Part 5

The experiment was both bold and wise; and to insure success an entire change of management was required. Up to that time repression and terror were too much exercised by the officials who had the care of the inmates. A much more liberal and enlightened policy was resolved upon, and education and home training were to be the substitutes. A large schoolroom was erected on the premises, which were situated immediately behind the Blind Asylum, and extended from the London Road on the east to St. George’s Road on the west, all enclosed within high walls, having a large chapel on the south-west corner, which served for both the inmates of the institution and the general public. It was of the first importance that in making this experiment properly qualified persons should be placed in command. The Rev. Sydney Turner (the favourite son of Sharon Turner, the historian) was the chaplain. The head master and house superintendent was selected from St. John’s College, Battersea, and Mr. George John Stevenson, M.A., was appointed to the responsible position. Both the chaplain and the head master shared alike the deep sense of the responsibility involved in the undertaking, as any amount of failure would have been a disaster to be deplored in many ways. So that it required a strong resolution on the part of those officials to secure success. Mr. Stevenson had to assume the position of father of the family, superintending the food, clothing, recreation, and education of the inmates. A new and experienced matron took charge of the domestic arrangements, and thus, from the very commencement of the new plans, the inmates were made to share in the comforts designed to improve their moral and social condition. All the old _régime_ was abandoned. It had broken down completely so far as either elevating the inmates or securing public patronage were concerned. The Government paid for each of their boys a fixed sum, which supplied the finances required for working the institution, and a cheerful prospect opened out from the beginning, which was shared alike by the officers and those under their care. That some of the more daring spirits should seek to trespass on the additional liberty thus afforded them was natural; that some few should give evidence of their innate desire for wrong-doing was not surprising. The first who violated their agreement to obedience soon found that the arrangements made with the police authorities were such as effectually broke down all their schemes for hastening their liberty. Five or six of the young rascals who escaped one Sunday evening just before bedtime were speedily brought back either by the police or by the superintendent of the institution early the next day, even when scattered over the metropolis; this had a very deterring effect on such efforts in future. They did not believe in what a writer in “The Christian Life” says—

“Obscured life sets down a type of bliss, A mind content both crown and kingdom is;”

but rather in what a writer in _The Sunday at Home_ for 1878 says—

“Then while the shadows lingering cloked us, Down to the ghostly shore we sped.”

Those who exercised more patience and discretion were allowed to spend a day with their relatives and to begin to familiarize themselves with the sweets of liberty; and these, after a few months’ experience, were sent out into the world to make a new start in life in such occupations as they had learned during their confinement; or those who preferred a seafaring life were placed in the merchant service. A number of gipsy children, sad to relate, have found their way into our present-day reformatories, industrial schools, and like places.

When at Bristol in 1882, inspecting along with a number of ladies and gentlemen the training ship, the superintendent pointed out to me several little gipsies who had been placed under his charge to become either “men or mice.”

The first year’s experience was of the most gratifying character. The Home Secretary, the Earl of Carlisle, the Bishop of Oxford, and other distinguished persons, visited the institution; and, desiring to become acquainted with the details of the daily experience, sought an interview with Mr. Stevenson, on whom depended mainly the results of the experiment. The effect of those personal investigations was shown by the too early dispatch of a much more numerous company of young transports from Parkhurst. The design was to relieve a heavy pressure felt there; but it had the effect of increasing the difficulties in the Reformatory School in Southwark. With the enlarged operations the official staff had to be increased, and the same superintendence worked out the same results on a larger scale after a little undue tension on both mind and body. The young persons reclaimed by that process found ready openings all over London, and these were frequently visited by the superintendent during the hours the inmates were at work. The education, conducted by Mr. Stevenson and an assistant, did not occupy more than two or three hours daily, so that handicraft operations might have, as it required, more time for exercise.

