I HAD heard much and often about the Boughton Green Fair, and the vast number of gipsies, semi-gipsies, and other tramps, scamps, vagabonds, hawkers, farmers, tradesmen, the fast and loose, riff-raff and respectable, gathered together from all quarters once a year upon this ancient Green for a “fairing.” Tradesmen and farmers exhibited their wares, live stock, and implements of husbandry; and others set forth their articles of torture, things of fashion, painted faces, “tomfoolery,” and “bosh,” to those who like to tramp thither in sunshine and storm with plenty of money in their pockets for revel and debauch.

Bidding the sparrows, linnets, swallows, and wagtails, fluttering and darting round our dwelling, good-bye as they were hopping, chirping, twittering, and gathering a variety of materials upon which to build their nests; and with my little folks at the door, I wended my way to the station.

“Then he kissed his olive branches,
Bade his wife good-bye,
And said, . . .
‘Heaven preserve you all!’”

Wayside Pictures (Harris).

The sun was shining warmly, the roads dusty, and a few red faces covered with perspiration were to be seen panting along. Many of the men were dressed in black cloth, a little faded, of the “cut” and fashion out of date many years ago. Some had their coats hung upon their arm, with white shirt sleeves and heavy boots everywhere visible. Most fairly well-to-do farm labourers have for Sundays and mourning days a black suit, which lasts them for many years. In some instances the father’s black clothes become family “heirlooms”—at any rate, for a time—and then, when the father dies, they are turned into garments for the little children. Of course the father’s “black silk furred hat” cannot be made less, and to pad it to make it fit little Johnny’s head is an awkward process. I have seen many little boys with big hats upon their heads in my time. I suppose they have imagined that people would infer that they had big heads under the hats with plenty of brain power. This is a mistake. Big hats, with little brain and less common sense, and No. 10 rather high, often go together. Upon the road would be “Our Sal” with her “chap,” and his brother Jim, yawning, shouting, and gaping along, and, as my friends the boatmen would say, “a little beerish.” Some of the country labouring girls would have their shawls upon their arms, and they would be stalking along in their strong boots at the rate of four miles an hour, frolicking and screaming as Bill Sands, Jack Jiggers, Joe Straw, Matt Twist, and Ben Feeder jostled against them. They seemed to delight in showing the tops of their boots, with crumpled and overhanging stockings. There were other occupants of the road trudging limpingly after the cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, and mules, called “tramps” and “drovers,” who seemed to be, and really are, the “cast-offs” of society. These poor mortals were, as a rule, either as thin as herrings or as bloated as pigs, with faces red with beer-barrel paint; and they wore gentlemen’s “cast-off” clothing in the last stages of consumption, with rags flying in the wind. Their once high-heeled boots were nearly upside down, while dirty toes, patches, and rag-stuffing were everywhere visible.

In the train there was the usual jostle, bustle, and crush, and gossip. At Northampton station there was no little commotion, owing to the station-master having closed the station-yard against all cabs except those who ply regularly between the station and the town.

One cabman came to me and said that he would take me to the Green for a less fare than he charged others if I would get into his cab the first. I asked him his reason. “Because,” he said, “if you get in first others will follow, and I shall soon have a load.” I could not see the force of his argument, and found my way to another cab. I had no sooner seated myself than the cabman took off, or hid, his number. I asked him why he did that. His answer was, “So that if I drive fast the Bobbies shan’t catch the sight of my number. If they get my number and I am caught driving fast there will be either thirty ‘bob’ for me to pay, or I shall have to go to ‘quad’ for a fortnight.”

Some of the poor horses attached to the vehicles—cabs, waggonettes, carriers carts, carriages—were heavily laden with human beings, till they could scarcely crawl. Uphill, down dale, slashing, dashing, banging, whipping, kicking, and shouting seemed to be the order of the day; and on this vast mass of human and animal life poured—and myself among the crowd—till I found we were fairly among the gipsies upon the Green.

Having partaken of a starvation lunch in one of the booths, consisting of “reecy” fat ham, with a greasy knife and fork, dried bread and lettuce, served upon plates not over clean, and studded and painted with patches of mustard left by a former customer, and with warm ginger-beer as tame as skim milk to take the place of champagne, I began to take stock of the Green, which natural formation, together with those made apparently hundreds of years ago, seemed to excite my first attention.

The large circular holes, of about thirty feet diameter and one foot below the level of the surrounding ground, reminded me very much of ancient gipsy encampments. Boughton Green has been a favourite annual camping ground for generations, and may to-day be considered as the fluctuating capital of gipsydom in the Midlands, where the gipsies from all the Midland and many other counties do annually congregate to fight, quarrel, brawl, pray, sing, rob, steal, cheat, and, in past times, murder.

According to Wetton’s “Guide to Northamptonshire,” published some fifty-six years ago, it seems probable that the fair was formerly set out in canvas streets, after the manner of a maze, shepherd’s-race, or labyrinth; and as Boughton Green was close to a Roman station, this seems probable. This was the custom of the Roman fairs held close to their stations. This much seems to be inferred from Baker’s “History of Northamptonshire,” where he says, “The stretching canvas forms the gaudy streets.”

In the Northampton Mercury, June 5, 1721, the following advertisement appears: “The Right Hon. the Earl of Strafford has been pleased to give a bat, value one guinea, to be played for on Monday at cudgels, and another of the same price; and also 6 pairs of buckskin gloves at 5s. a pair, to be wrestled for on Tuesday; and a silver cup of the value of 5 guineas price to be run for on Wednesday by maiden galloways not exceeding 14 hands high, during the time of Boughton Fair. The ladies of the better rank to meet to raffle, see the shows, and then to adjourn to a ball at the Red Lion Inn, Northampton, in the evening.”In Baker’s “History of Northamptonshire” the following poem appears relative to the fair—

“From every part stretched o’er the sultry way,
The labouring team the various stores convey.
Vessels of wood and brass, all bright and new,
In merry mixture rise upon the view.
See! pots capacious lesser pots entomb,
And hogsheads barrels gorge for want of room;
From their broad base part in each other hid
The lessening tubs shoot up like a pyramid.
Pitchforks and axes and the deepening spade
Beneath the pressing load are harmless laid;
Whilst out behind, where pliant poles prevail,
The merry waggon seems to wag her tail.”

