Part 7 (1/2)
[80] The reader will see that the Gipsies, at this time, were not greater ”vagabonds” than great numbers of native Scotch, if as great.
But, being strangers in the country, sojourners according to their own account, the king would naturally enough banish them, as they seem always to have been saying that they were about leaving for ”their own country.” Their living in tents, a mode of life so different from that of the natives, would, of itself, make them obnoxious to the king personally.--ED.
[81] The English Gipsies say that native names were a.s.sumed by their race in consequence of the proscription to which it was subjected.
German Gipsies, on arrival in America, change, at least modify, their names. There are many of them who go under the names of Smith, Miller, and Waggoner. Jews frequently bear names common to the natives of the countries in which they are to be found, and sometimes, at the present day, a.s.sume Christian ones. I knew two German Jews, of the name of Cohen, who settled in Scotland. One of them, who was a priest, retained the original name; but the other, who was a watchmaker, a.s.sumed the name of Cowan, which, singularly enough, the priest said, was a corruption of Cohen.--ED.
[82] It is stated by Paget, in his Travels in Hungary, that the Gipsies in that country have a profound regard for aristocracy; and that they invariably follow that cla.s.s in the matter of religious opinions. Grellmann says as much in regard to the Gipsy's desire of getting hold of a distinguished old coat to put on his person.--ED.
Baron Hume, on the criminal law of Scotland, gives the following account of some of the trials and executions of the Gipsies:
”The statute (1609) annuls at the same time all protection and warrants purchased by the Egyptians from his majesty's privy council, for their remaining within the realm; as also all privileges purchased by any person to reset, entertain, or do them any favour. It appears, indeed, from a paper in the appendix to McLaurin's Cases, that even the king's servants and great officers had not kept their hands entirely pure of this sort of treaty with the Egyptian chiefs, from whom some supply of money might in this way be occasionally obtained.
”The first Gipsies that were brought to trial on the statute, were four persons of the name of Faa, who, on the 31st July, 1611, were sentenced to be hanged. They had pleaded upon a special license from the privy council, to abide within the country; but this appearing to be clogged with a condition of finding surety for their appearance when called on, and their surety being actually at the horn, for failure to present themselves, they were held to have infringed the terms of their protection.
”The next trial was on the 19th and 24th July, 1616, in the case of other two Faas and a Baillie, (which seem to have been noted names among the Gipsies;) and here was started that plea which has since been repeated in almost every case, but has always been overruled, viz: that the act and proclamation were temporary ordinances, and applicable only to such Egyptians as were in the country at their date. These pannels, upon conviction, were ordered by the privy council to find caution to the extent of 1,000 merks, to leave Scotland and never to return; and having failed to comply with this injunction, they were in consequence condemned to die.
”In January, 1624, follows a still more severe example; no fewer than eight men, among whom Captain John Faa and other five of the name of Faa, being convicted, were doomed to death on the statute. Some days after, there were brought to trial Helen Faa, relict of Captain Faa, Lucretia Faa, and other women to the number of eleven; all of whom were in like manner convicted, and condemned to be drowned! But, in the end, their doom was commuted for banishment, (under pain of death,) to them and all their race. The sentence was, however, executed on the male convicts; and it appears that the terror of their fate had been of material service; as, for the s.p.a.ce of more than 50 years from that time, there is no trial of an Egyptian.”
But notwithstanding this statement of Baron Hume, of the Gipsy trials having ceased for half a century, we find, twelve years after 1624, the date of the above trials, the following order of the privy council: ”Anent some Egyptians. At Edinburgh, 10th November, 1636. Forasmuch as Sir Arthur Douglas of Quhittinghame having lately taken and apprehended some of the vagabond and counterfeit thieves and _limmers_, (scoundrels,) called the Egyptians, he presented and delivered them to the sheriff princ.i.p.al of the sheriffdom of Edinburgh, within the constabulary of Haddington, where they have remained this month or thereby: and whereas the keeping of them longer, within the said tolbooth, is troublesome and burdensome to the town of Haddington, and fosters the said thieves in an opinion of impunity, to the encouraging of the rest of that infamous _byke_ (hive) of lawless _limmers_ (scoundrels) to continue in their thievish trade: Therefore the lords of secret council ordain the sheriff of Haddington, or his deputies, to p.r.o.nounce doom and sentence of death against so many of these counterfeit thieves as are men, and against so many of the women as want children; ordaining the men to be hanged, and the women to be drowned; and that such of the women as have children, to be scourged through the burgh of Haddington, and burned in the cheek; and ordain and command the provost and baillies of Haddington to cause this doom be executed upon the said persons accordingly.”[83]
[83] Blackwood's Magazine.
”Towards the end of that century,” continues Baron Hume, ”the nuisance seems to have again become troublesome. On the 13th of December, 1698, John Baillie and six men more of the same name, along with the wife of one of them, were indicted as Egyptians, and also for sundry special misdeeds; and being convicted, (all but the woman,) they were ordered for execution. But in this case it is to be remarked, that the court had so far departed from the rigour of the statute as not to sustain a relevancy on the habit and repute of being an Egyptian of itself, but only 'along with one or other of the facts of picking and little thieving;' thus requiring some proof of actual guilt in aid of the fame.
In the next trial, which was that of William Baillie, June 26th, 1699, a still further indulgence was introduced; for the interlocutor required a proof, not of _one_ only, but of _several_, of the facts of 'picking or little thieving, or of several acts of beating and striking with invasive weapons.' He was only convicted as an Egyptian, and of _one_ act of striking with an invasive weapon, and he escaped in consequence with his life.
