Morning journal and courier., 1890-09-13

sunny road, at last threading around the bold side of Venchen, passes a gray old mill, then is lost in a mass of Collage by an ancient manse in which lives my friend. good minister Davidson. for more than a quarter of a century the pastor of the heathen Rommany tribe at his very door: and then, to the right and left, and before you, fringing ragged triangle enclosing Yetholm Green, are all that are left of the cottage-homes of what was once the larg- est gipsy settlement in any English-speak- ing land. This is Kirk -Yetholm.
 Gipsies stole into Scotland from T,eland about the year 1500. So cOnsumIlately shrewd were they in carrying out their as- sumption of pilgrimage under the leader ship of Anthonius Cav mo, earl of Little Egypt, and of being Under commands of the pope to wander seven years without sleeping in a bed" that they actually se- cured the countenance if not the favor of James NV. They received no molestation worthy to be called such until l579. when James VI ''took the government into his own hands," Then statute was passed ''for punishment of strong and idle vaga- bonds and beggars, and relief of the poor and impotent." This statute was very se- were against the gipsies, and ordered that their ears should be cut of and themselves banished. This law was ratified in 1592. and another statute passed in 1j97 that they be, on conviction, made slaves for life. In 1900 another act enforcing all previous statutes bearing on their regula- ton and punishment, and severely con demning the negligence of justices and commissioners in not putting previous laws against them into execution, was passed; and in 1903 the privy council or dered the whole race to leave the kingdom by certain date, under the penalty of death. In 1909 this order was made a per petual law: but it appears that, if these statutes were not actually set at defianee by the gipsies themselves, they were ef- fectually voided by the sympathy and as- sistance extended them by the different powerful Scottish clans, some of which were allied to the wanderers by marriage or secret and still more influential ties, which the government at that period very loosely controlled.
 But the history of Scottish gipsies after the beginning of the seventeenth century is not marked by striking episodes save in a few instances, and those of a local na- ture and interest, where the Ronmany people were persecuted and punished much the same as all vagabonds. coming under the surveillance of Scottish justice. The most that can be said of them is that they were gipsies. Royal edicts and parliamel- tary statutes, whatever their severity, ope- rated about the same as edicts and statutes would have operated against foxes. A special furry of excited vigilance and gip- sy prejudice would from time to time cause renewed persecution, which only drove the gipsies into their hiding places. where, still like foxes, they propagated the more rapidly, and after quiet had re turned they came to the surface again, more daring gipsies and more of them. Perhaps some poor lame fox of gipsy would occasionally get caught and be clubbed to death by the butt-end of cruel Scotch law, as though there mad been q mighty conquest; but that was all. They never failed to thrive under persecution in all European countries to almost as great a degree as they have prospered under con ditions of absolute freedom in America
 The most noted of Scottish gipsies were Anthonius Gawino, the original chief and leader, the Bailyows. afterwards the Bail lies, from whom the many millions of American gipsy Baileys are descended, and old John Flaw, progenitor of all the gipsy Flaws, Faas and Falls of Scotland and America. Many members of the Faa fam fly have attained wealth and political pre- ferment in Scotland. The once wealthy Falls, merchants of Dunbar, are gipsies. One of the Falls became n colonel in the British army. Another served term in parliament. Hosts have been and are un- der-sheliffs and bailiffs. Lady Anstl dth- CT, wife of the late Sir John AnstIutller. of Ellie, was Jenny Faa, sipsy woman oi great Wat and beauty. These Falls os Fass, of Dunbar, are also connected by marriage with the great banking family of Coutts, widely know in America through the frequent social intelligence concerning the noted Baroness Burdett -Coutts. While the celebrated poem, The Gips.e Laddie," commentaries the abduction by the gipsy king. John Faa. in 1893. of Laiy Casillis, wife of the Earl of Casillis. ga sullen and ill-tempered man. moIe Liven to theology than ilka-dcy goodness who was absent on deputation to atify the solemn lea ,Le and covenant of tllat yeag at Westminster. Sir Walter Scott crea his great character of Meg Me.s lies, 7 out of Jean Gordion, sipsy woman of t,is very kirk-Setholn; and I have many times broken b.ead with her descegIlcnts here as we'll as dul'ng l.ly wands. .n.ss. among the gipsies in America. Scott him self said to Jean Gordon: '.She had $ great sway among her tribe. She was quite Meg Meirilies. and possessed the savage virtue of fidelity in the game per fection."
 The interest in Kirk -Yetholm ss a haun of the Scottish eipsies lies rather in wha they once were here, than in what the, now are They originally acquired thei
 footing in the place through bravery il
 battle as adherents of Scottish borle lords. That was fully two hundred year ago. The leu leases of many of thei homes-and at one time nearly an hun dred cottages were in their possession
 were remarkable as Illustrating the friend
 ship existing between the nomads and tn
 successive lords of the manor. Thes
 were either for nineteen times nineteen years" or, as with some of the more fa
 vored ones, ''as long as grass grows ant
 water runs. Their increase here un doubtedly reached its climax at about tn
 middle of the present century. Over fou
 hundred gipsies then had their homes il | Kirk Yetholm: and at the death of thei
 chief, William Faa, in 1S47, they mustered
 from Yetholm and its immediate neighbor
 hood five hundred gipsies and three hun
 dred asses as an escort for his remain
 from Coldstream to the parish bury ing
 ground at Yetholm. This Faa was the aC
 knowledged king of the Scottish gipsies
 Shortly after his death on the sudden d,
 cease of Charles Blythe, King William
 immediate successor, a remarkable contes
 
 daughters, Princess Esther and Princes
 Helen-the latter a hale old woman sti
 living here alone in her cottage at the sid
 of Tinker's Green. Yetholm.
 These Faas were the pick of the Scottis
 gipsy race, and by their sagacity, addres
 and physical prowess, were able for nearl
 three hundred years to exercise royal sI
 premacy. The Blythe line was extinct
 Scotland; and no one could be found 1
 dispute the royal line reverting to one (
 the other of the two Faa princesses. He
 en, the younger, urged her claims on tl
 ground of the well-known and often-e,
 pressed wish of the dead king that sl
 should eventually succeed him. Esthe
 the elder, claimed the succession on Il
 grounds of seniority. For months Il
 liveliest imaginable political canvass w,
 waged throughout the gipsy camps Scotland; the sisters often taking seen
 and rapid journeys of hundreds of mil
 to further their respective interests. last the contest waged so bitter that the l sisters of royal blood came to blows, u l first and last breach of the peace ever a
 credited to gipsies in Ietholm The were both women of powerful build, oyt six feet in height, and the encounter hs ; been described to me by an eye witne: , now living here as of the most savage an ferocious character. Esther was N.ctoi
 ous. and Helen, or black-beardel Nell, | she is called by the villagers, ''got herse
 weel lickitm This affray apparently dec
 ded the contest; for when ''tssting day, or Shrove Tuesday, came, on waich Il
 famous Bowmont games are still notabl
 celebrated, Princess Helen and her follow CTS offered no objection to Princess E ther's election and coronation.
 The crowning of Queen Esther-who' , full name was Esther Faa Blythe Ruthe ford, the By the and Rutherford addend