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Theories of Personality 7th Edition Jess Feist Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Jess Feist, Gregory J. Feist
ISBN(s): 9780073382708, 0073382701
Edition: 7
File Details: PDF, 5.12 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
 Psychology
Theories of Personality
7th Edition

Feist−Feist

McGraw-Hill
=>?
McGraw−Hill Primis

ISBN−10: 0−39−043533−3
ISBN−13: 978−0−39−043533−0

Text:

Theories of Personality, Seventh Edition

Feist−Feist
 This book was printed on recycled paper.

Psychology

http://www.primisonline.com
Copyright ©2008 by The McGraw−Hill Companies, Inc. All rights
reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as
permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part
of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form
or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without prior written permission of the publisher.

This McGraw−Hill Primis text may include materials submitted to

McGraw−Hill for publication by the instructor of this course. The
instructor is solely responsible for the editorial content of such
materials.

111 PSYCGEN ISBN−10: 0−39−043533−3 ISBN−13: 978−0−39−043533−0

 Psychology

Contents

Feist−Feist • Theories of Personality, Seventh Edition

Front Matter 2
Preface 2

I. Introduction 7
Introduction 7
1. Introduction to Personality Theory 8

II. Psychodynamic Theories 21

Introduction 21
2. Freud: Psychoanalysis 22
3. Adler: Individual Psychology 70
4. Jung: Analytical Psychology 103
5. Klein: Object Relations Theory 141
6. Horney: Psychoanalytic Social Theory 168
7. Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis 192
8. Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory 218
9. Erikson: Post−Freudian Theory 248

III. Humanistic/Existential Theories 279

Introduction 279
10. Maslow: Holistic Dynamic Theory 280
11. Rogers: Person−Centered Theory 314
12. May: Existential Psychology 347

IV. Dispositional Theories 379

Introduction 379
13. Allport: Psychology of the Individual 380
14. Eysenck, McCrae, and Costa’s Trait and Factor Theories 406

V. Learning Theories 445

Introduction 445
15. Skinner: Behavioral Analysis 446
16. Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory 483
17. Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory 515
18. Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs 553

iii
Back Matter 581
References 581
Glossary 603
Photo Credits 619
Name Index 621
Subject Index 627

iv
This page intentionally left blank
 2 Feist−Feist: Theories of Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill
Personality, Seventh Companies, 2009
Edition

Preface

What makes people behave as they do? Are people ordinarily aware of what they are doing, or are their be-
haviors the result of hidden, unconscious motives? Are some people naturally good and others basically evil?
Or do all people have potential to be either good or evil? Is human conduct largely a product of nature, or is
it shaped mostly by environmental influences? Can people freely choose to mold their personality, or are their
lives determined by forces beyond their control? Are people best described by their similarities, or is unique-
ness the dominant characteristic of humans? What causes some people to develop disordered personalities
whereas others seem to grow toward psychological health?
These questions have been asked and debated by philosophers, scholars, and religious thinkers for sev-
eral thousand years; but most of these discussions were based on personal opinions that were colored by po-
litical, economic, religious, and social considerations. Then, near the end of the 19th century, some progress
was made in humanity’s ability to organize, explain, and predict its own actions. The emergence of psychol-
ogy as the scientific study of human behavior marked the beginning of a more systematic approach to the
study of human personality.
Early personality theorists, such as Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung, relied mostly on clin-
ical observations to construct models of human behavior. Although their data were more systematic and re-
liable than those of earlier observers, these theorists continued to rely on their own individualized way of
looking at things, and thus they arrived at different conceptions of the nature of humanity.
Later personality theorists tended to use more empirical studies to learn about human behavior. These the-
orists developed tentative models, tested hypotheses, and then reformulated their models. In other words, they
applied the tools of scientific inquiry and scientific theory to the area of human personality. Science, of course,
is not divorced from speculation, imagination, and creativity, all of which are needed to formulate theories.
Each of the personality theorists discussed in this book has evolved a theory based both on empirical observa-
tions and on imaginative speculation. Moreover, each theory is a reflection of the personality of its creator.
Thus, the different theories discussed in these pages are a reflection of the unique cultural background,
family experiences, and professional training of their originators. The usefulness of each theory, however, is
not evaluated on the personality of its author but on its ability to (1) generate research, (2) offer itself to fal-
sification, (3) integrate existing empirical knowledge, and (4) suggest practical answers to everyday prob-
lems. Therefore, we evaluate each of the theories discussed in this book on the basis of these four criteria as
well as on (5) its internal consistency and (6) its simplicity. In addition, some personality theories have fer-
tilized other fields, such as sociology, education, psychotherapy, advertising, management, mythology, coun-
seling, art, literature, and religion.

The Seventh Edition

The seventh edition of Theories of Personality continues to emphasize the strong and unique features
of earlier editions, namely the overviews near the beginning of each chapter, a lively writing style, the
thought-provoking concepts of humanity as seen by each theorist, and the structured evaluations of
xiv
Feist−Feist: Theories of Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill 3
Personality, Seventh Companies, 2009
Edition

Preface xv

each theory. Annotated suggested readings are available online on the book’s website at
www.mhhe.com/feist7 to facilitate online research. As were the previous editions, the seventh edition is
based on original sources and the most recent formulation of each theory. Early concepts and models are
included only if they retained their importance in the later theory or if they provided vital groundwork for
understanding the final theory.
For select chapters, we have developed a Web-enhanced feature titled Beyond Biography, which is
directly linked to additional information on the book’s website at www.mhhe.com/feist7.
The seventh edition of Theories of Personality uses clear, concise, and comprehensible language as
well as an informal writing style. The book is designed for undergraduate students and should be understood
by those with a minimum background in psychology. However, we have tried not to oversimplify or violate
the theorist’s original meaning. We have made ample comparisons between and among theorists where ap-
propriate and have included many examples to illustrate how the different theories can be applied to ordinary
day-to-day situations. A glossary at the end of the book contains definitions of technical terms. These same
terms also appear in boldface within the text.
The present edition continues to provide comprehensive coverage of the most influential theorists
of personality. It emphasizes normal personality, although we have also included brief discussions on ab-
normality, as well as methods of psychotherapy, when appropriate. Because each theory is an expression
of its builder’s unique view of the world and of humanity, we include ample biographical information of
each theorist so that readers will have an opportunity to become acquainted with both the theory and the
theorist.

What’s New?
As in the sixth edition, we have reorganized Theories of Personality to conform more to the historical and
conceptual nature of the theories. After the introductory Chapter 1, we present the psychodynamic theories
of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sulli-
van, and Erik Erikson. These theories are now followed by the humanistic/existential theories of Abraham
Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. Next are the dispositional theories of Gordon Allport, Hans Eysenck,
and Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, Jr. The final group of chapters include the behavioral and social learn-
ing theories of B. F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, Julian Rotter, Walter Mischel, and George Kelly, although
Kelly’s theory nearly defies categorization. This new organization gives the reader a better view of the
chronology and development of personality theories.
In addition to this reorganization, we made changes that more accurately reflect the theory’s meaning
or update the research testing the scientific status of the theory. For example, in the chapter on Klein and ob-
ject relations we changed “fantasies” to “phantasies” because Klein was clear she wanted to use the term in
a unique way. Moreover, we made several changes that maintain the challenging and informative yet reader-
friendly nature of this text. Most noticeably, we have added half a chapter of new material on the Big Five
trait theory of Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, Jr. This five-trait approach has recently evolved from a tax-
onomy to a full-fledged theory.
The primary changes in the seventh edition involve updating the related research that examines each
of the major theories. For example, for Fromm’s theory we have added new research that examines the bur-
den of freedom and political persuasions; for Maslow we added current research on positive psychology and
personality development, growth, and goals; for Skinner we now include research on reinforcement and the
brain; for McCrae and Costa we summarize the most current research on the Big Five dimensions and emo-
tions; and for Bandura we have updated the related research section with new findings on self-efficacy and
terrorism and on self-efficacy and diabetes.
 4 Feist−Feist: Theories of Front Matter Preface © The McGraw−Hill
Personality, Seventh Companies, 2009
Edition

xvi Preface

Supplementary Materials
For Instructors

Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank

The Instructor’s Manual accompanying this book includes learning objectives, a lecture outline, teaching sug-
gestions, essay questions, and a test bank of multiple-choice items. The learning objectives are designed to pro-
vide instructors with concepts that should be important to the student. The lecture outline is intended to help busy
instructors organize lecture notes and grasp quickly the major ideas of each chapter. With some general famil-
iarity with a particular theory, instructors should be able to lecture directly from the lecture outline. Teaching sug-
gestions reflect class activities and paper topics that the authors have used successfully with their students. The
Instructor’s Manual is available on the password-protected side of the book’s website (www.mhhe.com/feist7).
In the Test Bank, we have included three or four essay questions and answers from each chapter for in-
structors who prefer this type of student evaluation. For those who prefer multiple-choice questions, we have
provided a test bank with nearly 1,500 items, each marked with the correct answer. The test items are avail-
able in Word files and in computerized format on the password-protected side of the book’s website
(www.mhhe.com/feist7).