Looked at from rising ground, far in the distance and with a keen sense for the picturesque and romantic, the moral and physical aspects of nature, and love of liberty, which gipsy life presents to those few unacquainted with its dark, degrading side—thank God, only a few—are food for admiration and wonder; to others the objects of pity and suggestive reflection. There can be no doubt that Cowper, the immortal poet, who lived at Olney, a few miles from Boughton Green and Higham Ferrers, as he was wont to take his daily walks, would often cross the path of the Northamptonshire gipsies. Sometimes there would accompany him his two lady friends who were jealous of each other’s influence—Lady Austin and Mrs. Unwin. Occasionally Lady Hesketh and some of the Throckmortons would be the cheerful companions in his despondency and gloom, and at other times he would sally forth single-handed in quest of food for his hares and leverets, in silent meditation upon the grand and beautiful surroundings. It is more than probable that while he saw from the beautiful elevation, a few miles outside Olney and Weston, the grey smoke rising from the gipsy encampment in the distance silently and quietly whirling, twirling, and ascending among the trees, to be lost among the daisies and hedgerows, the muses danced before him and brought forth the truthful, characteristic poem relating to gipsies—

“I see a column of slow rising smoke
O’ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal. A kettle
Slung between two poles, upon a stick transverse
Receives the morsel; flesh obscene hog
Or vermin; or at best of cock purloined
From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race
They pick their fuel out of every hedge
Which, kindled with dry leaves and wood, just saves
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.”

The publication of this poem, and the fact that large numbers of gipsy tramps were flitting about the country, with their wretched equipages, may have been the means of stirring the kind hearts of Smith, Crabb, Hoyland, William Allen, of Higham Ferrers, solicitor, and steward to Earl Fitzwilliam, and many others, some eighty or one hundred years ago, to try to reclaim the gipsies from their debasing habits and customs.

It has generally been supposed that the term “green,” given to the land upon which the annual fair is held, comes to us at this date on account of its greensward. This is an error. According to Baker’s and other histories of Northamptonshire, Boughton Green derives its name and title as follows. “In the time of Edward I., William de Nutricilla, abbot of St. Wandegisile, conveyed the lands to John de Boketon or Boughton, from whom they descended to Sir Thomas de Boketon his grandson, and who was succeeded by Sir Henry Green his son and heir, who was Lord Chief Justice of England.” Thus we see the probability of it being called at this ancient date, on account of the close relationship existing between the Boketon or Boughton and Green, Boughton and Green’s wake or fair. In course of time the “and” has been dropped, and we have now “Boughton Green fair.”

“Sir Henry Green obtained a grant or charter, dated 28th February, 1351 (25 of Edward III.), for an annual fair to be held on the manor for the space of three days, beginning with the vigil of the nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 23rd), and ending the day after it.” This being so, the adding of “green” to the fair can be easily accounted for. The site upon which the fair is held is seventeen acres.

Outside, and at the east end of the fair grounds, stands the remains of what was once, no doubt, a fine old Gothic church, dedicated then, as the new church in the village is now, to St. John the Baptist. The tower and spire of the old church fell about a century ago upon a gipsy Smith and his wife, whose sleeping quarters—instead of the gipsy tent—had been for some time beneath its crumbling ruins. The old villagers will tell you, with pride and pleasure upon their faces, that Boughton old church was, before Cromwell destroyed it, one of the seven oldest churches in England. Of course, this is a subject upon which I do not feel to be “master of the situation.” Such was the odium attached to gipsies a century ago, that it was not thought worthwhile to dig them out from beneath the mass of ruins that had fallen upon them; and from the time when the tower and spire fell, to the time when the crumbling refuse was cleared away a few years since, the bones of poor gipsy Smith and his wife had crumbled into dust and been scattered to the winds. It touches a tender and sympathetic chord, and draws forth a scalding tear down one’s face when one ponders over the many evenings the old gipsy couple had enjoyed their frugal meal—maybe of hedgehogs and snails, or the piece of a decaying pig—beneath the belfry, when the bells were pealing forth, soft and low, as the shades of evening were gathering round them, and they were preparing to rest their aimless and useless bones upon the straw in their dark, at times musical, and at other times dismal, abode among the dead. The churchyard and burial ground round the old church is well fenced in, and kept in beautiful order. Several gipsies are buried in the churchyard; but there is no stone to mark the exact spot. They are pretty close to each other, so I am told, at the east end of the church.

Close to the churchyard there is a spring of excellent water, called St. John’s Spring. So highly did our forefathers value it, that it was preserved specially as a rippling little fountain for supplying water for the holy rite of baptism. When I saw it, gipsies, tramps, show people, vagabonds, and all kinds of dirty and clean travellers, with their wretched companions, steeds, and poor bony beasts of burden, were quenching their thirst at this living stream, forcing its way out of the hillside. It seemed, as I stood by, looking at the pails put under its mouth for a filling, to force its way faster, and with greater gusto, delight, and pleasure into the dirty pails, owned by dirty hands and dirtier faces, whose filthy bodies were covered with stinking rags, than into clean pails carried by white hands and lovely smiling faces peering over them. One little dirty urchin put his mouth under it for “a drink.” No sooner was this done, than the holy spring covered his unholy dirty face with more clear water than he wanted, some of which found its way down his bosom and into his breeches; at this he “sobbed,” and sobbed right out that I could not help laughing. He turned up his piebald watery face as if in anger at my laughing at him. I said to him, “What is the matter with you?” “No—no—no—no—nought is the matter wi me. It’s co—co—co—cold, and you woodner laugh if you were like me. It’s wet my belly.”

