FROM time out of mind to the present day, country fairs have been noteworthy resorts of gypsies of high or low estate. In this connection—without even a passing thought of disparaging Romany folk—one is irresistibly reminded of the passage:—

Wheresoever the body is, “thither will the eagles be gathered together.”

For fairs seem to possess a certain fascination for gypsies apart from their recognition of such institutions as opportunities for doing business. Horse-dealing is a line of business that is frequently adopted by those who have the necessary capital, and so well qualified are they as judges of horseflesh, and so expert do they become in the art of presenting an animal to a prospective purchaser so that it appears to possess all the points he desires, that “cute as a gypsy horse-dealer” might well become a standard aphorism.

Stalls and side shows in the hands of Romany proprietors who need no instruction in their particular style of oratory, and various forms of amusement are also offered by the “people of Egypt,” most of whose dusky daughters are adepts in the wiles that effect the transfer of coin of the realm.

At most gatherings of this nature will be found good Romany types, half-breeds and nondescripts, and it is a fact worthy of noting that usually one hears the best and fullest Romany spoken by the best types of the race, while the language of the half-and-half and mongrels is not infrequently fearful jargon combining Romany jib of a sort, slang and profanity, mixed in different proportions by different individuals, and used with scant regard to either grammar or propriety.

Perhaps one would not be surprised at this if the conditions under which their early life is passed be taken into consideration, for the low, nondescript wanderers—from whom the Romanies for the most part keep aloof—constitute an appreciable proportion of the entertainers at most fairs and the like, and provide a school for the apt pupils of the rising generation, in which they graduate in most of the unholy attainments of the class.

However, fairs change as does all else in a changing world. I recall a visit I paid to a fair in north Hertfordshire years ago, and a brief description of some of the units in its composition will be interesting in comparison with those of to-day. In this particular instance Romany folk were well represented, the women at the stalls and shooting galleries being as usual dressed in black; in their ears were gold earrings, and nearly all wore black hats having ostrich feather adornments. At one stall, presided over by a voluble “Egyptian,” was a large brass arrow pivoted at the centre, like the needle of a large compass; around this was ranged a tempting display of rock,—that sweetstuff beloved of the juvenile who could even eat it after he had “peeked” at the process of manufacture behind the van,—and this was disposed in such a manner that no matter in what direction the arrow pointed when it came to rest after being set spinning by the expectant youngster, the proprietress was always able to see that it pointed to a small piece of rock, so that the speculator received about the value of a farthing in return for his penny; but let us entertain the charitable supposition that this was done to create disgust for games of chance and suppress an incipient taste for gambling. “Yes, my dear,” I can imagine I now hear her saying, “it’s quite fair, we never cheat,—now, young man, have another try.”

Nowadays, these polished brass arrows are seldom or never seen on the stalls of sweet-stuff, for the law has looked into the matter.

At another part of the fair one might hear inspiriting music being ground out of a wheezy old organ by a one-legged performer, while hard by was a stall where small bundles of out-of-date magazines were offered at a penny or twopence the parcel. Somewhat in the rear of this stall stood a cheapjack who now and again essayed to revive the public curiosity by playing a concertina, banging a tea-tray or smashing a few plates. Further on was a man standing upon an upturned box, who was trying to persuade his small circle of hearers to believe that the only straightforward way of getting to heaven was by following the directions given in a little book,—a few copies of which he had considerately brought with him—for sale. Passing between the lines of sweetmeat, gingerbread and toy stalls, presided over principally by swarthy, black-haired women, a number of trifles, such as one would look for in vain to-day, might be seen; but the item which might now be considered as most distinctly marking a different age, was the small bundles of toy whips selling at one penny each, every whip containing enough real gutta-percha to make a golf ball and having a wooden whistle at the handle end.

Next came two women attired as Sisters of Mercy at a tiny stall, selling embroidered work for the benefit of some convent; prominent among their goods were men’s braces of such gorgeous colouring as would make a naked savage yearn for trousers in order that braces of such splendour might be adequately displayed.

Hard by was a thimble-rigger and exponent of the purse trick, but he too has been prohibited by law to pursue his unselfish profession, and probably the gentleman who stood at a stall close to him has ere this been obliged by statute to divert to some other channel his labours for the public good.

