The English Gipsies and Their Language

anderlust."-Gipsy Politeness.-The Tinker and the Painting.-Secrets of Bat-catching.-The P

dio. Suddenly I heard without, beneath the window, the murmur of two voi

a chisel, was broken. I took it, went

ho stood by it any trace of the Rommany. One, a fat, short, mind-his-own-business, ragged son of the roads, who looked, howev

igure-the face to me invisible-which I scrutinised more nearly. And

d poetic. It was the mere blind, dull, dead germ of an effort-not even life-only the ciliary movement of an antecedent embryo-and yet it had got beyond Anglo-

him the chisel, and after a while went down. He was grind

lood. Of this all writers on the subject have much to say. For it is so black-swanish, I may say so centenarian in unfrequency, for a gentleman to speak Gipsy, that the Zingaro thus addressed

ective who has acquired it for no healthy purpose, or else you yourself are a scamp so hig

mmany is a most alarming coin of vantage. Certainly, reader, you know that a regular London streeter, say a cabman, would rather go to jail than be beaten in a chaffing mat

n mind," said the disap

rome, {38} reader-hardly worth telling-yet it settled him

n, I approached calmly and gazed

a great deal of your business, a

s,

f your tools in French. You'd l

ch indee

is," I said, "is a churi, so

sir?" replied the tinker, gravel

re hangars or wongurs, s

before in my life," q

pudemengro. Some c

nce he repeated the words after me, and pronounced them correctly, which

I said, affably, "that I h

from my hat to my boot

likely. From your language

ad not been at that instant the w

Rommanis?" (i.

said he

person appeared to be about as well up in the English Gipsy as myself-that is, he knew it quite as imperfectly. I learned that the master had been in A

e money there, why didn't

-scrag-looked at me wistfully, and apparently a lit

. Somethin' kept telling me to move on, and

rfect Freemasonry had been aroused by my ab

call this her

it isn't right Rommany. It's Greek, which t

I have seldom spoken to a Gipsy in England

you call a fa

a nāk; and as for mui, I call rikker tiro m

and then said, "You're 'deep' Gip

loud; do you think I want all the Gorgios around here to know

utalisation, that fountain-source of all politeness-the Oriental. Many a time I have found among Gipsies whose life, and food, and dress, and abject ignorance, and dreadful poverty were far below that of most paupe

sorman, as I call him, not being familiar with the anatomy of such delicate and winsome māro, or bread, was startled to find, when

break off and put the cakes back again; I

And he did so, quietly. I have never s

g the Piper of Hamelin surrounded by rats without nu

business under old Lee, who was the greatest rat-catcher in E

y it. There were just thirty-six rats in the house, and they had a trap which held exa

y afterwards told me that he used caraway-oil and the heads of dried herrings.) "And if

as models for the picture two very pretty rat

ture mean, sir?" he in

verrun with rats. They teased the dogs and worried the cats, and bit th

common lot of them, sir," r

those days there were no Rommanicha

ipsy, gloomily. "The business is quit

st Gipsy who had ever been seen in dovo tem (or that country). And he agreed for a thousand crow

e blow on a

his heels. But when he had drawn the rats away and asked for his mone

Gipsy, with a shrewd look. "He w

ren away. They all went after him-all except on

then, as if I puzzled, but with an e

ho-all a fact-or is

t in those days Gipsies were very scarce, and people were very muc

about the

ard occasionally that Gipsies used to chor

yielded to this explanation. He

a tinker. But who knows with whom he may associate in this life, or whither he may drift on the great white rolling sea of humanity? Did not Lord Lyt

e did my m

she cr

hat I shoul

th that I

' about wi'

-like c

e two languages. For besides the Rummany, the

ck you

lly mort' is Kennick, but it's juva or rákl

sometimes,

sir. The rum is a Gipsy,

l the rest of the world over there is only

, recalls an incident which, though not strictly

e day while walking I saw by the roadside a picturesque old tinker, loo

knife to grind. He replied politely in French that he did not speak Rommany, and only understood French and Walloon. Yet he seemed to under

I cannot talk Rommany, I know another sec

rty years ago, one or two phrases of this French thieves' slang, a

r en bigorne?"-y

mons

gne en vergne?"-and you g

a queer smile, the tink

very well." (A shrug.) "Perhaps he knows more than he credits himself with. Perh

I hastened to pay my tinker, and went my way homewards. Ross Browne was accused in Syria of having "burgled" onions, and th

rman Gipsy song, he manifested an interest in it, and put

nothing to do but go about from land to land, looking after our Rummany people

is less Rommany in their jib (language) than in any othe

that we're of the childre

op of blood in common with them. Tell me

r; most of it isn't fit

ere h

e the ker

shall be

with which I had encouraged his palaver-a word, by the way, which is not inappropriate, since it contains in itself the very word of words, the lav, w