The little fellow for once received a washing, contrary, no doubt, to his wish. After he had dried his face with the ragged remains of a dirty sleeve, he found his way back to the green—I expect his mother would scarcely know him—and I went for a stroll down “Spectacle Lane,” where gipsies formerly tented and camped in large numbers.

Down this pretty country lane there was a pleasant recess, a little higher than the road, under the trees, evidently formed by the gipsies on purpose to have their “tents high and dry.” Several tents could be nicely sheltered and partly secluded under the trees in each recess. Water and game would be plentiful in these lanes a century ago; in fact, I should imagine such was the case now.

At the bottom of “Spectacle Lane” stood a large, fine, old Gothic archway, called by the inhabitants in the neighbourhood “Spectacle Tower.” The object and purpose for which it was built has never been clearly made out. Judging from all the surrounding circumstances, it appeared to me that it had at one time been intended as a gateway to a mansion, abbey, or nunnery which has not been built; or, what is still more probable, it may have been erected as a flag-tower for Fairfax’s army on its way from Oxford through Northampton to the battle of Naseby, and from thence to Leicester. Prince Rupert had gone as far as Daventry to meet General Fairfax and his army, expecting, of course, that they would come by Daventry; instead of which Fairfax left Daventry to the left, and pushed on his way through Northampton and to Boughton Green, hoping to arrive in Leicester before Prince Rupert and the King. Fairfax may have expected that the memorable battle would have been fought in the neighbourhood of Boughton; if so, he, at any rate, reckoned without his host, as both armies came together at Naseby, and with what result any schoolboy knows.

Report says that Boughton Green church was razed to the ground by Cromwell’s army.

The fact of gipsies flocking to this, which was once a fine old Roman Catholic church, and nestling in tents under its shadows, together with the fact that old, monastic-looking farm-houses are to be seen in the neighbourhood, confirms the idea I set forth in my “Gipsy Life,” p. 146, viz., that on the gipsies landing in Scotland, about the year 1514, from the continent, some of them hypocritically professed the Roman Catholic faith in order to inveigle themselves into the good graces of the nobility, so that their pockets and pouches might be filled with as little trouble as possible; in fact, righteous gipsy Smith having come from India, he knew well, and does so still, how to turn religious sentiment to advantage, and hence he landed in Scotland from France as above instead of Dover and London, and wended his way through the Midland counties and southward; and hence we find Northamptonshire, in times later on, a central camping ground for these lawless tribes of aimless vagabonds.

About a century ago a number of gipsies were brought before the magistrates at Northampton; upon what charge has not been stated. This so enraged the gipsies upon Boughton Green and other parts of Northamptonshire, that they threatened to set fire to the town of Northampton. The end of it was that several of the gipsies, for their riotous conduct, forfeited their lives upon the gallows. See “Gipsy Life,” p. 154.

To come back to Boughton Green fair. After having wandered about “Spectacle Lane” I called upon a gentleman, Mr. Jeys, who has resided for many years close to the green, and he told me that he has seen as many as forty to fifty tents and vans of gipsies camping in the lanes near to his house. It was down this lane that small-pox raged among the gipsies. Righteous Smith, with his two wives, Constant and Comfort, and a number of their twenty children, died of small-pox. Births, deaths, and murders have taken place upon the green. How many nobody knows, nor can any idea be formed of the number. Mr. Jeys told me of one case, being a gipsy row, ending in murder. Who had done it no one could tell, and where the gipsy was buried was a mystery. They hunted and searched, but, like the body of the Earl of Crauford and Balcarres, it could not be found, until Mr. Jeys’ gardener came across it in the garden. When the body of the gipsy was found it was laid straight out between two flag stones reared edgewise, and a large flagstone as a covering. The arms were folded, and upon the breast of the gipsy there was a pair of scissors, which had been carefully placed there by those who had buried the gipsy in the dark; for what purpose I cannot make out. Gipsies have queer notions about the death and burial of those belonging to them. The old-fashioned gipsies of bygone days, more than they do now, paid special regard to the dead, and on this account they carried the dead body of the gipsy nearly half a mile to bury it in a gentleman’s garden. The murdered gipsy in his lifetime was, no doubt, a scissor-grinder, and the placing of the scissors upon his breast was to remind them when he got to the other country of what trade the gipsy was—i.e., if skulking about the country with an old barrow grinding a few knives and scissors can be called a trade.

A few years since a gentleman farmer belonging to the neighbourhood was murdered upon the green, by whom it has never been found out. All sorts of conjectures, suspicions, and surmises have taken place upon the matter. Some say the gipsies did it; others say that some of the unfortunate class had a hand in the sad affair. At any rate he was found early next morning with his mouth crammed full of dust; his pockets were empty, and his soul had gone into the unknown world. His name is engraved upon the trunk of a tree close to the spot, which, owing to the growth of the tree and the hand of time, is fast disappearing. The greensward of Boughton Green is not a bed of roses; but, on the contrary, I am afraid, those who have met their last enemy upon this battleground of scamps have found it full of thorns—for such it has been to those who have been murdered or met with death in doubtful company.