For Instructors and Students

Online Learning Center

This extensive website, designed specifically to accompany Feist and Feist’s Theories of Personality, seventh
edition, offers an array of resources for both instructors and students. For students, the Online Learning Cen-
ter (OLC) contains multiple-choice, essay, and true-false questions for each chapter, a Beyond Biography
section that further explores the backgrounds of the many theorists presented in the text, suggested readings
for each chapter, and many other helpful learning tools. The OLC also includes the Study Guide. For in-
structors, there is a password-protected website that provides access to the Instructor’s Manual. Please go to
www.mhhe.com/feist7 to access the Online Learning Center.

For Students

Study Guide
By Jess Feist
Students who wish to organize their study methods and enhance their chances of achieving their best scores on
class quizzes may access the free study guide for the seventh edition of Theories of Personality online at
www.mhhe.com/feist7. This study guide includes learning objectives and chapter summaries. In addition, it con-
tains a variety of test items, including fill-in-the-blanks, true-false, multiple-choice, and short-answer questions.

Acknowledgments
Finally, we wish to acknowledge our gratitude to the many people who have contributed to the completion
of this book. First of all, we want to acknowledge and thank Chad Burton, who helped in summarizing and
writing the new material for all updated related research sections. We are also grateful for the valuable help
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peeps at us as possible before bidding us good-bye for their long
journey far, far away. Our fowls had, according to their usual
custom on Sunday mornings, gathered themselves together under
the shed in the yard to listen to the intonation of their friend “Tom.”
The sheep and cattle were grazing in the meadows, and sheaves of
golden corn stood upright in the fields, inviting the farmers to carry
them home to fill the barns of the rich, the coffers of the banker, the
empty bellies of the poor widow, toilers in the field and brickyard,
dwellers in canal-boat cabins, and gipsy tents, vans, and wigwams.
Our village church bells had begun to ring, and my wife was, of
necessity, breaking the Sabbath by restoring with her bodkin and
thread some of my habiliments while I stood bolt upright, so as to
make me presentable at court, which process caused a twitter
among our “olive branches.” I now scraped together all the money I
could, and with my “Gladstone bag” in hand, containing among
other things my Sunday’s dinner, consisting of a slice of bread and
butter and an apple, and my seedy-looking overcoat, turned the best
side towards London, I started to the station. The bells were
chiming and pealing soft and low, and our little folks were tripping
off to church with their curls dangling down their backs, and dressed
in their best “bib and tucker.” On the way I came upon an Irishman
sitting upon a stone minding some sheep that were munching grass
by the roadside. For his companion he had, as the Rev. Mr. Vine
says in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, February, 1877,

“Naught but the sky, the rough hewn rocks,

Green belts of grass, and fleecy flocks.”

To me it seemed as if he had a small crucifix in his hand, and was

counting beads; if so, I interrupted him by calling out “Good
morning,” to which Pat responded, “Good morning, yer honour; an’ it
is a fine morning, yer honour.” I left him in his devotion, and next
came upon a couple of dirty shoemakers from Daventry, with as
much watercress in their arms as they could carry, stolen from the
water-brook close by while the farmers were in church and the dogs
tied up.
I now ran against a youth from the station who was gathering
blackberries. At his feet, in the hedge-bottom, a hare was quietly
nestling. Poor fellow! he let his blackberries fall to grasp the hare,
which allowed him the moment’s pleasure of catching its tail, but,
much to the chagrin of the youth, did not leave it behind, forcibly
illustrating the case of the dog in Æsop’s Fables crossing a plank
with a piece of meat in its mouth, which it let fall to grasp the
shadow. “Oh!” said the flushed youth, “I nearly caught it.”
In the train there were several gentlemen. One was reading the
Christian World, and another was reading a sporting paper. At
Nuneaton I had two hours to wait for the next train to Leicester.
The interval was spent in pacing backwards and forwards upon the
platform, and in eating with a thankful heart my Sunday’s dinner,
which, not to say the least of, was not too rich for my digestive
organs.
I fared better than an old gipsy woman, Boswell, who, with her
daughter-in-law—a gipsy Smith from London—and their five poor
half-starved gipsy children, came to our door recently. The old
woman, Boswell, had only an outer old frock upon her, with two or
three old rags underneath. She had no “shift” on, as she said. This
family of travelling gipsies consisted of two men, mother and
daughter-in-law, and five children, the whole of whom “slept under
their tilted barrow” at Buckby wharf in a hedge-bottom. Not one of
this lot could tell a letter.
At Nuneaton I conversed with a gentleman who gave me a little of
his history, some of which was remarkable, especially that part
relating to his courtship and marriage. “Ah!” said my friend with a
tone of sadness, “I had the misfortune to lose my wife by cruel
death, and was left with four little children to get through the world
as best we could. It was a sad blow, sir. I don’t know whether you
have ever undergone such a trial, but my experience of it is that it is
one of the greatest misfortunes that can ever befall mortal man, and
I’ve nothing but pity for the man who has had to undergo the sad
loss. Oh! it’s terrible, sir. After you have been toiling hard all day in
the cold rain, frost, and snow, and then to go home to find no one to
warm your slippers, or to speak a kind, soothing, and cheering word
to you, was more than I could bear. To sit and eat your bread and
butter and drink your tea alone, while the servants and the children
were playing in the streets, was enough to turn any man into a wild
animal.” I said to him, “Certainly it is a terrible ordeal, and one that
I should not like to pass through.” “Yes it is,” said my friend, almost
in whimpering tones. “Well, how did you get out of your sad
difficulty?” I said. “Well, sir, things went on for some months in a
path in which there seemed nothing but vexation. The servants
were quarrelling, the children were neglected, and bills seemed to
be coming in without end; and while I was brooding over these
things one afternoon, in came a minister from Derby, and he saw the
fix I was in, and that I could not get him as nice a cup of tea as
formerly; and, to help me out of my difficulty, he said, ‘My dear
brother, when the proper time comes, I know where there’s a wife
that will suit you.’ ‘Do you?’ I said to my ministerial friend. ‘Yes,’ he
said, ‘I do.’ At this I pricked up my ears, and he said, ‘I am going to
their house for tea next week, and if you like you shall go with me.’
‘All right,’ I said. Nothing more passed that evening on the subject.
During the week he wrote to me, asking me to meet him at Derby
station. Of course I thought I would go; they could not take
anything of me, and I went. In going to the house I began to get
into a nervous stew. On the way my friend said, ‘Now there are two
sisters in the house living with their mother. It will be the one with a
blue ribbon round her waist who I think will suit you. After they
have been in their room to dress for the afternoon she generally
comes out the first.’ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll keep my eyes open.’ At the
door the mother met us, and gave us a hearty welcome. The young
ladies were in their room, and I was playing with my fingers upon
the arm of the sofa. Presently a young lady came downstairs. Of
course I had my eyes upon the waistband, to see whether it was a
blue one; but, to my astonishment, it was green. In a few minutes
the other young lady came downstairs with the blue ribbon round
her waist. I concluded that this was the one my friend the parson
had selected for me. Tea was got ready, and instead of entering
freely into the general conversation, I kept looking first at one and
the other of the young ladies at tea, and playing with my fingers
between time. When tea was over and the service ended, on the
way home my friend the parson said, ‘Well, which of the two do you
like best?’ ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I’m not particular; I’ll take to either of them;
but as the eldest is nearer to my age, I think I will make love to her,’
taking it all as a joke. Nothing more was said. During the next
week I was a long way from home on business, and I ventured to
write to Deborah, telling her who I was, and what little game I was
up to, and asking her to meet me at the station to have a chat
together on the subject about which I wrote. The young lady was,
so I’ve been told since, dumbfounded, and said to her sister, ‘Of all
the men in the world I will not have him; I don’t like him a bit. He
did not at all seem to make himself comfortable at tea. I shall not
go to meet him.’ ‘Well,’ said the other sister with the green
waistband, ‘If you don’t go I shall. He will suit me.’ ‘Well,’ said the
one with the blue waistband, ‘if he will suit you he will suit me, and I
will go to meet him at the station.’ Accordingly I got out of the train,
so that she might know me again, and on we went to Derby and
made matters square; and—would you believe me, sir?—in three
weeks from that time we were married.” I said, “Well, bless me!”
The rapidity of his courting expedition almost took the wind out of
me. The station bell now rang. I jumped into the train, and as I
was moving off towards Leicester I bade my new friend good-bye;
and he, in return, waving his hand, said, “I will tell you the rest
another day, and what we saw on our wedding tour in London,
Antwerp, Brussels, Mastricht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.” “All
right,” I said, and we puffed away, leaving quite a pother behind.
In the train were two young female “school teachers,” who had been
a “gipsying” to Coventry by the “special” from Leicester on the
Saturday afternoon, and, whether by accident or design, they had
been left behind. I questioned them about the suspicious
circumstance attached to such a course, to which they replied, “As
soon as we arrived at the station, and found that the train had been
gone five minutes, we nearly cried our eyes out. Fortunately we had
friends in Coventry with whom we stayed all night.”
I told them to be good girls and do better for the future, to which
they replied, “We will,” and I left them to make my way down
Belgrave Gate to my sister-in-law’s. After tea we went to St. Mark’s
church, and heard a smiling young curate, the Rev. A. F. Maskew,
preach a good, practical, telling sermon, on the occasion of returning
thanks to Almighty God for the success that has attended our army
and navy and the termination of the war in Egypt. The Rev. C. B. —
was away on his holiday. After the service the congregation stood
up and heartily joined the choir in singing, “God save the Queen.”
To which I responded with all my heart, “Amen! God bless our
blessed Queen.”
Right always comes right. After service I took a walk, with “a young
lady” of some forty-five gentle summers and hard winters at my left
side, to visit the new park in the abbey meadows. The sight was
most enchanting. Few lovers were on the walks with their arms
entwined round each other’s waists. The artificial lakes, hills, and
rockeries were seen with solemn grandeur by the aid of distant
lamps. The moving murmuringly forward of the “soar” waters
beneath our feet, as we stood on the bridge, lighted up with silver
streaks of distant lamps, and the pealing forth of the soft, heavenly,
riveting, and mesmerizing hymns and chimes of the evening bells of
St. Mark’s and St. Saviour’s, made me feel that all the troubles,
trials, opposition, misrepresentation, and hardship I had passed
through were suddenly transformed into pleasures, leading up to the
indescribable panoramic views that appeared before my vision. As it
passed away—or, I should say, I passed from it—another one
opened up which led me on and on in spirit to the heavenly rest and
everlasting beauty in store. The Rev. Richard Wilton says—

