Daily Wabash Express, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 1 September 1889 — Page 6

GIPSY FUNERAL OF'LAZY ME.

Edgar L. Wakeman With the Romany Down on the Maine Coast.

THE BARBARIC CEREMONY AFTER THE BURIAL.

The Universal Fatalism of Gipsies —"When One Dies That Is The End.

Copyrighted, lHtiy. I

Special Correspondence of the Kxpress. CAM!•

O.N L.

SK.HAOO, Me., August '3J,

1889.—A twenty-mile drive from old Portland town through the lovely valley of the Presumscott, or an equal journey from the railroad station at the south­

ern end

of Lake Sebago, in which you

will wind along the lake's eastern shore through many an olden hamlet, will bring you to a little group of ancient buildings clustered on either side of a brook about an old mill. This spot, in the old days called "Dingsley's," is now without name, save that known by countryside folk as "Radaux's Old Mill." It

waB

here the Hawthornes

once lived. Beautiful as is the quaint place itself, the surroundings are picturesque and romantic in the extreme. Lake Sebago is worth the fondest picturing. It is one of the most beautiful of Maine countless inland seas. Laying your mittened right hand, back downward upon your desk, you would fairly have its contour before you—your wrist, were it little, standing for its southern boundaries the tips of your clumped fingers for its widened northern extreme and your thumb lying just where the witching Jordan bay reaches for miles inland to the northeast, between which and your hand, the long, narrow Cape Raymond pushes down to the southwest, its splendid point breaking into the romantic Squaw and Fry islands. A great chain of lakes is accessible to the north through the winding mazes of the Songo river and lakes and river have furnished a fruitful theme for the poet and artist for more than a century. Dense forests and lofty promontories add a marvelous beauty to the cove-indented shores of Sebago.

It is the paradise of Ushers of landlocked salmon and thousands of summer wanderers come here, with never a one to know of the beauty and interest hid about the little nest by Radaux's mill. Below the lake are the deserted bed and locks of the old canal, where wondrous affairs of commerce and wonderful canal boat skippers were rife in the old days. Still below foams and dashes the little Presumscott on its way to Casco bay. Around to the right, to the east and the northeast, are pond and lake innumerable. Forests of pine still stand between the farms, and show in these autumn-nearing days marvelous banks of green, on which are flung in livid colors the crimson of the dogwood and maple, or the paler splatches of oak and the delicate yellow of the poplar. Lake and lield, stream and fallow, forest and river, windiny road and sunny hamlet, feast the eye on every hand. To-day it seems an enchantad region of still life in man and nature, couched and tinted in tenderest fashion by heaven and the first frost-fires that gleam across the land. The more rugged and the grander outlook lies away oil' there to the north. Across the gleaming waters of Sebago and the beetling crags, rise the dark ridges of Bald mountain wheelingto the northeast you are confronted by Rattlesnake mountain and Mount Pleasant while three score miles to the western north, as if a startling phautom of awful polar heights, half caught at-times, but ever weird and mystic in the distance, rise the eternal peaks of lvearsage and Mount Washington.

This is the spot where the gentle Hawthorne passed nearly eight years of his life, the most formative period, with the wiudows of his heart and soul wide open to heaven. It is also a spot which my friends, the Gipsies, Jove dearly. There are two reasons for the latter. (iipsies more than any other living folk long for closeness to all that is tender and winsome in nature and they combine with that affection a thrift which is niutcliless among lowly classes in America. Roundabout through all this enchanting region there is such sumptuous plenty among countryside folk that the eusy-going farmers and farm-wives annunually welcome the tawny wanderers, while dickering, tinkering, horse-trading and fortune-telling go merrily on to the great gain of the Romany. This feeling of hospitality is so marked that this camp nest arnoug the pines is given and accepted free of rent', the first instance of the sot I have ever known in my pilgrimings with Gipsies for invariably farmers take advantage of the Gypsy's fear of "law" to exact extortionate prices for camp privileges, and the Gipsies of the American roads of to-day will never pitch their tents until they posses formal acknowledgement of their right of occupancy. Butbeautiful as was this camp among the pines, the very path that led from the highway to it under the odorous boughs, seetned possessed of an added hush and solemnity and while the faces of my Romany friends brightened as I approached, there was a reticence of manner and softness of speech on the part of those who came forward to greet me, which told without words that the eternal silence had come to one among them. If this had not been enough there were surer signs. Every one of the vagabonds was in camp. Every horse was securely picketed. Eeach hooded tent, save one, was 'empty of humans, and the occupants of all, particularly the women, were gathered in and about one mean and shabby tent where their "company," as is the Gipsy custom, served to comfort those who mourned. Besides this, a glance showed me that near this dilapidated tent were the indubitable proofs of death in a Gipsy camp. A cart, "svholmed" as they call it, that is turned upside dowu, as is often done for shelter

