they tramped together, occasionally resting by the road side as the silent hours of the cold winterly night quietly and leisurely passed into the future unseen and unknown, except such of it as has been revealed to us by the Great Creator Himself. About two o’clock the next day she arrived at the van door with her old grey pony, and since then they have travelled hundreds of miles together, sometimes pushing, and sometimes pulling along the lanes of life. I asked her if she was not afraid to travel along the lonely lanes and roads leading to Spilsby at the midnight hour. She answered, “The Lord love you, I should at other times, but I did not feel a bit afraid on this night. I wanted to get home with the pony and to see my children, and this kept me a-going forward. Since then,” said the poor woman, “we’ve had a hard time of it; in fact, for the last two years we’ve had only six pennyworth of meat, and six pennyworth of bacon in the van. We live on what we can pick up, but chiefly on dry bread and tea.” She told me herself that for more than a fortnight together she had on only an old dress, a chemise in shreds, and a pair of old boots to move among the fashionable and gay at the fairs, races, and feasts. Thank God for the hope that dwells within the breasts of these at the bottom of the social scale that brighter days will come. Her little girls had not been undressed and washed for weeks, as they had nothing else to put on while they were being washed; and in this way many thousands of English men, women, and children are drifting into damning English gipsy customs, sins, and degrading and depraving habits, beneath, and encouraged by, the smiles, winks, and gabble of our backwood gipsy, gem collectors, and sentimental and sensational writers, who do not care a straw for those whom they are enticing on to ruin, so long as the gold and silver bits drop into their pockets.
It is time we roused ourselves, and, with Mr. Ellis in the Quiver for 1878, cried out at the top of our voices, and in prayer from the depths of our whole souls—
“Oh, help them, then, if ye are men,
Stretch out thine hand to save.
Let them not sink beneath the brink
O’ the surging ocean wave.”
“Not all in vain good seed I sow,
As up and down the world I go;
Scattering in faith the precious grain,
And waiting till the sun and rain
Of heavenly influence bid it grow.”Rev. Richard Wilton, M.A.
Christian Miscellany, October, 1882.
Sunday morning, September the 24th, was most lovely and delightful. The buzzing and darting bats were not to be seen. They had retired among the ruins of old tumbledown walls, creaking doors, and thatch. The horrible sneaking rats had crept into their holes, ashamed of daylight. The owl had retired to a dark, dusky nook among the perishing barn stone walls, to sleep and fatten upon its ill-gotten carrion and the tender bones of the sweet chirping, variegated songsters that had been unfortunate enough to come beneath its ravenous clutches. The bright sun was shedding its light, tinged with a little of the autumnal golden hue, upon our rough, rugged, and antiquated dwelling. The robin seemed more proud than ever to show its beautiful red breast, and to get ready to pipe forth the praises of Jehovah from the branches of the old yew trees near the orchard. The swallows were darting by our windows, as if nervous about their long flight, and anxious to have as many peeps at us as possible before bidding us good-bye for their long journey far, far away. Our fowls had, according to their usual custom on Sunday mornings, gathered themselves together under the shed in the yard to listen to the intonation of their friend “Tom.” The sheep and cattle were grazing in the meadows, and sheaves of golden corn stood upright in the fields, inviting the farmers to carry them home to fill the barns of the rich, the coffers of the banker, the empty bellies of the poor widow, toilers in the field and brickyard, dwellers in canal-boat cabins, and gipsy tents, vans, and wigwams. Our village church bells had begun to ring, and my wife was, of necessity, breaking the Sabbath by restoring with her bodkin and thread some of my habiliments while I stood bolt upright, so as to make me presentable at court, which process caused a twitter among our “olive branches.” I now scraped together all the money I could, and with my “Gladstone bag” in hand, containing among other things my Sunday’s dinner, consisting of a slice of bread and butter and an apple, and my seedy-looking overcoat, turned the best side towards London, I started to the station. The bells were chiming and pealing soft and low, and our little folks were tripping off to church with their curls dangling down their backs, and dressed in their best “bib and tucker.” On the way I came upon an Irishman sitting upon a stone minding some sheep that were munching grass by the roadside. For his companion he had, as the Rev. Mr. Vine says in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, February, 1877,
“Naught but the sky, the rough hewn rocks,
Green belts of grass, and fleecy flocks.”
To me it seemed as if he had a small crucifix in his hand, and was counting beads; if so, I interrupted him by calling out “Good morning,” to which Pat responded, “Good morning, yer honour; an’ it is a fine morning, yer honour.” I left him in his devotion, and next came upon a couple of dirty shoemakers from Daventry, with as much watercress in their arms as they could carry, stolen from the water-brook close by while the farmers were in church and the dogs tied up.
I now ran against a youth from the station who was gathering blackberries. At his feet, in the hedge-bottom, a hare was quietly nestling. Poor fellow! he let his blackberries fall to grasp the hare, which allowed him the moment’s pleasure of catching its tail, but, much to the chagrin of the youth, did not leave it behind, forcibly illustrating the case of the dog in Æsop’s Fables crossing a plank with a piece of meat in its mouth, which it let fall to grasp the shadow. “Oh!” said the flushed youth, “I nearly caught it.”
In the train there were several gentlemen. One was reading the Christian World, and another was reading a sporting paper. At Nuneaton I had two hours to wait for the next train to Leicester. The interval was spent in pacing backwards and forwards upon the platform, and in eating with a thankful heart my Sunday’s dinner, which, not to say the least of, was not too rich for my digestive organs.
I fared better than an old gipsy woman, Boswell, who, with her daughter-in-law—a gipsy Smith from London—and their five poor half-starved gipsy children, came to our door recently. The old woman, Boswell, had only an outer old frock upon her, with two or three old rags underneath. She had no “shift” on, as she said. This family of travelling gipsies consisted of two men, mother and daughter-in-law, and five children, the whole of whom “slept under their tilted barrow” at Buckby wharf in a hedge-bottom. Not one of this lot could tell a letter.
