"We entered, Mr. George Smith and I, and were received as friends. Had I gone by myself, I question whether my reception would have been a pleasant one. As Gipsies pay no taxes, they can keep any number of dogs, and these dogs have a way of sniffing and snarling, anything but agreeable to an unbidden guest. The poor people complained to me no one ever came to see them. I should be surprised if any one did; but Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, is no common man, and having secured fair play for the poor children of the brick-fields—he himself was brought up in a brick-yard—and for the poor, and sadly-neglected, inmates of the canal-boats, he has now turned his attention to the Gipsies. His idea is—and it is a good one—that an Act of Parliament should be passed for their benefit—something similar to that he has been the means of carrying for the canal and brick-field children. In a paper read before the Social Science Congress at Manchester, Mr. Smith argued that all tents, shows, caravans, auctioneer vans, and like places used as dwellings should be registered and numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements, with sanitary inspectors and School Board officers, in every town and village. Thus in every district the children would have their names and attendance registered in a book, which they could take with them from place to place, and when endorsed by the schoolmaster, it would show that the children were attending school. In carrying out this idea, it is a pity that Mr. Smith should have to bear all the burden. As it is, he has suffered greatly in his pocket by his philanthropic effort. . . .

"It is no joke going into a Gipsy yard, and it is still less so when you go down on your hands and knees, and crawl into the Gipsy's wigwam; but the worst of it is, when you have done so, there is little to see after all. In the middle, on a few bricks, is a stove or fireplace of some kind. On the ground is a floor of wood-chips, or straw, or shavings, and on this squat some two or three big, burly men, who make linen-pegs and skewers, and mend chairs and various articles, the tribe, as they wander along, seek to sell. The women are away, for it is they who bring the grist to the mill, as they tell fortunes, or sell their wares, or follow their doubtful trade; but the place swarms with children; and it was wonderful to see with what avidity they stretched out the dirtiest little hand imaginable as Mr. Smith prepared to distribute some sweets he had brought with him for that purpose. As we entered, all the vans were shut up, and the tents only were occupied, the vans being apparently deserted but presently a door was opened half-way, and out popped a little Gipsy head, with sparkling eyes and curly hair; and then another door opened, and a similar spectacle was to be seen. Let us look into the van, about the size of a tiny cabin, and chock full, in the first place, with a cooking-stove; and then with shelves, with curtains and some kind of bedding, apparently not very clean, on which the family repose. It is a piteous life, even at the best, in that van; even when the cooking pot is filled with something more savoury than cabbages or potatoes; the usual fare; but the children seem happy, nevertheless, in their dirty rags, and with their luxurious heads of curly hair. All of them are as ignorant as Hottentots, and lead a life horrible to think of. I only saw one woman in the camp, and I only saw her by uncovering the top and looking into the tent in which she resides. She is terribly poor, she says, and pleads earnestly for a few coppers; and I can well believe she wants them, for in this England of ours, and especially in the outskirts of London, the Gipsy is not a little out of place. Around us are some strapping girls, one with a wonderfully sweet smile on her face, who, if they could be trained to domestic service, would have a far happier life than they can ever hope to lead. The cold and wet seem to affect them not, nor the poor diet, nor the smoke and bad air of their cabins, in which they crowd, while the men lazily work, and the mothers are far away. The leading lady in this camp is absent on business; but she is a firm adherent of Mr. George Smith, and wishes to see the children educated; and as she is a Lee, and as a Lee in Gipsy annals take the same rank as a Norfolk Howard in aristocratic circles, that says a good deal; but, then, if you educate a Gipsy girl, she will want to have her hands and face, at any rate, clean; and a Gipsy boy, when he learns to read, will feel that he is born for a nobler end than to dwell in a stinking wigwam, to lead a lawless life, to herd with questionable characters, and to pick up a precarious existence at fairs and races; and our poets and novelists and artists will not like that. However, just now, by means of letters in the newspapers, and engravings in the illustrated journals, a good deal of attention is paid to the Gipsies, and if they can be reclaimed and turned into decent men and women a good many farmers' wives will sleep comfortably at night, especially when geese and turkeys are being fattened for Christmas fare; and a desirable impulse will be given to the trade in soap."

[Picture: A Gipsy girl washing clothes]

In the Sunday School Chronicle, December 19th, the kind-hearted editor makes the following allusions:—"Mr. George Smith stirs every feeling of pity and compassion in our hearts by his descriptions of the Gipsy Children's Homes. It is one of the curious things of English life that the distinct Gipsy race should dwell among us, and, neither socially nor politically, nor religiously, do we take any notice of them. No portion of our population may so earnestly plead, 'No man careth for our souls.' The chief interest of them, to many of us, is that they are used to give point, and plot, to novels. But can nothing be done for the Gipsy children? Christian enterprise is seldom found wanting when a sphere is suggested for it; and those who live in the neighbourhood of Gipsy haunts should be especially concerned for their well-being. What must the children be, morally and religiously, who bide, we cannot say dwell, in such homes as Mr. George Smith describes?

"'In their own interest, and without mincing matters, it is time the plain facts of their dark lives were brought to daylight, so that the brightening and elevating effects of public opinion, law, and the Bible may have their influence upon the character of the little ones about to become in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside their hovels or sack huts, poetically called "tents" and "encampments," but in reality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies, sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, and put a pleasant and cheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be seen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant, and wretched Gipsy children, and the men loitering about mostly in idleness. Inside their sack hovels are to be found man, wife, and six or seven children of all ages, not one of them able to read or write, squatting or sleeping upon a bed of straw, which through the wet and damp is often little better than a manure-heap, in fact sometimes it is completely rotten, and as a Gipsy woman told me last week, "it is not fit to be handled with the hands." In noticing that many of the Gipsy children have a kind of eye disease, I am told by the women that it is owing to the sulphur arising from the coke fire they have upon the ground in their midst, and which at times also causes the children to turn pale and sickly.'"

The following brief account of the Hungarian Gipsies of the present day, as seen by a writer under the initials "A. C.," who visited the Unitarian Synod in Hungary last summer, is taken from the Unitarian Herald, bearing date January 9th, 1880, and in which the author says:—"Not far from Rugonfalva we came on a colony of exceedingly squalid Gipsies, living in huts which a respectable Zulu would utterly despise. Their appearance reminded me of Cowper's graphic sketch, which I am tempted to quote:—

"'I see a column of slow-rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle, flung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel—flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race, They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unqueuched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the livery they claim.'

"Transylvania is one great museum of human as well as natural products, and this singular race forms an interesting element of its motley population. It is supposed that the tribe found its way to Hungary in the beginning of the fifteenth century, having fled from Central Asia or India during the Mongol reign of terror. About the close of last century Pastor Benedict, of Debreczin, mastered their language, and on visiting England found that the Gipsies in this country understood him very well. There are now about eighty thousand of them in Transylvania, but three-fourths of this number have settled homes, and caste distinctions are so strong that the higher grades would not drink from a cup used by one of their half-savage brethren. On reaching the mansion of Mr. Jakabhazi, at Simenfalva, who employs about one hundred and forty civilised Gipsies on his estate, we had an opportunity after dinner of seeing them return in a long procession from the fields. Some of the women carried small brown babies, that appeared able to find footing anywhere on their mothers' shoulders, backs, or breasts. These labourers are almost entirely paid in food and other necessaries, and if kindly treated are very honourable towards their master, and generally adopt his religion. When smarting under any grievance, they, on the contrary, sometimes change their faith en masse, and when conciliated undergo as speedy a re-conversion. The women are, as a rule, very fond of ornaments, and the men are, above all things, proud of a horse or a pair of scarlet breeches. Of late years they have in a few districts began to intermarry with the Wallachs, and the sharp distinction between them and the other races in Hungary will, no doubt, gradually disappear."

The Weekly Times again takes up the subject, and the following appears on January 9th, 1880:—"We made a second expedition, with Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, on Sunday, in search of a Gipsy encampment; and though the way was long and tedious, and we were both lamed with walking before we returned at night, yet we had not gone one step out of our way. There is no encampment of these ancient and interesting people in the neighbourhood of the hundred odd square miles which composes the site of the metropolis, with which Mr. Smith is not acquainted, and to which we verily believe he could lead a friend if he was blindfolded. The way we went must remain somewhat of a secret, because the Gipsies do not care to see many visitors on the only day of the week which is one of absolute rest to them. All that we shall disclose about the way is, that we skirted Mount Nod, and for a short distance looked upon the face of an ancient river, then up-hill we clambered for many longish miles, until we turned out of a certain lane into the encampment. There was a rude picturesqueness in the gaping of the vans and tents. In the foreground were the vans, to the rear the cloth kraals, with their smoky coverings stretched over poles; from a hole in the centre the smoke ascended, furnishing evidence that the open brazier was burning within. The vans protected the approach to the camp, just in the same way that artillery are planted to keep the road to a military encampment. Mr. Smith's face seemed to be well known to these strange people, and we no sooner appeared in sight than the swinging door of every van was edged with faces, and forth from the strange kraals there crept child and woman, youth and dog, to say a kindly word, or bark a welcome to the visitors. But for the Gipsies' welcome we might have had an unpleasant reception from the dogs. They were evidently dubious as to our character, their training inclining them to bite, if they get a chance, any leg wearing black cloth, but to give the ragged-trousered visitors a fawning welcome; so they sniffed again and again, and growled, until driven away by the voices of their owners. Perchance, during the remainder of the day, they were revolving in their intelligent minds how it had come to pass that the black cloth legs were received with evident marks of favour. Nor were they able to settle the point easily, for whenever we happened to look round the encampment during the afternoon, from the raised door-way of a kraal where we happened to be couched, we noticed the eyes of one or other of the four-footed guardians fixed intently on us. There were about twenty vans and tents in all; and each paid one shilling a week to the ground landlord. That money, with whatever else was required for food, was obtained by hawking at this season of the year, and trade was very bad. Winter must be a fearful experience for these children of the air, and the field, the summer sun, the wild flowers, and the fruits of harvest. Such rains as have descended, such snows as have been falling, such cold winds as have been blowing, must discount fearfully the joys of the three happier seasons of the year.