At the fair held in 1826, George Catherall, of Bolton, who was known as Captain Slash, formed a large gang of about a hundred roughs—of whom it was composed, young or old, it has not been stated, or whether any, and how many of them, were gipsies—to rob and murder all upon the green on the night of June 28th who would not “turn it up.” They formed themselves, after being well primed with beer, into lines like soldiers, and on they went to do their murderous, Satanic work, calling cut, “Blood or money!” While they were carrying out their murderous designs, Captain Slash would frequently cry out, “Now, my lads, form yourselves into line soldier-like. Blood or money is what we want and what we shall have.” Many of those who had retired for the night under canvas, or under their stalls, were beaten, kicked, and not a few were rendered insensible. There were no policemen in those days, and it was fortunate that a body of shoemakers from Moulton were close at hand, or there would have been a larger number of the hawkers and stall-keepers murdered, there is no doubt. The Moulton shoemakers gave Slash and his gang what they did not expect. Daybreak showed what a murderous night had been spent upon the green. Blood, bludgeons, sticks, broken glass, tables, stools, were to be seen lying in all directions. The money taken at the fair was hid in all sorts of ways. The wife of a publican ran with her money all the way to Northampton in her night-dress. A hawker of scythe-stones and whetstones told me that he helped his father to put the money they had taken during the fair under their cart-wheels. Others dug holes into the turf with their knives; others hid their money in the hedge-bottom. Scores were scampering about in their night-dresses in all directions, with their hair on end, and almost frightened out of their senses, like stark mad folks. The children nestling for the night under the carts, tents, and in the booths, screeched and screamed about in the dark upon the grass half naked, like a lot of young rabbits when the weasels have been at their heels, horrible enough to frighten devils wild. The few old folks visiting the fair every year who can remember the sad scene talk of it at the present time with almost breathless silence. Some of them said to me, “If we were to live a thousand years we should never forget it.” Captain Slash was taken the next day to Northampton, and in the end he was hung upon the new drop. Accounts differ as to how he met his end. Some say that he died in sorrow and penitence. One gentleman named F— told me that he was not far from him when he was hanged, and walked close beside him on his way to the gallows. While jogging along on the top of a cart Slash seemed quite jovial, and as merry as if going to a wedding. He remarked that his mother had said to him more than once that “he would die with his boots on,” but he would make her a liar for once; and just before the fatal bolt was drawn he kicked his boots off among the crowd, and one of them hit a woman who stood next to my friend in the face and disfigured it. After this startling scene his nerves gave way, and he dropped tremblingly into eternity. To-day the skeleton of Captain Slash is to be seen in an asylum at Northampton as a warning to all wrongdoers. One or two of his gang were transported, some cleared out of the country, and the others got off “scot-free.”

The associations of bygone days of Boughton Green being disposed of, I now began to ramble among the gipsies and others upon the green. I had not gone far before I saw at the back of one of the vans a dirty, greasy-looking tramp of a fellow, with an apron on that might have been washed in boiling tallow and dried in smoke. In a large kettle before him there was a quantity of thick yellow stuff—what it was composed of, or how and by what means it was coloured, I could not tell—and by his side, in an old basket, there were pieces of almost rotten fish casting forth a sickly odour; and over a fire upon the ground there was an old frying-pan partly full of hot grease. I was puzzled to know what this was for, and what it all meant. I had not been puzzling long before I saw the greasy tramp taking pieces of the fish out of his basket and dip them into the thick yellow liquid; he then threw them into the pan upon the fire, whereupon a crackling noise commenced. After turning and twisting the pieces of fish about in the pan for some time, sometimes with his fingers and at other times with a stick, they were “browned” in order to be palatable to “greenhorns;” and as they were “cooked” he took them out of the pan and put them into a basket, and sallied forth among the throng and crush of “Johnnies,” calling out “Fine fish, fried and all hot! Fried fish, all hot.” A crowd soon gathered round him, and with a plentiful supply of pepper and vinegar he began business in earnest. Well-dressed farmers, shoemakers, men, youths, girls, and maidens of almost every grade clustered round him, and the eagerness with which they clutched and enjoyed the fried fish, bones, and vinegar would have formed a subject worthy of my friend Herbert Johnson, or W. H. Overend, the artists of the “Graphic” and “Illustrated London News.” “Smack” went their lips, and I turned away disgusted at the thought and sight at having found so many simple, gullible beings in the world, standing ready with open mouths to swallow the greasy morsels of dirty tramps. It is pleasing to note that all those who live by frying fish, and also those who live by eating it, are not of this stamp.

After strolling about for some time I turned among some of my old friends, Jack, Jim, Bill, Sal, Righteous, Piety, and Zachriali, gipsies of the cocoa-nut tribes engaged at cocoa-nut shying. All did not profess to be so low down in the social scale as the gipsies. Poor “Pea-soup Sal,” with a reddish face, who had imbibed a little too much from the beer barrel, and whose legs were not over-strong, particularly objected to being classed with the gipsies; in fact, as she propped herself up by the side of her box of cocoa-nut balls, she turned up her nose, curled her lip, and staggered at the idea of such “respectable people as they wer-wer-wer-were being rec-rec-rec-reckoned with the gip-gip-gip-gipsies. They are a ba-ba-ba-ba-bad lot.” Poor Sal was now overcome, and fell to the ground. For once in her life she was at any rate level with those gipsies who were squatting upon the floor. Her husband, who seemed to be a common-sense sort of a man, and apparently fairly educated, came to her relief. If he had not done so, I would not have given much for the cocoa-nuts, and less still for poor unfortunate Sal.

At times, when business was slack, I entered lengthily into conversation with him as to what had been the cause of his getting into such a degrading position.