At Nuneaton I conversed with a gentleman who gave me a little of his history, some of which was remarkable, especially that part relating to his courtship and marriage. “Ah!” said my friend with a tone of sadness, “I had the misfortune to lose my wife by cruel death, and was left with four little children to get through the world as best we could. It was a sad blow, sir. I don’t know whether you have ever undergone such a trial, but my experience of it is that it is one of the greatest misfortunes that can ever befall mortal man, and I’ve nothing but pity for the man who has had to undergo the sad loss. Oh! it’s terrible, sir. After you have been toiling hard all day in the cold rain, frost, and snow, and then to go home to find no one to warm your slippers, or to speak a kind, soothing, and cheering word to you, was more than I could bear. To sit and eat your bread and butter and drink your tea alone, while the servants and the children were playing in the streets, was enough to turn any man into a wild animal.” I said to him, “Certainly it is a terrible ordeal, and one that I should not like to pass through.” “Yes it is,” said my friend, almost in whimpering tones. “Well, how did you get out of your sad difficulty?” I said. “Well, sir, things went on for some months in a path in which there seemed nothing but vexation. The servants were quarrelling, the children were neglected, and bills seemed to be coming in without end; and while I was brooding over these things one afternoon, in came a minister from Derby, and he saw the fix I was in, and that I could not get him as nice a cup of tea as formerly; and, to help me out of my difficulty, he said, ‘My dear brother, when the proper time comes, I know where there’s a wife that will suit you.’ ‘Do you?’ I said to my ministerial friend. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do.’ At this I pricked up my ears, and he said, ‘I am going to their house for tea next week, and if you like you shall go with me.’ ‘All right,’ I said. Nothing more passed that evening on the subject. During the week he wrote to me, asking me to meet him at Derby station. Of course I thought I would go; they could not take anything of me, and I went. In going to the house I began to get into a nervous stew. On the way my friend said, ‘Now there are two sisters in the house living with their mother. It will be the one with a blue ribbon round her waist who I think will suit you. After they have been in their room to dress for the afternoon she generally comes out the first.’ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll keep my eyes open.’ At the door the mother met us, and gave us a hearty welcome. The young ladies were in their room, and I was playing with my fingers upon the arm of the sofa. Presently a young lady came downstairs. Of course I had my eyes upon the waistband, to see whether it was a blue one; but, to my astonishment, it was green. In a few minutes the other young lady came downstairs with the blue ribbon round her waist. I concluded that this was the one my friend the parson had selected for me. Tea was got ready, and instead of entering freely into the general conversation, I kept looking first at one and the other of the young ladies at tea, and playing with my fingers between time. When tea was over and the service ended, on the way home my friend the parson said, ‘Well, which of the two do you like best?’ ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I’m not particular; I’ll take to either of them; but as the eldest is nearer to my age, I think I will make love to her,’ taking it all as a joke. Nothing more was said. During the next week I was a long way from home on business, and I ventured to write to Deborah, telling her who I was, and what little game I was up to, and asking her to meet me at the station to have a chat together on the subject about which I wrote. The young lady was, so I’ve been told since, dumbfounded, and said to her sister, ‘Of all the men in the world I will not have him; I don’t like him a bit. He did not at all seem to make himself comfortable at tea. I shall not go to meet him.’ ‘Well,’ said the other sister with the green waistband, ‘If you don’t go I shall. He will suit me.’ ‘Well,’ said the one with the blue waistband, ‘if he will suit you he will suit me, and I will go to meet him at the station.’ Accordingly I got out of the train, so that she might know me again, and on we went to Derby and made matters square; and—would you believe me, sir?—in three weeks from that time we were married.” I said, “Well, bless me!” The rapidity of his courting expedition almost took the wind out of me. The station bell now rang. I jumped into the train, and as I was moving off towards Leicester I bade my new friend good-bye; and he, in return, waving his hand, said, “I will tell you the rest another day, and what we saw on our wedding tour in London, Antwerp, Brussels, Mastricht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.” “All right,” I said, and we puffed away, leaving quite a pother behind.
In the train were two young female “school teachers,” who had been a “gipsying” to Coventry by the “special” from Leicester on the Saturday afternoon, and, whether by accident or design, they had been left behind. I questioned them about the suspicious circumstance attached to such a course, to which they replied, “As soon as we arrived at the station, and found that the train had been gone five minutes, we nearly cried our eyes out. Fortunately we had friends in Coventry with whom we stayed all night.”
I told them to be good girls and do better for the future, to which they replied, “We will,” and I left them to make my way down Belgrave Gate to my sister-in-law’s. After tea we went to St. Mark’s church, and heard a smiling young curate, the Rev. A. F. Maskew, preach a good, practical, telling sermon, on the occasion of returning thanks to Almighty God for the success that has attended our army and navy and the termination of the war in Egypt. The Rev. C. B. — was away on his holiday. After the service the congregation stood up and heartily joined the choir in singing, “God save the Queen.” To which I responded with all my heart, “Amen! God bless our blessed Queen.”
Right always comes right. After service I took a walk, with “a young lady” of some forty-five gentle summers and hard winters at my left side, to visit the new park in the abbey meadows. The sight was most enchanting. Few lovers were on the walks with their arms entwined round each other’s waists. The artificial lakes, hills, and rockeries were seen with solemn grandeur by the aid of distant lamps. The moving murmuringly forward of the “soar” waters beneath our feet, as we stood on the bridge, lighted up with silver streaks of distant lamps, and the pealing forth of the soft, heavenly, riveting, and mesmerizing hymns and chimes of the evening bells of St. Mark’s and St. Saviour’s, made me feel that all the troubles, trials, opposition, misrepresentation, and hardship I had passed through were suddenly transformed into pleasures, leading up to the indescribable panoramic views that appeared before my vision. As it passed away—or, I should say, I passed from it—another one opened up which led me on and on in spirit to the heavenly rest and everlasting beauty in store. The Rev. Richard Wilton says—
“Let Nature’s music still the ear delight,
And gracious echoes mortal cares allay,
Till “wood-notes” ’mid angelic warbling cease,
And “church bells” ring us to eternal peace.”
In a few minutes after this I was between the sheets, and I could have said with John Harris, as sleep stole gently into my room—
“Hark! What is that? The spirit of the vale?
Or is it some bright angel by the lake?”
And the last I remember was, I was muttering over “by” “by” “the” “lake,” “by” “by” “the” “the” “lake,” “la—la,” and I was bound fast to the bed.