"Invitations to stoop and enter any 'tent' were freely tendered, and 'peeps' were indulged in with regard to a few. In one, a closed cauldron covered the brazier fire, and two men and a dog watched with unceasing vigilance. We tried to make friends here, but failed. There was a steamy exudation from the cauldron which filled the air with fragrance, and our curiosity overcame our prudence, but with no satisfactory result. 'A stew,' we suggested. 'Yes! it was summut stewing.' 'Couldn't we guess what it was?' 'Not soon,' was the reply; 'a few bones and a potato or two; perhaps a bit of something green. At such hard times they were mostly glad to get anything.' But nothing more could be gleaned, and the two men and the dog never lost sight of the cauldron while the visitors remained. In a few cases the tents were pegged down all round, and across the top, upon a stout line, there hung a few articles fresh from the wash. The pegged cloth indicated that the female occupants were within, but 'not at home,' nor would they be visible until the wind had dried the garments that fluttered overhead. We tarried, and were made quite at home in another kraal, where we gleaned many interesting particulars of Gipsy life; and here we held a sort of smoking levee, and were honoured by the company of many distinguished residents in camp. We lay upon a bed of straw, which covered the whole of the interior, save a little space filled with the brazier, in which a fire of coke was burning; above was a hole, out of which the smoke passed. The straw had been stamped into consistency by the feet of the family; there was no odour from it, and in that particular was an improvement on the rush and straw floors in the English houses of which Erasmus made such great complaint. There was no chair, stool, or box on which to sit, and all of us reclined Eastern fashion in the posture that was most convenient. The owner of the kraal and his wife were very interesting people: the mother's hair descended by little steps from the crown of her head, until it stuck out like a bush, in a line with the nape of her neck, a dense dead-black mass of hair. She had been a model for painters many a time, she said, before small-pox marked her; and, since, the back of her head had often been drawn to fit somebody else's face.

"'When I come again what shall I bring you?' said Mr. Smith, in most reckless fashion, to the Egyptian Queen. 'Well,' said she, without a moment's hesitation, 'if there is one thing more than another that I do want, it's a silk handkercher for my head—a real Bandana.' The request was characteristic. Of the tales we heard one or two were curious, one positively laughable, and one related to a deed of blood. Mr. Smith, going into a tent, found an aged Gipsy woman, to whom he told the object of his visiting the Gipsies, and what he hoped to accomplish for the children, and she forwith handed him a money gift. On more than one occasion a well-polished silver coin of small value, a penny, or a farthing has been quietly put into Mr. Smith's hands, in furtherance of his work, by some poor Gipsy woman. The story which made us laugh was of a Gipsy marriage. It is one of the unwritten laws of Gipsy life that the wife works while the husband idles about the tent. The wife hawks with the basket or the cart and sells, while the husband loiters about the encampment or cooks the evening meal. But one young Gipsy fell in love with an Irish girl named Kathleen, and from the day of their marriage Tom never had an idle moment. In vain did he plead the usages of Gipsy married life. Kathleen was deaf to all such modes of argument, and drove her husband forth from tent and encampment, by voice or by stake, until she completely cured him of his idleness, and she remained mistress of the field. Whenever a young Gipsy is supposed to be courting a stranger, the fate of Tom at the hands of Kathleen is told him as a warning. During the afternoon we were continually exhorted to see 'Granny' before we left. Every one spoke of her with respect, and when we were about to leave, Patience offered to show us 'Granny's tent.' Repentance joined her sister, and before we were up and out of the tent opening, we saw Patience at a tent not far off; she dived head and shoulders through an opening she made, and then appeared to be pulling vigorously. Her activity was soon explained. We thrust our heads through the opening, and were face to face with a shrivelled-faced old woman, whose cheeks were like discoloured parchment, and whose hands and arms appeared to be mere bones. But her eye was bright, and her tongue proved her to be in possession of most of her faculties. She could not stand or walk, nor could she sit up for many minutes at a time, and the action of Patience was caused by her hastily seizing the old woman by her arms as she lay on her straw floor, and dragging her into a sitting position. If the old dame had been asleep, Patience had thoroughly aroused her. She greeted us with Gipsy courtesy, and told us she was 'fourscore and six years of age.' Her name, in answer to our query, she said was 'Sinfire Smith.' 'Why, that's the same as mine,' said Mr. Smith. 'O, likely,' said Sinfire, 'the Smiths is a long family.' For four score and six years poor Sinfire has led a Gipsy life, and though her house now is only a tent, and her bed and bedding straw, she made no moan, and there was nothing she wished to have."

"Farewell, farewell! so rest there, blade! Entomb me where our chiefs are laid; But, hark, methinks I hear the drum, I would that holy man were come."—HARRIS.

"What sound is that as of one knocking gently? Yet who would enter here at hour so late? Arise! draw back the bolt—unclose the portal. What figure standeth there before the gate?

"He bears to thee sweet messages from Heaven, Whispers of love from dear ones folded there, And tells thee that a place for thee is waiting, That thou shalt join them in their home so fair."

A. F. B.—"Sunday at Home."



Part III. The Treatment the Gipsies have received in this Country.

The social history and improvements of our own country seem to have gone by irregular leaps and bounds. The Parliament, like the Times, follows upon the heels of public opinion in all measures concerning the welfare of the nation; and it is well it should be so. An Englishman will be led by a child; but it requires a strong hand and a sharp whip to drive him. One hundred and forty years ago the Wesleys and Whitfield caused a commotion in the religious world. Upwards of a century ago the first canal in this country was opened for the conveyance of goods upon our silent highways, and trade began in earnest to show signs of life and activity. A century ago Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, opened his first Sunday-school—the beginning of a system ever widening and expanding, carrying with it blessings incomprehensible to finite minds, and only to be revealed in another world. Nearly a century ago Raper's translation of Grellmann's "Dissertation on the Gipsies" was published, and which caused no little stir at the time, being the first work of any kind worth notice that had appeared. Seventy years ago an interesting correspondence took place in the Christian Observer upon the condition of the Gipsies, and various lines of missionary action were suggested; but no plan was adopted, and all words blown to the wind. Then, as now, people would look at the Gipsies in their pitiable condition, and with a shrug of the shoulders would say, "Poor things," and away they would go to their mansions, doff their warm winter clothing, put on their needleworked slippers, stretch their legs before a blazing fire in the drawing-room, and call "John" to bring a box of the best cigars, the champagne, dry sherry, and crusted port, and then noddle off to sleep. Sixty-four years ago Hoyland's "Historical Survey of the Gipsies" made its appearance, a work that caught the fire and spirit of Grellmann's, the object of both being to stir up the missionary zeal of this country in the cause of the Gipsies. Fifty years ago James Crabb began his missionary work among the Gipsies at Southampton, and for a while did well; but in course of time, owing to the Gipsies moving about, as in the case of "Our Canal Population," the work dwindled down and down, till there is not a vestige of this good man's efforts to be seen. About the same time that Crabb was at work among the Gipsies missionary efforts were put in motion to improve the canal-boatmen, and mission stations were established at Newark, Stoke-on-Trent, Aylesbury, Oxford, Birmingham, and other places, but fared the same fate as the missionary effort of Crabb and others among the Gipsies. Fifty years ago railways were opened, which gave an impetus to trade never experienced before. Fifty years ago the preaching of Bourne and Clowes was causing considerable excitement in the country. Nearly fifty years ago witnessed the passing of the Reform Bill, and the Factory Act received the Royal signature. Forty years have passed away since George Borrow's missionary efforts among the Gipsies were prominently before the public, which, sad to say, shared the fate of Crabb's, Hoyland's, Roberts', and Raper's. From that day till now, except the spasmodic efforts of a clergyman here and there, or some other kind-hearted friend, these 20,000 poor slighted outcasts have been left to themselves to sink or swim as they thought well. The only man, except the dramatist and novelist, who has seemed to notice them has been the policeman, and his vigilant eye and staff have been used to drive them from their camping-ground from time to time, and thus—if possible—made their lives more miserable, and created within them deeper-seated revenge, owing to the way in which they are carrying out the Enclosures Act. All missionary efforts put forth to improve the condition of the factory operative and canal-boatmen, previous to the passing of the Factory Act, nearly fifty years since, and the Canal Boats Act of 1877, were fruitless and unprofitable. The passing of the Factory Act has done more for the children in one year than all the missionaries in the kingdom could have done in their lifetime. Similar results are the outcome of the Brickyard Act of 1871, as touching the welfare of the children. And so in like manner it will be with the Canal Boats Act when properly carried out, the canal-boat children of to-day, in fifty years hence, will be equal to other working classes. From the days of Hoyland, and Borrow, and Crabb, down to the present time, but little seems to have been done for the Gipsies. With Crabb died all real interest in the welfare of these poor unfortunate people. The difficulties he had encountered seemed to have had a deterrent effect upon others. Missionary zeal, without moral force of law and the schoolmaster, will accomplish but little for the Gipsies at our doors; and it may be said with special emphasis as regards the improvement of the Gipsy children. From the days of the relentless, cruel, and merciless persecution the Gipsies received under the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, down to the present time, nothing has been done by law to reclaim these Indian outcasts and Asiatic emigrants. The case of the Gipsies shows us plainly that hunting the women and children with bloodhounds, and dragging the Gipsy leaders to the gallows, will neither stamp them out nor improve their character and habits; and, on the other hand, it appears that the love-like gentleness, child-like simplicity, and religious fervour of the circumscribed influence of Crabb and others, about this time, did but little for these poor, little, dark-eyed, wandering brethren of ours from afar. The next agents that appeared upon the scene to try to elevate the Gipsies into something like a respectable position in society were the dramatists and novelists. These flickering lights of the night have met with no better success, in fact, their efforts, in the way they have been put forth, have, as a rule, exhibited Gipsy life in a variety of false colours and shades, which exhibition has turned out to be a failure in accomplishing the object the authors had in view, other than to fill their coffers and mislead the public as to the real character of a Gipsy vagabond's life; and thus it will be seen, I think, that the Gipsies and their children of to-day present to us the miserable failure, of bitter persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the efforts of Christianity alone at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and more recently the novelist and dramatist as a means in themselves, separately, to effect a reformation in the habits and character of the Gipsy children and their parents.

