Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-11
GIPSIES OF LONDON.
An Entertaining Sketch of the
NomadS of Old England.
HABITS AND CHARACTERISTICS.
The Right Side of Queer Glass Exposed to
the Public.
THEY'RE WANDERERS BUT NOT OILERS
HABITS AND CHARACTERISTICS.
THEY'RE WANDERERS BUT NOT OILERS
WRITTEN FOR THE D1sPArcH.l

tnlng lne2presslUly pdtuctlc III buc uHNary-
Ing good humor and kind-heartedness o.
English gipsies when their hard and bitter,
though self-chosen mode OF life is consid-
cred. And this is nowhere on earth made
so plain and emphatic as when you find
them in and about London, all the bright
ness of the summer roads and lanes but q
memory, and the cruel deprivations of win
ter-generally winters battle for exist
ence with 100000 other lowly-staring
them squarely in their stoical face.
Crafty, weary. hard, UNIV orthy vagabond
though you deem him, as be confronts you
and mankind in this battle for life and
those he loves, he truly has another side, a
CHEEKY, good and manly one, too, that with
out one iota of the prompting to which all
modern society stands indebted, often glows
with kindness. generosity, helpfulness,
good cheer and a spirit of positive lowell
ness
An ugly word is never heard in gipsy
camp or band. A selfish act is never seen.
The eternal goading of a mean woman, the
brutal obscenity of bad man, the hateful
iealousies of neighbors, the contemplate
rivaIries of pretended friends, each and all
are as unknown as poison in the pure air of
heaven they breathe in tent or upon the
road.
There are undoubtedly hundreds of locali-
ties which may be termed Gypsy ground"
In London and its far-reaching suburbs. L
have visited nearly three score of these
places within the past few years. In some
instances they are in the most densely and
forlornly populated sections of the me-
tropolis. Acquaintance and confidence soon
brought me to many of these almost un-
known gypsy and coster communities in the
very heart of London.
A Great Resort of the Glass.
Two of them are very interesting and his
toric. If you were wandering about Lon
don up Holborn way and should come to
ancient FurnivaIs Inn, you might note that
its decrepit back hangs over the entrance to
a narrow lane. This is Leather Lane.
Scarcely wide enough beneath the back
windows of Furnival's Inn to permit the
entrance of donkey and cart, it gradually
widens towards Theobold's Row, and to the
east and west is itself entered by almost
numberless closes and courts No casual
frequenter of Holborn would notice it, but
the locality is one of the densest in London
in point of population. Among the thou
sands of lowly humans living here, are
fully 500 oostermongers, and in the winter
time half as many gipsies. The great re-
sort of all these folk is the Leather Bot
tle," public house within the shadowy
precinct.
There are many odd places and studies
here. The former class rather pride them
selves on their utter recklessness in the
matter of gambling, carousing and drinking.
While they live in entire harmony with
their Romany friends and possess a certain
respect for their winter companions which
permits of no trifing, it was easy to see that
from the coster standpoint of ethics the
tawny folk are not considered fairly pro-
gressive. They are too quiet. They attend
closely to work and minimize the i'll effects
of poverty in London.
Most of the gipsies in this locality live
from q half dozen to q score in room.
They possess the scantiest array of house
hold utensils Their native ability to make
the most of little enables them to patch up
q few seats and they sleep comfortably and
cheerily packed together like herrings.
Some of their abodes are wretched beyond
description to one who is unable to compre-
hend their own gladness at getting on at all.
They work hard and long, being first at the
great markets and last to leave the streets.
Handbsrrows are used by most of these.
daughters all share in the severe work of
pushing the barrow or cart. Many will
tower 20 and 80 miles day in their rounds
All Do Something to Live.
The little ones left at home work on bas-
kets, color leaves and wild grasses of which
they have brought in a supply of material
from their summer wanderings, and which
are sold to the lowly for mantei ornaments,
l.. l. %el-1 g., Ill
do something and earn something. If there
is loss in one days trade, they work the
harder the next. All thus keep from star
vstion, which is more than many who are
cot heathens can do in London; and some
sven get through the hard, wet, foggy,
sleety, bone-wringing winter with their
lives and few shillings to the good.
1t was in one of these innermost recesses
that some Of my gypsy friends had their
habitation, and it is certain that no more
curious dwelling place and disposition of
home belongings were ever seen. About
half way from Furnival's inn to Theobold's
Row, a narrow, dingy court, above which q
strip of sky could barely be seen, wriggled
100 feet or more to the east. To the right
and left the ramshackle yet stout old house
fronts seemed pitching at each other threat
eningly. From the noisome pavement to
the strip of sky it seemed as though hun
dreds of humans were constantly in state
of existence on trembling balconies and
tottering window-silIs. The density of half
fed life behind these raven like beings
clinging 20 the outer walls must have been
terrible.
The dark court narrowed at the end COM
Ing to sudden stop against black dead
wall, which rose 80 or 40 feet above the
pavement as if to shut out the desperate
poverty of Leather Lane from some better
Enclosure. Here at the end of this court
against the dead wall my gipsy friends had
practically encamped by a system of more
than partial suspension. Some 25 feet from
the ground a mass of patched bits of sail
cloth and blankets formed the only roof.
Ingeniously braced bits of wood-hotsam
and jetsam from the markets and the
Thames-made three intervening stories, or
floors, between the tapping roof and the
pavement of the court, all of which were
open to the weather and Leather Lane way,
save where rags and other sieve-like
blankets and sail cloth answered the place
of curtaining
How the Donkey Is Housed.
These stories or floors were about six feet
square, except the lower or pavement story
which was as long as the prowess of the
gipsies could make it against the hordes of
the sitting court. An aperture had been
made in the dead wall, which, with few
brlok and little mud mortar, provided
capital chimney piece. The draught was
perfect There was a good deal of comfort,
too, shout this extraordinary freside. The
cart was ''whortled," that is, turned bot
tomside upwards for table. A shelf-like
piece of timber had been fastened against
one side wall for lounging bunk and
bench. A ladder ran from this along the