Andante. S4

l. Wres-tied with iin •2. Fades a long the

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p=g=i=£

1. Joy 2. Woo

can ne er

in a one-night encampment, a half dozen empty chests and boxes, an old portable forge and a sadly-battered grinder's wheel, with the stone and fittings removed, were gathered together near the tent at the edge of the circling pines for a barbaric ceremony which I knew would occur that night.

It all meant this: The tinker of the band, "Lazy Zeke," whom I had known for a quarter of a century, had been gathered to his Sanscrit fathers. They had buried him under the velvet brown of the forest turf, over there an hundred yards, this very day the entire camp had put aside dickering and dukkering out of respect for the dead and living and the last rite, that of burning the effects of the dead, would occur when night closed in upon the forest camp. "Lazy Zeke" was a Gipsy ne'er-do-well. That sort of man is an unusual one among the Romany. Ethetically under the unwritten but unviolable communism of the race, as a dead Gipsy he was as good as any live one among them. So they were all extolling his virtues, though in life a guzzler, a spendthrift and the noblest of all liars and like the dead Irish scapegrace, whose friends could still uproarously mourn at the wake as a "square drinker," because "any man could drink with Dan in a coal-hole wid his bapk to the slack," Zeke's songe, his mirth, and even his foxy deceptions were transformed into noblest qualities. It seemed never to occur to these nomads that "Lazy Zeke's" ending had been somewhat heroic. I had passed many an idyllic night with Zeke under his scant blankets, and my inquiries disclosed the fact that he had given his life for another's. The children had been sent to Lake Sebago to fish. A little on^ had fallen from a ledge near "Painted Rocks" into deep water. Zeke, old, infirm, but a child with the other children, was with them. He plunged in after the little one, saved it, but, himself enfeebled, had fallen back and perished in an element which in any form of application always gave him sore dismay. They fished his old body out, put it here under the whispering pines in the sacred,jhurried way the Gipsies always have at their funerals because of their dread for the impenetrable mystery beyond, and at once made the ideal ieke a hero not because of the noble act he had done, but because that is the way of the race.

I talked with them of Zake and was curious to touch any chord which might reveal their standard of what constituted heroism in any act or degree, and in endeavoring to warm them into enthusiasm waB myself enthusiastic in dwelling upon the brave and fatal act of sacrifice, but their opaqueness on heroics was immeasurable. "Oh, ay," one would reply warmly, "none o' bus as could match Zeke at a singin' or drinkin'!" "Zeke's woice wus alius 'lowed heartsome as his bellows, an' Zeke 'ad a mighty arm at hit another would testify. "Right well could Zake shine a panhole 'thout wastin' sodder enme from another true admirer. "Ef him 'adn't been one o' hus," came from another emulative tongue, "an' w'at a rare chor (thief) e' would a made, to be sure!"

But the most seductive eloquence on my own part could not secure a word of praise for the grander Zeke who had given his life for that of the little Gipsy child who played at my knees as we talked. This was because of the universal fatalism of Gipsies. It would have

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pas-sioned pain, drea ry West,

a

fir

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2 3

re turn a

ry soul to

my wca

1. Bit ter ly my an-guished spir It, 2. Chill and dim the ghost ly sun set, —2

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1. sun set of my years, And its beau ty from the heav ens.Shin-eth thro' my fall-ing tears. 2. God's E ter-nal dawn, Smiles a-bove the fair green val ley,With the buds of life there-011.

