Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1893-06-03
NEW HAVEN, CONN, SATURDAY MORNING, JUNE 3. 1893

ing words of an unknown tongue which
surely held the modulation and accent of
prayer, this lost heathen princess sobbed
herself asleep.
1t would be o long, and even Q romantic
story, how this gipsy girl was found at our
home by q gypsy lad the next morning;
how the lad and lass disappeared hand In
hand like ragged silhouettes over the snow.
capped hills about our valley farm; how
when soldier-boy I came upon the two,
teeth of war as Hood was making his
brave but fstaful winter march upon Nash
Vile, just ten years after the stormy
Thanksgiving time, and at then dree 1ful
risk sst them on their way to gipsy friends
In the north; how but . few years latsr
still again found them, this time In q
great gipsy camp where the annual May
day meetings and partings were going on,
and where, for what little I and mine had
done, this same gipsy- girl, now queen of
her tribe, made my merits, through her
gratitude, so great to her people and re,s.
that In all lands and places since, three
magic wolds have unlocked house, tent
and heart of sll gipsydom; but It has
brought me to see and fcal almost with
gipsy eyes and mind, and to know that
there Is truly an impressive reality even In
gipsy royalty in rags.
The accepted notion about gipsy "kings"
and "queens" Is that Of the stage and sto-
ry-book gypsy, carrying q witch-crook,
striding great strides, dressed In gsudy
hnery, wearing tin crown and bedecked
with Brummagen> beads and rings, who
endlessly speaks In a voice of suppressed
basso and who ''Thees!" "ThouslH i'HosP'
'Hssl" and "Avauntsl" trembling sub
jects until their joints are loose in their
sockets and the campfire pots rattle and
clink In the crooks of the iron kettle
sticks. Perphsps something of this sort
was in vogue few hundred years ago.
The history of gipsy tribes in Continental
Europe shows that gtpsy kings" I"
"princes, "earls, t'dukes" and those of
lesser title roamsd about, under license of
potentates. with retinues and cavalcades
that would have done honor to truly titled
folk of the time. But all this sort of
thing lie now alone found in the shilling
| shocker and penny dreadful wilds OF lite
rature. There was up to the last century
some genuine royal gipsy psgesntry among
the larger wandering British tribes. This
was characteristic of Scottish more than
of English gipsies. The record of the
royal doings of the latter Ia indeed lumi-
nous and unique
In the early part of the sixteenth CEN
tury Anthonius Gawino, earl of Little
Egypt, was 80 consumately shrewd In car
rying out his assumption of pilgrimage
and of being under commands of the pope
to wander seven years without sleeping In
bed, that he actually secured the counte-
nance, If not the favor, of James ".
This Anthonius Gswino seemed to be a
diplomat by nature. He inveigled King
James into giving him a very strong and
sympathetic letter to his uncle, the king of
IL sr,r ~, -g-f l. Il
vagabond followers are spoken of as "An-
| thonius Gswino, earl of Little Egypt, and
the other afflicted and lementable tribe of
his retinue, whilst, through q desire Of
| travelling and by command of the pope,
pilgriming over the Christian world, !" etc :,
| which shows that their imposition upon
| the melancholy Scottish king WAS com
| plete, whether or not his testimonial ever
benefited them iu Denmark.
| Until nearly a hslf-century after this,
| although the gipsies had already become
troublesome, their true character had not
| been discovered. James ", shortly be-
fore his death In 1910, entered into q
| league with "John Faw, lord and earl of
Little Egypt" directing all in authority in
his realm to compel the return to Faw's
submission all those Egyptians who had
| rebelled against him, and that all officers
should assist in OBTAINING and Furnishing
those people sin conformity with his
laws" 80 that, as the edict read, "the said
John have no cause for complaint there
| upon in time coming This e1iot further
charged all officers of the realm to com
| mand masters of all ships at ports and ha
vens where the said John and his compsn,
might come to receive them, aud, on eI
penses being paid. to convey them Il
| their own country.
This was only a shrewd bit of msneu
veripg on the part of King Faw, who
being pressed to take himself and tribe on
of the country, preterded to his followers
rebellion against him, and secured thii
unique edict In his favor to give color o.
necessity to prolonging his and his peo
shrewdness stamped the genuine gipsy
upon his character, was the progenitor oi
the many tribes of Faws, Fsss or Falls
who with the Baillies (formerly Bsilyows
the present gipsy Baileys of Americs)
have been the most numerous and noted
of Scottish gipsies, and whose descend
| ants, as Faws and Falls, l have found II
respectable numbers and condition
throughout the United States.
The most noted royal gipsies of Scot
land were King Anthonius GsNlno, prevl
ously referred to, the Bailyovs, sfterward
the Bsillies, and old King John Faw
| Many members of the Faa family have al
tanned wealth and political preferment Il
Scotland. The once wealthy Fslls, mer
chants of Dunbar, are gipsiss. One of th
Falls became a colonel in the British army
Another served a term in parliament
Hosts have been and are under-sheTiffs sn
bsiliffs. Lady Austruther, wife of tn
late Sir John Anstruther, of Ellie, wa
Jenny Fas, q gypsy woman of great wi
| and beauty. These Falls or Faas, of Dan
bar, are also connected by marriage Wit
the great banking family of Coutts, wide
| ly known in America through the frequsn
social intelligence concerning the note
Baroness Burdetts Coutts. While the Gel
ebrated poem, 1.-THE Gipsy LAddie," con
memorstes the abduction by the then giI
sy king, John Faa, in 1913, of Lady Casil
lis, wife of the Earl of Cssillis, "A sulle
and ill-tempered man, more given to theo
ogy than to ilks-dsy goodness" who wa
absent on q deputstion to ratify the so
emn league and covenant of that year &
| Westminster.
I This noted line of British gypsy royslt
= still exists in direct descent In the perso
' of the most hopeless outcsst of all out
casts, su outcast gypsy, whose sequaintane
have the honor to possess; although th
same Is esteemed almost q dishonor froI
y even q gypsy point of view; and the sam
o royal line, in distributed strains, is Ell
proudly recognized in nearly seventy fam
; files or tribes personally know In Ens
d land, Scotland and America. All the:
d tribes hold to the right of succession with
in their separate tiny kingdoms of popl
lation rather than territory with the Fam
> tenacity and sacred inviolsbillty as an
y European monsrchial dynasty. Whel
d the line becomes extinct, which seldom o.
/. cure, 1t is nearly always reintroduced
marriage with members of other trib'
where the hereditary line is superabul
n dant In instances where ID Ia permitte
: to become and remain extinct q king
~ queen, or both, are always chosen by pol
ulsr election. In nearly sll such cases Il
u sovereign is selected from a family po
,s sessing the next req uisite to royal blood
II age without taint of crime. Thus 1t vi
ia be seen that both British snd Americs
y gipsies, while purely comuunistio in act
~ 81 application of tribal government, a
E. among the most exacting of all strict
ls monsrchial people in holding to the pri
I oiple of royal heredity.
The climax of visible British gypsy TO
'r atty was undoubtedly reached at ancie
lg Kirk Yetholm, just across the English be
g. der, among the Cheyiot hills, at about q
h middle of the present century. At {
death, at Kirk Yetholm in 1847, of &
D. king of all the Scottieh and msny of {
Or EnRlish gipsies. William Fss, or "Au
m Wull Fss," as he was familiarly know
they mustered from Yetholm and its Ii
% mediate nsighborhood five hundred gipsi
IL and three hundred asses as an escort