Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-28

| teroQ IIOm rOuuQ ABOUT over wv S0uls
and 800 asses to escort the remains of their
| Coldstream to the burying ground at Kirk
Yetholm. It was here, too, that my late
friend, the brightest, the wittiest and most
sensible Gipsy woman that ever lived,
Queen Esther Fas, reigned so long, 30 wise
| " and so wel1.
These Yetholm, as well as all other Scott
ish drom or road Gipsies, chiefly subsist by
hawking earthen, tin and white ironware,
horn spoons, "scrubbers" and "besoms, !"
the latter sort of willow broom, about the
country, They travel as far into England
| as Newcastle and Staffordshire for the earth
| enware, buying faulty pottery cheaply, and
selling the same at good profit The re-
mainder OF their ware they make in a rude
way among themselves, the women being
quite as adept as the men. Some drive asses
before their little carts, but more possess
the hardy "Sheltie" or Shetland pony. For
their own shelter at night their carts are
"whummel'd" or "whomeld," that is,
turned upside down.
England's Lowiy Folk Prosper.
Generally speaking, the Gipsies of En-
gland are comfortable Gipsies in proportion
to the distance they make their haunts
from the great centers of population. The
same is measurabdy true of all other English
lowly folk. The Gipsy class, which also
includes all manner Of travelling and tramp
ing non-Gipsy vagabonds, the radical i'm
provement of whose condition has become
the heroic work of George Smith, Of Coal
vile, never pilgrim far from London, Bris-
tol, Birmingham, Manchester and Liver
pool Their members sally out from these
cities and forage around them in
well defined circles, going and coming as
fad hx,; o,,1o
by necessity. They are Bedouins Of civili-
cation, indeed, and their reformation or ex-
tirpation would prove a public good. My
own observation and experiences have been
almost wholly among another and better
class, and the latter are more like our Ameri-
can Gipsies than any of the Romany in all
foreign lands.
Probably the most idyllic form of Gipsy
life yet remaining In England may be
found in Wales and the English lake dis
trlct OF Northern Lancashire, Westmore-
land and Cumberland. have been much
among the Statesmen" or land-owning
peasantry Of the latter region. as well as
with the Gipsies there. Perhaps I have
questioned 900 small farmers and others as
to the Gipsies' status among them. I have
never secured an answer unfavorable to the
nomads. On the contrary, much as is the
case in remote countryside districts in
America, the Gipsies' annual coming is
looked forward to with eagerness and de-
light; while the summer market day and the
little village fair would be shorn Of much of
their attractiveness were the Gipsy folk
absent. Nor could I learn in all this
romantic region of single act of downright
dishonesty on the part Of any Gipsy within
the memory of man.
They Travel in Defined Routes.
Again. in Yorkshire, away from its man.
ufaoturing towns, the Gipsies have we'll
defined routes of travel, and are never
scourged or chased by the constabulary
as they are in the midland shires, where
they have chiefly come under Mr.. Smiths
observation. In Wharfedale. in the vicin-
ity Of Ilkley, are many families of respect
able Gipsies. Up about Northallerton
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 Nottingham
shire, from Grimsby to Trent, and particu-
kard, are very manv prosperous Gipsies,
whose families can be traced nearly as far
back as some of the nobility, and often with
quite as favorable results.
In all the west and southwest of England
the Gipsies are welcomed and treated most
generously. In Cornwall they are gen.
orally called "vagrom men," as the sturdy
Cornish folk class all persons, even to COM
mercial travellers, literary tramps and tour
SITS, who for any reason wander from place
to place; while in Wales simpler, more
unsophisticated, kinder hearted people do
not live than the Gipsies. All Welsh peo-
pie love them. They never leave Wales,
and they are as much an integral part Of
ho al e@r fha
Welsh peasantry themselves.
Evolution From Ignorance to Opulence.
The difference between British Gipsies
and American Glpsies Is astounding. But
after all it is only difference of condition.
The evolution of our Gipsies from ignorance
and degradation to opulence, intelligence
and some considerable educational acumen,
is simply the result of liberation from q
hard and often grinding life here, which
anywhere fosters the worst of human traits;
precisely as British lowly, transplanted
from life battle for 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 an, to us, almost incon-
oeivable poverty. British Gipsies, like
their Gorgio brethren, are degraded and
bestial just in proportion to their degree of
poverty. The same family which Philan-
thropist Smith finds shivering under rot
ten sheet by the English hedge, with per-
haps not even skinny hedgehog for the Sun
day dinner, transferred to America, never
more is found among lawbreakers, and in
ten years time becomes one of the vast
army of ever welcomed middlemen between
American farmers and metropolitan live
stock markets, riding from hamlet to ham,
let in wagons like palaces and literally eat
ing their ample food from plates of burn
ished silver. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.