A quondam friend bade me “good morning,” and then jumped into a “first class” to recite his “R’s” and “S’s” so as to give them the finishing touch correctly the next Sunday morning, while I enjoyed the honour and pleasure of a “third.” We arrived together at Nottingham, and I made my way to a “temperance hotel,” not half a mile from the station, with “first-class” appearances outside, but with “third-class” bedroom accommodation. My room was a “top back,” overlooking well-known old friends, viz., bricks, tiles, terra-cotta, sanitary pipes, encaustic tiles, &c, with a board in the corner covered with oilcloth for a washing stand, and a tea saucer for a “soap tray.” The bed was hard, and the blind was of a material that needed no washing; in fact, the room was bare, cheerless, comfortless, and cold. I strolled into the market-place, and was soon talking to some old-fashioned Staffordshire gipsies with short skirts, and apparently, thick legs, heavy boots, with plenty of colour about their “head-gear,” who, taking all things into consideration, were not bad specimens of gipsies of the present day.
After this I spent a short time with my old friend, Mr. William Bradshaw, a name which has been well known in the midland counties for many long years. Writing and gossiping consumed the remainder of the day; and at ten o’clock I mounted and climbed nearer heaven to rub my eyes again at peep o’ day. Between four and five o’clock I was in and out of my hard bed a dozen times, guessing the time and groping in the dark, for fear I might miss the train to Bulwell Forest. At last I got so fidgety that I was determined to get up, “hit or miss.” I dressed, and then went downstairs to find my way out into the street; but, not having an angel, like Peter, to open the doors for me, I had to ring and ring and shout sufficient to awaken all in the house; if they had been as deaf as posts, I could not have had a greater difficulty to awaken them. At last the landlord made his appearance with his shirt on, and his hair on an end like a frightened ghost. Owing to my early movements, and being a suspicious-looking customer, I had to pay my bill, and out I went about half-past five. My train started for Bulwell at six o’clock, and at six thirty I was among the gipsies upon the forest. There were four vans full of gipsies of all sorts and sizes, just turning out of their “bed;” so dirty were they that I should not have been surprised if the “beds” had run away with them. “Smiths” and “Winters” were the two prominent names. “Bless me,” I said, there are “gipsy Smiths here, there, and everywhere.” “Yes, you are right, my good mon,” said Mrs. Gipsy Winter in a Staffordshire twang. In the four vans there would be twelve adults and eighteen poor, rough, dirty, neglected little gipsy children, not one of whom could read or write. The policeman said to me, “The gipsies that come on this forest and about these parts are a rough, dirty, bad lot, and no mistake. Nowt comes amiss that they can lay their hands upon, I can assure you.” I had a chat with Mrs. Gipsy Winter, and told her what my object was, viz., to bring their vans under registration, and also to give their children a free education; to which she replied with delight, “Lor, bless you, my good mon, I’m reight glad you big fokes are going to do sommat in the way o’ givin’ our childer a bit o’ eddication, for they’re nowt as it is. They are growin’ up as ignorant as osses; they conner tell a ‘b’ from a bull’s foot. I conner read mysen, but I should like our childer to be able to read and write. Han you got one o’ your eddication pass books wi’ yer? cause if yer han, I’ll ha’ one.” I told her that the Act was not passed authorizing the use of them; at which she held down her head, and said, “I suppose we mun wait a long time fust.” “Yes,” I said, “it will not be this year.”
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.
In the year 1514 the gipsies landed in Scotland from the Continent, and from that date to the present time we have had in our midst over 30,000 men, women, and children with increasing numbers, going to and from our villages, towns, lanes, and fairs, and mixing with the simple, wise, gay, and foolish, leading the lives of vagabonds, demoralizing all they have been brought in contact with, by their lying, plundering, dirty, filthy, cheating, and crafty habits. In one word, the gipsies have been, and still are, a disgrace to Christian civilization. Of course there are exceptions among them, and I wish from the bottom of my heart that there were more.
They live huddled together regardless of either sex, age, or decency, under hedges, in tents, barns, or on the roadside, with but little regard for marriage ceremonies.
Their food, in many instances, is little better than garbage and refuse, and the most riff-raff of them bed themselves upon rotten straw.
We have also, at this late day, with sunny education gleaming on every hand, over 30,000 poor gipsy children of school age growing up as vagabonds, and not two per cent. of the whole able to read or write a sentence.
If our present-day gipsies had been of the romantic type of some two or three centuries ago, as pictured to us so beautifully by fascinating novelists, we might have wandered down the country green lanes, and by the side of rivulets, to admire their witchery, colours, and gipsy traits, exhibited with much refined skill, artistic touch, and feeling by gipsy writers; but the fact is, to state it plainly, the romantic gipsy of novels and romance has been dead long ago, and neither the stage, romance, nor imagination will ever bring him to life again in this country.
Our gipsies of to-day are neither more nor less than ignorant, idle tramps, scamps, and vagabonds. This I know full well, for I have found it out over and over again, not by hearsay, but by mixing and eating with them in their wretched abodes often during the last five years.
My sorrowful experience of them forty years ago, with casual acquaintances since, and onward to 1878, has not brought any traits of their character, as practised by them, that any sane-thinking, loyal, or observing man can admire, and the sooner our legislators deal with our gipsy vagabonds the better it will be for us as a nation.
Many of the gipsies have large hearts, and are most kindly, and they are also clever and musical. These features of gipsy life I have witnessed myself many times. The cause of their degraded position may be laid at the door of our Christian apathy, legislative indifference, social deadness, and philanthropic neglect.
The flickering and uncertain efforts of missionary agency will do something towards reclaiming our poor lost wandering little brothers and sisters, but not a tithe of what the social, sanitary, and educational laws of the country can do.
In the paper I had the honour to read before this Congress at Manchester, in 1879, I dealt more especially with the evils of gipsy life, only referring briefly to my remedy, the substance of which I have published in my “Gipsy Life,” and in various forms since 1878, and onward to this date, which, with additional suggestions, are as follow:—
1. I would have all movable or temporary habitations registered and numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements in a manner analogous to that provided under the Canal Boats Act of 1877.
2. Not less than 100 cubic feet of space for each female above the age of twelve, and each male above the age of fourteen; and not less than 50 cubic feet of space for each female under the age of twelve, and for each male under the age of fourteen.
3. No male above the age of fourteen, and no female above the age of twelve, should be allowed to sleep in the same tent, or van, as man and wife, unless separate sleeping accommodation and suitable ventilation be provided.
4. A registration certificate to be obtained, and renewable annually at any of the urban or rural sanitary authorities in the country, for which the owner of the tent, or van, shall pay a sum of 10s., commencing on the first of January in each year.
5. The compulsory attendance at day schools a given number of times of all travelling children, or others, living in temporary or unrateable dwellings up to the age required by the Education Code, which attendance should be facilitated and brought about by means of a free educational pass book, procurable at any bookseller’s, for the sum of one shilling, as I have suggested to meet the case of canal children.