-Copyright—Knnkel Bros., 1889—KUNREL'S ROYAL EDITION.

been precisely the same in their strange minds if the shiftless fellow had fallen from a ledge and had been drowned, or from a horse and broken his neck.

When a Gipsy dies that is the end. Every member of the race has a horror of death because no Gipsy lives who has faith in a hereafter. They cannot be induced to contemplate it. No genuine Gipsy ever accepted Christianity. Borrow in his many years of bible and_ missionary work among them never claimed to have converted one. In all countries, as is true of a goodly number of other folk, they occasionally profess a sort of attachment to the ruling creed. For instance we hear of a "Gipsy exhorter" in Ohio, and the other day a good bishop of Delaware was allowed to christen a Gipsy child in a camp near Wilmington. But these little hypocricies are all in the way of Gipsy thrift. The entire race belongs to the lowest order of agnostics and although that is a very low place among intellects, the truth must be spoken even about my romantic and picturesque friends. So when death comes to one of their number, hope and faith being unknown and impossible of conception in the Gipsy mind, it is something to begot out of sight speedily as a hurt or disease.

I have witnessed a great many Gipsy funerals. At some, especially in the case of the burial of "king" or "queen" of a tribe there is much Gipsy pomp and display. Yet on all occasions of this sort there is a celerity of action in getting the remains under ground and leaving the place of interment, which are both cowardly and ludicrous. When old "King" Faa was buried in Scotland some forty years since, over three hundred asses and shelties were in the cortege, and yet so dismayed were the Gipsies when the remains of the merry old rascal were lowered into the ground that they all took flight, many running their donkeys to death to escape to their homes, so that for days there was none brave enough to decently cover his cofin.

In Gipsy funerals the world over theie are three distinct rites, or features of one rite. These comprise the burial turning the effects of the dead and the bing-droming, or "giving the devil the road that is, driving away the evil spirit of mourning and melancholy from the tents and hearts of those who have lost relatives or friends by death.

It is a singular fact that while Gipsies are universally disbelievers, they will resort to all manner of shifts to secure at least a final interment of their dead in some church-yard cemetery. There reverence for the canonical, or authorized, cemetery is only equalled by their utter disregard and contempt of all other things the christian world has as sacred. I have no doubt I have a thousand times questioned them on this point of absurd inconsistency. Driven to the wall, for escape they would blurt out, "Graveyards is fitt'n!" or "Howsomdever, mebby as corpses is lonesome by theirselves!" And yet there is no greater coward on earth than a Gipsy when near a churchyard. The camp is never made within sight of one all manner of pains are taken to avoid passing one and should any Gipsy suddenly find himself abreast of one at night, the flight of "Tam O'Shanter" is almost equalled.

The burning of poor old Zeke's effects is sufficiently illustrative of all similar scenes, which are seldom witnessed by Gorgios, (or non-Gipeiee, as the rite is held to pea secret and sacred one transmittedirom Aryan haunts, as Gypey traditionfhas it, and practised for thousands years. Though my relations with thiltaprticular band were thoee of

G. cESTABROOK.

Cried A las! the days are wea-ry, And the si lence and the shad-o\v,~A

=*=3=

sjain. Now the ra diantbowof prom lse,Spans the rest, But the dark ncss jrr.lh-er 'round me, Far off