The first reformatory school for young criminals in the metropolis was, at the end of two years’ experience, a marked and decided success. The mental strain on the superintendent was great and continuous, the duties allowed of no respite for vacation; but as great and permanent advantages were hoped for by the Home Government, all connected with the institution worked for that result, and they had the satisfaction of seeing it. At the end of two years it was resolved to give the institution a more agricultural character, after the example of one established at Mettray, in France, whose founder visited the Philanthropic, in Southwark, during its new experience. To carry out that plan the erection of the Philanthropic Farm School at Red Hill, Reigate, was undertaken. At that time the trustees of the old endowed school on Lambeth Green required a head master, and, unsolicited on his part, Mr. Stevenson was unanimously elected to that office, visiting only occasionally the new establishment, which required officers with agricultural experience; and it was gratifying to him to know that the foundations so broadly laid were successful on a larger scale in working the permanent reformation of juvenile criminals out in the open country than they could possibly be in the crowded metropolis.

The success of this plan for dealing with juvenile criminals makes it evident that a wise statesmanlike plan of educating the gipsy children would turn them into respectable and useful members of society, instead of their growing up to make society their prey.

* * * * *

To come back to the gipsies upon the “Flats,” I bade my friend good-bye, and began in earnest to carry out the object of my visit.

I had not been long on the ground—_marshy flats_—before I saw a young man scampering off to a tumble-down show with a loaf of bread and two red herrings in his arms. He had no hat upon his head, and his hair was cut short. His face was bloated, presenting a piebald appearance of red, white, and black, with a few blotches into the bargain. His foolish colouring paint, jokes, and antics had dyed his skin, stained his conscience, and blackened his heart. His clothing consisted of part of a filthy ragged shirt and a pair of patched and ragged breeches. They looked as if the owner and the tailor were combined in one being, and that the one who stood before me. The stitches in his breeches could not have presented a stranger appearance if they had been worked and made with a cobbler’s awl and a “tackening end.” His boots in better days might have done duty in a drawing-room, but were now transformed. With a laugh and a joke I captured my new friend, and notwithstanding that he had his dinner in his arms, we entered into a long chat together.

I soon found out that he was the “old fool” of the show, with which he was connected, and was known among his fraternity as “Old Bones,” although he did not seem to be over twenty years old. His salary for being the “old fool,” young fool, a fool to himself, and a fool for everybody, was four shillings a week and his “tommy,” or “grub,” which, as he said, was “not very delicious” at all times. I asked “Old Bones” why he was nicknamed “Old Bones.” He said, “Because some of our chaps saw me riding upon an old bony horse one day, with its bones sticking up enough to cut you through, and the more I wolloped it the more it stuck fast and would not go.” When I heard this, one of the ditties I know in the days of my child slavery in the brickfield came up as green as ever—

“If I had a donkey and it would not go, Must I wollop it? No, no, no!”

“Our chaps,” said Bones, “laughed at me. I had to dismount and let the brute take its chance; and from that day I have been named ‘Old Bones.’” “I’m not very old, am I?” he said, and began to kick about on the ground. But I would not let him go, for I wanted to learn something of his antecedents. He had been a gutta percha shoemaker, and could earn his pound or more per week, but preferred to tramp the country as an “old fool,” live on red herrings, dress in rags, and sleep on straw under the stage. Before he had quite finished his story, another man, dressed in a suit of dirty, greasy, seedy-looking, threadbare, worn-out West of England black cloth, joined us. “Old Bones,” after a good shake of the hand, vanished to his show, red herrings, and “quid of baccy,” and I was left alone with my second acquaintance. I was not long in finding out, according to his statement, that he was a “converted Jew,” and had been to the “Cape” and lost £5000 in the diamond fields, and had come home to “pull up” again, instead of which, he had gone from bad to worse, and was now tramping the country with an old showman as a “fire king,” and sleeping under the stage among old boxes, rags, and straw. His real name was —, but was passing through the world as W—. Strange to say, I knew his brother-in-law, who is a leading man in one of the large English towns.

When I asked the “fire king” how he liked his new profession, he said, “Not at all; at first it was dreadful to get into the taste of the paraffin and oil. After you have put the blazing fusees into your mouth, they leave a taste that does not mix up very well with your food. Paraffin is a good thing for the rheumatics. I never have them now.” I questioned him as to the process the mouth underwent previous to the admission of lighted fusees. “If you keep your mouth wet,” he replied, “have plenty of courage, and breathe out freely, the blazing fire will not hurt you.” My new friend had much of a suspicious cast upon his features; so much so, indeed, that in one of his tramps from Norwich to Bury St. Edmunds, in one day he was taken up three times as “one who was wanted” by the policeman, for doing work not of an angelic kind.

