2f^i S. No 102., Dec. 12. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUEBIES. 



465 



LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12. 1857. 



WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIFST ? 



[Ill reprinting the following Paper, •which has been 

 sent to us by Mr. Jasies Simson of New York, and is, we 

 presame, an extract from his forthcoming History of the 

 Gipsies, we deem that we are answering the purpose of 

 the writer. It is only bj' securing the question a circu- 

 lation on this side the Atlantic, that it has any chance of 

 being satisfactorily answered.] 



" From all that has been said, the 



reader can have no difficulty in believing with 

 me, as a question beyond doubt, that the im- 

 mortal John Bunyan was a Gipsy of mixed blood. 

 He was a tinker. Well, who were the tinkers ? 

 Were there any itinerant tinkers, following the 

 tent in England, before the Gipsies settled there ? 

 It is very doubtful. In all likelihood, articles re- 

 quiring to be tinkered were carried to the nearest 

 smithy. The Gipsies are all tinkers, either lite- 

 rally, figuratively, or representatively. Ask any 

 English Gipsy, of a certain class, what he can do, 

 and after enumerating several occupations, he will 

 add, ' I can tinker, of course ; ' although it is 

 doubtful if he knows much about it. It is the 

 Gipsy's representative business, which he brought 

 with him into Europe. Even the intelligent and 

 respectable Scottish Gipsies speak of themselves 

 as belonging to the ' tinker tribe.' The Gipsies 

 in England, as in Scotland, divided the country 

 among themselves under representative chiefs, and 

 did not allow any other Gipsies to enter upon 

 their walks, or beats. Considering that the Gip- 

 sies in England were estimated at above ten 

 thousand during the early part of the reign of 

 Queen Elizabeth, we can well believe that they 

 were much more numerous during the time of 

 Bunyan.* Was there therefore a kettle In Eng- 

 land to be mended for which there was not a 

 Gipsy ready to attend to it ? If a Gipsy would 

 not tolerate any of his own race entering upon 

 his district, was he likely to allow any native ? 

 If there was a native tinker In Eng>land before 

 the Gipsies settled there, how soon would n»t the 

 Gipsies, with their organisation, drive every one 

 from the trade by sheer force ; what thing more 



" * Some writers have very superficially concluded, that 

 because the Gipsy race has greatl.y disappeared from ob- 

 servation, it has been ' hanged off.' Few comparatively 

 have been hanged, merely for being Gipsies; witness the 

 laws passed in Scotland and Spain, against even the no- 

 bility and gentry, for protecting them. A Gipsj-'s cun- 

 ning likewise enabled him to take advantage of the wild 

 and uncultivated face of the country, to escape the effects 

 of the various laws passed against his race. 



"A still greater mistake has been committed by those 

 who hold that the Gipsies have been ' civilised off,' or 

 that their number has decreased by a ' change of habit,' 

 or by a * freer intercourse with the natives,' as Mr. Bor- 

 row supposes. 



like a Gipsy ? Among the Scotch we find, at a 

 comparatively recent time, that the Gipsies actu- 

 ally murdered a native for infringing upon what 

 they considered their prerogative — that of gather- 

 ing rags through the country. But Mr. Macaulay * 

 says, with reference to Bunyan, 'The tinkers then 

 formed a hereditary caste, which was held in no 

 high estimation. They were generally vagrants 

 and pilferers, and were often confounded with the 

 Gipsies, whom, in truth, they nearly resembled.' 

 I should like to know upon what authority Mr. 

 Macaulay makes such an assertion ; what he knows 

 about the origin of this ' hereditary tinker caste,' 

 and if it still exists ; and whether he holds to the 

 purlty-of-Gipsy-blood Idea, which has been so 

 ridiculously advanced by both the Edinburgh Re- 

 view and Blackwood's Magazine, but especially 

 the former. How would he account for the ex- 

 istence of a hereditary caste of any kind In Eng- 

 land, and that just one — the tinker caste ? There 

 was no calling at that time hereditary In England 

 that I know of, and yet Bunyan says that he was 

 horn a tinker. In Scotland the collier caste was 

 hereditary, for it was in a state of servitude to the 

 owners of the mines. But who ever heard of any 

 native occupation, so free as tinkering, being here- 

 ditary in England ? The idea is inconsistent with 

 the genius of the British people. Was not the 

 ' tinker caste ' at that time exactly the same as it 

 is now ? If it was then hereditary, Is it not so 

 now ? If not, by what means has it ceased to bo 

 hereditary ? The tinkers existed In England at 

 that time exactly as they do now ; and who are 

 they now but mixed Gipsies ? It is questionable 

 — very questionable indeed — if we will find In all 

 England a tinker but who Is a Gipsy. The class 

 will, of course deny It ; the purer kind of tented 

 Gipsies win, of course, deny it ; still it Is so. They 

 are all Chabos — all Chals : but they will play 

 upon the word Gipsy In its purlty-of-blood sense, 

 and deny that they are Gipsies. We will find two 

 such Gipsies in Lavengx'o, the Flaming Tinman 

 and Jack Slingsby ; the first a half-blood, (which 

 did not necessarily imply that either parent was 

 white,) and the other a very much mixed Gipsy. 

 The Flaming Tinman termed Slingsby a ' mump- 

 ing villain.' Now ' mumper,' among the English 

 Gipsies, is a term for a Gipsy, who, in point of 

 blood, is very much mixed. When Lavengro 

 used the word Petulengro'f, Slingsby started, and 

 exclaimed : ' Young man, you know a thing or 

 two.' I have used the same word with English 

 Gipsies, causing the same surprise ; on one occa- 

 sion I was told : ' You must be a Scotch Gipsy 

 yourself.' ' Well,' I replied, ' I may be as good a. 

 Gipsy as any of you, for anything you know.' 



" * Now Baron Macaulay. 



" t Petul, according to Mr. Borrow, signifies a horse- 

 shoe; and Petul-engro, a lord of the horse-shoe. It is evi- 

 dently a high catch-word with the English Gipsies. 