“Let Nature’s music still the ear delight,

And gracious echoes mortal cares allay,
 Till “wood-notes” ’mid angelic warbling cease,
And “church bells” ring us to eternal peace.”

In a few minutes after this I was between the sheets, and I could
have said with John Harris, as sleep stole gently into my room—

“Hark! What is that? The spirit of the vale?

Or is it some bright angel by the lake?”

And the last I remember was, I was muttering over “by” “by” “the”
“lake,” “by” “by” “the” “the” “lake,” “la—la,” and I was bound fast to
the bed.
A quondam friend bade me “good morning,” and then jumped into a
“first class” to recite his “R’s” and “S’s” so as to give them the
finishing touch correctly the next Sunday morning, while I enjoyed
the honour and pleasure of a “third.” We arrived together at
Nottingham, and I made my way to a “temperance hotel,” not half a
mile from the station, with “first-class” appearances outside, but with
“third-class” bedroom accommodation. My room was a “top back,”
overlooking well-known old friends, viz., bricks, tiles, terra-cotta,
sanitary pipes, encaustic tiles, &c, with a board in the corner covered
with oilcloth for a washing stand, and a tea saucer for a “soap tray.”
The bed was hard, and the blind was of a material that needed no
washing; in fact, the room was bare, cheerless, comfortless, and
cold. I strolled into the market-place, and was soon talking to some
old-fashioned Staffordshire gipsies with short skirts, and apparently,
thick legs, heavy boots, with plenty of colour about their “head-
gear,” who, taking all things into consideration, were not bad
specimens of gipsies of the present day.
After this I spent a short time with my old friend, Mr. William
Bradshaw, a name which has been well known in the midland
counties for many long years. Writing and gossiping consumed the
remainder of the day; and at ten o’clock I mounted and climbed
nearer heaven to rub my eyes again at peep o’ day. Between four
and five o’clock I was in and out of my hard bed a dozen times,
guessing the time and groping in the dark, for fear I might miss the
train to Bulwell Forest. At last I got so fidgety that I was determined
to get up, “hit or miss.” I dressed, and then went downstairs to find
my way out into the street; but, not having an angel, like Peter, to
open the doors for me, I had to ring and ring and shout sufficient to
awaken all in the house; if they had been as deaf as posts, I could
not have had a greater difficulty to awaken them. At last the
landlord made his appearance with his shirt on, and his hair on an
end like a frightened ghost. Owing to my early movements, and
being a suspicious-looking customer, I had to pay my bill, and out I
went about half-past five. My train started for Bulwell at six o’clock,
and at six thirty I was among the gipsies upon the forest. There
were four vans full of gipsies of all sorts and sizes, just turning out
of their “bed;” so dirty were they that I should not have been
surprised if the “beds” had run away with them. “Smiths” and
“Winters” were the two prominent names. “Bless me,” I said, there
are “gipsy Smiths here, there, and everywhere.” “Yes, you are right,
my good mon,” said Mrs. Gipsy Winter in a Staffordshire twang. In
the four vans there would be twelve adults and eighteen poor,
rough, dirty, neglected little gipsy children, not one of whom could
read or write. The policeman said to me, “The gipsies that come on
this forest and about these parts are a rough, dirty, bad lot, and no
mistake. Nowt comes amiss that they can lay their hands upon, I
can assure you.” I had a chat with Mrs. Gipsy Winter, and told her
what my object was, viz., to bring their vans under registration, and
also to give their children a free education; to which she replied with
delight, “Lor, bless you, my good mon, I’m reight glad you big fokes
are going to do sommat in the way o’ givin’ our childer a bit o’
eddication, for they’re nowt as it is. They are growin’ up as ignorant
as osses; they conner tell a ‘b’ from a bull’s foot. I conner read
mysen, but I should like our childer to be able to read and write.
Han you got one o’ your eddication pass books wi’ yer? cause if yer
han, I’ll ha’ one.” I told her that the Act was not passed authorizing
the use of them; at which she held down her head, and said, “I
suppose we mun wait a long time fust.” “Yes,” I said, “it will not be
this year.”
Mrs. Gipsy Winter had upon her finger a Masonic ring—i.e., a ring
with the “square” and “compasses” engraved upon it. Of course I
felt sure she was not a Freemason, and did not proceed to put her
to the test. There never was but one woman a Freemason, and the
reason was that she secreted herself in an old clock case while the
ceremonies were being performed in the Lodge “close tiled.” The
only way out of the awkward difficulty was to make her a Mason
forthwith on the spot, and this—so Masonic squib and report has it—
was done. This report of “our Masonic sister” is to be taken with a
pinch of snuff.
I called to see a family of gipsy Woodwards who have taken a house
and are settling down the same as other folk. Those of their
children that are able to work are working at the coalpits close by,
and the children of school age are sent to school. In the course of
time they will become as other workers, helping on the welfare of
the country, and at the same time securing their own comfort and
happiness. The house did not present the appearance of a fidgety
old maid’s drawing-room, but they are up the first steps towards it.
Time and encouragement will bring it round in the sweet “good time
coming.” “Wait a little longer, boys; wait a little longer.”
It is complete bosh, nonsense, wickedness, and misleading folly for
frothy novelists to say that it is impossible for gipsies to settle down
to industrious habits and a regular life. I know full well they can,
and are willing, many of them, to settle down, if means be taken to
bring it about. I will only mention one case, to illustrate many
others, viz., a gipsy I know well, who is as pure a gipsy as it is
possible to find at this late day. The good old man has had a settled
home for forty years, and goes to hard work night and morning
amongst the farmers, the same as other labourers do. Aye, and
many times he works late and early, dining at times off a crust and a
cup of cold water with a thankful heart in the week-day, and sings
God’s praises on Sundays.
To come back again to Bulwell Forest. After I had visited the
Woodwards I turned into a small coffee-shop to get a cup of tea;
and while I was enjoying the penny cup of tea with a halfpenny’s-
worth of bread and butter for my breakfast, the landlord said: “One
of the young gipsy rascals of the forest came into my shop last
week, and made himself too friendly and free with some things that
lay upon the table, for which I could have put him into jail; but I did
not like to follow it up, and the lot of them have made themselves
scarce since.” Another old woman, a seller of the Nottingham Daily
Journal, Nottingham Daily Guardian, Express, &c., said, “The gipsies
often come into my house and want to tell me my fortune; but I
always tell them that I know it better than they can tell me, and will
have no cotter with them.”
I next came upon a gipsy named L—, who told me of a case of gipsy
kidnapping which took place at Macclesfield a year ago, viz., that of
a gipsy woman stealing a pretty little girl of tender years out of the
streets, belonging to a fairly well-to-do tradesman living in the
town. Although the child was advertised for a long time, and large
rewards offered, it was not to be found, till one day a gipsy girl went
to one of the shops in Macclesfield to sell some gipsy “clothes
pegs.” The good woman of the house came to the door. Although
five long years had passed away, tears had been dried up again and
again, and hundreds of prayers had gone upward to Him who hears
prayers and sighs, and the child had grown big and brown, and was
dressed in rags and filth, the mother recognized the poor gipsy child
standing at her door hawking “pegs” as her own dear little darling
“Polly.” Without waiting for the lost child to be washed, dressed, and
its hair combed, she embraced her darling little lost daughter
covered in rags with fond kisses, which told a tale through the gipsy
dirt upon the child’s face, as only a tender-hearted, loving mother
can, and straightway called in her friends and neighbours, and said,
“Rejoice with me, for I have found this day my long-lost little darling
Polly.” A policeman was sent for, the kidnapping gipsy woman was
traced, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour in jail for
her wrong-doing.
