The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-01-31
THE GYPSY REVIVALIST.
Son of Romany Race Converts 1880
in Chicago-Defends His People.

When Gypsy Smith came to Chicago
a fortnight ago he faced an audience
cold and critical, impelled chiefly by
curiosity to leave their homes and hear.
what message this son of the Rolrany
race could have for America. When
he left the stage of the auditorium last
night he had by the force of his person
atty and the magnetic enthusiasm of
his manner demonstrated his power TO
hold and sway vast bodies of men.
AS a tangible result of his two weeks
stay in Chicago it was announced at the
auditorium meeting that $500 CONVEX
sions had been registered. Rev DR..
Fox, of the California Avenue Congre-
gational church, who made the an
nouncement, asserted that this does no.
represent all who have been touched by
the unique revival
The final meeting held by the British
gypsy was not a revival service. 1t was
recital and an appeal. 1t was a re-
cital of the conditions in which his pes
pie, the gypsies, live and an appeal that
money and men be provided for their
conversion.
Not a seat was available in the great
auditorium when the evangelist rose TO
speak A popular price admission fee
had been charged, the proceeds Of
which will be sent to the Federation of
Free Churches of England to be devoted
to missionary work among the gypsies
of Great Britain. 1t is estimated that
at least $4,000 was realized.
Those who had seen Gypsy Smith in
his ardent appeals night after night to
the people of Chicago know that he has
power, but they were not prepared cor
the range and versatility which he dis
played last night.
He was at home in speaking of his
own people, and his voice had the f1exi-
bility and expressive power of the
trained actor. Keen thrusts of wit al
Tor fod x4-ith 70 mt re Of
pathos, until his audience was divided
between laughter and tears.
He seemed equally at home in narra-
tive and in description, and when he
spoke of the appeal which nature has
for men of his blood the effect was not
vitiated by rhetorical pretense. The
note rang firm and true.
The picture which he gave of the
gypsy in his wanderings over the globe
last night had the charm of reality. 1t
was not clothed in sentimental veneer.
He pictured his virtues and his defects
with disinterested truthfulness. and the
picture was not one which he was
ashamed to present.
Your newspapers and your novelists
have libeled the gypsy he said. There
is only one writer in the British tongue
who has seized his character and rem
dered it with insight and fidelity, and
that writer is Theodore Watts Dunton.
I say to you would-be depicters of
gypsy life, come in a little nearer and
write. not what you think but what is
true. 1t would be worth knowing.
when 1 speak to you of my people
1 do not speak to you as one who is
ashamed of them One of the things 1
regret is that my people have been left
out of the great missionary movement.
What would you be in Chicago If
you had no education and no Bibles.
With them you have not much to boast
Of We gypsies have never had
chance.
In these conditions what can be al
legged against us as people? Listeni
In England a divorce among the gyp-
sizes is an unheard-of thing. Whatever
else in Gods world we do we must
honor and respect our women. 1t is
the atmosphere our young men breathe
in our tents.
Listen further!< I never heard of a
gypsy murder. 1 never heard of a
gypsy breaking into a bank, and they
don't put their hands into other peo-
PIES pockets on a cold day to keep
them warm. You never heard of
gypsy falling for a few thousand, did
you, or of a gypsy robbing widows and
orphans?"
The speaker paused and shook his
long, lean finger at the audience.
III, but you say the gypsies steal