6. The children to be at liberty to attend any National, British, Board, or other day schools under the management of properly qualified schoolmasters.
7. No child under thirteen years of age to be engaged in any capacity for either hire or profit, unless such child shall have passed the “third standard” of the Education Code.
8. No child or young person to work for either hire or profit on Sundays under the age of sixteen.
9. Power to be given to any properly qualified sanitary officer, School Board visitor, inspector, or Government official, to enter the tents, vans, shows, or other temporary or movable dwelling, at any time, or in any place, and detain them if necessary, for the purpose of seeing that the law is properly carried out.
10. The Local Government Board to have power to appoint one, or two, or more officials to see that the local authorities enforce and carry out the Act; and also to report to Parliament annually.
11. All fines to be paid over to those authorities who enforce the Act and the regulations of the Local Government Board.
12. As an encouragement to those gipsy wanderers who cannot afford to have healthy and suitable travelling vans and other abodes, and who desire to settle down from their wandering and degrading existence to industrious habits the Government should purchase common or waste lands, or allot lands of their own to the gipsies in small parcels upon a long lease—say for ninety-nine years—at a nominal rent.
With these features embodied in an Act of Parliament, and properly carried out by the local authorities, under the supervision and control of the Local Government Board and Education Department, gleams of a brighter day might be said to manifest themselves upon our social horizon, which will elevate our gipsies and their children into a position that will reflect a credit instead of a disgrace to us as a civilized nation.
“And shall he be left in the streets to room,
An outcast live and wild?
‘God forbid!’ you say. Then help, I pray.
To provide for the [gipsy child].”Rev. I. Charlesworth, Sword and Trowel, 1671.
The Canal Boats Act of 1877, and the Amending Bills of 1881 and 1882. By George Smith, of Coalville.
In 1877 an Act was passed entitled “The Canal Boats Act of 1877,” on the basis sketched out by me in a paper I had the honour to read before this Congress, held at Liverpool in 1876; and also in my letters, articles, &c., which have appeared in the lending journals, and in my works since the passing of the Act and onward from 1872 to this date.
After the Bill was drawn up, and during its progress through committee in 1877, several features were foreshadowed in the measure which led me to fear that when passed it would not accomplish all we so much desired, and these I pointed out to the late Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, Mr. Salt, Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board; Mr. John Corbett, M.P., Mr. Pell, M.P., Mr. P. Rylands, M.P., Mr. Sampson Lloyd, MP., Mr. W. E. Price, M.P., and many others; but rather than yield to the opposition of the Canal Association, and the loss of the Bill, I suggested that it should be passed, notwithstanding the drawbacks that were in sight.
When Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Price, and others, at the fag end of the session of 1877, put the question seriously to me, as to whether the Bill should not be massacred along with the other innocents, I replied as follows: “Push the Bill through Committee by all means. A piece of a loaf is better than none. It has its defects, but if we do not get the Bill passed this year we shall not be likely to do so next year. Let us get the thin end of the wedge in. The operation of the Act will be to bring about the registration of the canal boats, to give power to the sanitary officers to enter the cabins, to secure the education of the 40,000 canal children, and also to prevent overcrowding in the cabins.”
The first step towards carrying out the Act, after five years’ continued agitation and visits to various parts of the country, has been fairly accomplished; and the sanitary officers, by the power given to them under the Act, have done good by preventing, in some degree, the spread of infectious diseases; but the main features of the Act, viz., the education of the canal children, the prohibition of overcrowding in the cabins, and the annual registration of the boats, are almost entirely neglected.
The following are the failing points of the Act of 1877:
1. The Act to a great extent is permissive. 2. Proceedings cannot be taken against the boatmen and boatowners for evading the regulations of the Local Government Board—the most important of all. Breakers of this Act can be brought under the lash of the law, but breakers of the regulations cannot. 3. The Act of 1877 is placed in the hands of the local registration authorities to carry out, consequently the expenses fall upon the ratepayers, and the result is that the local sanitary inspectors, or registration officers, have had but little added to their salaries—in many instances nothing—and with strict orders not to go beyond their town or city boundaries. Thus it will be seen that boats plying between the registration districts, which are as a rule between twenty and fifty miles apart, are left to themselves. 4. Another oversight in the Act is the non-annual registration of the boats, and consequently there have been no fees to meet the expenses. It was intended from the first that there should be an annual registration of the boats. 5. The want of power in the Act to enable the Local Government Board to appoint officers to supervise, control, inspect, enforce, and report to Parliament upon the working of the Act and the regulations. 6. Another cause of failure in the Act has been owing to power not having been given to inspectors to enter the cabins or inspect the boats at any other time than “by day.” Boats are more or less on the move by day, and it is only when they are tied up—which generally happens after six o’clock—or when they are being loaded or unloaded, that the local registration officer has an opportunity to see or to form any idea as to what number of men, women, and children are sleeping and huddling together in the cabins. 7. The Act does not give the School Board officer power to enter a boat cabin. The education clauses of the Act have, I might almost say, entirely failed: (a) owing to the indifference manifested by the school authorities at which places the boats are registered as belonging to; (b) the extra trouble they give to the school attendance officers; (c) the facilities given and the chances seized by the boatmen to get outside the town or city boundaries with their children so as to elude the grasp or shun the eye of the School Board officer. 8. The payment of a week’s school fees demanded from the children who can only attend one or two days in the week. It is not either fair, honest, or just to compel a boatman to pay more for the education of his children than others have to pay. 9. Many boats in the coal districts, with women and children on board, travelling short distances, have escaped registration and inspection under the plea that their boats are not used as dwellings. 10. Another very important reason advanced by the registration authorities why the boatmen and boatowners have not been prosecuted for breaches of the Act is that all the trouble and expense attending prosecutions have had to be borne by the local ratepayers, while the fines, in accordance with the Act of 1877, have been paid over to the county fund, instead of the borough or local fund.
