Morning journal and courier., 1893-05-27
wAKEmAN,s wANDERINGs.

Rise OF the British Gipsy-Whtle Not
Wholly Forsaking tho Road, He Is
Becoming, in q Small Way, a Man
OF AGairs-Some of His Profitable
Callings-Wakeman Contends That
the Evolution of His Gipsy Friends
is Surely Progressing Through Vo-
cation, Broadening Opportunities
and the Humanizatfon of Material
Betterment.
LONDON, May 10.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
The last quarter cf a century has
wrought wonderful change for the better
with q majority of all British gipsies who
land. In 1857, while in England, I had
means of knowing from personal observa-
tion that almost universal squalor and
wretchedness was characteristic of Irish
and English, and particularly Of London,
gipsies. No one can make of a gypsy any
thing but q gipsy; but a generation of
change here has effected a more marked
advancement In q rugged sort of prosperi-
ty with this than with any other lowly
class
1t has not seized the gypsy bodily and in
a moment. or year, or a decade, put fne
clothing upon him and made him a man of
sffairP; but, something as with the desti-
tute Italians who have landed upon Amer
lean shores, who we directly And as hawk
ers, willing laborers, restaurant keepers,
newsboys, boosblacks, controllers of retail
and Wholesale fruit and nut trades, and on
the high road to prosperity, because they
are quick wittsd and willing to labo1-the
British gipsy has found, along with old
makeshifts for livelihood, many new
though rude occupations and means of
getting on in the world, all after his own
mind aud heart.
With the race charscteristics of these
folk will require many generations In which
to undergo radical change, their conditions
and environment are in the main entirely
different from those In which Crabbs,
Hoyland, Borrow and Slmson found them
and of which they wrote. In other words,
there is to-day little or nothing in book
literature altogether true of British gip-
sies. OF the four standard authors named,
Borrow WAS the most romantic; Simson
the most insXorably true. Yet both write
of time and q merripen on eipsy life
which, with few exceptions, has wholly
passed away These exceptions comprise
the poorest English and Scottish gipsies of
to-day; some families in the north of
England whose members have continued
almost literally the old form of wandering
life by the roadside-the tinkering, the
dickering, the dukkering or fortune-telling
and often the tiny sales of imperfect delft
and tnware, content with "wbummeled'
or up-turned cart for . roof in summer,
| and any sort of town tenement in win
| ter; the tiny, struggling bands in Devon
shire and Cornw wall, where there has been
| little change in all social conditions for
| the past Fifty years; the few remaining
pipsies of Perthshire, Aberdeenshirs and
| the Highland districts of Scotland; and
| the gipsies of Wales, where Ia found the
| most primitive and idyllic form Of gipsy
i life yet remaining In Britain. The Welsh
gipsies rarely leave Wales. All Welsh
people are fond of them; and they are al
/ most ss much an integral part of the osn-
/ crete rural social structure as are the
| Welsh people themselves
The fact Ia that British gipsies, as well
a. our American gipsies, hundreds Of
whom could name who are worth from
twenty to one hundred thousand dollars In
landed property, have, during the past
quarter of century, developed q remark
Able ability for certain lowly kinds OF
trade. These have been q natural out
Growth. in most instances, of the petty
Wayside dickering of less fortunate times,
but they are still pursuits requiring the
exercise of good thrift and Judgment and
of q genuine probity that make the gipsy
middlsman welcome both where occasions
credit is necessary, and among his country
aide customers. In the main they are van
dwellsrs, in the summer time, as with rs
travelling oertain well-defned routes ani
4 purveying In villages and even in the out
skirts of towns and cities, articles who's
annual aggregate value mount to stupsn
| dous sum.
Their eavalcades ct the outset may com
prise one or more vans. These are, brief,
| described, tiny houses upon wheels. The.
are drawn by donkeys, or often By broker