colla parte. 1 1

the greatest intimacy'and trustfulness, no information was given me of what was to occur, and I should have missed it altogether had I not laid awake in my tent determined not to be cheated. About midnight I heard low voices in the tents about me could soon distinguish the sounds as of the Gipsies all gathering at one spot in the camp and could see the flicker of-firelight shining upon tent cover, wagon-top and the circling forest edges without. I stole noiselessly to the side of a most intimate Gipsy friend who regarded my coming with anxious concern, but without actual objection to my presence. In the dim -light I saw that all the occupants of the camp were standing in a circle about the cart, grinder's wheel, forge and chests which had accompanied Tinker Zake on numberless merry and profitless pilgrimings. Beneath and above the articles were piled dead pine branches, and bunches of dry cones and needles. Suddenly the wife of the dead tinker emerged from the circle, and, as a hush fell upon the tnrong, mourning aloud in Bome plaintive words, she walked slowly around the articles four times, each time pausing for a moment and kneeling at the eastern side, when she at once resumed her place in the silent circle. Instantly there was a rush from the single burning camp fire, and dashing through the crowd came an old Gipsy hag, the oldest spae-wife or fortune-teller of the band, who, with a flaring pine torch set the pile ablaze in tfiany different places with wondrous celerity. The flames instantly leaped to the tree-tope, disclosing mute and apparently awe-struck faces surrounding the sacrifice. The old hag repeated the movements of the widow, torch in hand, the meanwhile uttering shrill lamentations in Romany, and disappeared as suddenly as she had come. The entire band* stood speechless and motionless until the flames had consumed the artitles, when in the flickering light of the dying embers each male Gipsy greeted the widow heartily and quietly passed to his wagon or tent, all the women of the band finally escorting the widow to her own tent, where after a bit of cheery chattering she was left in quite a contented mood for the night.

Bing-droming always occurs the succeeding night, as it did in our Lake Sebago camp. The devil "is given the road" with the utmost hilarity and merry-making, and roystering which occasionally takes on outlandish aspects. On more than one accaeion have I seen a man of Btraw, provided with horns, and hideously painted tossed about the Gipsy camp, the subject of terrible misuse, and finally, when the revelries were at their height, kicked and thumped for miles down Bome dust highway, to at last be pitched into some noisome pool, with stones, sticks and clouts of mud cast upon and after his diabolical highness. If after this sacrifice and expurgation Gipsies continue to mourn, they always suffer contumely and contempt. "Hus does w'at we can to cheer sorrow," these strange folk say, "an' then doesn't abear chitterin' an' sniffiin' no longer!"

EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.

A Revised Sentence.

Magistrate—Rogers, you were very drunk last night. Ninety days. Rogers—Yer honor, I was only half drunk.

Magistrate—My, my, is that so!—well, forty-five days, then.—[Rochester PostErprese.

Moderate con espfess. 0.

1. brook, 2. {air, 3. rang,

as

1

Sr

Birds were sing-ing in ev' 2. time for the mow-cr to whet 3. old, old sto ry was told

j1 0 0

1. birds were sing-ing in ev' ry bush, 1 2. time for the nio\v-er to whet his scythe. 3. old, old sto ry was told 1 gain,

Five o'clock in the Morning.

5

IDKAS AUK IN DEMAND.

One Young Man Wlio Thought Ills Bruin Was Teeming With Them. A half dozen of the most successful men of New York were recently asked what chance .young men have to get on in this world these days, Bays the Chicago Herald. Jay Gould, Russell ^Sage, James Gordon Bennett, Dr. Norvin Green and Charles A. Dana said the outlook was never so good as now. "What one quality should they possess to succeed best?" was the question asked of each.

Russell Sage replied: "caution Jay Gould, "perseverance," Dr. Green, "hard work Mr. Bennett, "enterprise Mr. Dana, "brains."

Perhaps Joseph Pulitzer, of the World, summed it up in the best way. "My dear sir," he said to an applicant, for a position on the World some time ago, "what can you do." "Anything," was the cheerful reply. "Yes, but you must certainly be able to do one thing better than another.' "Oh, yes was the response, "I can write well on most any subject, am a good executive man, and am fertile in

"Oh," was Mr. Pulitzer's reply, "fertile in ideas." And he drew his chair up to his visitor and peered anxiously into his face. "Then you are juat the man I want. IIow many good ideas have you lying around loose that I could utilize in increasing the circulation of the World?" "Oh, I could give you twenty," was the calm reply. "Twenty?" said Mr. Pulitzer in astonishment. "Yes, sir, twenty." "Well, now try it. Go home and write me out twenty good ideas or suggestions for increasing the circulation of the World. Send me your list to-morrow. I will pay $100 for each idea I accept. My check for $-,000 will be mailed to you at once if I accept them all, and I hope I can, for we need new ideas here ail the time, and then we can make permanent arrangement. I will pay SI 00 a week for a goodjidea, and you needn't come to the office, either. Yes, I'll do more. I'll buy you a fine pair of horses, so that you may drive around the town and enjoy yourself in the park. our fortune is made if you can do as you say."