I was also told of gipsies who are undergoing long terms of penal
servitude for horse-stealing, their favourite game—sheep stand
second on the list. Donkeys are very low down upon their list, as
they are not worth “shot and powder.” “If a gipsy should get
‘nabbed’ for stealing a donkey, it would be looked upon in the eyes
of the bobbies,” said my gipsy friend, “like stealing a horse.”
A whirl, twirl, puff, and a whiz landed me upon the platform in the
“Health Department” at the University College, Nottingham,
September 26, 1882, with my bags, books, and papers, among the
large gathering of Social Science magnates and doctors, to discuss—
firstly, the Canal Boats Act Amendment Bill of 1881, which I am
humbly promoting; and secondly, “The Conditions of our Gipsies and
their Children, with Remedies.” Among others upon the platform
there were Mr. Arnold Morley, M.P., Mr. W. H. Wills, M.P., Mr. Whately
Cook Taylor, Chairman, one of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspectors of
Factories; Mr. H. H. Collins, Hon. Secretary of the Health
Department; Mr. J. Clifford Smith, Secretary to the Social Science
Association; and in the body of the hall there were Dr. Hill, the
Medical Officer of Health for Birmingham; Mr. Walter Hazell, Mr.
Russell of Dublin, and a large gathering of ladies, “too numerous to
mention.”
I had expected to find a large opposition force confronting me,
consisting of those who would keep the canal and gipsy children in
their present degraded condition; but, like the Midianitish host, the
breaking of my cracked pitcher had frightened them out of their
wits, and they had scampered off to the hedges and ditches to skulk
in front of me again another day. No doubt with my papers,
Gladstone bag, spectacles, &c., I presented very much the
appearance of “Mrs. Gamp” at her speechifying table.
These are my papers with all their faults and living seeds, sown and
planted at the Master’s bidding, in the midst of much toil, hardship,
and persecution; which seeds will bring forth a little eternal fruit
some day—maybe, when my work is done, and I have been called
home to rest with the little ones.
 The Condition of our Gipsies and their
Children, with Remedies.
In the year 1514 the gipsies landed in Scotland from the Continent,
and from that date to the present time we have had in our midst
over 30,000 men, women, and children with increasing numbers,
going to and from our villages, towns, lanes, and fairs, and mixing
with the simple, wise, gay, and foolish, leading the lives of
vagabonds, demoralizing all they have been brought in contact with,
by their lying, plundering, dirty, filthy, cheating, and crafty habits. In
one word, the gipsies have been, and still are, a disgrace to Christian
civilization. Of course there are exceptions among them, and I wish
from the bottom of my heart that there were more.
They live huddled together regardless of either sex, age, or decency,
under hedges, in tents, barns, or on the roadside, with but little
regard for marriage ceremonies.
Their food, in many instances, is little better than garbage and
refuse, and the most riff-raff of them bed themselves upon rotten
straw.
We have also, at this late day, with sunny education gleaming on
every hand, over 30,000 poor gipsy children of school age growing
up as vagabonds, and not two per cent. of the whole able to read or
write a sentence.
If our present-day gipsies had been of the romantic type of some
two or three centuries ago, as pictured to us so beautifully by
fascinating novelists, we might have wandered down the country
green lanes, and by the side of rivulets, to admire their witchery,
colours, and gipsy traits, exhibited with much refined skill, artistic
touch, and feeling by gipsy writers; but the fact is, to state it plainly,
the romantic gipsy of novels and romance has been dead long ago,
and neither the stage, romance, nor imagination will ever bring him
to life again in this country.
Our gipsies of to-day are neither more nor less than ignorant, idle
tramps, scamps, and vagabonds. This I know full well, for I have
found it out over and over again, not by hearsay, but by mixing and
eating with them in their wretched abodes often during the last five
years.
My sorrowful experience of them forty years ago, with casual
acquaintances since, and onward to 1878, has not brought any traits
of their character, as practised by them, that any sane-thinking,
loyal, or observing man can admire, and the sooner our legislators
deal with our gipsy vagabonds the better it will be for us as a nation.
Many of the gipsies have large hearts, and are most kindly, and they
are also clever and musical. These features of gipsy life I have
witnessed myself many times. The cause of their degraded position
may be laid at the door of our Christian apathy, legislative
indifference, social deadness, and philanthropic neglect.
The flickering and uncertain efforts of missionary agency will do
something towards reclaiming our poor lost wandering little brothers
and sisters, but not a tithe of what the social, sanitary, and
educational laws of the country can do.
In the paper I had the honour to read before this Congress at
Manchester, in 1879, I dealt more especially with the evils of gipsy
life, only referring briefly to my remedy, the substance of which I
have published in my “Gipsy Life,” and in various forms since 1878,
and onward to this date, which, with additional suggestions, are as
follow:—
1. I would have all movable or temporary habitations registered and
numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements in a manner
analogous to that provided under the Canal Boats Act of 1877.
2. Not less than 100 cubic feet of space for each female above the
age of twelve, and each male above the age of fourteen; and not
less than 50 cubic feet of space for each female under the age of
twelve, and for each male under the age of fourteen.
3. No male above the age of fourteen, and no female above the age
of twelve, should be allowed to sleep in the same tent, or van, as
man and wife, unless separate sleeping accommodation and suitable
ventilation be provided.
4. A registration certificate to be obtained, and renewable annually
at any of the urban or rural sanitary authorities in the country, for
which the owner of the tent, or van, shall pay a sum of 10s.,
commencing on the first of January in each year.
5. The compulsory attendance at day schools a given number of
times of all travelling children, or others, living in temporary or
unrateable dwellings up to the age required by the Education Code,
which attendance should be facilitated and brought about by means
of a free educational pass book, procurable at any bookseller’s, for
the sum of one shilling, as I have suggested to meet the case of
canal children.
6. The children to be at liberty to attend any National, British,
Board, or other day schools under the management of properly
qualified schoolmasters.
7. No child under thirteen years of age to be engaged in any
capacity for either hire or profit, unless such child shall have passed
the “third standard” of the Education Code.
8. No child or young person to work for either hire or profit on
Sundays under the age of sixteen.
9. Power to be given to any properly qualified sanitary officer,
School Board visitor, inspector, or Government official, to enter the
tents, vans, shows, or other temporary or movable dwelling, at any
time, or in any place, and detain them if necessary, for the purpose
of seeing that the law is properly carried out.
10. The Local Government Board to have power to appoint one, or
two, or more officials to see that the local authorities enforce and
carry out the Act; and also to report to Parliament annually.
11. All fines to be paid over to those authorities who enforce the Act
and the regulations of the Local Government Board.
12. As an encouragement to those gipsy wanderers who cannot
afford to have healthy and suitable travelling vans and other abodes,
and who desire to settle down from their wandering and degrading
existence to industrious habits the Government should purchase
common or waste lands, or allot lands of their own to the gipsies in
small parcels upon a long lease—say for ninety-nine years—at a
nominal rent.
With these features embodied in an Act of Parliament, and properly
carried out by the local authorities, under the supervision and
control of the Local Government Board and Education Department,
gleams of a brighter day might be said to manifest themselves upon
our social horizon, which will elevate our gipsies and their children
into a position that will reflect a credit instead of a disgrace to us as
a civilized nation.