If the Gipsy and other tramping, travelling "rob rats" of to-day are to become honest, industrious, and useful citizens of the future, it must be by the influence of the schoolmaster and the sanitary officer, coming to a great extent as they do between the fitful and uncertain efforts of the missionary, the relentless hands of persecution, the policeman, and the stage.

From the time the Gipsies landed in this country in 1515, down to the time when Raper's translation of Grellmann's work appeared in 1787, a period of 272 years, nothing seems to have been done to improve the Gipsies, except to pass laws for their extermination. The earliest notice of the Gipsies in our own country was published in a quarto volume in the year 1612, the object of which was to expose the system of fortune-telling, juggling, and legerdemain, and in which reference is made to the Gipsies as follows:—"This kind of people about a hundred years ago beganne to gather an head, as the first heere about the southerne parts. And this, as I am imformed and can gather, was their beginning: Certain Egyptians banished their country (belike not for their good conditions) arrived heere in England, who for quaint tricks and devices, not known heere at that time among us, were esteemed and had in great admiration; insomuch that many of our English loyterers joined with them, and in time learned their crafty cosening. The speech which they used was the right Egyptian language, with whom our Englishmen conversing at least learned their language. These people continuing about the country and practising their cosening art, purchased themselves great credit among the country people, and got much by palmistry and telling of fortunes; insomuch they pitifully cosened poor country girls, both of money, silver spoons, and the best of their apparalle or other goods they could make." And he goes on to say, "But what numbers were executed on these statutes you would wonder; yet, notwithstanding, all would not prevaile, but they wandered as before uppe and downe and meeting once a year at a place appointed; sometimes at the Peake's Hole in Derbyshire, and other whiles by Ketbroak at Blackheath." The annual gathering of the Gipsies and others of the same class, who make Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and neighbouring counties, their head-quarters, takes place at the well-known Bolton Fair, held about Whitsuntide, on the borders of Leicestershire, a village situated in a kind of triangle, between Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Spellman speaks of the Gipsies about this time as follows:—"The worst kind of wanderers and impostors springing up on the Continent, but yet rapidly spreading themselves through Britain and other parts of Europe, disfigured by their swarthiness, sun-burnt, filthy in their clothing and indecent in all their customs." Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at, in these dark ages, that some steps should be taken to stop these lawless desperadoes and vagabonds from contaminating our English labourers' and servant girls with their loose ideas of labour, cleanliness, honesty, morality, truthfulness, and religion. It was soon manifest what kind of strange people had begun to flock to our shores to make their domiciles among us, as will be seen in a description given of them in an Act of Parliament passed in the twenty-second year of the reign of Henry VIII., being only about seven years after their landing in Scotland, and to which I have referred before. In the tenth chapter of the said act they are described as—"An outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no crafte nor feat of merchandise; who have come into this realm and gone from shire to shire and place to place in great company, and used great subtle and crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand that by palmistry they could tell the men's and women's fortunes, and so many times by crafte and subtlety have deceived the people of their money, and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies. Wherefore all are directed to avoid the realm and not to return under pain of imprisonment and forfeitures of their goods and chattels; and on their trials for any felonies which they may have committed they shall not be entitled to a jury." As if this was not sufficient or as if it had not the desired effect the authors anticipated viz., in preventing other Gipsies flocking to our shores or driving those away from us who were already in our midst another act was passed in the twenty-seventh year of the same reign, more severe than the previous act, and part of it runs as follows:—"Whereas certain outlandish people, who do not profess any crafte or trade, whereby to maintain themselves, but go about in great numbers from place to pace using insidious underhand means to impose on His Majesty's subjects, making them believe that they understand the art of foretelling to men and women their good and evil fortunes by looking in their hands, whereby they frequently defraud people of their money; likewise are guilty of thefts and highway robberies; it is hereby ordered that the said vagrants, commonly called Egyptians, in case they remain one month in the kingdom, shall be proceeded against as thieves and rascals, and at the importation of such Egyptians (the importer) shall forfeit 40 pounds for every trespass."

The fine of 40 pounds being inflicted at that time, which means a large sum at the present day, carries something more with it than the thefts committed by the Gipsies. It is evident that the Gipsies had wheedled themselves into the graces and favours of some portion of the aristocracy by their crafts and deception. If the Gipsy offences had been committed against the labouring population it would have been the height of absurdity for Parliament to have inflicted a fine of some hundreds of pounds upon the working man of the poorer classes. It has occurred to me that the question of Popery may have been one of the causes of their persecution; and it is not unlikely that wealthy Roman Catholics may have had something to do with their importation into this country. The fact is, before the Gipsies left the Continent for England they were Roman Catholic pilgrims, and going about the country doing the work of the Pope to some extent, and this may have been one of the objects of those who were opposed to the Protestant tendencies of Henry VIII. in causing them to come over to England. At this time our own country was in a very disturbed state, religiously, and no people were so suitable to work in the dark and carry messages from place to place as the Gipsies, especially if by so doing they could make plenty of plunder out of it; and this idea I have hinted at before as one of their leading characteristics. It should not be overlooked that telegraphs, railways, stagecoaches, and canals had not been established at this time, consequently for the Gipsies to be moving about the country from village to village under a cloak, as they appeared to the higher powers, was sufficient to make them the subjects of bitter persecution. For the Gipsies to have openly avowed that they were Roman Catholics before landing upon our shores, would in all probability have defeated the object of those who induced—if induced—them to come over to Britain. At any rate, we may, I think, fairly assume that this feature of their character, an addition to their fortune-telling proclivities, may have been one of the causes of their persecution, and in this view I am to some extent supported by circumstances.

During the reign of Henry VIII. a number of Gipsies were sent back to France, and in the book of receipts and payments of the thirty-fifth of the same reign the following entries are made:—"Nett payments, 1st Sept., 36 of Henry VIII. Item, to Tho. Warner, Sergeant of the Admyraltie, 10th Sept., for victuals prepared for a shippe appointed to convey certaine Egupeians, 58s. Item, to the same Tho. Warner, to the use of John Bowles for freight of said shippe, 6 pounds 5s. 0d. Item, to Robt. ap Rice, Esq., Shriff of Huntingdon, for the charge of the Egupeians at a special gailo delivery, and the bringing of them to be carreied over the sees; over and besides the sum of 4 pounds 5s. 0d. groming of seventeen horses sold at five shillings the peice as apperythe by a particular book, 17 pounds 17s. 7d. Item, to Will. Wever, appointed to have the charge of the conduct of the said Egupeians to Callis, 5 pounds."

In 1426 a first-rate horse was worth about 1 pounds 6s. 8d., and a colt 4s. 6d. Twenty-two years later the hay of an acre of land was worth about 5 pounds.