I learned from him that both he and his wife had received a good education. The man by trade was a carpenter, and the woman a dressmaker; but in an evil hour, instead of trusting to their own abilities, work, and common sense, they had taken the wrong turning, and from that time to the present they had been going down hill, and they could not tell how. All they seemed to realize was that they thought they were nearly at the bottom. Both have relations well off in the world; and both have the respect for their family not to disgrace it by vaunting their condition before the world, and making it known to their friends—only to a privileged few—the disgraceful social condition to which they had brought themselves. It is something heartrending, past description, to see a good tradesman and his dressmaking wife fooling their time away in idleness, wickedness, and sin, tramping the country, gambling with cocoa-nuts, living in vans, eating garbage, and trafficking in poor worn-out old horses and donkeys.

I found in further conversation with this unfortunate couple that gipsies have invented fresh machinations to kill farmers’ pigs, viz., to take the inside of an apple out and fill it with mustard; and as the women or children are going up to the farm-houses some of the apples stuffed with mustard are thrown among the pigs—pigs are fond of apples—and the consequence is the large quantity of mustard in the apple suffocates the pigs, and nobody, except the gipsies, know how it has been done. Some other members of the gang will visit the farm-house during the next day or two, under the pretext of buying up old dead carcases, out of which to render all the fat to make cart grease. The farmer replies, “Oh yes, we had a pig,”—or a cow, as the case may be—“died yesterday. You can have that for five shillings if you like to dig it. You will find it in the meadow next to the piggery.” “All right, guvernor, here’s the money.” Of course the gipsies fetch it, and it forms a relish for them for a long time. I have known of cases where the pig has been buried for five days, being unearthed, and turned into food for the big and little gipsies.

Mr. T— also told me how cows, calves, and bullocks are treated by the gipsies—the consequence is they are found dead the next morning in the fields—viz., two or three of the men will take a handful of hay and a rope, and when they have caught the cow, they will make it secure, and then the hay is forced into its throat, and a rope tied and twisted tightly round its mouth. When suffocation has completed its work, the hay is drawn out of its throat, and the nostrils are wiped clean. The gipsies then set off to their camp again. In a couple of days or so, according to a pre-arranged plan, some of the gang call upon the farmers to buy any dead cattle or pigs they may have to sell, and the result is, as in the case of the pigs suffocated with the mustard in the apples, the cow, calf, or bullock is taken to their tents or vans, perhaps a few miles away, and divided among the gipsies.

Some of the gipsies get a living by selling cart grease, which they say is pure fat, but which in reality is made up principally of potatoes, yellow turnips, and grease.

The gipsies have found out that “shot” is not so good to cure a broken-winded horse for one day only, as butter or lard—butter is preferable. The way they do it is to let the horse fast overnight, and then early next morning force a pound of butter down its throat. To cure a “roarer” a pint of oil is given overnight upon an empty stomach.

The earnings of cocoa-nut gamblers and others of the same class vary very much. Mr. T— told me that he and his wife went upon Northampton racecourse last races with only five shillings in their pockets, with which they bought some acids, juices, and scents; these, with plenty of water, they turned into “pine-apple champagne,” and the result was they made five pounds profit, and plenty to eat and drink, with a “jollification” into the bargain, the whole of which was spent in a fortnight, and they had to commence again, sadder but no wiser.

It is an error to say that gipsies do not rob each other; some of them have told me that they have been robbed fearfully by other gipsies, sometimes of as many as a hundred cocoa-nuts at a time.

While our conversation was going on some silly beings were knocking their heads against a boss, for which honour they paid their pennies. What a satire upon the fair, I thought. Thousands were running their heads against bosses more deadly in effect than the spring bosses at which they ran like fighting rams. I was not much afraid of the heads of the bossers giving way, my only fear was for their necks.

Behind me there was to be seen another crowd shooting at glass bottles in the air. These might be said to be “windy customers,” and as a rule they were full of “gas,” bombast, thin and showy; while those who faced the “boss” were thick-necked, with plenty of animalism about them, and ready for a row.

I did not see many gaudily and showily dressed gipsy girls at the fair, but I saw a large number of gipsy girls dressed as “farming girls,” “farmers’ daughters,” and servants, at work among the easy-going chaps. Some of the girls—or, I should say, women—held the hands of the “silly” in their hands, and they were pleasantly looking at the lucky lines with one eye, and bewitchingly into their faces with the other, while they told the geese their fortunes, and the pleasures and troubles they would have on account of “dark ladies” and “fair ladies,” against whom they were to be on their guard, or they would not marry the one they loved. In some cases “dark gentlemen” were trying to steal the affections of their young lady. As a rule gipsies prognosticate evil from “fair ladies” or “fair gentlemen.” Of course it would not do to be too heavy upon the “dark gentlemen” or “dark ladies.” A number of “shoe girls” were having their fortunes told also.

One of the gipsies had offended a man close to me from some cause or other, which had the effect of exasperating the “beery” man to such an extent that he bawled out, “You might rake hell out and scratch among the cinders, and you would not find a worse lot than gipsies.” “Hold, hold,” I said; “many of them are bad, at the same time you will find some good-hearted folks among them, a few of whom I know.” I now turned and had a long conversation with a gipsy from Kent, and the good woman with her husband both fell in with my idea of getting the gipsy children educated by means of a free pass book, and of having their vans registered. Although busy with the evening meal, it did not prevent her entering heartily and pleasantly into my plans for effecting an improvement in the condition of the gipsies and their children, and more than once, surrounded as she was with everything the opposite of heavenly, said, “Thank you, sir, thank you, sir; and may God bless you for your efforts to improve the gipsies.” I told her that all the gipsies were not so kindly disposed as to wish me success. “Never mind them, sir; all the right-thinking gipsies will say so.” “You have spoken the truth,” I said; “before you can apply a remedy to a festering sore the proper thing to do is to probe it to the bottom, and this I have been trying for a long time to do.” It is a thousand times better to get at the root of a sore than to plaster it over by misleading fiction and romance, as some masculine writers, fascinated by the artificial charms of gipsy beauties—so called—have been doing. In this late day such efforts to hoodwink thoughtful, loyal, and observing men, and others who have the welfare of the nation at heart, may well be compared to a man sticking a beautiful French butterfly upon a dead ox, and then going among a crowd of bystanders with a glib tongue, and cap in hand, trying to make them believe that the rotten dead ox was a mass of beautiful butterflies, which only required a shower of coppers and praises to cause them to fly.