Along the shelf just above the man’s head were arranged glass jars of specimens in spirit. These were labelled in Latin, in order to impress the more the rustics, who were his best customers. The specimens, purporting to be of human origin, were in reality portions of domestic animals, carefully selected with a view to the particular organism simulated, all of which were described as having been extracted from human patients by means of the wonderful medicines offered by the proprietor, whose magnanimity—judging from his own statements—was phenomenal. One of the specimens of which I have a very distinct recollection, was stated to be an extraordinary tapeworm from a client, while it was actually the bleached intestine of a common fowl. Nevertheless this man did a roaring trade, a tribute to his “gift of the gab.”

Now and again would be heard the raucous voice of a disreputable-looking man who perambulated the fair, announcing that the “last dying speech and confession” of a malefactor, executed on the previous day at the county gaol, could be bought for one penny. Luckily, opportunities of this nature no longer occur. Gone, too, is the obliging individual who was so anxious to allow everyone to “prick the garter”; a short description of the procedure may therefore prove interesting:—

Firstly, the exponent produced a very long, narrow leather strap; this he doubled so as to form a loop end; he then set it upon edge on the ground and rolled up the remainder of the strap around it, making several other loops as he proceeded; then he invited bystanders to prick with a long metal pin which he provided the loop considered to be the doubling of the strap. A necessary condition was that the garter pricker put down any sum he pleased, and in event of the pin remaining caught in the loop when the strap was unwound by the demonstrator, he doubled the amount laid down, the total sum becoming the property of the garter pricker; on the other hand, if the strap came away entirely from the pin, then the amount staked passed over to the strap manipulator, who could work the trick so as to win or lose at will.

The period of which I write was that of the old “roundabouts.” Prior to the development of galloping powers by the wooden horses and the use of electric light, the naphtha lamps which illuminated the fair at night frequently blew out and they then added powerfully to the characteristic smell of the fair.

Such then is the kind of school in which many of the wanderers, whose parents obtain a livelihood at fairs, learn their early lessons; but to the credit of the Romanies it must be said that, as a rule, they have not taken part in such distinctly swindling concerns as thimble-rigging, purse trick and the like, these ventures being mostly conducted by the cockney element which finds its way to all large fairs; in fact, the only Romany concern which partook of this nature I can recollect, was the brass arrow on the stall of the woman who dispensed the celebrated “fair rock.”

Notwithstanding the innumerable inducements to adopt the ways of the gorgio house-dweller, tradesman, mechanic, sharper or swindler, the traditional life of the Romany has been proof against them; pricking the garter and thimble-rigging are of the past, the purse trickster and others of that ilk have had their day; but the same Romany types will be still found attending the same fairs, gaining a livelihood in practically the same manner as fifty years ago. They boast that their people will never die out,—an assertion that can, of course, be proved by time alone,—but it is certain that various writers, during the last hundred years, have spoken of them as a fast disappearing race, and have stated that they would become merged in, or absorbed by, the main population; it is to be feared, however, that those who could write in this strain, had not closely studied the people, for, as a matter of fact, there is scarcely greater reason to expect the Romanies to become extinct as a people, than that the Jews should lose their racial characteristics, while unbiassed investigation of the matter would seem to urge the opinion that the type will persist.

In this respect the gypsy must not for a moment be likened to the aboriginal Australian, or to the Red man, for while they are gradually but not the less surely being extinguished by the vices they have adopted from the white man, the gypsy adapts himself to circumstances to a certain extent but keeps more or less aloof from the “Gentile” and is in little danger of becoming so civilized—if we may so term it—as to lose in any degree his hold upon, or fidelity to, gypsydom, and down to the present time he has falsified predictions by declining to die off.

Most of the present-day fairs bring together a good sprinkling of the “people of Egypt,” as the gypsies at one time called themselves, and I have often met in my own locality some whom I have seen at similar gatherings in other parts of the country. At one anniversary of the local fair when a goodly number of my gorgio acquaintances happened to be present, a Romany girl espied me as I sauntered along between the stalls, and said as she slipped her arm through mine—

“Come along with me, my Rye; I’ll show you something to photo,” and to the evident astonishment of those of my friends whose conduct was regulated by Mrs. Grundy, I was escorted just out of the fair to where an old woman was seated beside a ditch.

“There!” exclaimed my dusky guide, “she’ll make a good photo; she ain’t long for this world, so you’d better get one now.”