There were several acts passed relating to the Gipsies during the reign of Philip and Mary, and fifth of Elizabeth, by which it states—"If any person, being fourteen years old, whether natural born subject or stranger, who had been seen in the fellowship of such persons, or had disguised himself like them, or should remain with them one month at once or several times, it should be felony without the benefit of the clergy." Wraxall, in his "History of France," vol. ii., page 32, in referring to the act of Elizabeth, in 1653, states that in her reign the Gipsies throughout England were supposed to exceed 10,000. About the year 1586 complaints were again made of the increase of vagabonds and loitering persons.

The following order is copied from the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum:—"Orders, rules, and directions, concluded, appointed, and agreed upon by us the Justices of Peace within the county of Suffolk, assembled at our general session of peace, holden at Bury, the 22nd daie of Aprill, in the 31st yeare of the raigne of our Souraigne Lady the Queen's Majestie, for the punishing and suppressinge of roags, vacabonds, idle loyterings, and lewde persons, which doe or shall hereafter wander and goe aboute within the hundreths of Thingo cum Bury, Blackborne, Thedwardstree, Cosford, Babings, Risbridge, Lackford, and the hundreth of Exninge, in the said county of Suffolk, contrary to the law in that case made and provided.

"Whereas at the Parliament beganne and holden at Westminster, the 8th daie of Maye, in the 14th yeare of the raigne of the Queen's Majesty that nowe is, one Acte was made intytuled, 'An Acte for the punishment of Vacabonds and for releife of the Pooere and Impotent'; and whereas at a Session of the Parliament, holden by prorogacon at Westminster, the eight daie of February, in the 28th yeare of Her Majesties raigne, an other Acte was made and intytuled, 'An Act for settinge of the Poore to work and for the avoydinge of idleness'; by virtue of which severall Acts certeyne provisions and remedies have been ordeyned and established, as well for the suppressinge and punishinge of all roags, vacabonds, sturdy roags, idle and loyteringe persons; as also for the reliefe and setting on worke of the aged and impotente persons within this realm, and authoritie gyven to justices of peace, in their several charges and commissions, to see that the said Acts and Statuts be putte in due execution, to the glorie of Allmightie God and the benefite of the Common Welth.

"And whereas also yt appeareth by dayly experience that the numbr of idle, vaggraunte, loyteringe sturdy roags, masterless men, lewde and yll disposed persons are exceedingly encreased and multiplied, committinge many grevious and outerageous disorders and offences, tendinge to the great . . . of Allmightie God, the contempt of Her Majesties laws, and to the great charge, trouble, and disquiet of the Common Welth:

"We, the Justices of Peace above speciefied, assembled and mett together at our general sessions above-named for remedie of theis and such lyke enormitities which hereafter shall happen to arrise or growe within the hundreths and lymits aforesaid, doe by theis presents order, decree, and ordeyne That there shall be builded or provided a convenient house, which shall be called the House of Correction, and that the same be establishd within the towne of Bury, within the hundreth of Thingoe aforesaid: And that all persons offendinge or lyvinge contrary to the tenor of the said twoe Acts, within the hundreths and lymitts aforesaid, shall be, by the warrante of any Justice of Peace dwellinge in the same hundreths or lymitts, committed thether, and there be received, punished, sett to worke, and orderd in such sorte and accordinge to the directions, provisions, and limitations hereafter in theis presents declard and specified.

"Fyrst—That yt maie appeare what persons arre apprehended, committed, and brought to the House of Correction, it is ordered and appointed, that all and every person and persons which shall be found and taken within the hundreths and lymitts aforesaid above the age of 14 yeares, and shall take upon them to be procters or procuraters goinge aboute without sufficiente lycense from the Queen's Majestie; all idle persons goinge aboute usinge subtiltie and unlawfull games or plaie; all such as faynt themselves to have knowledge in physiognomeye, palmestrie, or other absurd sciences; all tellers of destinies, deaths, or fortunes, and such lyke fantasticall imaginations."

In Scotland, the Gipsies, and other vagrants of the same class, were dealt with equally as severely under Mary Queen of Scots as they were under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth in England. In an act passed in 1579 I find the following relating to Gipsies and vagabonds:—"That sik as make themselves fules and ar bairdes, or uther sik like runners about, being apprehended, sall be put into the Kinge's Waird, or irones, sa lang as they have ony gudes of their owin to live on, and fra they have not quhair upon to live of thir owin that their eares be nayled to the trone or to an uther tree, and thir eares cutted off and banished the countrie; and gif thereafter they be found againe, that they be hanged.

"And that it may be knowen quwhat maner of persones ar meaned to be idle and strong begares, and vagabounds, and worthy of the punischment before specified, it is declared: That all idle persones ganging about in any countrie of this realm, using subtil craftie and unlawful playes, as juglarie, fast-and-lous, and sik uthers; the idle people calling themselves Egyptians, or any uther, that feinzies themselves to have a knowledge or charming prophecie, or other abused sciences, quairby they perswade peopil that they can tell thir weirds, deaths, and fortunes, and sik uther phantastical imaginations," &c., &c.

Another law was passed in Scotland in 1609, not less severe than the one passed in 1579, called Scottish Acts, and in which I find the following:—"Sorcerers, common thieves, commonly called Egyptians, were directed to pass forth of the kingdom, under pain of death as common, notorious, and condemned thieves." This was persecution with vengeance, and no mistake; and it was under this kind of treatment, severe as it was, the Gipsies continued to grow and prosper in carrying out their nefarious practices. The case of these poor miserable wretches, midnight prowlers, with eyes and hearts and bending steps determined upon mischief and evil-doing, presents to us the spectacle of justice untempered with mercy. The phial filled with revenge, malice, spite, hatred, extermination and blood—without the milk of human kindness, the honey of love, water from the crystal fountain, and the tincture of Gethsemane's garden being added to take away the nauseousness of it—being handed these poor deluding witches and wretches to drink to the last dregs, failed to get rid of social and national grievances. The hanging of thirteen Gipsies at one of the Suffolk Assizes a few years before the Restoration carried with it none of the seeds of a reformation in their character and habits, nor did it lessen the number of these wandering prowlers, for we find that from the landing of a few hundred of Gipsies from France in 1514, down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, the number had increased to something like 15,000. The number who had been hung, died in prison, suffered starvation, and the fewness of those who were Christians, and gone to heaven, during the period of over 250 years, and prior to the noble efforts of Raper, Sir Joseph Banks, Hoyland, Crabb, Borrow, and others, is fearful to contemplate. Hoyland tells us that in his day, "not one Gipsy in a thousand could read or write."

Efforts put forth to exterminate these Asiatic heathens, babble-mongers, and bush-ranging thieves, were not confined to England alone. King Ferdinand of Spain was the first to set the persecuting machine at work to grind them to powder, and passed an edict in the year 1492 for their extermination, which only drove them into hiding-places, to come out, with their mouths watering, in greater numbers, for fresh acts of violence and plunder. At the King's death, the Emperor Charles V. persecuted them afresh, but with no success, and the consequence was they were left alone in Spain to pursue their course of robbery and crime for more than 200 years. In France an edict was passed by Francis I. At a Council of the State of Orleans an order was sent to all Governors to drive the Gipsies out of the country with fire and the sword. Under this edict they still increased, and a new order was issued in 1612 for their extermination. In 1572 they were driven from the territories of Milan and Parma, and earlier than this date they were driven beyond the Venetian jurisdiction.

"It is the sound of fetters—sound of work Is not so dismal. Hark! they pass along. I know it is those Gipsy prisoners; I saw them, heard their chains. O! terrible To be in chains."

In Denmark they were not allowed to pass about the country unmolested, and every magistrate was ordered to take them into custody. A very sharp and severe order came out for their expulsion from Sweden in the year 1662. Sixty-one years later a second order was published by the Diet; and in 1727 additional stringent measures were added to the foregoing edicts. Under pain of death they were excluded from the Netherlands by Charles V., and in 1582 by the United Provinces. Germany seems to have led the van in passing laws for their extermination. At the Augsburg Diet in 1500, Maximillian I. had the following edict drawn up:—"Respecting those people who call themselves Gipsies roving up and down the country. By public edict to all ranks of the empire, according to the obligations under which they are bound to us and the Holy Empire, it is strictly ordered that in future they do not permit the said Gipsies (since there is authentic evidence of their being spies, scouts, and conveyers of intelligence, betraying the Christians to the Turks) to pass or remain within their territories, nor to trade or traffic, neither to grant them protection nor convoy, and that the said Gipsies do withdraw themselves before Easter next ensuing from the German Dominions, entirely quit them, nor suffer themselves to be found therein. As in case they should transgress after this time, and receive injury from any person, they shall have no redress, nor shall such persons be thought to have committed any crime." Grellmann says the same affair occupied the Diet in 1530, 1544, 1548, and 1551, and was also enforced in the stringent police regulations of Frankfort in 1577, and he goes on to say that with the exception of Hungary and Transylvania, they were similarly proscribed in every civilised state. I think it will be seen by the foregoing German edict that there is some foundation for the supposition I have brought forward earlier, viz., that the persecution of the Gipsies in this country was not so much on account of their thieving deeds, plunder, and other abominations, as their connection with the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, and in the secrecy of their movements in going from village to village, undermining the foundation of the State, law, and order, civil and religious liberty. The only bright spot and cheerful tint upon this sorrowful picture of persecution which took place in our own country during these dark ages was the appearance of the Star of Elstow, John Bunyan, the Bedfordshire tinker, whose life and death forcibly illustrates the last words of Jesus upon the Cross, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

"'Twere ill to banish hope and let the mind Drift like a feather. I have had my share Of what the world calls trial. Once a fire Came in the darkness, when the city lay In a still sea of slumber, stretching out Great lurid arms which stained the firmament; And when I woke the room was full of sparks, And red tongues smote the lattice. Then a hand Came through the sulphur, taking hold of mine, And the next moment there were shouts of joy. Ah! I was but a child and my first care Was for my mother."—HARRIS (the Cornish poet).