In a van belonging to the owner of “a show of varieties,” there were eight children, besides man, wife, and mother-in-law. The showman could read, and chatter almost like a flock of crows; but none of the children, including several little ones, who assisted him in his performances, could either read or write, except one or two who had a “little smattering.” The showman quite gloried in having beaten the Durham School Board authorities, who had summoned him for not sending his children to school, while temporarily residing in the city. He defied them to produce the Act of Parliament compelling him as a traveller to send his children to school. The school authorities had sued him under their own by-laws, and as they could not produce the Act, he came off with flying colours.

Business was slack with this showman, and he undertook to introduce me to all the “showmen and shows” in the gipsy fair. Of course, I had only time to visit a few of the _best_ specimens. The first show, which was to be a pattern of perfection, was “boarded.” I must confess I did not much like the idea of mounting the steps, in the face of thousands of sightseers, to pass through “fools,” jesters, mountebanks, and painted women dressed in little better than “tights,” and amidst the clash of gongs and drums. I kept my back to the crowd, slouched my cap, buttoned up my coat to the throat, hung down my head, and crept in to witness one of the “Sights of London.” After I had duly arrived inside, I was introduced to my friends the leading performers, amongst whom were the smallest huntsman in the world and the youngest jockey. While we were fraternizing, a row commenced between two of the leading women connected with the show. Two travelling showmen—brothers—had married two travelling showwomen—sisters—among whom jealousy had sprung up. Tears and oaths were likely to be followed by blows sharp and strong and a scattering of beautiful locks of hair. I seemed to be in a fair way for landing into the midst of a terrible row between the two masculine sisters, whose arms and legs indicated no small amount of muscular strength, while their eyes blazed with mischief. One of the dressed showmen, an acrobat, came to me and said, that I was not to think anything of the _fracas_, the women had had only a little chip out, they would be sobered down in a little time. The women came round me with their tale, but I thought it the wisest plan not to interfere in the matter, and kept “mum,” for fear that I might get my bones into trouble. Happily the policeman appeared upon the scene, and before the curtain dropped, and the performing pony had finished his antics, I had with my showman friend made myself scarce. He said he was very sorry, and apologized for having introduced me to his friends under such circumstances. I could see he was chopfallen at the result, as this was a “going concern” in which all parties engaged were to be held up to me as paragons of perfection in the performing and showing business.

My showman friend, according to his own statements, had been almost everything in the “show” line, ranging from that of a tramp to an “old fool.” To my mind he was well qualified for either, or anything else in this line of business, with will strong enough to drag his eight children after him; at any rate, himself and his large family were going fast to ruin.

I now visited wax-work shows, and saw the noble heads of the great and good arranged side by side with those of notorious murderers and scamps, reminding me very much of what is to be the lot of all of us in our last resting-place. I had the opportunity of seeing the greatest horse alive, “dog monkeys,” “tight-rope dancers,” performing “kanigros,” “white bears,” “stag hunt,” “slave market,” “working model of Jumbo,” “fat women,” acrobat dancers, female jugglers, Indian sack feat, female Blondin, cannon firing, and a lifeboat to the rescue. My friend wanted his tea, and left me now to pursue my way as best I could. For a few minutes I stood and looked at the scene; under the glare of their lamps actors pulled their faces, performed their megrims, danced their dances, chuckled, winked, shouted, and rattled their copper and silver, as the simpletons stepped upon the platform to “step in and take their places before the performance commenced.” Of course all the shows in the fair were not to be classed in the black list. In some of them useful information and knowledge were to be gained. It was the debasing surroundings that had such a demoralizing effect upon the young folks.