Writing of fairs reminds me of an occasion when I looked up some Romany acquaintances on the evening preceding a fair. There was every prospect of a large gathering on the morrow, and quite a number of gypsy families were on the ground. Work was finished for the day and it was nearly dark as we sat around the fire. As we chatted mainly in Romany, the youngsters—who had not yet been disposed of for the night—evidently considered that their elders should not monopolize the conversation and therefore kept up a running fire of questions, partly with the hope that they might catch me tripping:—

“What’s a bokkra?”

“What are chokkars?”

“What’s tuv?”

“He dunno what mullo mas is, I sh’ think.”

“Do you know what a juggal is, my Rye?”

“I say, what’s a gav mush?”

“Tell us what a baulo is.”

“You don’t know what a hotchi is, do you?”

And so on until one of the women was obliged to quiet them in order that she might be heard.

“Lor’,” said she, “I could do with a hotchi (hedgehog) to-night, couldn’t you, Rye? But p’r’aps you ain’t never tasted one.”

Here, a merry, laughing girl with a mischievous twinkle in her eye interposed, saying:—

“Let me tell you how to cook ’em.

” ... first of all you pull off all the prickles one at a time with the pincers——”

“Don’t you take no notice o’ her,” broke in her sister; “she’s a-gettin’ at you; we don’t do nothin’ o’ the sort, we allus takes ’em to the nearest barber’s and gets ’em shaved.”

Good-natured banter of this description constituted a fair proportion of the talk that evening, although now and again conversation would take a more serious turn. Meanwhile, one of the little ones had fallen asleep in his mother’s arms, and she now proceeded to put him to bed; however, he awoke during the process and as I stood at the caravan door he suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, called out to me, “Goo’ night, mush,” then as suddenly snuggled down to sleep.

When the woman returned to the fireside, she showed me a Bible, which, she told me, she had carried about in the van for over twenty years, but could not read a word of it. She also produced a book entitled “The Traveller’s Guide,” a work issued by a colportage association; this was, of course, equally useless to her unless some one could be found who would read to her.

“If anybody starts readin’ to her,” said another of the company, “he’ll get tired of the job before she’s done enough listenin’; why, she’d stay up all night to have a book read to her.”

In connection with the reading of written or printed matter to gypsies, a curious fact has many times come under my notice:—

Those who are unable to read see nothing extraordinary in the possibility of recording, by means of written or printed characters, all the sounds of the English language; but that one should be able to write anything that may be spoken in the Romany tongue, and afterwards to read it so as to reproduce the original speech, nearly always occasions surprise.

I have often jotted down jingles, verses or quaint sayings by the simple method of phonetic spelling, and when, somewhat later, I have read aloud what I had written, considerable surprise has been evinced.

“Ain’t it wonderful he can set it down in Romany,” says one who is unable to spell even her own name.

A tolerably sharp ear and a good memory are needed to catch and record many of the verses one hears, for gypsies generally speak rapidly, and their rhymes and sayings are sometimes in poggado jib, a strangely mixed or broken language that requires much practice to ensure fluency.

The following may be considered a good example of this jargon, which is neither good Romany nor English:—

It is unnecessary to render this jingle into English, but it serves to convey the sound of this curious language, for I have recorded it phonetically, exactly as spoken, and in common with much of the verse beloved of the bedouin Arab this specimen is more forcible than elegant.

During the same evening I heard a girl recite a rhyme which must be very old; it has been printed many times, and is fairly well known to the student of Romany; nevertheless, one seldom hears it at the present day and I was pleased to know it had not been lost, as many old gypsy verses have been. The words were as follows and they differ in one respect only from those which have been printed, the last word being pronounced cosh, not cost:—

In this, the real significance of the questions lies, not so much in their literal meaning as in their idiomatic interpretation; instead of the questions being simply—

a gypsy would understand them to signify—

... Are you a master of the Romany tongue?

Can you hold your own in a lav-chingaripen, or argument, in that language?

... Are you a master of the fiddle?

... Are you man enough to “face the music,” hear your sentence and do your bit without flinching?

... Are you qualified to earn your living as a gypsy? For if you cannot in one way or another “chin the cosh” to some purpose, on occasion, then you will never be successful on the road.

The Romany tongue being no exception to the rule that idioms are one of the principal stumbling blocks to students of languages other than their own.