Towards the end of the eighteenth century it became evident that edicts and persecutions were not going to stamp out the Gipsies in this country, for instead of them decreasing in numbers they kept increasing; at this time there were supposed to be about 18,000 in the country. The following sad case, showing the malicious spirits of the Gipsies, and the relentless hand of the hangman, seemed to have had the effect of bringing the authorities to bay. They had begun to put their "considering caps" on, and were in a fix as to the next move, and it was time they had. They had never thought of tempering justice with mercy. A century ago, 1780, a number of young Gipsies were arrested at Northampton, upon what charge it does not appear. It should be noted that Northamptonshire at this time was a favourite round for the Gipsy fraternity as well as the adjoining counties. This, it seems, excited the feelings of the Gipsies in the county, and they sought to obtain the release of the young Gipsies who were in custody, but were not successful in their application to the magistrate; the consequence was—true to their instincts—the spirit of revenge manifested itself to such a degree that the Gipsies threatened to set fire to the town, and would, in all probability have carried it out had not a number of them been brought to the gallows for these threats. With this case the hands of persecution began to hang down, for it was evident that persecution alone would neither improve these Gipsies nor yet drive them out of the country. The tide of events now changed. Law, rigid, stern justice alone could do no good with them, and consequently handed them over to the minister of love and mercy. This step was a bound to the opposite extreme, and as we go along we shall see that the efforts put forth in this direction alone met with but little more success than under the former treatment. Seven years after the foregoing executions Grellmann's work upon the Gipsies appeared, which caused a considerable commotion among the religious communities, following, as it did, the universal feeling aroused in the welfare of the children of this country by the establishment of Sunday-schools throughout the length and breadth of the land to teach the children of the working-classes reading and writing and the fundamental principles of Christianity. After repeated efforts put forth by a number of Christian gentlemen, and the interest caused by the publication of Grellmann's book, the work of reforming the Gipsies by purely religious and philanthropic action began to lag behind; the result was, as in the case of persecution, no good was observable, and the Gipsies were allowed to go again on their way to destruction. The next step was one in the right direction, viz., that of trying to improve the Gipsies by the means of the schoolmaster; although humble and feeble in its plan of operation, yet if we look to the agency put forth and its results, the Sunday-school teacher must have felt encouraged in his work as he plodded on Sunday after Sunday.

It may be said of Thomas Howard as it was said of the poor widow of old, he "hath done more than them all." The following account of this cheerful, encouraging, and interesting gathering is taken from Hoyland, in which he says:—"The first account he received of any of them was from Thomas Howard, proprietor of a glass and china shop, No. 50, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. This person, who preached among the Calvinists, said that in the winter of 1811 he had assisted in the establishment of a Sunday-school in Windwill Street, Acre Lane, near Clapham. It was under the patronage of a single gentlewoman, of the name of Wilkinson, and principally intended for the neglected and forlorn children of brick-makers and the most abject poor." At the present day Gipsies generally locate in the neighbourhood of brick-yards and low, swampy marshes, or by the side of rivers or canals. It was begun on a small scale, but increased till the number of scholars amounted to forty.

"During the winter a family of Gipsies, of the name of Cooper, obtained lodgings at a house opposite the school. Trinity Cooper, a daughter of the Gipsy family, who was about thirteen years of age, applied to be instructed at the school; but in consequence of the obloquy affixed to that description of persons she was repeatedly refused. She nevertheless persevered in her importunity, till she obtained admission for herself and two of her brothers. Thomas Howard says, surrounded as he was by ragged children, without shoes and stockings, the first lesson he taught them was silence and submission. They acquired habits of subordination and became tractable and docile; and of all his scholars there were not any more attentive and affectionate than these; and when the Gipsies broke up in the spring, to make their usual excursions, the children expressed much regret at leaving school. This account was confirmed by Thomas Jackson, of Brixton Row, minister of Stockwell Chapel, who said:—Since the above experiment, several Gipsies had been admitted to a Sabbath-school under the direction of his congregation. At their introduction, he compared them to birds when first put into the cage, which flew against the sides of it, having no idea of restraint; but by a steady, even care over them, and the influence of the example of other children, they soon become settled and fell into their ranks." The next step taken to let daylight upon the Gipsy and his dark doings in the dark ages was by means of letters to the Press, and what surprises me is that this step, the most important of all, was not taken before.

In a letter addressed to the Christian Observer, vol. vii., p. 91, in the year about 1809, "Nil" writes:—"As the divine spirit of Christianity deems no object, however uncouth or insignificant, beneath her notice, I venture to apply to you on behalf of a race, the outcasts of society, of whose pitiable condition, among the many forms of human misery which have engaged your efforts, I do not recollect to have seen any notice in the pages of your excellent miscellany. I allude to the deplorable state of the Gipsies, on whose behalf I beg leave to solicit your good offices with the public. Lying at our very doors, they seem to have a peculiar claim on our compassion. In the midst of a highly refined state of society, they are but little removed from savage life. In this happy country, where the light of Christianity shines with its purest lustre, they are still strangers to its cheering influence. I have not heard even of any efforts which have been made either by individuals or societies for their improvement." "Fraternicus," writing to the same Journal, vol. vii., and in the same year, says:—"It is painful to reflect how many thousands of these unhappy creatures have, since the light of Christianity has shone on this island, gone into eternity ignorant of the ways of salvation;" and goes on to say that, "there is an awful responsibility attached to this neglect," and recommends the appointment of missionaries to the work; and finishes his appeal as follows:—"Christians of various denominations, perhaps may, through the divine providence, be the means of exciting effectual attention to the spiritual wants of this deplorable set of beings; and the same benevolence which induced you to exert your talents and influence on behalf of the oppressed negroes may again be successfully employed in ameliorating the condition of a numerous class of our fellow-creatures." "H." wrote to the Christian Observer, and said he hoped "to see the day when the nation, which has at length done justice to the poor negroes, will be equally zealous to do their duty in this instance," and he offered to subscribe "twenty pounds per annum towards so good an object." "Minimus," another writer to the same paper, with reference to missionary enterprise, says:—"The soil which it is proposed to cultivate is remarkably barren and unpropitious; of course, a plentiful harvest must not be soon expected;" and finishes his letter by saying, "Let us arise and build; let us begin; there is no fear of progress and help." "H.," a clergyman, writes again and says:—"Surely, when our charity is flowing in so wide a channel, conveying the blessings of the Gospel to the most distant quarters of the globe, we shall not hesitate to water this one barren and neglected field in our own land. My attention was drawn to the state of this miserable class of human beings by the letter of 'Fraternicus,' and looking upon it as a reproach to our country;" and ends his letter with a short prayer, as follows: "It is my earnest prayer to God that this may not be one of these projects which are only talked of and never begun; but that it may tend to the glory of His name and to the bringing back of these poor lost sheep to the fold of their Redeemer." "J. P." writes to the same Journal, April 28, 1810, in which he says:—"Circumstances lead to think that were encouragement given to them the Gipsies would be inclined to live in towns and villages like other people; and would in another generation become civilised, and with the pains which are now taken to educate the poor, and to diffuse the Scriptures and the knowledge of Christ, would become a part of the regular fold. It would require much patient continuance in well doing in those who attempted it, and they must be prepared, perhaps, to meet with some untowardness and much disappointment." "Fraternicus" sums up the correspondence by suggesting a plan of taking the school to the Gipsies instead of taking the Gipsies to the schools:—"If the compulsory education of the Gipsies had taken place a century ago, and their tents brought under some sort of sanitary inspection, what a change by this time would have taken place in their habits," &c.; and he further says:—"By degrees they might be brought to attend divine worship; and if in the parish of a pious clergyman he would probably embrace the opportunity of teaching them. Much might be done by a pious schoolmaster and schoolmistress, by whom the girls might be taught different kinds of work, knitting, sewing, &c. Should these suggestions be deemed worthy of your insertion, they might, perhaps, awaken the attention of some benevolent persons, whose superior talents and experience in the ways of beneficence would enable them to perfect and carry into execution a plan for the effectual benefit of these unhappy portioners of our kind."