Turning from the shows I began again to visit the vans. In one van owned by a Mr. B. there were a man, woman, and nine children, four of whom were of school age. The woman had been a Sunday-school teacher in her early days, but, alas! in an evil hour, she had listened to the voice of the charmer, and down she began to travel on the path to ruin, and she is still travelling with post haste, unless God in His goodness and mercy hath opened her eyes. She told me that she would have sent four of the children to school last winter while they were staying with their van at Brentwood, but the school authorities would not allow them without an undertaking that the children should be sent for one year. They were on Chigwell Common all last winter, and could have sent their children to school. She said they were often a month in a place, and would be glad to send the children to school if means were adopted whereby the children could go as other children go. None of them except the poor woman could tell a letter. She had been brought up in a Church of England Sunday school, and could repeat the creeds, &c. “Sometimes,” she said, “I teach the children to say their prayers; but what use is it among all those bad children and bad folks? It is like mockery to teach children to pray when all about are swearing. I often have a good cry over my Sunday dinner,” said the poor woman, “when I hear the church bells ringing. The happy days of my childhood seem to rise up before me, and my Sunday-school hours, and the sweet tunes we used to sing seem to ring in my ears.”

“Oh, come, come to school, Your teachers join in praises On this the happy pearl of days; Oh, come, come away.

The Sabbath is a blessed day, On which we meet to praise and pray, And march the heavenly way; Oh, come, come away.”

And, with a deep-drawn sigh, she said, “Ah! they will never come again; no, never! I should like to meet all my children in heaven; but with a life like this it cannot, and I suppose will not be.” I gave the children some little books and some coppers, and then bade her good-bye with a sad and heavy heart, which I sometimes feel when I witness such sorrowful sights. Among the crowd of sightseers were, gaudily dressed in showy colours, a number of “gipsy girls,” anxious to tell simpletons “their fortunes;” and I rather fancy a goodly number listened to their bewitching tales and lies. Dr. Donne, in “Fuller’s Worthies,” says of gipsies—

“Take me a face as full of frawde and lyes As gipsies in your common lottereyes, That is more false and more sophisticate Than our saints’ reliques, or man of state; Yet such being glosed by the sleight of arte, Faine admiration, wininge many a hart.”

I next came upon a gipsy tent, _i.e._, a few sticks stuck in the ground and partly covered with rags and old sheeting. The bed in this tent was a scattering of straw upon the damp, cold ground. Here were a man, woman, and four children. The woman and children were in a most pitiable condition. None could tell a letter. One of the children lay crouched upon a little straw—and it was a cold day—in one corner of the tent. Such a pitiable object I have never seen. It was very ill; it could not speak, stand, hear, or eat; and it was terribly emaciated. If ever sin in this world had blighted humanity, before me lay a little human being upon whom sin seemed to have poured forth its direful vengeance without stint or measure. With an aching heart I deeply sympathized with the gipsy woman and little gipsy children, whose sad condition is worse than the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse’s “Rob Rat,” which could scarcely be; and I did what I could to cheer them.

[Picture: Two English gipsy princesses “at home”]

I visited a number of tents, and wandered among the poor children and gipsy dogs that were squatting about in the dark upon the cold, wet ground. One fine-faced gipsy Lee and his good gipsy wife have had a family of nineteen children, all of whom were born on the roadside; most of whom are now grown up and have large families. It is fearful to contemplate the number of gipsy wanderers and hedgebottom travellers from this family who are neither doing themselves or the country any good.

There were on the “Flats” at the gipsy fair about one hundred and thirty families in tents and in vans; and of this number there would be forty families squatting about with their lurcher dogs, ready for any kind of game, big or little, black or white, bound by bars or as free as the air. As a rule a gipsy’s list of game includes, according to Asiatic notions and ideas, all the eatable live or dead stock in creation that either he or his dog can lay their hands upon or stick their teeth into.

There must have been over four hundred gipsy and other travelling children going without education, and not one could ever have been in a Sunday school.

It was about 10.30. The mouths and hearts of those who were left began to breed venomous, waspish words. At any rate, all the more steady and sensible part of the sightseers were wending their way homewards. Others were making for the beershops and public-houses, and the riff-raff were loitering about for what they could pick up. Policemen seemed to be creeping upon the ground, buttoned up to the throat, and ready for any emergency.