No wonder at stable-boys and quacks, the sons of ministers, and others, becoming bewitched to the extent of having to face the frowns of friends on account of their gipsy-poaching proclivities.

My process may have been sharp and painful, and probably it is so now, but it will be found effective, enduring, and pleasing in the end. To deal with the evils of gipsying in a manner to excite the worst side of human nature may be pleasing for the present, but it will bring remorse and rottenness which no amount of misleading romance and pleasingly painted sin will be able to cover.

During the day I was informed by the gipsies that one young farmer had spent fifteen shillings in bowling for cocoa-nuts, and a youth not more than fourteen years old had spent five shillings similarly; this being so, it is not to be wondered at that our present-day gipsies should be on the increase at the rate they are. With fair weather, nuts cheap, cricketers out of the way, and “plenty of young uns,” it is a “roaring trade.”

When questioning one gipsy woman as to how many of the gipsies upon the ground could read and write—I roughly calculated the number of gipsies to be over a hundred men and women, and a hundred and fifty children—she answered me as follows: “Lord bless you, my dear good gentleman, I do not know more than three upon the green who can read and write. It would be a blessed thing if they could; but that will never be, as nobody takes any interest in us gipsies.”

It was tearfully sorrowful to see over a hundred and fifty children squatting about in bogs, dirt, filth, excitement, iniquity, and double-dyeing sin, groping their way to wretchedness and misery, without any hand being put out to save them.

So far as I could gather, not half a dozen of these gangs of un-English, lawless tramps and travellers had ever been in either day or Sunday school. And our civilizing “State” has not taken any steps for bringing the gipsy and other travelling children under school influence.

“Now, my lads, bowl away! All bad nuts returned; bowl away! Try your luck now, my young gentlemen; try your luck; bowl away!” Bang went a cocoa-nut off one of the stilts, flying in all directions, with the oil scattered to the winds. One thing has often surprised me, that the gipsies have not had frequently to carry cracked skulls, for some of the roguish “farmer chaps” seem to delight more in bowling at the gipsies’ heads than the cocoa-nuts at their feet. It is their quick-sightedness and dexterous movements that save them. No drone would do to be at the back of the “pegs,” or he would have to look out for his “pins.”

A little farther ahead there was a family of gipsies of the name of Smith, man, wife, and seven children, squatting upon the ground to take their evening meal. As soon as they saw me they heartily invited me to join them. Gipsies never invite any one to partake of a meal with them unless with the whole heart. They never ask you with their mouths to join them and in their hearts hope you will not. This is one of the favourable traits in their character. For a man they love they would rob a hen-roost to fill his belly, and they would spit in the face of the man they hate. When you are eating with them, or, in fact, doing anything with them, you must be as one of them, or you will have to look out for “squalls.” They can bear and respect the man or woman who, as a friend, speaks openly and plainly to them, but they will be down upon the man “like a load of bricks” who tries by cunning and craft to get “the best side of them.”

At the first interview they suspect that every stranger has some design upon them, and, as a consequence of ignorance and suspicion, they appear to be sullen and reserved. This feature of gipsy life wears off as they find out that you are a friend to them.

I accepted their invitation to tea in the midst of cocoa-nut establishments, steam horses, screeching of the whistles, horrifying music of a “hurdy-gurdy” organ, swing boats, and the screams of giddy girls and larking chaps, trotting donkeys, the galloping of “roaring horses and broken-winded ponies,” whose riders were half drunk and mad with rage, beating, kicking, slashing, swearing, and banging, till both the poor animals and their riders foamed at their mouths like mad dogs.