"Junius," in the Northampton Mercury, under date June 27th, 1814, writes:—"When we consider the immense sums raised for every probable means of doing good which have hitherto been made public, we cannot doubt if a proper method should be proposed for the relief and ameliorating the state of these people it would meet with deserved encouragement. Suppose that legislature should think this not unworthy its notice, and as a part of the great family they ought not to be overlooked." Another correspondent to the same Journal, "A Friend of Religion," writes under date July 21st, 1815, urging the necessity of some means being adopted for their improvement, and remarks as follows:—"Thousands of our fellow-creatures would be raised from depravity and wretchedness to a state of comfort; the private property of individuals be much more secure, and the public materially benefited."

Instead of putting into practice measures for their improvement, and the State taking hold of them by the hand as children belonging to us, and with us, and for whom our first care ought to have been, we have said in anger—

"'Heathen dog! Begone, begone! you shall have nothing here.' The Indian turned; then facing Collingrew, In accents low and musical, he said: 'But I am very hungry; it is long Since I have eaten. Only give me a crust, A bone, to cheer me on my weary way.' Then answered he, with fury and a frown: 'Go! Get you gone! you red-skinned heathen hound! I've nothing for you. Get you gone, I say!'"

HARRIS, "Wayside Pictures."

During the summer of 1814, Mr. John Hoyland, of Sheffield, set to work in earnest to try to improve the condition of the Gipsies, and for that purpose he visited, in conjuction with Mr. Allen, solicitor at Higham Ferners, many parts of Northamptonshire and neighbouring counties; and he also sent out a circular to most of the sheriffs in England with a number of questions upon it relating to their numbers, condition, &c., and the following are a few of the answers sent in reply:—1. All Gipsies suppose the first of them came from Egypt. 2. They cannot form any idea of the number in England. 5. The more common names are Smith, Cooper, Draper, Taylor, Boswell, Lee, Lovell, Leversedge, Allen, Mansfield, Glover, Williams, Carew, Martin, Stanley, Buckley, Plunkett, and Corrie. 6 and 7. The gangs in different towns have not any connection or organisation. 8. In the county of Herts it is computed there may be sixty families, having many children. Whether they are quite so numerous in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire the answers are not sufficiently definite to determine. In Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, greater numbers are calculated upon. 9. More than half their numbers follow no business; others are dealers in horses and asses, &c., &c. 10. Children are brought up in the habits of their parents, particular to music and dancing, and are of dissolute conduct. 11. The women mostly carry baskets with trinkets and small wares, and tell fortunes. 13. In most counties there are particular situations to which they are partial. 15, 16, and 17. Do not know of any person that can write the language, or of any written specimen of it. 19. Those who profess any religion represent it to be that of the country in which they reside; but their description of it seldom goes beyond repeating the Lord's Prayer, and only a few of them are capable of that. 20. They marry, for the most part, by pledging to each other, without any ceremony. 21. They do not teach their children religion. 22 and 23. Not one in a thousand can read. Most of these answers were confirmed by Riley Smith, who, during many years, was accounted the chief of the Gipsies in Northamptonshire. Mr. John Forster and Mr. William Carrington, respectable merchants of Biggleswade, and who knew Riley Smith well, corroborated his statements. After Hoyland had published his book no one stepped into the breach, with flag in hand, to take up the cry; and for several years—except the efforts of a clergyman here and there—the interest in the cause of the Gipsies dwindled down, and became gradually and miserably less, and the consequence was the Gipsies have not improved an iota during the three centuries they have been in our midst. As they were, so they are, and likely to remain unless brought under State control.

"On the winds A voice came murmuring, 'We must work and wait'; And every echo in the far-off fen Took up the utterance: 'We must work and wait.' Her spirit felt it, 'We must work and wait.'"

HARRIS.

No one heeded the warning. No one listened to the cries of the poor Gipsy children as they glided into eternity. No one put out their hands to save them as they kept disappearing from the gaze of the bystanders, among whom were artificial Christians, statesmen, and philanthropists. All was as still as death, and the poor black wretches passed away.

Whether His Majesty George III. had ever read Grellmann's or Hoyland's works on Gipsies has not been shown. The following interesting account will show that royal personages are not deaf to the cries of suffering humanity, be it in a Gipsy's wigwam, a cottage, or palace. It is taken from a missionary magazine for June, 1823, and in all probability the circumstance took place not many years prior to this date, and is as follows:—"A king of England of happy memory, who loved his people and his God better than kings in general are wont to do, occasionally took the exercise of hunting. Being out one day for this purpose, the chase lay through the shrubs of the forest. The stag had been hard run; and, to escape the dogs, had crossed the river in a deep part. As the dogs could not be brought to follow, it became necessary, in order to come up with it, to make a circuitous route along the banks of the river, through some thick and troublesome underwood. The roughness of the ground, the long grass and frequent thickets, gave opportunity for the sportsmen to separate from each other, each one endeavouring to make the best and speediest route he could. Before they had reached the end of the forest the king's horse manifested signs of fatigue and uneasiness, so much so that his Majesty resolved upon yielding the pleasures of the chase to those of compassion for his horse. With this view he turned down the first avenue in the forest and determined on riding gently to the oaks, there to wait for some of his attendants. His Majesty had only proceeded a few yards when, instead of the cry of the hounds, he fancied he heard the cry of human distress. As he rode forward he heard it more distinctly. 'Oh, my mother! my mother! God pity and bless my poor mother!' The curiosity and kindness of the king led him instantly to the spot. It was a little green plot on one side of the forest, where was spread on the grass, under a branching oak, a little pallet, half covered with a kind of tent, and a basket or two, with some packs, lay on the ground at a few paces distant from the tent. Near to the root of the tree he observed a little swarthy girl, about eight years of age, on her knees, praying, while her little black eyes ran down with tears. Distress of any kind was always relieved by his Majesty, for he had a heart which melted at 'human woe'; nor was it unaffected on this occasion. And now he inquired, 'What, my child, is the cause of your weeping? For what do you pray?' The little creature at first started, then rose from her knees, and pointing to the tent, said, 'Oh, sir! my dying mother!' 'What?' said his Majesty, dismounting, and fastening his horse up to the branches of the oak, 'what, my child? tell me all about it.' The little creature now led the king to the tent; there lay, partly covered, a middle-aged female Gipsy in the last stages of a decline, and in the last moments of life. She turned her dying eyes expressively to the royal visitor, then looked up to heaven; but not a word did she utter; the organs of speech had ceased their office! the silver cord was loosed, and the wheel broken at the cistern. The little girl then wept aloud, and, stooping down, wiped the dying sweat from her mother's face. The king, much affected, asked the child her name, and of her family; and how long her mother had been ill. Just at that moment another Gipsy girl, much older, came, out of breath, to the spot. She had been at the town of W—-, and had brought some medicine for her dying mother. Observing a stranger, she modestly curtsied, and, hastening to her mother, knelt down by her side, kissed her pallid lips, and burst into tears. 'What, my dear child,' said his Majesty, 'can be done for you?' 'Oh, sir!' she replied, 'my dying mother wanted a religious person to teach her and to pray with her before she died. I ran all the way before it was light this morning to W—-, and asked for a minister, but no one could I get to come with me to pray with my dear mother!' The dying woman seemed sensible of what her daughter was saying, and her countenance was much agitated. The air was again rent with the cries of the distressed daughters. The king, full of kindness, instantly endeavoured to comfort them. He said, 'I am a minister, and God has sent me to instruct and comfort your mother.' He then sat down on a pack by the side of the pallet, and, taking the hand of the dying Gipsy, discoursed on the demerit of sin and the nature of redemption. He then pointed her to Christ, the all-sufficient Saviour. While the king was doing this the poor creature seemed to gather consolation and hope; her eyes sparkled with brightness, and her countenance became animated. She looked up; she smiled; but it was the last smile; it was the glimmering of expiring nature. As the expression of peace, however, remained strong in her countenance, it was not till some little time had elapsed that they perceived the struggling spirit had left mortality.

"It was at this moment that some of his Majesty's attendants, who had missed him at the chase, and who had been riding through the forest in search of him, rode up, and found the king comforting the afflicted Gipsies. It was an affecting sight, and worthy of everlasting record in the annals of kings.

"His Majesty now rose up, put some gold into the hands of the afflicted girls, promised them his protection, and bade them look to heaven. He then wiped the tears from his eyes and mounted his horse. His attendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L—- was now going to speak, when his Majesty, turning to the Gipsies, and pointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, with strong emotion, 'Who, my lord, who, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto these?'"

"Hark! Don't you hear the rumbling of its wheels? Nearer it comes and nearer! Oh, what light! The tent is full; 'tis glory everywhere! Dear Jesus, I am coming! Then she fell— As falls a meteor when the skies are clear."

After this solemn but interesting event nothing further seems to have been done by either Christian or philanthropist towards wiping out this national disgrace, and the Gipsies were left to follow the bent of their evil propensities for several years, till Mr. Crabb's reading of Hoyland and witnessing the sentence of death passed upon a Gipsy at Winchester, in 1827, for horse-stealing.