The Bill I am humbly promoting, and which has been before Parliament during the last two sessions, supported by Lord Aberdare, Earl Stanhope, Earl Shaftesbury, the Marquis of Tweeddale, Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., Mr. Albert Pell, M.P., Mr. John Corbett, M.P., Mr. Thos. Salt, M.P., Mr. Thos. Burt, M.P., and Mr. H. Broadhurst, M.P., provides a remedy for these faulty places. 1. I would do away with the permissive features of the Act of 1872. 2. Fines to be inflicted for breaches of the regulations, as well as for breaches of the Act. 3. I give under the Act the local registration authorities part of the registration fees. I propose that the annual registration fee should be 5s. for each boat, one half of this amount to go to the Government, and the other half to the local authorities. 4. The registration of the boats to be annual. This will be a very simple and inexpensive affair, no matter in what registration district the boat happens to be at the time of the renewal. 5. I give under the Bill the Local Government Board power to appoint one, two, or more officials to visit the canals in various parts of the country, and to see to the proper enforcement of the Act, and to report annually to Parliament. 6. I propose that the inspectors should have power to enter a canal boat at any “reasonable hour.” 7. No child shall be employed on a canal boat unless such child shall have passed the “third standard.” 8. I propose that children, whom the regulations allow to live in the cabins, should have a free educational pass book, which would enable them to attend any day school while the boats are being loaded and unloaded. 9. No child under the age of sixteen to work on a canal boat on Sundays. 10. All boats upon which there is accommodation for cooking or sleeping to be deemed to be used as dwellings. 11. All fines to be paid over to those authorities who enforce the Act.
When the Canal Boats Act of 1877 is amended in accordance with the lines I have laid down in the Bill, the stigma that has been resting upon the country and our canal population, numbering nearly 100,000 men, women, and children, during the last 125 years, will be in an easy way for removal, without inconvenience or costing the country one farthing, and the boatowners and captains not more than 2s. 6d. each per annum.
With the proper carrying out of the Act the 40,000 boat children of school age, not ten per cent. of whom can read and write, will be educated, and the boatmen’s homes made more healthy and happy; industrious habits will be encouraged, and the country will also be made richer by increasing the happiness of her water toilers upon our rivers and canals.
“Oh, help them, then, if ye are men,
And, when thy race is run,
Turn not aside, nor think with pride
Thy work in life is done.”Ellis, Quiver.
My papers passed off in the midst of smiles and kindly and lengthy press notices. Editors have always been more kind to me than I have deserved, much more than I had anticipated. The fact is, I had expected some rough handling, and armed myself with a few little rough, awkward facts. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the majority of my hearers were of the gentler sex. Bless their dear hearts! Their encouraging smiles and words have helped me through many a difficulty in pushing on with the cause of the children. May God reward them a thousandfold.
The act was ended, and the curtain dropped. I therefore “picked up my crumbs,” and bade my friends goodbye till—D.V. and if all’s well—we meet again next year at Huddersfield. I then made my way to the station, and home. Upon Leicester platform I met with a few old friends, who had pleasant greetings for me, including Mr. Thompson, Mr. Fox, and a literary friend, the Rev. W. L. Lang, F.R.G.S., who has given myself and the cause I have in hand many lifts—bless him for it. Onward and upward may he travel to the time when it shall be said, “It is enough.” And to my many other friends who have helped me by their influence and with their pens, I repeat the same thing over and over again.
My little stock of the “one thing needful” had begun to turn quite modest, and crept into the corners of my pocket, so as to be scarcely felt among the keys of boxes, drawers, cupboards, and lockers, knives, and other pocket trifles. I took my ticket to Rugby, which left me with one shilling. I had not gone far before my ticket was missing out of my hand. I was in a minute “all of a stew.” Cold perspiration crept over me. In a twinkle, before any one could say “Jack Robinson,” my hands were at the bottom of my pockets using their force to persuade Mr. “Ticket” to turn up; but no! it was not to be found. Fortunately a porter came panting after me and asked if I had not lost my ticket. He had lifted a ton weight off my shoulders, and I thanked him very much. At Rugby I spent my last coin in copies of the Times, Standard, Daily News, Telegraph, Daily Chronicle, and Morning Post. In nearing our old antiquated village along the lovely green lanes, little village children were to be seen gathering blackberries. The sun was shining most beautifully in my face. The autumnal tints and hues were to be seen upon the trees. The gentle rustling wind brought the decaying and useless leaves hesitatingly and in a zigzag fashion to the ground, as if they were loath to leave the trees which had given them birth, before settling among the mud to be trampled upon by tramps and gipsies. While climbing the last hill, with a heavy heart and light pocket, weighed on all sides with nervous hope, trembling doubts, and anxious fears, I never more fully realized the force of John Wesley’s hymn, as I tried to hum it over. In soft but faltering accents I might have been heard by the village children singing—
“No foot of land do I possess,
No cottage in this wilderness.
A poor wayfaring man,
I lodge awhile in tents below,
Or gladly wander to and fro,
Till I my Canaan gain.”
The first thing that caught my eye upon my library table was a letter from Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., in which was enclosed a cheque to aid in building a Good Templar hall at Northampton, about which I had written. This was duly sent to Mr. Hollowell, the secretary. Underneath Mr. Morley’s letter lay one from a friend, Mr. Frank A. Bevan, of 54, Lombard Street, enclosing a small cheque on behalf of himself, Lord Aberdare, and a number of friends, to help me in my work, and to provide for the daily wants of my little ones, till we arrived at the next stile on our rough, steep, and somewhat zigzag journey. The sight of his cheque sent a thrill of joy through my soul, and I could not help shouting out, “Thanks! a thousand times.”
Light again dawned at eventide, and we were enabled to retire to rest singing God’s praises as the candle flickered in the socket.
In my “Gipsy Life” I have shown, among other things which have never been mentioned by any gipsy writer before, the following particulars. First, the cause and probable date of the gipsies leaving India; second, the route by which they travelled to Europe; and third, the cause of their persecution after their arrival in England from the continent.
My gipsy paper did not give universal satisfaction to everybody outside the congress. My plain matter-of-fact statements raised the ire of a few little narrow-souled mortals, who had not the courage to appear in their own dress, and borrowed other people’s clothes—shooba Rye, &c.—to crouch in while they fired their popguns at me. Just as they were trying to swallow my papers, an article appeared in the Morning Post, stating that I “knew more than any man in England about the gipsies.” This was more than O Bongo, ho, no tïckno chavo could stand. Editors are not like most mortals, they have a perfect right to say what they please about anybody and everybody. They and other literary friends have been more than kind to the cause of the children and my unworthy self, for which I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Without their help I could not have got along. I sent the following letter to the Morning Post, bearing date October 11, 1882, relating to “Shooba Rye,” O Bongo, hó, no tïckno chavo:
“Your correspondent complains that I do not know sufficient of the gipsies. My congress papers and my ‘Gipsy Life’ show that I know a little. It is evident I know more than is pleasant to him, or he would not have hastily snatched up some one else’s badly-fitting night-dress to sally forth with his farthing candle in hand to put a ‘sprag’ into my wheel. Such backward movements are too late in the day to stop the sun of civilization and Christianity shedding its rays upon the path of the poor gipsy child and its home.