The young man did send his ideas, carefully written out, and they were promptly returned to him a3 worthless. Instead of riding through the park in a luxurious coach, he is now holding down a chair in a Bowery cheap lodging house.

He possessed brass, but not brains.

Iu Bed with a Hlacksnake.

A short time ago Mrs. George Loutzberger, of West Newton, Pa., carried her little daughter up-staica to put her to bed. Turning back the covers the little one was placed in bed and snugly covered up. Presently the child complained that she felt something moving about its limbs. An investigation was instituted by the mother, and when the cover was taken from the bed a blacksnake three and a half feet long Bprang from the bed and fell at the lady's feet. It made an attempt to get away, but it was finally killed. A window was up in the room and it is supposed the snake crawled up on a grape vine into the room.

The Higher Branches.

Neighbor—I understand your son is home from college. I s'pose he's up in everything?

Farmer Smythe—You're just right.

-f»:

—So. [BALLAD.] Words and Alusic by (JLAR.IBEL.

1. The dew lay glit^t'ring o'er the grass, A mist lay o'er the 2. And Bessie, the milk-maid, nierri ly sang, The meadows were fresh and 3. And over the meadows the mow ers came, And nier-ry their voi ees

At the ear liest beaniof the gold en sun The svJaT-low her ne3t for sook The And the breeze of morn ing kiss'd her brow,And plai'd with her nut-brown hair Huts And one a luong them wend-ed his way To where the milk-maid bang And.#, 10*-

snow blooms of the haw thorn tree Lay thick-ly the ground a-dorn ing, The 2 "oft she turned and look'd a round As if the si leiu-e scorn ing, Twas 3*

]ie lin gerd by her side, Des pite his com rades warn ing, The

•y bush, sf Tin' is scythe. J- At five o'-clock in the morn ing. J- 'Tw :is a-gain,

res.

Copyriglit-Kunkel Bros 1«8!-KUNKKL'S KOVAL KIMTION.-

At live o'-clock 111 the morn in.tr.

He's up-stairs in bed most of the day, but if you'll comft around in the evenin' about the time I'm doin' the chores, you'll see him out there in the front yard with a snowshoe in his hand chasin' a ball over a fish net in a way that'll make your eyes stick out.—[Omaha World.

WHAT KISSES HAVE DONE.

They Have I'layed an Important Purl. I11 the WorlU'H History. That a kiss has been of importance in history we all know, and that woman's kisses have made and unmade kingdoms. The most famous of kisses always seem to me that one, or that many, given by the duchess of Gordon when she recrujted an entire regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, better known as the Ninety-sec-ond, by having each man take the "queen's shilling" from between her teeth, so that he had, if he wanted, a good opportunity to kiss her. It is almost unnecessary to say that the gallant laddies who fought so well at Waterloo did not resist the charm of a lovely woman's mouth. However, remember the kiss in vogue, and just remember this, too: You will find, my dear boy, that the dearly prized kiss, ,, Which will rapture you snatched from the halrwllllng miss. Is sweeter by Tar than the legalized kisses You give the same girl when you've made her a

Mrs.

This is slangy, but it's the sad, sad truth. Do you know how to kiss? asks a connoisseur in the New York Graphic. Tf you are a man you give a semi-scornful and semi-condescending smile at this question and make no answer. If you are a woman you laugh a merry laugh and wonder what kind of a kiss you are expected to be acquainted with. Why, the latest, of course. And it is? For your sweetheart to stoop over you and kiss you just back of your shelllike ear.