Around us, about the fair ground, weird lights now glimmered, moved and disappeared, appeared again, wandered and went out, fires here and there flared up for a minute, died down, flickered and left a glow which dimly illuminated in an eerie fashion caravan, framework, and the jumble of preparation for the morrow’s business.

Now and again some one threaded his way in the uncertain light, a man stumbled over a peg in the shadow near me and relieved his feelings in the customary manner; one of the party around our dying fire remarked that “old Noah had got ’em again,” another, who seemed to have a philosophy and a code of ethics of her own, sagely observed:—

“Swear words was sent for our use, and what I says is,—a man or woman as swears and don’t mean nothin’ by it, will be forgiven, but not a person as tells a lie.”

Here, it may be well to point out, that by gypsies it is often considered permissible, if not praiseworthy, to tell lies of all sorts and sizes to a gorgio, but a gypsy who tells a “whopper” to his own folk is “an out-and-out bad ’un.”

At one period in our history it was considered to be right and proper for all gentlemen to curse and swear, and to make use of every description of curious or picturesquely worded blasphemy; to-day, the prevalent conception of what constitutes a gentleman taboos profanity in any guise, but an incident I recollect which is relevant to the subject must certainly not go unrecorded:—

An old woman told a friend of mine that she did like to hear her son swear, as he “always swore so hearty it did her real good.” Probably, every one will not be able to view the matter in the same light.

On that night before the fair I renewed acquaintance with a number of gypsies whom I had last seen in the strawberry country, and much was talked of that related to happenings since that date and our mutual arrangements for meeting again in the hop gardens, a relation of which would be wearisome to the general reader, but the following snatches of conversation and jottings from my notebook of this date are not devoid of interest as they cast a sort of side-light on the character of the Romanies:—

... The words “dear” and “dearie” are frequently used,—“take that dear little bird in, it’s getting cold” (referring to a caged gold-finch, hanging outside caravan).

... “Yes, it’s dreadful to think of the dear little children wanting food” (referring to German atrocities in Belgium).

... “You go and witch yourself,” said a girl to an older relative, during a brief display of temper; the woman to whom this was addressed, turned to me and observed:—

“Ain’t that a dreadful thing to say to anybody, eh, Rye? She’s a devil, she is.”

... Upon seeing a photograph of girls boxing, a woman remarked:—

“No, I don’t like to see women boxing, it’s too much like men. Women should be women, and men should be men, I think.”

... “Yes, if I had more money I should buy a bicycle. I know where there’s a good secondhand one I can buy for seven-and-six, but I can’t afford it.”

... “I reckon some of the newspapers make a lot o’ money, why I heard this morning of a man as buys four newspapers a day!”

The sound of the distant church clock striking the hour of ten was the signal for parting salutations.

“Kushti rarde!”

“Kushti rarde, my Rye!”

A quarter of an hour later and not a sound broke the silence of the fair ground,—a lull before the storm,—for on the morrow all would be bustle and noise and other evidence of a determination to “make good” while the opportunity lasted.

On the morning after the fair, by ten o’clock, no vestige of caravan, tent or gypsy was to be seen,—otherwise, additional rent would have been charged,—scarcely a sign was visible of the numerous fires that had been there on the previous night, for most of these had been made in large iron baskets, cylindrical iron containers some three feet or so in height, or similar receptacles, in order that the fire should not be in actual contact with the herbage, or a fine for burning the grass would have been added to the rent for the ground; one fire I had noticed was in a galvanized bath raised upon bricks from the ground.

The caravans, or as the gypsies frequently term them, living wagons, are most interesting structures; they vary greatly in design, build and fittings, and may cost anything between a few pounds and several hundreds. Some of the travelling showmen appear to spare no expense in the general “get up” of their homes, and while a liking for a kind of barbaric splendour is not uncommon, the interior fittings of a few of the best class of these portable houses are elaborate and costly, if not exactly palatial, and it must be conceded to the gypsy,—well-to-do or otherwise,—that in constructing his house on the common-sense lines which are the outcome of experience he succeeds in solving the problem of a house on wheels that will fulfil all reasonable, or even extraordinary demands, far better than do the designers of some of the touring vans one occasionally sees.

In bygone times, donkey caravans were used, many of them being little more than covered carts, and to-day similar vehicles of a slightly modified form may be seen drawn by horses or ponies, the vehicles being too cumbrous and heavy to allow of a donkey being used as the draught animal. I have, however, seen a pony between the shafts and a donkey hitched on to the outside to assist.