”This lenient course of dealing with the Gipsies was not taken, however, from any opinion of it as a necessary thing, nor was there any purpose of prescribing it as a rule for other times, or for further cases of the kind where such an indulgence might seem improper, as appears from the interlocutor of relevancy in the case of John Kerr, and Helen Yorkston, and William Baillie and other seven; in both of which the simple fame and character of being an Egyptian is again found _separatum_ relevant to infer the pain of death, (10th and 11th August, 1714.) Kerr and Yorkston had a verdict in their favour; Baillie and two of his a.s.sociates were condemned to die; but as far as concerns Baillie, (for the others were executed,) his doom was afterwards mitigated into transportation, under pain of death in case of return.
”As early as the month of August, 1715, the same man, (as I understand it,) was again indicted, not only for being found in Britain, but for continuing his former practices and course of life. Notwithstanding this aggravation, the interlocutor is again framed on the indulgent plan, and only infers the pain of death, from the fame and character of being an Egyptian, joined with various acts of violence and sorning, to the number of three, that are stated in the libel. Though convicted nearly to the extent of the interlocutor, he again escaped with transportation.[84]
[84] This, and part of the preceding paragraph, will be quoted again, under the chapter of Tweed-dale and Clydesdale Gipsies.
”Nor have I observed that the court, in any later case, have thought it necessary to proceed upon the repute alone, unavouched by evidence of, at least, one act of theft or violence; so that, upon the whole, according to the practice of later times, this sort of charge seems to be reduced nearly to the level of the charge of being habit and repute a thief at common law.”
It is noticed by Baron Hume that the Faas and the Baillies were noted names among the Gipsies. Indeed, the trials referred to by him are all of persons bearing these two surnames, except two individuals only. The truth is, the Faas and the Baillies were the two princ.i.p.al families among the Gipsies; giving, according to their customs, kings and queens to their countrymen in Scotland. They would be more bold, daring, and presumptuous in their conduct than the most part of their followers; and, being leaders of the banditti, government, in all probability, would fix upon them as the most proper objects for destruction, as the best and easiest method of overawing and dispersing the whole tribe in the country, by cutting off their chiefs. As I have already mentioned, these two princ.i.p.al clans of Faw and Bailyow appear to be the only Gipsy families in Scotland who have retained the original surnames of their ancestors, at least of those whose names are inserted in the treaty with James V, in 1540.
It will be seen, under the head Tweed-dale and Clydesdale Gipsies, that tradition has represented William Baillie, who was tried in 1714 and 1715, as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of the ancient family of Lamington, (his mother being a Gipsy). It appears to me that the Gipsy policy of joining themselves to some family of rank was, in Baillie's case, of very important service, not only to himself but to the whole tribe in Scotland.[85] The extraordinary lenity shown to him by the court, after such repeated aggravation, cannot be accounted for in any other way than that great interest had been used in his behalf, in some quarter or other; and that, by creating a merciful precedent in his case, it was afterwards followed in the trial of all others of the race in Scotland.
[85] From the time of arrival of the Gipsies in the country, in 1506, till 1611, the date of the first trials of the tribe, as given by Baron Hume, a period of 105 years had elapsed; during which time there had doubtless been five generations of Gipsies added to the population, as Scottish subjects; to put whom to death, on the mere ground of being Egyptians, was contrary to every principle of natural justice. The cruelty exercised upon them was quite in keeping with that of reducing to slavery the individuals, and their descendants, who const.i.tuted the colliers, coal-bearers, and salters referred to in the following interesting note, to be found in ”My Schools and Schoolmasters,” of Hugh Miller.
”The act for manumitting our Scotch colliers was pa.s.sed in the year 1775, forty-nine years prior to the date of my acquaintance with the cla.s.s of Niddry. But though it was only such colliers of the village as were in their fiftieth year when I knew them, (with, of course, all the older ones,) who had been born slaves, even its men of thirty had actually, though not nominally, come into the world in a state of bondage, in consequence of certain penalties attached to the emanc.i.p.ation act, of which the poor ignorant workers under ground were both too improvident and too little ingenious to keep clear. They were set free, however, by a second act pa.s.sed in 1799. The language of both these acts, regarded as British ones of the latter half of the last century, and as bearing reference to British subjects living within the limits of the island, strikes with startling effect.
'Whereas,' says the preamble of the older act--that of 1775--'by the statute law of Scotland, as explained by the judges of the courts of law there, many colliers, and coal-bearers, and salters, are in a state of _slavery or bondage_, bound to the collieries or salt works, where they work _for life, transferable with the collieries or salt works_; and whereas, the emanc.i.p.ation,' &c., &c. A pa.s.sage in the preamble of the act of 1799 is scarcely less striking: it declares that, notwithstanding the former act, 'many colliers and coal-bearers _still continue in a state of bondage_' in Scotland. The history of our Scotch colliers would be found a curious and instructive one.
Their slavery seems not to have been derived from the ancient time of general serfs.h.i.+p, but to have originated in comparatively modern acts of the Scottish Parliament, and in decisions of the Court of Session--in acts of Parliament in which the poor ignorant subterranean men of the country were, of course, wholly unrepresented, and in decisions of a court in which no agent of theirs ever made appearance in their behalf.”
What is here said of a history of Scotch colliers being ”curious and instructive,” is applicable in an infinitely greater degree to that of the Gipsies.--ED.
CHAPTER IV.
LINLITHGOWs.h.i.+RE GIPSIES.[86]