“And shall he be left in the streets to room,

An outcast live and wild?
‘God forbid!’ you say. Then help, I pray.
To provide for the [gipsy child].”
Rev. I. Charlesworth, Sword and Trowel, 1671.

The Canal Boats Act of 1877, and the Amending Bills of 1881 and
1882. By George Smith, of Coalville.
In 1877 an Act was passed entitled “The Canal Boats Act of 1877,”
on the basis sketched out by me in a paper I had the honour to read
before this Congress, held at Liverpool in 1876; and also in my
letters, articles, &c., which have appeared in the lending journals,
and in my works since the passing of the Act and onward from 1872
to this date.
After the Bill was drawn up, and during its progress through
committee in 1877, several features were foreshadowed in the
measure which led me to fear that when passed it would not
accomplish all we so much desired, and these I pointed out to the
late Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, Mr. Salt,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board; Mr. John
Corbett, M.P., Mr. Pell, M.P., Mr. P. Rylands, M.P., Mr. Sampson Lloyd,
MP., Mr. W. E. Price, M.P., and many others; but rather than yield to
the opposition of the Canal Association, and the loss of the Bill, I
suggested that it should be passed, notwithstanding the drawbacks
that were in sight.
When Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Price, and others, at the fag end
of the session of 1877, put the question seriously to me, as to
whether the Bill should not be massacred along with the other
innocents, I replied as follows: “Push the Bill through Committee by
all means. A piece of a loaf is better than none. It has its defects,
but if we do not get the Bill passed this year we shall not be likely to
do so next year. Let us get the thin end of the wedge in. The
operation of the Act will be to bring about the registration of the
canal boats, to give power to the sanitary officers to enter the
cabins, to secure the education of the 40,000 canal children, and
also to prevent overcrowding in the cabins.”
The first step towards carrying out the Act, after five years’
continued agitation and visits to various parts of the country, has
been fairly accomplished; and the sanitary officers, by the power
given to them under the Act, have done good by preventing, in
some degree, the spread of infectious diseases; but the main
features of the Act, viz., the education of the canal children, the
prohibition of overcrowding in the cabins, and the annual registration
of the boats, are almost entirely neglected.
The following are the failing points of the Act of 1877:
1. The Act to a great extent is permissive. 2. Proceedings cannot
be taken against the boatmen and boatowners for evading the
regulations of the Local Government Board—the most important of
all. Breakers of this Act can be brought under the lash of the law,
but breakers of the regulations cannot. 3. The Act of 1877 is placed
in the hands of the local registration authorities to carry out,
consequently the expenses fall upon the ratepayers, and the result is
that the local sanitary inspectors, or registration officers, have had
but little added to their salaries—in many instances nothing—and
with strict orders not to go beyond their town or city boundaries.
Thus it will be seen that boats plying between the registration
districts, which are as a rule between twenty and fifty miles apart,
are left to themselves. 4. Another oversight in the Act is the non-
annual registration of the boats, and consequently there have been
no fees to meet the expenses. It was intended from the first that
there should be an annual registration of the boats. 5. The want of
power in the Act to enable the Local Government Board to appoint
officers to supervise, control, inspect, enforce, and report to
Parliament upon the working of the Act and the regulations. 6.
Another cause of failure in the Act has been owing to power not
having been given to inspectors to enter the cabins or inspect the
boats at any other time than “by day.” Boats are more or less on the
move by day, and it is only when they are tied up—which generally
happens after six o’clock—or when they are being loaded or
unloaded, that the local registration officer has an opportunity to see
or to form any idea as to what number of men, women, and children
are sleeping and huddling together in the cabins. 7. The Act does
not give the School Board officer power to enter a boat cabin. The
education clauses of the Act have, I might almost say, entirely failed:
(a) owing to the indifference manifested by the school authorities at
which places the boats are registered as belonging to; (b) the extra
trouble they give to the school attendance officers; (c) the facilities
given and the chances seized by the boatmen to get outside the
town or city boundaries with their children so as to elude the grasp
or shun the eye of the School Board officer. 8. The payment of a
week’s school fees demanded from the children who can only attend
one or two days in the week. It is not either fair, honest, or just to
compel a boatman to pay more for the education of his children than
others have to pay. 9. Many boats in the coal districts, with women
and children on board, travelling short distances, have escaped
registration and inspection under the plea that their boats are not
used as dwellings. 10. Another very important reason advanced by
the registration authorities why the boatmen and boatowners have
not been prosecuted for breaches of the Act is that all the trouble
and expense attending prosecutions have had to be borne by the
local ratepayers, while the fines, in accordance with the Act of 1877,
have been paid over to the county fund, instead of the borough or
local fund.
The Bill I am humbly promoting, and which has been before
Parliament during the last two sessions, supported by Lord Aberdare,
Earl Stanhope, Earl Shaftesbury, the Marquis of Tweeddale, Mr.
Samuel Morley, M.P., Mr. Albert Pell, M.P., Mr. John Corbett, M.P., Mr.
Thos. Salt, M.P., Mr. Thos. Burt, M.P., and Mr. H. Broadhurst, M.P.,
provides a remedy for these faulty places. 1. I would do away with
the permissive features of the Act of 1872. 2. Fines to be inflicted
for breaches of the regulations, as well as for breaches of the Act.
3. I give under the Act the local registration authorities part of the
registration fees. I propose that the annual registration fee should
be 5s. for each boat, one half of this amount to go to the
Government, and the other half to the local authorities. 4. The
registration of the boats to be annual. This will be a very simple and
inexpensive affair, no matter in what registration district the boat
happens to be at the time of the renewal. 5. I give under the Bill
the Local Government Board power to appoint one, two, or more
officials to visit the canals in various parts of the country, and to see
to the proper enforcement of the Act, and to report annually to
Parliament. 6. I propose that the inspectors should have power to
enter a canal boat at any “reasonable hour.” 7. No child shall be
employed on a canal boat unless such child shall have passed the
“third standard.” 8. I propose that children, whom the regulations
allow to live in the cabins, should have a free educational pass book,
which would enable them to attend any day school while the boats
are being loaded and unloaded. 9. No child under the age of sixteen
to work on a canal boat on Sundays. 10. All boats upon which there
is accommodation for cooking or sleeping to be deemed to be used
as dwellings. 11. All fines to be paid over to those authorities who
enforce the Act.
When the Canal Boats Act of 1877 is amended in accordance with
the lines I have laid down in the Bill, the stigma that has been
resting upon the country and our canal population, numbering nearly
100,000 men, women, and children, during the last 125 years, will
be in an easy way for removal, without inconvenience or costing the
country one farthing, and the boatowners and captains not more
than 2s. 6d. each per annum.
With the proper carrying out of the Act the 40,000 boat children of
school age, not ten per cent. of whom can read and write, will be
educated, and the boatmen’s homes made more healthy and happy;
industrious habits will be encouraged, and the country will also be
made richer by increasing the happiness of her water toilers upon
our rivers and canals.

“Oh, help them, then, if ye are men,

And, when thy race is run,
Turn not aside, nor think with pride
Thy work in life is done.”
Ellis, Quiver.