“I do not pretend to know more than forty years everyday practical observation and insight into the real hard facts of the conditions of the women and children employed in the brickyards and canal boats, and the dwellers in gipsy tents and vans can give me.
“Two days ago I came upon a family of gipsy ‘muggers,’ father, mother, and four children, travelling in a cart. The poor little children, whose ages ranged from four to twelve years, were stived up in a box on the cart, which box was 5 ft. long by 2 ft. 9 in. wide by 3 ft high, or about eleven cubic feet of space for each poor child. The children were all down with a highly infectious disease, carrying it from a village, where it had been raging, to Daventry and Northampton. I gave the children some apples, but the poor things said, ‘We are all ill and cannot eat them.’ None of these children could tell a letter. These are facts and not fiction; inartistically dressed, I admit, and without the flowers of poetical imagination to adorn them. Knowledge gained under the circumstances in which I have been placed, will, I think, be found nearly as valuable in improving the condition of neglected and suffering children as imaginative, unhealthy backwood fiction spun by the yard under drawing-room influences and by the side of drawing-room fires can be. At any rate, I have tried for many long years in my rough way to look at the sad condition of the women and children whose cause I have ventured to take in hand with both eyes open, one to their faults, and the other to their virtues; and also with a heart to feel and a hand to help, as my letters, papers, and books will show to those who have the patience to read them.
“I have not been content to sit upon mossy banks by the side of rippling rivulets, with a lovely sun shining overhead, and beneath the witching looks and mesmeric smiles of lovely damsels, swallowing love and other tales as gospel.
“It is time the hard facts and lot of our gipsies and their children—i.e., those travelling in vans, shows, and tents—were realized. It is time we asked ourselves the question, ‘What are the vast increasing numbers—over 30,000—of children tramping the country being trained for?’
“The fact is this: Parliament, Christians, moralists, and philanthropists have been content for generations to look at the gipsies and other travellers of the class through glasses tinted and prismed with the seven colours of the rainbow, handed to us by those who would keep the children in ignorance and sin, instead of taking them by the hand to help them out of their degrading position. My plan would improve their condition, without interfering with their liberty to any amount worth naming, considering the blessed advantages to be derived by the gipsies and others from it.
“No amount of misleading sentiment will stop me till the case of the poor children is remedied by the civilizing measures of the country—viz., education, sanitation, and moral precepts—extended to them by an Act of Parliament, as I have described in other places, which could be carried out, and a system of free education established, by means of a pass book, without any inconvenience or cost worth mention. Why should our present-day canal and gipsy children be left out in the cold?”
“’Tis not the work of force, but skill,
To find the way into man’s will:
’Tis love alone can hearts unlock;
Who knows the Word he needs not knock.”Richard Crashaw, “Fuller Worthies.”
The eleventh of October, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two dawned upon “Old England” while rain was coming down too drearily, drizzly, and freely for either man or beast to be comfortable. Foggy, cold, and murky November seemed desirous of making its advent earlier than usual. Not a songster was to be seen nor an autumnal chirp heard round our dwelling. Long dark nights had begun to creep over nature. “The last rose of summer,” the Queen of English flowers, was drooping its head and withering up, and the leaves were dwindling down to nothingness. The lanes were strewn with dying leaves which had done their duty nobly and well.
Through the low and heavy clouds the voice and footsteps of children, as they trotted off with their milk tins, seemed to echo in my ears, and other sounds to hover round me, carrying with them a kind of hollow sepulchral sensation, telling me that summer was dead and autumn was preparing nature for the winter shroud, which was undergoing the process of weaving by angelic hands.
The sound of the thresher’s flail was heard in the barn, calling out “Clank,” “Clank,” “Clank,” “Thud,” as it struck the corn and barn floor, causing the precious grain to fly like a shower of small pellets against the doors. Not a gleam of sunshine was to be seen. Summer and winter seemed during the last fortnight to have been struggling with each other, in the death-throes of nature for the mastery. Genial summer had to give way to savage winter, and little robins piped forth the victory. Everywhere seemed cold, damp, and covered with melancholy. As we meditated upon the surroundings, our carrier drove to our door with his van, into which I got, and seated myself in one of the corners almost out of sight. A patent “four-wheeler” of this kind I had not been used to, and our little folks did their best to try to persuade me not to try the experiment. We had not gone many yards before eggs, boxes, whiskey bottles, butter, and onions were handed to our carrier for carriage and safe custody to Daventry fair. Fat and thin women were closely packed round me. Welton is a noted village for fat women, which may be the result of the excellent water. While our village blacksmith was putting some of his handiwork into the carrier’s van, the scene brought vividly to my mind Longfellow’s poem. He might have seen the very spot.
“Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.”
I mumbled the verse over to myself as we jogged along. To have repeated or bawled it out in such “close quarters” would have been worse than putting one’s head into a hatbox.
After the usual “picking up” and “calling” we began to slowly trot off with our load. We had not got far before our village dames, damsels, and companions began to indulge more or less in the usual village gossip and jokes. Big heavy old women could indulge in sprightly conversation as freely as if they were “four-year-olds.” Pleasantry was exchanged as to who was to sit next to our driver, so as to keep his back warm. Village parsons and squires were the first upon the programme. Then came a long rigmarole about the old maids and maidens, poachers, slovens, slatterns, fashions, Jacks, Jims, and Pollies. Everybody knew everybody’s business, ranging from the death of Polly Jones’s cat to Squire Brown’s fine horse. Good masters were passed over with “He’s not a bad sort of man to work for, and he’d be better if he had more to do with.” Bad masters were mentioned with a curl of the lip, a scowl and a shake of the head, ending with “He’s a bad ’un; my man shouldn’t work for him at any price, if I could help it.” Mrs. So-and-So, and Miss So-and-So were “snappy old things,” “niggardly, mean, and miserable;” “nobody has a moment’s comfort near them.” “Oh!” said one, on the road, “did you see Miss Jenny Starch on Sunday with her new bonnet on? Didn’t she look mighty fine? Wasn’t she a stuck-up thing? Nobody could come near her with a fork.” “Did you see,” said another, “the three poor little children running about the streets this morning, almost naked, in rags and dirt? The mother is idle, and the father drinks. They both want horsewhipping, and if I could have my own way I would give it them.” “Yes,” said another, “and serve them right.” “Did you see,” said another, “the Misses So-and-So in church on Sunday? They looked quite pretty. When you can just catch them in the right temper, they are so nice and pleasant. What a thing this money is, isn’t it? Money buys fine feathers, and fine feathers make fine birds.” “Anybody can be made pretty, nowadays, if they have only the money,” said a stout dame, who had a big red face under a little bonnet, and must have weighed little short of eighteen stone. We were passed on the road by two “screwy” old maids from Bonnybrook, “trotting off to market” in a green pony carriage, sitting like Jack and Jill, one before and the other behind, bolt upright and as still as posts, looking out of the corner of their eyes. As we were mounting the hill going into Daventry the question of “leaving” was brought upon the carpet, and it came out that all of them were satisfied with their “old masters,” and were going to “stop again at the old wages.” I am afraid their “old masters”—husbands—will have a little difficulty in getting rid of them. They like the “old shop” too well to budge. The process of riddance, “My dear husband,” and a stream of tears would have to be faced before they “cleared out.”