Mr. Crabb happened to enter just as the judge was passing sentence of death on two unhappy men. To one he held out the hope of mercy; but to the other, a poor Gipsy, who was convicted of horse-stealing, he said, no hope could be given. The young man, for he was but a youth, immediately fell on his knees, and with uplifted hands and eyes, apparently unconscious of any persons being present but the judge and himself, addressed him as follows: "Oh, my Lord, save my life!" The judge replied, "No; you can have no mercy in this world: I and my brother judges have come to the determination to execute horse-stealers, especially Gipsies, because of the increase of the crime." The suppliant, still on his knees, entreated—"Do, my Lord Judge, save my life! do, for God's sake, for my wife's sake, for my baby's sake!" "No," replied the judge, "I cannot; you should have thought of your wife and children before." He then ordered him to be taken away, and the poor fellow was rudely dragged from his earthly judge. It is hoped, as a penitent sinner, he obtained the more needful mercy of God, through the abounding grace of Christ. After this scene Mr. Crabb could not remain in court. As he returned he found the mournful intelligence had been communicated to some Gipsies who had been waiting without, anxious to learn the fate of their companion. They seemed distracted.

On the outside of the court, seated on the ground, appeared an old woman and a very young one, and with them two children, the eldest three years and the other an infant but fourteen days old. The former sat by its mother's side, alike unconscious of her bitter agonies and of her father's despair. The old woman held the infant tenderly in her arms, and endeavoured to comfort its weeping mother, soon to be a widow under circumstances the most melancholy. "My dear, don't cry," said she; "remember you have this dear little baby." Impelled by the sympathies of pity and a sense of duty, Mr. Crabb spoke to them on the evil of sin, and expressed his hope that the melancholy event would prove a warning to them, and to all their people. The poor man was executed about a fortnight after his condemnation.

Mr. Crabb being full of fire and zeal, set to work in right good earnest, and succeeded in forming a committee at Southampton to bring about a reformation among the Gipsies. He also enlisted the sympathy of other earnest Christians in the work, and for a time, while the sun shone, received encouraging signs of success, in fact, according to his little work published in 1831, his labours were attended with blessed results among the adult portion of the Gipsies. Owing to the wandering habits of the Gipsies, discouragements, and his own death, the work, so far as any organisation was concerned, came to an end. No Elisha came forward to catch his mantle, the consequence was the Gipsies were left again to work out their own destruction according to their own inclinations and tastes, as they deemed best, plainly showing that voluntary efforts are very little better than a shadow, vanishing smoke, and spent steam, to illuminate, elevate, warm, cheer, and encourage the wandering, dark-eyed vagabonds roving about in our midst into paths of usefulness, honesty, and sobriety.

Thus far in this part I have feebly endeavoured to show that rigid, stern, inflexible law and justice on the one hand, and meek, quiet, mild, human love and mercy on the other hand, have separately failed in the object the promoters had in view. Justice tried to exterminate the Gipsy; mercy tried to win them over. Of the two processes I would much prefer that of mercy. It is more pleasant to human nature to be under its influence, and more in the character of an Englishman to deal out mercy. The next efforts put forth to reform these renegades was by means of fiction, romance, and poetry. Some writers, in their praiseworthy endeavours to make up a medicine to improve the condition of the Gipsies, have neutralised its effects by adding too much honey and spice to it. Others, who have mistaken the emaciated condition of the Gipsy, have been dosing him with cordials entirely, to such a degree, that he—Romany chal—imagines he is right in everything he says and does, and he ought to have perfect liberty to go anywhere or do anything. Some have attempted to paint him white, and in doing so have worked up the blackness from underneath, and presented to us a character which excites a feeling in our notions—a kind of go-between, akin to sympathy and disgust. Not a few have thrown round the Gipsy an enchanting, bewitching halo, which an inspection has proved nothing less than a delusion and a snare. Others have tried to improve this field of thistles and sour docks by throwing a handful of daisy seeds among them. It requires something more than a phantom life-boat to rescue the Gipsy and bring him to land. Scents and perfumes in a death-bed chamber only last for a short time. A bottle of rose-water thrown into a room where decomposition is at work upon a body will not restore life. Scattering flowers upon a cesspool of iniquity will not purify it. A fictitious rope composed of beautiful ideas is not the thing to save drowning Gipsy children. To put artificially-coloured feathers upon the head of a Gipsy child dressed in rags and shreds, with his body literally teeming with vermin and filth, will not make him presentable at court or a fit subject for a drawing-room. To dress the Satanic, demon-looking face of a Gipsy with the violet-powder of imagery only temporally hides from view the repulsive aspect of his features. The first storm of persecution brings him out again in his true colour. The forked light of imagination thrown across the heavens on a dark night is not the best to reveal the character of a Gipsy and set him upon the highways for usefulness and heaven. The dramatist has strutted the Gipsy across the stage in various characters in his endeavour to improve his condition. After the fine colours have been doffed, music finished, applause ceased, curtain dropped, and scene ended, he has been a black, swarthy, idle, thieving, lying, blackguard of a Gipsy still. Applause, fine colours, and dazzling lights have not altered his nature. Bad he is, and bad he will remain, unless we follow out the advice of the good old book, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

Would to God the voice of the little Gipsy girl would begin to ring in our ears, when she spoke with finger pointed and tears in her eyes:—

"There is a cabin half-way down the cliff, You see it from this arch-stone; there we live, And there you'll find my mother. Poverty Weeps on the woven rushes, and long grass Rent from the hollows is our only bed. I have no father here; he ran away; Perhaps he's dead, perhaps he's living yet, And may come back again and kiss his child; For every day, and morn, and even star, I pray for him with face upturned to heaven, 'O blessed Saviour, send my father home!'"

The word "Gipsy" seems to have a magic thread running through it, beginning at the tip end of "G" and ending with the tail end of "y." Geese have tried to gobble it, ducks swallow it, hens scratched after it, peacocks pecked it, dandy cocks crowed over it, foxes have hid it, dogs have fought for it, cats have sworn and spit over it, pigs have tried to gulp it as the daintiest morsel, parrots have chatted about it, hawks, eagles, jackdaws, magpies, ravens, and crows have tried to carry it away as a precious jewel, and in the end all have put it down as a thing they could neither carry nor swallow; and after all, when it has been stripped of its dowdy colours, what has it been? Only a "scamp," in many cases, reared and fostered among thieves, pickpockets, and blackguards, in our back slums and sink gutters. Strip the 20,000 men, women, and children of the word "Gipsy," moving about our country under the artificial and unreal association connected with Gipsy life, so-called, of the "red cloaks," "silver buttons," "pretty little feet," "small hands," "bewitching eyes," "long black hair," in nine cases out of ten in name only, and you, at a glance, see the class of people you have been neglecting, consequently sending to ruin and misery through fear on the one hand and lavishing smiles on the other.

In all ages there have been people silly enough to be led away by sights, sounds, colours, and unrealities, to follow a course of life for which they are not suited, either by education, position, or tastes. No one acts the part of a butterfly among school-boys better than the black-eyed Gipsy girl has done among "fast-goers," swells, and fops. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has trotted them out to perfection and then left them in the lurch, and those, when they have come to their senses, and had their eyes opened to the stern facts of a Gipsy's life, have said to themselves, "What fools we have been, to be sure," and they would have given any amount to have undone the past. The praise, flattery, and looks bestowed upon the "bewitching deceivers," when they have been labouring under the sense of infatuation and fascination instead of reason, has made them in the presence of friends hang down their heads like a willow, and to escape, if possible, the company of their "old chums" by all sorts of manoeuvres. Hubert Petalengro—a gentleman, and a rich member of a long family—conceived the idea, after falling madly in love with a dark-eyed beauty, so-called, of turning Gipsy and tasting for himself—not in fiction and romance—the charms of tent life, as he thought, in reality passing through the "first," "second," and "third degrees." At first, it was ideal and fascinating enough in all conscience; it was a pity Brother Petalengro did not have a foretaste of it by spending a month in a Gipsy's tent in the depth of winter, with no balance at his banker's, and compelled to wear Gipsy clothing, and make pegs and skewers for his Sunday broth; gather sticks for the fire, and sleep on damp straw in the midst of slush and snow, and peeping through the ragged tent roof at the moon as he lay on his back, surrounded by Gipsies of both sexes, of all ages and sizes, cursing each other under the maddening influence of brandy and disappointment. To make himself and his damsel comfortable on a Gipsy tour he fills his pocket with gold, flask with brandy, buys a quantity of rugs upon which are a number of foxes' heads—and I suppose tails too—waterproof covering for the tent, and waterproof sheets and a number of blankets to lay on the damp grass to prevent their tender bodies being overtaken with rheumatics, and he also lays in a stock of potted meats and other dainties; makes all "square" with Esmeralda and her two brothers and the donkeys; takes first and second-class tickets for the whole of them to Hull—the Balaams excepted (it is not on record that they spoke to him on his journey); provides Esmeralda with dresses and petticoats—not too long to hide her pretty ankles, red stockings, and her lovely little foot—gold and diamond rings, violin, tambourine, the guitar, Wellington boots, and starts upon his trip to Norway in the midst of summer beauty. Many times he must have said to himself, "Oh! how delightful." "As we journeyed onward, how fragrant the wild flowers—those wild flowers can never be forgotten. Gipsies like flowers, it is part of their nature. Esmeralda would pluck them, and forming a charming bouquet, interspersed with beautiful wild roses, her first thoughts are to pin them in the button-hole of the Romany Rye (Gipsy gentleman). As we journeyed quietly through the forest, how delightful its scenes. Free from all care, we enjoy the anticipation of a long and pleasant ramble in Norway's happy land. We felt contented with all things, and thankful that we should be so permitted to roam with our tents and wild children of nature in keeping the solitudes we sought. The rain had soon ceased, tinkle, tinkle went the hawk-bells on the collar of our Bura Rawnee as she led the way along the romantic Norwegian road.

