The record-union., 1891-11-28

Inc largest aggregation of Scottish gyp-
sizes, now sadly dwindled, is at the border
Teviotdale town of Yetholm These
might be called house gypsies, as they
occupy thatched cabins in Kirk Yetholm,
the property of the Marquis of Tweed
dale, held under the curious tenure of
nineteen times nineteen years. at
nominal rent. But few families remain
Nearly all the old stock has died off or
emigrated to America, though no longer
ago than 1S47 they mustered from round
| about over 500 souls and 800 asses to es-
cort the remains Of their old king, canny
WuH (WilD Faa from Coldstream to
the burying ground of Kirk Yetholm. 1t
was here, too, that my late friend, the
brightest, wittiest and most sensible
gypsy woman that ever lived, Queen
Esther Faa reigned so long, so wisely and
SO well.
These Yetholm, as well as all other
Scottish drom, or road, gypsies, chiefly
sIbslst by hawking earthen, tin and
white iron ware, horn spoons, scrub
bers" and "besoms," the latter sort of
willow broom, about the country. They
travel as far into England as Newcastle
and Staffordshire for the earthenware,
buying faulty pottery cheaply, and sell
ing the same at good profit. The re-
maiuder of their wares they make in a
rude way among themselves, the women
being quite as adept as the men. Some
oAAFC doSCS OclOIG llclI 1lttlC pul
more possess the hardy ''Sheltie,'' or
Shetland pony. For their own shelter
at night their carts are ''whummerd'' or
"whomePd," that is, turned upside
down.
Generally speaking, the gypsies of
England are comfortable gypsies in pro-
portion to the distance they make their
haunts.from the great centers of popula-
ton. The same is measurably true of all
other English lowly folk. The gypsy
| class, which also includes all manner of
travelling and tramping non-gypsy vaga-
bonds, the radical Improvement of whose
condition has become the heroic work of
George Smith of Coalville, never pilgrim
far from London, Bristol, Birmingham.
Manchester and Liverpool. Their mem
bers sally out from these cities and for
age around and around them in well-de-
fined circles, going and coming as they
are prompted by impulse or scourged by
necessity. They are Bedouins of civili-
zation, indeed, and their reformation or
extlrpation would prove public good.
My own observation and experiences
have been almost wholly among another
ana better class, and the latter is more
IKE our American gypSieS than any of
| the Romany in all foreign lands.
Probably the most idyllic form of gypsy
life yet remaining in England may be
found in Wales and the English lake dis
land and Cumberland. L have been much
| among the statesmen" or land-owning
peasantry of the latter region as we'll as
with the gypsies there. Perhaps I have
questioned 300 small farmers and others
as to the gypsies' status among them. l
nave never secured an answer unfavora-
bic to the nomads. On the contrary.
much as is the case in remote countryside
districts IN America, the gypsies annual
coming is looked forward to with eager
ness and delight, while the summer mar
ket day and the little village fair would
be shorn of much of their attractiveness
were the gypsy folk absent. Nor could I
learn in all this romantic region of sim
gle act OF downright dishonesty on the
part OF any gypsy within the memory of
man. In the winter time, those who fol-
low the Umbrian summer routes. kair
or house usually in the larger Lancashire
towns, such as Wigan, Bolton, Preston,
Blackburn, Colne, Lancaster and Ulver-
ston, and though the beer mug travels
gaily among them during this period
they are generally liked and often re-
spected in the neighborhood of their hab-
itations.
Again, in Yorkshire, away from its
manufacturing towns. the gypsies have
well-detined routes of travel, and are
never scourged or chased by the constab-
ulary as they are in the midland sbires.
II,
Smiths observation. In Wharfedale, in
the vicinity of Ilkley, are many families
OF respectable gyDsies. Up about North
allerton they are the only countryside
peddlers and tinkers, and do much in the
way of buying and selling horses and
other live stock. In Lincolnshire and
Nottlnghamshlre from Grimsby to Trent,
and particularly about Nottingham and
Hucknall-Torkard,a are very many pros
porous gypsles. whose families can be
traced nearly as far back as some of the
nobility, and often with quite as fayora-
BILE results. In the county of Norfolk 1
have passed some of the most delightful
days OF my life as the guest of gypsy fam
lilies, who, making summer house boats
OF large punts, provide the hosts of sports
men that annually resort to the ''Broads''
or marshy lakes, with wicker baskets
and bait, and often act as guides to the
most desirable fishing and hunting
grounds.
In all the west and southwest OF Eng
land the gypsies are welcomed and
treated most generously. In Cornwall
they are generally called 'vagrom men,
as the sturdy Cornish folk class all per-
sons, even to commercial travellers, lit
erary tramps and tourists, who, for any
reason, wander from place to place, while
IN wales simpler. more eunsophisticated,
kinder hearted people do not live than
y III.
They never leave Wales, and thew are as
much an integral part of the concrete So
cal structure as are the Welsh peasantry
themselves.
The difference between British gypsies
and American gypsieS is astonishing But
after all it is only difference of condi-
ton. The evolution of our gypSies from
ignorance and degradation to opulence,
intelligence and some considerable educa-
tlonal acumen, IS simply the result of lib
Grafton from hard and often grinding
life here, which, anywhere, fosters the
worst OF human traits, precisely as Brit
ish lowly, transplanted from life battle
Tor mere existence, shortly become with
us men and women often of competence
and frequently of culture.
The British lowly are hard to get along
with anywhere in Ireland, Scotland and
England, because they suffer sorely from
grinding labor, and, to us, almost incon-
celvable poverty. British gypsies, like
their Gorgio-brethren, are degraded and
bestial just in proportion to their degree
of poverty. The same family which phil
anthropist Smith finds shivering under
rotten sheet by the English hedge, with,
herhaps, not even a skinny hedgehog for
the Sunday dinner, transferred to Ameri-
ca, nevermore is found among lawbreak-
ers, and in ten years. time becomes one
OF the vast army of ever welcomed mid
dlemen between American farmers and
metropolitan live stock markets, riding
from hamlet to hamlet in wagons like
palaces and literally eating their ample
food from plates of FURNISHED silver.
EDGAR l.. WAKEMAN.
Mean.
To the large number of stories of sstba