Part 10

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.