[Picture: A Respectable Gipsy and his Family "on the Road"]

"'Give the snakes and toads a twist, And banish them for ever,'

sang Zachariah, ever and anon giving similar wild snatches. Then Esmeralda would rocker about being the wife of the Romany Rye (Gipsy gentleman) and as she proudly paced along in her heavy boots, she pictured in imagery the pleasant life she should lead as her Romany Rye's joovel, monshi, or somi. She was full of fun, yet there was nothing in her fanciful delineations which could offend us. They were but the foam of a crested wave, soon dissipated in the air. They were the evanescent creations of a lively, open-hearted girl—wild notes trilled by the bird of the forest. We came again into the open valley. Down a meadow gushed a small streamlet which splashed from a wooden spout on to the roadside." "The spot where we pitched our tents was near a sort of small natural terrace, at the summit of a steep slope above the road, backed by a mossy bank, shaded by brushwood and skirting the dense foliage of the dark forest of pine and fir, above our camp." "We gave two of the peasants some brandy and tobacco." "Then all our visitors left, except four interesting young peasant girls, who still lingered." "They had all pleasant voices." "We listened to them with much pleasure; there was so much sweetness and feeling in their melody. Zachariah made up for his brother's timidity. Full of fun, what dreadful faces the young Gipsy would pull, they were absolutely frightful; then he would twist and turn his body into all sorts of serpentine contortions. If spoken to he would suddenly, with a hop, skip, and a jump alight in his tent as if he had tumbled from the sky, and, sitting bolt upright, make a hideous face till his mouth nearly stretched from ear to ear, while his dark eyes sparkled with wild excitement, he would sing—

"'Dawdy! Dawdy! dit a kei Rockerony, fake your bosh!'

"At one time a woman brought an exceedingly fat child for us to look at, and she wanted Esmeralda to suckle it, which was, of course, hastily declined. We began to ask ourselves if this was forest seclusion. Still our visitors were kind, good-humoured people, and some drank our brandy, and some smoked our English tobacco. After our tea, at five o'clock, we had a pleasant stroll. Once more we were with Nature. There we lingered till the scenes round us, in their vivid beauty, seemed graven deep in our thought. How graphic are the lines of Moore:—

"'The turf shall be my fragrant shrine, My temple, Lord, that arch of Thine, My censor's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers.

"'My choir shall be the moonlight waves, When murm'ring homeward to their caves, Or when the stillness of the sea Even more of music breathes of Thee!'

How appropriate were the words of the great poet to our feelings. We went and sat down." "As we were seated by our camp fire, a tall, old man, looking round our tents, came and stood contemplating us at our tea. He looked as if he thought we were enjoying a life of happiness. Nor was he wrong. He viewed us with a pleased and kindly expression, as he seemed half lost in contemplation. We sent for the flask of brandy. Returning to our tents we put on our Napoleon boots and made some additions to our toilette." Of course, kind Mr. Petalengro would assist lovely Esmeralda with hers. "Whilst we were engaged some women came to our tents. The curiosity of the sex was exemplified, for they were dying to look behind the tent partition which screened us from observation. We did not know what they expected to see; one, bolder than the rest, could not resist the desire to look behind the scenes, and hastily drew back and dropped the curtain, when we said rather sharply, 'Nei! nei!' Esmeralda shortly afterwards appeared in her blue dress and silver buttons. Then we all seated ourselves on a mossy bank, on the side of the terrace, with a charming view across the valley of the Logan. At eight o'clock the music commenced. The sun shone beautifully, and the mosquitoes and midges bit right and left with hungry determination. We sat in a line on the soft mossy turf of the grassy slope, sheltered by foliage. Esmeralda and Noah with their tambourines, myself with the castanets, and Zachariah with his violin. Some peasant women and girls came up after we had played a short time. It was a curious scene. Our tents were pleasantly situated on an open patch of green sward, surrounded by border thickets, near the sunny bank and the small flat terrace. The rising hills and rugged ravines on the other side of the valley all gave a singular and romantic beauty to the lovely view. Although our Gipsies played with much spirit until nine o'clock, none of the peasants would dance. At nine o'clock our music ceased, and we all retired to our tents with the intention of going to bed. When we were going into our tents, a peasant and several others with him, who had just arrived, asked us to play again. At length, observing several peasant girls were much disappointed, we decided to play once more. It was past nine o'clock when we again took up our position on the mossy bank; so we danced, and the peasant girls, until nearly ten o'clock. Once we nearly whirled ourself and Esmeralda over the slope into the road below. Esmeralda's dark eyes flashed fire and sparkled with merriment and witchery."

"The bacon and fish at dinner were excellent; we hardly knew which was best. A peasant boy brought us a bundle of sticks for our fire. The sun became exceedingly hot. Esmeralda and myself went and sat in some shade near our tents." "Noah stood in the shade blacking his boots, and observed to Esmeralda, 'I shall not help my wife as Mr. Petalengro does you.' 'Well,' said Esmeralda, 'what is a wife for?' 'For!' retorted Noah, sharply, giving his boot an extra brush, 'why, to wait upon her husband.' 'And what,' said Esmeralda, 'is a husband for?' 'What's a husband for!' exclaimed Noah, with a look of profound pity for his sister's ignorance, 'why, to eat and drink, and look on.'" Mr. Petalengro goes on to say: "It would seem to us that the more rude energy a man has in his composition the more a woman will be made to take her position as helpmate. It is always a mark of great civilisation and the effeminacy of a people when women obtain the undue mastery of men." And he farther goes on to say: "We were just having a romp with Esmeralda and her two brothers as we were packing up our things, and a merry laugh, when some men appeared at the fence near our camping-ground. We little think," says Mr. Petalengro, "how much we can do in this world to lighten a lonely wayfarer's heart."

[Picture: A Bachelor Gipsy's Bedroom]

Esmeralda and Mr. Petalengro tell each other their fortunes. "Esmeralda and myself were sitting in our tents. Then the thought occurred to her that we should tell her fortune. 'Your fortune must be a good one,' said we, laughing; 'let me see your hand and your lines of life.' We shall never forget Esmeralda. She looked so earnestly as we regarded attentively the line of her open hand." (Mr. Petalengro does not say that tears were to be seen trickling down those lovely cheeks of Esmeralda while this fortune-telling, nonsensical farce was being played out.) "Then we took her step by step through some scenes of her supposed future. We did not tell all. The rest was reserved for another day. There was a serious look on her countenance as we ended; but, reader, such secrets should not be revealed. Esmeralda commenced to tell our fortunes. We were interested to know what she would say. We cast ourselves on the waves of fate. The Gipsy raised her dark eyes from our hand as she looked earnestly in the face. You are a young gentleman of good connections. Many lands you have seen. But, young man, something tells me you are of a wavering disposition.'" And then charming Esmeralda would strike up "The Little Gipsy"—

"My father's the King of the Gipsies, that's true, My mother she learned me some camping to do; With a packel on my back, and they all wish me well, I started up to London some fortunes for to tell.

"As I was a walking up fair London streets, Two handsome young squires I chanced for to meet, They viewed my brown cheeks, and they liked them so well, They said 'My little Gipsy girl, can you my fortune tell?'

"'Oh yes! kind Sir, give me hold of your hand, For you have got honours, both riches and land; Of all the pretty maidens you must lay aside, For it is the little Gipsy girl that is to be your bride.'

"He led me o'er the Mils, through valleys deep I'm sure, Where I'd servants for to wait on me, and open me the door; A rich bed of down to lay my head upon— In less than nine months after I could his fortune tell.

"Once I was a Gipsy girl, but now a squire's bride, I've servants for to wait on me, and in my carriage ride. The bells shall ring so merrily, sweet music they shall play, And will crown the glad tidings of that lucky, lucky day."

The drawback to this evening's whirligig farce was that the mosquitoes determined to come in for a share. These little, nipping, biting creatures preferred settling upon young blood, full of life and activity, existing under artificial circumstances, to the carcase of a dead horse lying in the knacker's yard. To prevent these little stingers drawing the sap of life from the sweet bodies of these pretty, innocent, lovable creatures, the Gipsies acted a very cruel part in dressing their faces over with a brown liquid, called the "tincture of cedar." It is not stated whether the "tincture of cedar "was made in Shropshire or Lebanon, nor whether it was extracted from roses, or a decoction of thistles. Alas, alas! how fickle human life is! How often we say and do things in jest and fun which turn out to be stern realities in another form.