The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-28
WAKEMAN'S WANDERTNCS,
Interesting Facts About the Rise Of
the British Gypsy.

ROAD, he Is becoming, In Small
Way, a Man of Affairs-Some of
His Profitable Callings-Wakeman
Contends That the Evolution of His
Gypsy Friends is Surely Progress
ing Through Vocation, Broadening
Opportunities and the Humaniza-
ton of Material Betterment.
(Copyright)
London, May l5.-The last quarter of
century has wrought a wonderful change
for the better with a majority of all
British gypsies who have been content to
remain in their own land. In 1867, while
in England, had means of knowing from
personal observation that almost universal
soualor and wretchedness was character
isticof Irish and English, and particularly
of London, gypsies. No one can make Of
a gypsy anything but a gypsy; but a
generation of change here has effected a
more marked advancement in rugged
sort of prosperity 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
clothing upon him and made him a man of
affairs but, something as with the desti-
tute Italians who have landed upon
American shores, who we directly find as
bawkers, willing laborers, restaurant
keepers, newsboys, bootblaclxs, controllers
of retail and wholesale fruit and nut
trades and on the high road to prosperity,
because they are quick witted and willing
10 labor-the British gypsy 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 and heart.
With the race characteristics of these
folk will require many genera tions in
which to undergo radical change, their
conditions and environment are in the
main entirely different from those in
which Crabbe, Hoyland, Borrow and
SimsOn found them and of which they
wrote. In other words, there is TODAY
little or nothing in book literature
altogether true of British gypsies. Of
the four standard authors named, Bor-
row was the most romantic Simson the
most ineXorably true. Yet both write of
a time and merripen or gypsy life
which, with few exceptions, has wholly
passed away. These exceptions comprise
the poorest English and Scottish gypsies
of to-day; some families in the north of
England whose members have con-
tinued almost literally the old form of
wandering life by the roadside-the tink-
ering, the dickering, the dukkering for
tune-telling and often the tiny sales of i'm
perfect delft and tinware, content with a
''whummeledn or upturned cart for
roof in summer, and any sort of a town
tenement in winter; the tiny, struggling
bands in Devonshire and Cornwall, where
there has been little change in all social
conditions for the past fifty years; a few
remaining gypsies of Perthshire, Aber-
deenshire and the highland districts of
Scotland; and gypsies of Wales, where is
found the most primitive and idyllic form
OF gypsy life yet remaining in Britain.
The Welsh gypsies rarely leave Wales
All Welsh people are fond of them: and
they are almost as much an integral part
OF the concrete rural social structure as
are the Welsh people themselves.
The fact is that British gypsies, as well
as our American gypsies, hundreds of
whom | could name who are worth from
$4,000 to 100000 in landed property,
have, during she past quarter of a cent
urX, developed a remarkable ability for
certain lowly kinds of trade. These have
been a natural outgrowth, in most in
stances, of the petty wayside dickering
Of less fortunate times, but they are still
pursuits requiring the exercise of good
thrift and Judgment and of a genuine
prooity that make the gypsy middleman
welcome both where occasional credit is
necessary, and among his countryside
customers In the main they are van
dWeilCrS in the summer time, as with u.s.
travelling certain well-defined routes and
purveying in villages and even in the out
skirts of towns and cities, articles whose
annual aggregate value mount to a stu
pendous sum
Their cavalcades at the outset may
comprise one or more vans. These are,
6rltiy described, tiny houses upon wheels.
They are drawn by donkeys, or often by
broken down city tram horses which the
gFpsics set in the cities for a song, and
which with care are finally transformed
INTO excellent cattle. Following these
may be three or four, or half Dozen
little donkeys carts after the fashion of
lhe costermongers' city carts. These
VIII hold the real resources of the band
AN examination of the latter would reveal
almost enough material in quantity, GER
family enough in variety, to stock little
country store
This stock in trade has not been picked
up at random. In the London White
chapel district there are great store
houses OF travellers goods" Their own
ers, who | find include wealthy gypsies,
could not continue in business without
the gypsies trade. The goods handled
are somewhat similar to our American
bargain counter odds and ends, espe-
clallY IN tinware and metal goods, hard
ware, crockery, cheap oilcloths and
household nicknacks, with the coarsest
beads and gilded iewelry. 1t would be
revelation to ordinary English tradesmen
TO realize the enormous quantities of stuff
annually disposed of in this manner
throughout England, Scotland and Wales,
ana the integrity of these gypsy wander
efs where they ask and receive credit for
tnelr supplies, as they often do. Smaller
travellers goods stores may be found
near the Bull Ring in Birmingham, where
cafJS may be retilled in the lazy journey
lngS but small shipments from time to
lllne are forwarded by rail from London.
nave friends in the fruit and nut trade
III the Drury Lane quarters of London,
VINO have supplied gypsies in all parts of
ynt provinces for the past twenty years.
nan OF this trade is done on credit, and
Ihe irulterers all inform me they have
never lost penny at the hands of their
thousand of gypsy small customers. All
!hese goods, fruits and nuts, are hawked
IN little villages and sold at fairs and on
market days. Indeed the English country
lar OF today would lose all its pict-
uresqueness and most of its attractions for
younger people were the petty gypsy
OooGhs and gypsy showmen withdrawn
ABOUT the middle of the century when
yne British rural police act, which was
HlrecJed against gypsies and all wander
ing folk of the road, came in force, we
Los,