My papers passed off in the midst of smiles and kindly and lengthy
press notices. Editors have always been more kind to me than I
have deserved, much more than I had anticipated. The fact is, I had
expected some rough handling, and armed myself with a few little
rough, awkward facts. Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the
majority of my hearers were of the gentler sex. Bless their dear
hearts! Their encouraging smiles and words have helped me
through many a difficulty in pushing on with the cause of the
children. May God reward them a thousandfold.
The act was ended, and the curtain dropped. I therefore “picked up
my crumbs,” and bade my friends goodbye till—D.V. and if all’s well
—we meet again next year at Huddersfield. I then made my way to
the station, and home. Upon Leicester platform I met with a few old
friends, who had pleasant greetings for me, including Mr. Thompson,
Mr. Fox, and a literary friend, the Rev. W. L. Lang, F.R.G.S., who has
given myself and the cause I have in hand many lifts—bless him for
it. Onward and upward may he travel to the time when it shall be
said, “It is enough.” And to my many other friends who have helped
me by their influence and with their pens, I repeat the same thing
over and over again.
My little stock of the “one thing needful” had begun to turn quite
modest, and crept into the corners of my pocket, so as to be
scarcely felt among the keys of boxes, drawers, cupboards, and
lockers, knives, and other pocket trifles. I took my ticket to Rugby,
which left me with one shilling. I had not gone far before my ticket
was missing out of my hand. I was in a minute “all of a stew.” Cold
perspiration crept over me. In a twinkle, before any one could say
“Jack Robinson,” my hands were at the bottom of my pockets using
their force to persuade Mr. “Ticket” to turn up; but no! it was not to
be found. Fortunately a porter came panting after me and asked if I
had not lost my ticket. He had lifted a ton weight off my shoulders,
and I thanked him very much. At Rugby I spent my last coin in
copies of the Times, Standard, Daily News, Telegraph, Daily
Chronicle, and Morning Post. In nearing our old antiquated village
along the lovely green lanes, little village children were to be seen
gathering blackberries. The sun was shining most beautifully in my
face. The autumnal tints and hues were to be seen upon the trees.
The gentle rustling wind brought the decaying and useless leaves
hesitatingly and in a zigzag fashion to the ground, as if they were
loath to leave the trees which had given them birth, before settling
among the mud to be trampled upon by tramps and gipsies. While
climbing the last hill, with a heavy heart and light pocket, weighed
on all sides with nervous hope, trembling doubts, and anxious fears,
I never more fully realized the force of John Wesley’s hymn, as I
tried to hum it over. In soft but faltering accents I might have been
heard by the village children singing—
 “No foot of land do I possess,
No cottage in this wilderness.
A poor wayfaring man,
I lodge awhile in tents below,
Or gladly wander to and fro,
Till I my Canaan gain.”

The first thing that caught my eye upon my library table was a letter
from Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., in which was enclosed a cheque to aid
in building a Good Templar hall at Northampton, about which I had
written. This was duly sent to Mr. Hollowell, the secretary.
Underneath Mr. Morley’s letter lay one from a friend, Mr. Frank A.
Bevan, of 54, Lombard Street, enclosing a small cheque on behalf of
himself, Lord Aberdare, and a number of friends, to help me in my
work, and to provide for the daily wants of my little ones, till we
arrived at the next stile on our rough, steep, and somewhat zigzag
journey. The sight of his cheque sent a thrill of joy through my soul,
and I could not help shouting out, “Thanks! a thousand times.”
Light again dawned at eventide, and we were enabled to retire to
rest singing God’s praises as the candle flickered in the socket.
In my “Gipsy Life” I have shown, among other things which have
never been mentioned by any gipsy writer before, the following
particulars. First, the cause and probable date of the gipsies leaving
India; second, the route by which they travelled to Europe; and
third, the cause of their persecution after their arrival in England
from the continent.
My gipsy paper did not give universal satisfaction to everybody
outside the congress. My plain matter-of-fact statements raised the
ire of a few little narrow-souled mortals, who had not the courage to
appear in their own dress, and borrowed other people’s clothes—
shooba Rye, &c.—to crouch in while they fired their popguns at me.
Just as they were trying to swallow my papers, an article appeared
in the Morning Post, stating that I “knew more than any man in
England about the gipsies.” This was more than O Bongo, ho, no
tïckno chavo could stand. Editors are not like most mortals, they
have a perfect right to say what they please about anybody and
everybody. They and other literary friends have been more than
kind to the cause of the children and my unworthy self, for which I
thank them from the bottom of my heart. Without their help I could
not have got along. I sent the following letter to the Morning Post,
bearing date October 11, 1882, relating to “Shooba Rye,” O Bongo,
hó, no tïckno chavo:
“Your correspondent complains that I do not know sufficient of the
gipsies. My congress papers and my ‘Gipsy Life’ show that I know a
little. It is evident I know more than is pleasant to him, or he would
not have hastily snatched up some one else’s badly-fitting night-
dress to sally forth with his farthing candle in hand to put a ‘sprag’
into my wheel. Such backward movements are too late in the day to
stop the sun of civilization and Christianity shedding its rays upon
the path of the poor gipsy child and its home.
“I do not pretend to know more than forty years everyday practical
observation and insight into the real hard facts of the conditions of
the women and children employed in the brickyards and canal boats,
and the dwellers in gipsy tents and vans can give me.
“Two days ago I came upon a family of gipsy ‘muggers,’ father,
mother, and four children, travelling in a cart. The poor little
children, whose ages ranged from four to twelve years, were stived
up in a box on the cart, which box was 5 ft. long by 2 ft. 9 in. wide
by 3 ft high, or about eleven cubic feet of space for each poor child.
The children were all down with a highly infectious disease, carrying
it from a village, where it had been raging, to Daventry and
Northampton. I gave the children some apples, but the poor things
said, ‘We are all ill and cannot eat them.’ None of these children
could tell a letter. These are facts and not fiction; inartistically
dressed, I admit, and without the flowers of poetical imagination to
adorn them. Knowledge gained under the circumstances in which I
have been placed, will, I think, be found nearly as valuable in
improving the condition of neglected and suffering children as
imaginative, unhealthy backwood fiction spun by the yard under
drawing-room influences and by the side of drawing-room fires can
be. At any rate, I have tried for many long years in my rough way
to look at the sad condition of the women and children whose cause
I have ventured to take in hand with both eyes open, one to their
faults, and the other to their virtues; and also with a heart to feel
and a hand to help, as my letters, papers, and books will show to
those who have the patience to read them.
“I have not been content to sit upon mossy banks by the side of
rippling rivulets, with a lovely sun shining overhead, and beneath the
witching looks and mesmeric smiles of lovely damsels, swallowing
love and other tales as gospel.
“It is time the hard facts and lot of our gipsies and their children—
i.e., those travelling in vans, shows, and tents—were realized. It is
time we asked ourselves the question, ‘What are the vast increasing
numbers—over 30,000—of children tramping the country being
trained for?’
“The fact is this: Parliament, Christians, moralists, and
philanthropists have been content for generations to look at the
gipsies and other travellers of the class through glasses tinted and
prismed with the seven colours of the rainbow, handed to us by
those who would keep the children in ignorance and sin, instead of
taking them by the hand to help them out of their degrading
position. My plan would improve their condition, without interfering
with their liberty to any amount worth naming, considering the
blessed advantages to be derived by the gipsies and others from it.
“No amount of misleading sentiment will stop me till the case of the
poor children is remedied by the civilizing measures of the country—
viz., education, sanitation, and moral precepts—extended to them by
an Act of Parliament, as I have described in other places, which
could be carried out, and a system of free education established, by
means of a pass book, without any inconvenience or cost worth
mention. Why should our present-day canal and gipsy children be
left out in the cold?”

“’Tis not the work of force, but skill,

To find the way into man’s will:
’Tis love alone can hearts unlock;
Who knows the Word he needs not knock.”
Richard Crashaw, “Fuller Worthies.”
 Rambles Among the Gipsies at
Daventry and Banbury Fairs.

The eleventh of October, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two

dawned upon “Old England” while rain was coming down too
drearily, drizzly, and freely for either man or beast to be
comfortable. Foggy, cold, and murky November seemed desirous of
making its advent earlier than usual. Not a songster was to be seen
nor an autumnal chirp heard round our dwelling. Long dark nights
had begun to creep over nature. “The last rose of summer,” the
Queen of English flowers, was drooping its head and withering up,
and the leaves were dwindling down to nothingness. The lanes
were strewn with dying leaves which had done their duty nobly and
well.
Through the low and heavy clouds the voice and footsteps of
children, as they trotted off with their milk tins, seemed to echo in
my ears, and other sounds to hover round me, carrying with them a
kind of hollow sepulchral sensation, telling me that summer was
dead and autumn was preparing nature for the winter shroud, which
was undergoing the process of weaving by angelic hands.
The sound of the thresher’s flail was heard in the barn, calling out
“Clank,” “Clank,” “Clank,” “Thud,” as it struck the corn and barn floor,
causing the precious grain to fly like a shower of small pellets
against the doors. Not a gleam of sunshine was to be seen.
Summer and winter seemed during the last fortnight to have been
struggling with each other, in the death-throes of nature for the
mastery. Genial summer had to give way to savage winter, and little
robins piped forth the victory. Everywhere seemed cold, damp, and
covered with melancholy. As we meditated upon the surroundings,
our carrier drove to our door with his van, into which I got, and
seated myself in one of the corners almost out of sight. A patent
“four-wheeler” of this kind I had not been used to, and our little
folks did their best to try to persuade me not to try the experiment.
We had not gone many yards before eggs, boxes, whiskey bottles,
butter, and onions were handed to our carrier for carriage and safe
custody to Daventry fair. Fat and thin women were closely packed
round me. Welton is a noted village for fat women, which may be
the result of the excellent water. While our village blacksmith was
putting some of his handiwork into the carrier’s van, the scene
brought vividly to my mind Longfellow’s poem. He might have seen
the very spot.

“Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;
The smith a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.”

I mumbled the verse over to myself as we jogged along. To have

repeated or bawled it out in such “close quarters” would have been
worse than putting one’s head into a hatbox.
After the usual “picking up” and “calling” we began to slowly trot off
with our load. We had not got far before our village dames,
damsels, and companions began to indulge more or less in the usual
village gossip and jokes. Big heavy old women could indulge in
sprightly conversation as freely as if they were “four-year-olds.”
Pleasantry was exchanged as to who was to sit next to our driver, so
as to keep his back warm. Village parsons and squires were the first
upon the programme. Then came a long rigmarole about the old
maids and maidens, poachers, slovens, slatterns, fashions, Jacks,
Jims, and Pollies. Everybody knew everybody’s business, ranging
from the death of Polly Jones’s cat to Squire Brown’s fine horse.
Good masters were passed over with “He’s not a bad sort of man to
work for, and he’d be better if he had more to do with.” Bad masters
were mentioned with a curl of the lip, a scowl and a shake of the
head, ending with “He’s a bad ’un; my man shouldn’t work for him at
any price, if I could help it.” Mrs. So-and-So, and Miss So-and-So
were “snappy old things,” “niggardly, mean, and miserable;” “nobody
has a moment’s comfort near them.” “Oh!” said one, on the road,
“did you see Miss Jenny Starch on Sunday with her new bonnet on?
Didn’t she look mighty fine? Wasn’t she a stuck-up thing? Nobody
could come near her with a fork.” “Did you see,” said another, “the
three poor little children running about the streets this morning,
almost naked, in rags and dirt? The mother is idle, and the father
drinks. They both want horsewhipping, and if I could have my own
way I would give it them.” “Yes,” said another, “and serve them
right.” “Did you see,” said another, “the Misses So-and-So in church
on Sunday? They looked quite pretty. When you can just catch
them in the right temper, they are so nice and pleasant. What a
thing this money is, isn’t it? Money buys fine feathers, and fine
feathers make fine birds.” “Anybody can be made pretty, nowadays,
if they have only the money,” said a stout dame, who had a big red
face under a little bonnet, and must have weighed little short of
eighteen stone. We were passed on the road by two “screwy” old
maids from Bonnybrook, “trotting off to market” in a green pony
carriage, sitting like Jack and Jill, one before and the other behind,
bolt upright and as still as posts, looking out of the corner of their
eyes. As we were mounting the hill going into Daventry the
question of “leaving” was brought upon the carpet, and it came out
that all of them were satisfied with their “old masters,” and were
going to “stop again at the old wages.” I am afraid their “old
masters”—husbands—will have a little difficulty in getting rid of
them. They like the “old shop” too well to budge. The process of
riddance, “My dear husband,” and a stream of tears would have to
be faced before they “cleared out.”
I had not been long in the “mop” before I was face to face with a
good-looking, but somewhat eccentric, and good-natured popgun
owner, named Mott, at one of the stalls. One passage of Scripture
after another he repeated in rapid succession with breathless
speech, until quite a crowd gathered round us in the drizzling rain.
After my friend—who has been on the road attending fairs for forty
years—had finished his speech, his wife handed to him a newspaper,
out of which he read my letter as it appeared in the Daily News,
bearing date September 5th, 1882, which will also be found in page
161. The newspaper had been given to them by a dirty, wretched,
filthy-looking family of travelling show folks from London, whose
corns and consciences had been touched to the quick. After he had
read it, and had given it to his wife again, I expected a “rather hot
reception,” especially after a paragraph which has been going the
round of a few of the papers, to the effect that I must look out for
trouble from “light and dark gentlemen.” As the paper passed from
his hands I looked rather anxiously into his face to see what the
effect would be. To my surprise, the index of his soul showed
pleasure, and not anger; and in unmistakable tones he said, “You
are quite right, sir, and I thank you for it. It is rather warm, but your
object is right—there is no mistaking that. I quite agree with your
plans, and so does every right-thinking man. The traveller’s and
other gipsy children ought to be educated. God bless you, sir, I
know what religion is; I am an old backslider. I was once a leading
member among the Baptists, but I chipped out over a little thing,
and now me and my old woman are travelling the country in our
van, and doing this sort of thing. There is one thing I should like to
say, sir; I never creep into my bed in the van without saying my
prayers to my heavenly Father. I feel to sleep better after it. It
soothes me a little.” Tears were making their way down the grey-
haired traveller’s face; and I think it would have been a blessed thing
for him if I could have introduced him into a Methodist prayer-
meeting, as a stepping stone that would lead him out and on to the
paths he trod in the days of yore, crying out from the depths of his
soul, in the language of a writer in the Christian Life for October
14th, 1882—
 “Thou art a rock, to which I flee;
With all my sins I come to Thee,
And lay them down, Lord, at Thy feet,
Before the shining mercy-seat.
Thou art a fortress strong and high,
To which for shelter all may fly,
Sure there to find a safe retreat,
Beneath the sacred mercy-seat.”

After shaking hands with this couple I bade them goodbye, and gave
them something to read during the dark hours of winter, something
in which are buried seeds of a bright spring-time for them both, if
they will only follow out the directions given. I then strolled into the
fair. I had not gone far before I came upon an old brickmaker, and
from him I gleaned some facts showing how wretchedly the
Brickyard Act of 1871 is being carried out. After chatting with him
for some minutes he apparently took stock of my hair, which has,
thank God, grown almost white in the cause of suffering children.
Mr. Brickmaker turned quite poetical, and in parting said—

“Take stock, Mr. Knock,

That’s what I have to say, Mr. Grey,”

and he then sidled and smiled away into the crowd.

I had not been long moving to and fro among the gipsies before I
learned that two gipsies, whose head-quarters were a few miles
from Daventry, were undergoing transportation, one for sheep-
stealing, and the other for horse-stealing. The horse-stealing gipsy
was caught in his own trap, owing to his being too clever and
daring. It came about as follows: A publican and farmer a few miles
from here had a fine, beautiful, young black horse, to which the
gipsy took a fancy; and it so happened with this gipsy, as with other
gipsies of this class, that he had not too much money to spare for
purchasing purposes. An old idea ran fresh through his brain, which
was, that he could with but little trouble make the horse his own,
without money and the bother and trouble of giving back the
“shilling for luck” on the completion of the purchase. Accordingly he
sallied forth one dark night and took the beautiful animal out of the
field, not far from Daventry, and kept it “in close confinement” for
three days to undergo doctoring, at the end of which time the stolen
horse was quite a different looking animal. The horse now had a
white star upon its forehead, and two white fetlocks. Its tail and
mane were shortened, and, with the assistance of “ginger,” it put on
quite a sharp, frisky appearance. In the meantime he heard that the
owner of the horse was much in want of one. “Now,” thought the
gipsy, “here’s a fine chance for turning money over quickly, and
getting rid of an animal that would turn ‘a tell-tale’ if kept too long.”
Consequently the gipsy mounted his steed, and off he trotted to the
publican. On arriving at the door he called the innkeeper out to look
at a horse that he had for sale, “good, quiet in harness, sound in
wind and limb, a good worker, without a blemish, and cheap.” The
publican liked the looks of the horse very much, and he asked the
gipsy to trot him up and down the road; and off the horse bounded,
frisked, and danced about quite lively. The action of the horse was
all that was desirable, and the price “right.” In the end the horse
was sold, glasses round given, the “luck shilling” returned, the horse
was put into the stable, and the gipsy became scarce.
Three days after the “white star” and “white fetlocks” were not to be
seen, and the horse began to look “quite different.”
It was brought plainly home to the publican that he had bought back
his stolen horse. The gipsy was “hunted up,” tried, and sentenced to
a “long term,” where horses are not to be had.
In the fair, or “mop,” there were eight vans, in which there would be
about sixteen men and women and thirty children living and
sleeping; and, so far as I could gather, only about four could read
and write, and these were adults, none of whom were teaching their
children anything that would be helpful to them in after life.
Connected with one of the “Aunt Sally” establishments there were
man, woman, and three little neglected children, with no other
sleeping accommodation than a “bottom” of straw spread under the
stall, covered with an old sheet, and warmed in the winter by an oil
lamp. The poor woman was the picture of poverty, despair,
degradation, and misery. Their stall and “Aunt Sally” were pushed
through the country on a small “hand cart.” The family hailed from
Leicester, and were in a most wretched, dirty, and ignorant
condition. As soon as I saw the man I thought I could recognize his
features as those of a posh gipsy I had seen before; and it turned
out to be true, for he was no other than a “fishman” who had more
than once carried my fish to the station.
In the “mop” I came across a man and woman with four children
who hailed from a village a few miles from Daventry, and who had
taken to gipsying and were singing in the streets in the midst of mud
and drenching rain—

“Beautiful Zion, built above,

Beautiful city that I love,
Beautiful gates of pearly white,
Beautiful temple, God its light.”