If

you are wise, that is

where you put a little perfume, and the chances are that be will kiss you, not once but twice there, and tell you that kissing you is like putting one's lips to the heart of a great red rose. This is natural in him, but it showB that he does not realize the difference between a kiss made perfect by art and that which is tlower-like by nature. What do I liiaan? That the next thing to kissing a flower is kissing a baby. You take that in your arms, you look in its clear eyes—eyes that have never been BBddened by looking on anything but the pleasures of life—you put your lips to its rosebud of a mouth and then you kiss it, and then you know that you have inhaled the perfume of a flower—the flower of th eflock.

Card I 111 Newman's Old Age. Cardinal Newman, who is now in his 89th year, cordially receives American visitors whenever his health permits. He is simple to a degree in his habits, getting up until quite Jately, even if he does not do still between five and six in the morning, both in summer and winter. He then says mass in a chapel adjoining his bed-room and afterwards takes his breakfast, and during the day presides over the meals of the fathers at 1 o'clock and at G. On great feast days —such as that of St. Philip Neri, who founded the congregation, or of St. Peter and Paul—the cardinal conducts the service of benediction for the boys in the school chapel, but even thiB light effort has been more than he could frequently undertake during the last two or three years.

The

Kxcltliig Fishing K\|ierienre. During the recent trip of the Ashing schooner Mattie and Lana, while engaged in the capture of a swordlish, one of the men, Rlisha Clark, was out in the small boat after a fish that had been ironed and was supposed to be nearly dead. Clark obtained the keg which is attached to the line leading to the lish and began to haul in, when the lieli showed tight. Clark ia an experienced fisherman, and at once began the usual tactics to avoid the lieh. The lish, however, was thoroughly infuriated and appeared to be seeking revenge. At last, with a desperate ell'ort, he sent his sword crashing through the bottom of the boat in close proximity to where ('lark was standing. About three feet of it was forced through, and the weapon IB kept by Mr. Clark as a trophy.

A "Jiig"

IHI1II««1.

An inquirer nsks us the meaning uf "jag," applied to inebriety. It is a new slang. In the rural districts the cargo of a wagon that ia hauling wood, when all that the wagon can carry, is called a "load." When it is less than up to the full capacity it is called a "jag." Therefore, when a man is less than dead drunk he has not a load on, but merely a jag. We hope our questioner will never get beyond a jag. Gladstone used to drink a halt pint of port at dinner, lie has recently increased the quantity to a pint, and says it does not affect him as tuiicli as the half pint did twenty years ago. That shows that he's a Bound old boy. What would have been a load for him at (X) is only a jag at SO.

Amolle Kives In I.on«i»ii.

Mrs. Chanler (Amelie Rives) has been in London for few weeks, and has been made much of, as a matter of course. She is looking very well and exceedingly pretty but it is a disappointment to find her really a little woman. Her photo graphs have always given an idea of a large, fine physique, while she is decidedly petite. Mr. Chanler, who is with hiB wife, is naturally rather in the background—the penalty for marrying a celebrity. Mrs. Atherton, of San Francisco, whose recent novel created almost as great a sensation HS "The (^uick or the Dead," is in London, and is also the recipient of much attention. She is very blond, with black eyebrows, and haa charming manners.—| Boston Ga/,etteV London Latter. -,

Generou* Indoocl.

Misa Bessie Neater (of Boston)—Her books are Bimply delightful. Indeed, I think she is the most liberal writer I know of.

Miss Hattie Bacon (of Chicago) -I don't think she is as liberal as Mrs. Southwortb. Mrs. Southworth gives you 400 pages for a quarter every time. —[Munsey'a Weekly.

Gloves for the Full.

Autumn gloves are reproduced in every shade of tobacco, beyaer, gray, oak or tan. Golden tan with spear pointed backs Is the favorite color for driving gloves.—[Paris Fashions.

WeileI 1111M.

(Jod l»lets our wives, They All our hives

•. With little bees and honey They ease life's shucks And mend our socks-

But -don't I hey soend the money. [New York Herald.