The simplest form of what may be termed the covered van type of dwelling is shown by the second van from the front in the Illustration. The top or tilt is usually removable so that the owners may use it as a tent, leaving the van free for ordinary purposes. I know a family possessing a van of this description, who, during fruit picking, contract for carrying to rail by means of the van while the tilt is pegged down to the ground and utilized as a sleeping apartment.

I have been fortunate in obtaining in the one photograph, four different classes of living wagon. The tilt of the simplest type is composed of arched ribs covered with canvas or tarpaulin, that of the foremost, and altogether more substantial vehicle is composed of similar ribs which are covered with narrow planking, and this, in turn, is covered with painted canvas.

Most of the caravans are the work of professional wagon builders, and vary in accordance with the ideas of the client and the sum he is prepared to spend. Occasionally the gypsy constructs his own habitation, and in such case usually purchases the under-carriage and ironwork; he obtains most of his woodwork ready sawn, and executes the greater part of the ornamental work, bevelling and so on, with the knife, in the use of which he is an adept.

With regard to interior arrangement, there is, of course, as great, or even a greater, difference in the cost and care expended on different caravans than is apparent in the matter of exterior, but there is withal a certain similarity in the disposition of the essentials. As one enters the wagon, the fireplace is usually on the left hand, one of the principal reasons for this being that when travelling, and conforming to the rule of the road, the chimney protruding from the roof is not liable to be damaged or broken off by the lower branches of wayside trees, etc. Small ordinary, American, “Hostess” or other stoves are fitted, but I recollect seeing in a caravan a stove that consisted only of a piece of sheet-iron bent to a rough cylinder tapering to a chimney, the lower part having a piece cut away and a grid affixed therein. The family had no trouble to keep out the winter cold, for this rather primitive stove would burn almost anything, the van included if not carefully looked after. Almost invariably the beds are across the van at the far end so that the weight is over the hind wheels; usually they are raised some little distance from the floor—the open space beneath being variously utilized, sometimes as a sleeping apartment for the children, at others it is enclosed and has doors for use as a cupboard. Plain or glass-fronted corner cupboards may be found, and in some I have seen good pieces of old china, genuine stuff, not the reproductions which are to be seen so frequently nowadays.

Notwithstanding the fact that these things are highly prized and are regarded as heirlooms by their owners, I have known valuable cups and other articles to be in everyday use by both van and tent dwellers, and he would be a brave dealer who—in some cases at least—ventured a second time to attempt bargaining for possession.

“What a pity!” exclaims the connoisseur.

“Why shouldn’t I?” retorts the gypsy, “my people have always worked hard for all they’ve had, and so have I. If I love the beautiful shapes and colours of the old china that’s belonged to my people time out of mind, that’s more than these nobs would; they don’t care twopence for what’s beautiful in ’em, they only want ’em so they can say I’ve got something nobody else can get and it cost me hundreds of pounds.” The gypsy has a love for beauty of form, quaintness of design and richness of colour, and if his worldly goods are few, he still has his lares et penates, and if to use them in a legitimate way gives him pleasure, “why,” as he asks, “shouldn’t he?”

For the preservative painting and exterior decoration of the caravan, the most popular colours are green and yellow, a preference which may perhaps be attributed to a reflex action on the mind of predominant colours in nature they know and love so well.

Gypsies know well how to drive a bargain; despite this, or perhaps because of it, the cheapest colour is not always used, as the proprietor of the van has an eye to the lasting brilliance of the colour. I know of an instance when a colour dealer offered a Romany man a choice of lemon-coloured paints varying from fourpence to half a crown the pound, and although the van owner appeared to be a good deal exercised in mind as to the propriety of using a high-priced article, which in appearance seemed exactly like the low-priced, he eventually purchased the most expensive, it being explained to him that it would retain its original brilliance for years, while the lower qualities would probably fade in a short time. I did not see this van after it had been painted, but it was, I believe, entirely of the brightest lemon chrome procurable. As I have already indicated, green is favoured by many as the principal colour for the outside of the van, and in effect it is usually much less aggressive.

The Romany love of brilliant colour is, after all, but another Oriental characteristic which persists, and, upon reflection, one cannot fail to be impressed with the idea that it is not consistent to decry the taste of the Romanichal as barbarous and at the same time select a mustard colour for one’s own motor-car.