Three of these children were of school age, but could not read or
write a letter.
When I questioned the man about putting the children into the
union workhouse, and the wrong he was doing to them in bringing
them up as tramps, he said “he could not help that; they must look
out for themselves as they got bigger, and help to do a little for
him.” By singing about the streets they got him some “baccer and a
little vittles.” In 1882 at the “mop” I met with a showman, named S
—, and his wife and six children, living in a wretched tumbledown
van; the small windows were broken, and rags, dirt, and filth
abounded in every nook and corner. The father had had a religious
“bringing-up” by Christian parents in Cornwall, and for many years
earned a good living in Wales as a miner, and was a member of a
Christian Church. The sharp, good-looking woman, although dirty
and dejected enough to banish looks and spirits to the winds, waves,
and realities of eternity, bore up fairly well under the wretched
surroundings. She had, previous to her marriage, for many years
been a “lady’s maid” in a good “religious family,” and was well
educated. The man was ingenious and clever, and had during his
spare moments and hours in Wales made the working model of a
coal-mine, which, at the instigation of “religious friends,” he began
to exhibit in public. The success that attended him in the first
instance led him to think that he was on the high way to a fortune.
He acted upon the advice of his “Christian friend” and others,
instead of his own common sense, and bought a van in which to
place his handiwork, and “took to the road.” A downhill one for
himself and his large family it has been ever since, and they are now
gipsying, and cursing the day upon which he took and followed the
advice of a shortsighted—to say the least—“Christian friend.”
In giving advice, God-fearing Christian men and women above all
others should look well ahead, and to all the surroundings of the
case, before deciding the fate of a family. Advising a parent to break
up a settled home and comfortable livelihood to tramp the country
among gipsy vagabonds and tramps, I consider little less than
murder.
In making their way one Sunday from a village to attend the “mop,”
they got stuck fast at the bottom of a hill with an old bony
emaciated horse that would not draw “a man’s hat off his head.”
The poor little children dressed in dirt and rags, and scarcely able to
toddle, had to set to work to drag and carry the old boards, rags,
and other things belonging to their “show” to the top of the hill.
After hours of toil, interrupted by the constant striking and chiming
of church bells on the bright autumn Sunday morning, they were
able to make another move.
Their show consisted of the working model of the mine, one of their
youngest children, nearly naked, with a Scotch plaid over its
shoulder being exhibited as a “prize baby.” In addition it included a
boxing establishment. The man had not the build and stamina to
lead the “ring,” and they had to wait for the “millers” to pair
themselves before a boxing exhibition could take place.
They had not been in Daventry long before this backsliding
showman, who had taken to gipsying, was wanted by Shórokno
gáiro Garéngro for cruelty to his horses. The result was that he had
to “do a month” in Northampton gaol. No doubt the poor misguided
showman would feel in his cell as John Harris puts it—

“Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears

Like crackling coals, and frogs strut up and down
Like hissing cinders: wasps and waterflies
Scorch deep like melting mineral. Murther! save!
What shall a sinner do?”

To which I would have answered—

“Pray to thy God

To help thee in thy trouble.”

A week or two after I saw the woman and her six children in a most
destitute condition. I gave the poor little things a good tea and cake
in my house, and subscribed my mite towards buying them another
horse, and advised them to make their way to Aberdare, in Wales,
and take to mining again, to send their children to school, for none
of them could tell a letter, and they were growing up worse than
heathens.
Their first venture at a showman’s life was to exhibit the model and
paintings, and they hired a donkey-cart and set off to Aberdare.
When they got there the showman wrote to me, “I am sure you
would have been amused if you had been there to have seen us; for
when we had our establishment erected—which, by the way, was
very small—we were too shy at first to make an appearance outside;
at last we made a resolution, and began to shout. So we found out
after we had broken the ice that we were landed. On the first night
we took enough to pay our month’s rent. This gave us
encouragement. We made a good many friends, and I became
notorious among my fellow workmen. They thought me an
extraordinary man. In three years I painted in oil colours thirteen
pictures, three feet square, of the interior of a coal-mine and
different other subjects. . . . The waxwork show owners we had
accompanied left Wales for London. Afterwards my wife went to
Bristol and bought a barrel organ, and I had what we thought a very
nice little show, and a nice van and horse. But alas! we did not
know what travelling in the winter meant. We found very soon that
we could not show every night on account of the weather, and also
found that we could not get any credit. If we had no money there
was no bread. I shall never forget the first night we got ‘hard up.’
Dear sir, just fancy yourself going into a large town about eight
o’clock at night, and the rain coming down in torrents in the cold
January month; the houses shining with wet, and a horse to be fed
and stabled—for we kept it in a stable then—and six children to get
a supper for, let alone yourself, and not a penny in your pocket, and
not a friend in the world to speak to or to give you counsel. Well,
that is just how we were situated in the first January that we
travelled. Dear sir, perhaps you would say, ‘Why did you not make
for your home?’ That would have been the wisest plan, but we
thought we would endure anything rather than go back to be
laughed at. Well, after my good wife had had a good cry, we went
to the pawnbroker’s and pledged my watch, thinking that we should
be able to redeem it again in a few weeks. We borrowed fifteen
shillings, so that with opening the show we could be helped on for a
few weeks, instead of which we met with a worse misfortune than
ever. We lost our horse at Pontypool. We pledged our organ for £2,
and then trailed our van to Swansea for Llanefni fair, thinking we
should get money enough to buy another. More next week. The
children all send their love to you, wishing you a merry Christmas.”
This man was at one time earning nearly £2 per week, and had a
good home. It will be found on close inquiry that nearly all our
present-day showmen have been in better circumstances, and rather
than be laughed at for their silly adventures by their friends, they
are content to wander up and down the world little better than
vagabonds, and to train their children for a tramp’s life. By travelling
in vans, carts, and tents they escape the school boards, sanitary
officers, rent and rate collectors; and to-day they are—unthinkingly,
no doubt—undermining all our social privileges, civil rights, and
religious advantages, and will, if encouraged by us, bring decay to
the roots. I speak that which I do know, from what I have seen and
heard.
I had heard of a gipsy Smith who had settled down, and was now
residing in one of the “courts” of Daventry. I hunted him up, and
found him in a little cottage residing by himself. The cottage was
nice and clean. When I went in I was invited to sit upon a chair.
The old gipsy had just come home with some work. He was lighting
the fire, and I said to him, “I suppose you could do very well with a
Hotchi-witchi just now, could you not, Mr. Smith?” The old man
turned up his bronzed face, and with a laugh said, “I just could, my
dear good gentleman. I was looking for one this morning, but could
not find one.” I said, “Could you do with a Kanéngro?” The old man
replied, “I could if I had one; but I never goes after them now. I
don’t much care for them. I would rather have Hotchi-witchi.” After
a general conversation for a few minutes, I said, “How long have
you given up travelling?” He replied, “Nearly thirty years. I like it
better now.” “How long have you lived by yourself?” The old man’s
lips began to pucker and tears came into his eyes. After wiping his
face, he said falteringly, “It is nearly four years since I lost my dear
good bedfellow. We had lived together over forty years. She was a
good creature, and I mean to meet her in heaven, bless the Lord.
I’ve been a bad one in my time, but I’ve given up all bad ways, and
have attended the Wesleyan chapel and the Salvation Army nearly
two years, bless the Lord; it was the best day’s work that ever I did
when I found Him.” The old gipsy now gave me a little of his
history. “My grandfather was a Welsh gipsy, and used to attend
Northampton and Daventry market and fairs with horses and ponies,
and in course of time my father and grandfather began to travel
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