The old china was fetched up for me, which, Mrs. Smith said, was over a hundred years old. A good cup of tea was poured out, the thin bread and butter cut and laid upon a clean cloth, and I was just about to sit upon an old piece of dirty flannel that lay upon the grass—for the grass was at this time getting a little damp—when the good woman cried out, loud enough to shake one’s nerves, “My dear good gentleman, you must not sit down upon that.” “No, no,” Smith, the ungracious-nosed gipsy cried out in a voice as loud as his wife’s. “If you do you’ll get more than you bargained for. It’s all alive, don’t you see it?” Mrs. Smith saw that I was anxious to change quarters to the other side of the tent, and apologized for the filthy rag being there, by saying that “one of the children from one of the other vans had brought it, and had not taken it back again.” We were now seated, and I was enjoying my tea as well as I could—they said that “they hoped that I should look upon the tea as a fairing,” and as such I looked upon it and enjoyed it, for I was both hungry and thirsty—when a Northampton baker appeared upon the scene vending his bread. A little pleasantry was exchanged between the bread-seller, the gipsies, and myself about the size of the loaves, the dearness of the bread, and what was put into the flour before baking to make the loaves white, large, and showy. The conversation turned upon potatoes and alum, and the gipsy Smith discussed the quantity of potato and alum there was in the bread the baker had sold to them. This nettled the baker, and he said, “Bread mixed with potatoes and alum was good enough for pigs, but it—” The gipsy would not let him finish his sentence, but instantly sprang to his feet, and ran at the baker, and struck him on the breast with his tightened fist, calling out, “Do you mean to say that bread mixed with potatoes is good enough for pigs, and do you call us pigs? You reckon us as pigs, do you? You shall remember this or I am not Righteous Gipsy Smith.” And just as he was running at the half-frightened baker again Mrs. Smith stepped between them. An altercation took place, one of the most disgusting and sickening I ever knew. The baker’s wife now came up, and for a few minutes there was such a storm over the pot as I had never seen in my life. It bid fair to become a general melÉe. I was called in to decide who was in the wrong. This was no little difficulty, as the gipsy was excited by beer, and the baker by rage and fear. The end of it was I calmed them both down. The baker and his wife sped their way to Northampton, and the gipsy to the back of his van, to vent his bile and calm his passion, after which we sat down to finish our tea. This being over, and calm, peace, and quietness reigning, I gave the children some coppers and shook hands warmly with the gipsies, and thanked them, and then turned to another phase of gipsy life.I began to think that it was quite time to look after my lodging for the night, and wended my way to Boughton village, some half-mile or more away. This was a work of no light undertaking. I first tried to find a clean bed in a quiet cottage, which, after tramping about from house to house, knocking, inquiring, had to be given up as impossible. The poor folks eyed me over from head to foot with wondering curiosity. They seemed to be puzzled as to my movements, and as to whether they should reckon me as a gentleman, or a bailiff, who had secreted in my pockets either a county-court summons or an execution. I next tried the “publicans and sinners.” At first they hesitated about giving me an answer; especially the innkeeper at the “Griffin.” They seemed to wonder whether I was or was not a parson, spying out the land. The landlady at the “Red Lion” was holding out encouragement, until the landlord, who might be made of vinegar and crabs, appeared upon the scene, calling out gruffly, “No, we can’t do wi anybodys;” and out I went, expecting to have a stone for my pillow under some wall or hedge-bottom upon the green. Fortunately I called at a cottage on the roadside, about a hundred and fifty yards from the green, to see if they could oblige me with a bed. After a minute’s hesitation, the good woman, who seemed to have a large heart and a good-natured face, said, “Yes, you look to be a gentleman, and we will try to accommodate you. Come in and make yourself at home. Will you have some tea?”

After a rest for a few minutes, and as the shades of evening were gathering round, I strolled upon the “green” and found Bacchus was on his throne with AtÈ, Discordia, Momus, and Mars as his attendants. Concordia, Harpocrates, and Pudicitia had not been upon the “green,” or, if so, they had been only for a very short time. Broken glasses, empty beer barrels, corks, pieces of paper, and stools upside down were to be seen on every hand. The perfume of burning paraffin, aroma of the beer barrel, and stench of the brandy bottle met me at every turn as I wended my way among the wicked, silly, larking, and foolish. Here and there could be seen girls scarcely in their teens, with the arms of half-drunk “chaps” round their waists—upon the table before them were “jugs of beer”—and opening their mouths wide as if they would be delighted at any one looking down their throats as they bawled out most disgusting songs. In one of the booths between forty and fifty boys and girls were larking together in a manner that made one shudder to think of the results. Some of them were threatening vengeance to their “Bills,” “Jacks,” or “Toms,” if they said a word to them when they got home.

One of the women struck up, as if she was determined to contribute her share to the debauch, in squeaking tones resembling that of a cracked tin whistle—

“We won’t go home till morning,
Till daylight does appear.”

A little ahead a rustle, commotion, and hubbub was going on; of course I must join in the crush. I could not get very near. When I inquired what was the matter, I was coolly told that “it was only a man and woman fight.” Thanks to the excellent body of policemen at hand, it was soon stopped. Another “turn” in the distance was taking place. A gipsy—a big, cowardly, hulking fellow—and an Englishman had long had a grudge against each other. The Englishman could not get the cowardly gipsy to “fight it out.” At last the Englishman offered the gipsy half a crown and a gallon of beer to let him have one “round” with him. The gipsy consented to this condition. The money was paid and the beer drunk, after which the gipsy wanted to back out of the bargain. Before the big gipsy would at the last minute undertake to fight the little Englishman, the gipsy stipulated that there was to be “no hitting upon the noses.” The Englishman did not like this shuffling, but he agreed to it, and they stripped for the encounter. For a few minutes they sparred about until the gipsy saw his opportunity to hit the Englishman full tilt upon his nose, which he did with a tremendous force sufficient to break it. When the gipsy was asked why he did it, he said, “I could not help it, my hand slipped.” A little farther on still, I came upon a policeman rolling an empty beer barrel from the policemen’s tent towards the beer stores.

The “sweets” and “sours” of Gipsy modern life

During the day I did not observe one “blue ribbon” policeman upon the grounds—nor, in fact, did I see one upon the course. No doubt there were many good and true men and women upon the “green” who had gone there purposely to sell their wares. Would to God that there had been more of them, and then there would have been less rows, and less cause for such a body of policemen. The pure gipsy rows—i.e., a number of gipsies joining in a general melÉe of an “up-and-down fight,” paying off old scores—were less this year than they have been known for a long time. Several times a row was imminent, but with a little tact and the common sense of the women—aye, and of the men too—it was averted. I observed a little more sulkiness than usual on the part of a few of the gipsies, but with a little pleasantry this passed off.

I retired from the hubbub for a few minutes, to stand against one of the huge trees growing upon the edge of the “green,” and while there I heard some gipsies chuckling over the “gingered” and “screwed” horses and ponies they had sold during the fair, and arranging which of their party should hunt the customer out the next day, to buy back for a five-pound note their palmed-off “broken-winded” and “roaring old screws” which they had sold for seventeen pound or twenty pound during the fair. A fine-looking broken-winded horse, “roarer” or “cribber,” with the mark intact, is almost a fortune for a gipsy. During two or three years “while he will go,” the “screw” is sold and bought in again scores of times. Many of the horse-dealing gipsies are dressed nowadays as farmers, and by these means they more readily palm off their “screws” upon young beginning town or street hawkers, carriers, and higglers.