I had not been long in the “mop” before I was face to face with a good-looking, but somewhat eccentric, and good-natured popgun owner, named Mott, at one of the stalls. One passage of Scripture after another he repeated in rapid succession with breathless speech, until quite a crowd gathered round us in the drizzling rain. After my friend—who has been on the road attending fairs for forty years—had finished his speech, his wife handed to him a newspaper, out of which he read my letter as it appeared in the Daily News, bearing date September 5th, 1882, which will also be found in page 161. The newspaper had been given to them by a dirty, wretched, filthy-looking family of travelling show folks from London, whose corns and consciences had been touched to the quick. After he had read it, and had given it to his wife again, I expected a “rather hot reception,” especially after a paragraph which has been going the round of a few of the papers, to the effect that I must look out for trouble from “light and dark gentlemen.” As the paper passed from his hands I looked rather anxiously into his face to see what the effect would be. To my surprise, the index of his soul showed pleasure, and not anger; and in unmistakable tones he said, “You are quite right, sir, and I thank you for it. It is rather warm, but your object is right—there is no mistaking that. I quite agree with your plans, and so does every right-thinking man. The traveller’s and other gipsy children ought to be educated. God bless you, sir, I know what religion is; I am an old backslider. I was once a leading member among the Baptists, but I chipped out over a little thing, and now me and my old woman are travelling the country in our van, and doing this sort of thing. There is one thing I should like to say, sir; I never creep into my bed in the van without saying my prayers to my heavenly Father. I feel to sleep better after it. It soothes me a little.” Tears were making their way down the grey-haired traveller’s face; and I think it would have been a blessed thing for him if I could have introduced him into a Methodist prayer-meeting, as a stepping stone that would lead him out and on to the paths he trod in the days of yore, crying out from the depths of his soul, in the language of a writer in the Christian Life for October 14th, 1882—
“Thou art a rock, to which I flee;
With all my sins I come to Thee,
And lay them down, Lord, at Thy feet,
Before the shining mercy-seat.
Thou art a fortress strong and high,
To which for shelter all may fly,
Sure there to find a safe retreat,
Beneath the sacred mercy-seat.”
After shaking hands with this couple I bade them goodbye, and gave them something to read during the dark hours of winter, something in which are buried seeds of a bright spring-time for them both, if they will only follow out the directions given. I then strolled into the fair. I had not gone far before I came upon an old brickmaker, and from him I gleaned some facts showing how wretchedly the Brickyard Act of 1871 is being carried out. After chatting with him for some minutes he apparently took stock of my hair, which has, thank God, grown almost white in the cause of suffering children. Mr. Brickmaker turned quite poetical, and in parting said—
“Take stock, Mr. Knock,
That’s what I have to say, Mr. Grey,”
and he then sidled and smiled away into the crowd.
I had not been long moving to and fro among the gipsies before I learned that two gipsies, whose head-quarters were a few miles from Daventry, were undergoing transportation, one for sheep-stealing, and the other for horse-stealing. The horse-stealing gipsy was caught in his own trap, owing to his being too clever and daring. It came about as follows: A publican and farmer a few miles from here had a fine, beautiful, young black horse, to which the gipsy took a fancy; and it so happened with this gipsy, as with other gipsies of this class, that he had not too much money to spare for purchasing purposes. An old idea ran fresh through his brain, which was, that he could with but little trouble make the horse his own, without money and the bother and trouble of giving back the “shilling for luck” on the completion of the purchase. Accordingly he sallied forth one dark night and took the beautiful animal out of the field, not far from Daventry, and kept it “in close confinement” for three days to undergo doctoring, at the end of which time the stolen horse was quite a different looking animal. The horse now had a white star upon its forehead, and two white fetlocks. Its tail and mane were shortened, and, with the assistance of “ginger,” it put on quite a sharp, frisky appearance. In the meantime he heard that the owner of the horse was much in want of one. “Now,” thought the gipsy, “here’s a fine chance for turning money over quickly, and getting rid of an animal that would turn ‘a tell-tale’ if kept too long.” Consequently the gipsy mounted his steed, and off he trotted to the publican. On arriving at the door he called the innkeeper out to look at a horse that he had for sale, “good, quiet in harness, sound in wind and limb, a good worker, without a blemish, and cheap.” The publican liked the looks of the horse very much, and he asked the gipsy to trot him up and down the road; and off the horse bounded, frisked, and danced about quite lively. The action of the horse was all that was desirable, and the price “right.” In the end the horse was sold, glasses round given, the “luck shilling” returned, the horse was put into the stable, and the gipsy became scarce.
Three days after the “white star” and “white fetlocks” were not to be seen, and the horse began to look “quite different.”
It was brought plainly home to the publican that he had bought back his stolen horse. The gipsy was “hunted up,” tried, and sentenced to a “long term,” where horses are not to be had.
In the fair, or “mop,” there were eight vans, in which there would be about sixteen men and women and thirty children living and sleeping; and, so far as I could gather, only about four could read and write, and these were adults, none of whom were teaching their children anything that would be helpful to them in after life.