Living in some of the vans of gipsies there were man, woman, and, in some instances, seven or eight sons and daughters of all ages. In other vans and tents there was a mixture of men, women, and children, not of the same blood relationship; and the same may be said of some of the travelling gingerbread hawkers.

Those of the hawkers who were rich enough to own a van slept in it “higgledy-piggledy,” “pell-mell,” and “all of a heap.” Those who had not vans, the men, women, and “chaps” slept upon the ground, under the stall boards, in a manner which would be a disgrace to South African civilization and Zulu morals.

In the midst of waning twilight and the gathering of sheets and rents, some of the gipsy women were preparing for their last meal before shutting the van doors and drawing to their tent curtains. Scores of poor little lost, dirty, ignorant, neglected, and almost naked, gipsy children gathered round me for “coppers” and “sweets.” After digging deep into my pocket for all I could find, and distributing them among the children, I bade the gipsy parents “good-night” and a “good-bye,” and then turned to have a chat and a “good-night” with George Bagworth, the steam-horse driver, and his wife, the “popgun” firer. George was dressed in his best large Scotch plaid suit from head to foot. His “hurdy-gurdy steam organ,” and “flying horses,” had winged married and single, men, women, and children, round and round, exhibiting their thick and thin legs, not modestly for the riders, but successfully for George and his sharp, good-looking, business wife. George was in good humour with himself and everybody else. He entered freely into conversation about his troubles and trials in former years, and of his successes, position, and future views.

He is very good to poor cocoa-nut gamblers. It often happens that some of the poor unfortunate fraternity arrive upon the “course,” “green,” or “fair” without a “tanner.” A wink of his wife’s eye prompts George to advance them sufficient money to give them a start. This—for there is honour among thieves—is paid back at the close of the fair, with many thanks. George pointed out to me again with pride the vans he had made, and with little greater pride to his artistic painting of the heathen gods and goddesses, which were the mainstays of his whirligig establishment.

George’s wife hung down her head at the non-success of her “popgun” galleries. “But it is no use ‘frettin’ and cryin’ over spilt milk,’” she said, while preparing their supper tea. “You’ll join us, won’t you, sir? you shall be made right welcome, and have the best we’ve got.” They fetched out their best antique china cup and saucer, and we three sat down to a box table with cloth cover to enjoy the twilight meal, with the twinkling stars overhead, and the gipsies’ lurcher dogs prowling about the tents and vans, snuffling and smelling after the odds and ends and other trifles. Speaking within compass, I should think there would not be fewer than thirty lurchers skulking under the stalls as eagerly as if after hares and rabbits. Of course George Bagworth’s joined in the scent and sniffle. “Mine host” was a poacher bred and born—at least he had a spell of it in his younger days among the woods, parks, spinnies, and plantations joining Leicestershire and Staffordshire coalfields. The twinkling star repast was finished; hubbub, din, screeching, yelling, fighting, singing, shouting, swearing, blaspheming, and loud oaths were dying out. Pluto seemed to be getting tired of his feast; Somnus was observed stealthily wending his way among Bacchus’s wounded followers, and the vast herds and tribes of poor, neglected, uneducated, and lost little children living in sin, pestilential, and vitiated atmosphere with dark—very dark—and black future before them, which the rising of a morning’s sun could not dispel.

As I wended my way to my lodgings I could not help thinking of Sennacherib’s army besieging Jerusalem with no Hezekiah to deliver.

I had now found my way to my lodgings. Round the family table in the cottage there were Mr. and Mrs. Gayton, “mine host and hostess,” and one or two friends. While the conversation was going on a party of drunken fellows were bawling out down the road some kind of song, which I could not comprehend. Mr. Gayton’s sister said it was a song she knew well; and with a little persuasion—notwithstanding Mrs. Gayton’s twitching, nervous manner and disinclination to hear it—the good woman struck up in a sweet but rather shrill voice, and in somewhat affecting tremulous tone, the song, as follows:

“Little empty cradle, treasured so with care,
Tho’ thy precious burden now has fled,
How we miss the locks of curly golden hair,
Peeping from the tiny snow-white bed.
When the dimpled cheeks and pretty laughing eyes,
From the rumpled pillows shone,
Then I gazed with gladness, now I looked with sighs,
Empty is the cradle—baby’s gone.“Baby left her cradle for the golden shore,
O’er the silvery waters she has flown,
Gone to join the angels, peaceful evermore,
Empty is the cradle—baby’s gone.”

After the first verse was ended I noticed again a little subdued and stifled sobbing, and the mistress of the house wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.

I could see that there was some cause for the tear-fetching tenderness and sympathy that was manifested, and I gently asked for information, and was told by the good people that during the last month two of the youngest babies had been sent for to live in the angel-world where no tears are seen and sighing heard. A melting, sorrowful sadness seemed to creep over me as I looked round the room. A parent cannot describe the feelings, and no one but a parent can feel them.

The cradle was empty in the corner; the lovely little birds had flown to sing in a lovelier clime. The tender-hearted mother gave way to a woman’s dewy feelings while another verse was sung, in which I could not help joining, owing to having passed through similar circumstances. I had lost more than one little tender lamb, and could enter feelingly into the motherly woman’s misfortunes. I said the children were not lost but gone before, where there are neither tears nor the pinchings of poverty. In the midst of the solemn scene I wended my way upstairs to my humble cot; my softened feelings, wet eyes, and scalding tears prevented me worshipping Morpheus till just as the candle was flickering out in the socket.

I then dropped into a dozing sleep to awake at opening day, after which I bade my friends the gipsies good-bye, and left “the mother bending o’er her beauty buds.”