Connected with one of the “Aunt Sally” establishments there were man, woman, and three little neglected children, with no other sleeping accommodation than a “bottom” of straw spread under the stall, covered with an old sheet, and warmed in the winter by an oil lamp. The poor woman was the picture of poverty, despair, degradation, and misery. Their stall and “Aunt Sally” were pushed through the country on a small “hand cart.” The family hailed from Leicester, and were in a most wretched, dirty, and ignorant condition. As soon as I saw the man I thought I could recognize his features as those of a posh gipsy I had seen before; and it turned out to be true, for he was no other than a “fishman” who had more than once carried my fish to the station.
In the “mop” I came across a man and woman with four children who hailed from a village a few miles from Daventry, and who had taken to gipsying and were singing in the streets in the midst of mud and drenching rain—
“Beautiful Zion, built above,
Beautiful city that I love,
Beautiful gates of pearly white,
Beautiful temple, God its light.”
Three of these children were of school age, but could not read or write a letter.
When I questioned the man about putting the children into the union workhouse, and the wrong he was doing to them in bringing them up as tramps, he said “he could not help that; they must look out for themselves as they got bigger, and help to do a little for him.” By singing about the streets they got him some “baccer and a little vittles.” In 1882 at the “mop” I met with a showman, named S—, and his wife and six children, living in a wretched tumbledown van; the small windows were broken, and rags, dirt, and filth abounded in every nook and corner. The father had had a religious “bringing-up” by Christian parents in Cornwall, and for many years earned a good living in Wales as a miner, and was a member of a Christian Church. The sharp, good-looking woman, although dirty and dejected enough to banish looks and spirits to the winds, waves, and realities of eternity, bore up fairly well under the wretched surroundings. She had, previous to her marriage, for many years been a “lady’s maid” in a good “religious family,” and was well educated. The man was ingenious and clever, and had during his spare moments and hours in Wales made the working model of a coal-mine, which, at the instigation of “religious friends,” he began to exhibit in public. The success that attended him in the first instance led him to think that he was on the high way to a fortune. He acted upon the advice of his “Christian friend” and others, instead of his own common sense, and bought a van in which to place his handiwork, and “took to the road.” A downhill one for himself and his large family it has been ever since, and they are now gipsying, and cursing the day upon which he took and followed the advice of a shortsighted—to say the least—“Christian friend.”
In giving advice, God-fearing Christian men and women above all others should look well ahead, and to all the surroundings of the case, before deciding the fate of a family. Advising a parent to break up a settled home and comfortable livelihood to tramp the country among gipsy vagabonds and tramps, I consider little less than murder.
In making their way one Sunday from a village to attend the “mop,” they got stuck fast at the bottom of a hill with an old bony emaciated horse that would not draw “a man’s hat off his head.” The poor little children dressed in dirt and rags, and scarcely able to toddle, had to set to work to drag and carry the old boards, rags, and other things belonging to their “show” to the top of the hill. After hours of toil, interrupted by the constant striking and chiming of church bells on the bright autumn Sunday morning, they were able to make another move.
Their show consisted of the working model of the mine, one of their youngest children, nearly naked, with a Scotch plaid over its shoulder being exhibited as a “prize baby.” In addition it included a boxing establishment. The man had not the build and stamina to lead the “ring,” and they had to wait for the “millers” to pair themselves before a boxing exhibition could take place.
They had not been in Daventry long before this backsliding showman, who had taken to gipsying, was wanted by Shórokno gáiro Garéngro for cruelty to his horses. The result was that he had to “do a month” in Northampton gaol. No doubt the poor misguided showman would feel in his cell as John Harris puts it—
“Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears
Like crackling coals, and frogs strut up and down
Like hissing cinders: wasps and waterflies
Scorch deep like melting mineral. Murther! save!
What shall a sinner do?”
To which I would have answered—
“Pray to thy God
To help thee in thy trouble.”
A week or two after I saw the woman and her six children in a most destitute condition. I gave the poor little things a good tea and cake in my house, and subscribed my mite towards buying them another horse, and advised them to make their way to Aberdare, in Wales, and take to mining again, to send their children to school, for none of them could tell a letter, and they were growing up worse than heathens.
Their first venture at a showman’s life was to exhibit the model and paintings, and they hired a donkey-cart and set off to Aberdare. When they got there the showman wrote to me, “I am sure you would have been amused if you had been there to have seen us; for when we had our establishment erected—which, by the way, was very small—we were too shy at first to make an appearance outside; at last we made a resolution, and began to shout. So we found out after we had broken the ice that we were landed. On the first night we took enough to pay our month’s rent. This gave us encouragement. We made a good many friends, and I became notorious among my fellow workmen. They thought me an extraordinary man. In three years I painted in oil colours thirteen pictures, three feet square, of the interior of a coal-mine and different other subjects. . . . The waxwork show owners we had accompanied left Wales for London. Afterwards my wife went to Bristol and bought a barrel organ, and I had what we thought a very nice little show, and a nice van and horse. But alas! we did not know what travelling in the winter meant. We found very soon that we could not show every night on account of the weather, and also found that we could not get any credit. If we had no money there was no bread. I shall never forget the first night we got ‘hard up.’ Dear sir, just fancy yourself going into a large town about eight o’clock at night, and the rain coming down in torrents in the cold January month; the houses shining with wet, and a horse to be fed and stabled—for we kept it in a stable then—and six children to get a supper for, let alone yourself, and not a penny in your pocket, and not a friend in the world to speak to or to give you counsel. Well, that is just how we were situated in the first January that we travelled. Dear sir, perhaps you would say, ‘Why did you not make for your home?’ That would have been the wisest plan, but we thought we would endure anything rather than go back to be laughed at. Well, after my good wife had had a good cry, we went to the pawnbroker’s and pledged my watch, thinking that we should be able to redeem it again in a few weeks. We borrowed fifteen shillings, so that with opening the show we could be helped on for a few weeks, instead of which we met with a worse misfortune than ever. We lost our horse at Pontypool. We pledged our organ for £2, and then trailed our van to Swansea for Llanefni fair, thinking we should get money enough to buy another. More next week. The children all send their love to you, wishing you a merry Christmas.”
This man was at one time earning nearly £2 per week, and had a good home. It will be found on close inquiry that nearly all our present-day showmen have been in better circumstances, and rather than be laughed at for their silly adventures by their friends, they are content to wander up and down the world little better than vagabonds, and to train their children for a tramp’s life. By travelling in vans, carts, and tents they escape the school boards, sanitary officers, rent and rate collectors; and to-day they are—unthinkingly, no doubt—undermining all our social privileges, civil rights, and religious advantages, and will, if encouraged by us, bring decay to the roots. I speak that which I do know, from what I have seen and heard.