Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1911 — Page 2

GYPSIES IN AMERICA

t tHE number erf gypsies la America Is Increasing rapidly year by year, and of late years several circumstances have combined to bring them prominently to the attention of the public. For one thing, represeatat iv e e -of this ■warthy hued clan from all parts of the country met recently in one of our . eastern cities to elect a “king," an event that takes place only once In ten years. Then, too, gypsies have of late years been brought prominently to the attention of many of our citlkens through the growth of automobile touring. Motorists traversing

country roads and finding, at frequent Intervals, large groups of gypsies camped by the wayside, have naturally oome to have a new realization of what a numerous element of our population these nomads now constitute. The average person, encountering American gypsies in a casual way, observes no differences or distinctions between the various bands and yet, as a matter of fact, there are among the “Romanies” as many and as sharply defined classes of society as in any other division of our population. As In other sections of our cosmopolitan national community, too, we find some of these nomads who are virtually outcasts among their own people, or at least with whom the aristocrats of the wanderers will not associate.

It is by no means strange, however, if the citizen beyond the pale of gypsy<iom fails to perceive these minute distinctions, for the gypsies are a mysterious and secretive people, and for all that they seem to live so much in the public eye they in reality let the outside world know precious little regarding them. The suspicions of the rest of the world directed against them for centuries have made the gypsies wary of strangers, for all that they need the money to be obtained in barter or fortune telling—and it is practically impossible for a “gorgio” (any one not of the gypsy clan) to really penetrate the reserve of these people. Their exclusiveness is rendered the more easy from the fact that they speak a strange tongue—an aptly termed "black language,” which is almost never taught to an outsider. For all that the gypsy in this pro-

GYPSY FORTUNE TELLERS!

;; Ability to Read Future Simply Result of Cultivated Hun Perception of Details ;

The principal means of livelihood for gypsy men is horse trading, although, as has been mentioned above, some of those who acquire means go Into the real estate field, and that same instinctive native shrewdness which makes them successful in the horse barter aids them to profitable Investments in this other field. Oypsy women sometimes peddle lace and baskets from house to house, but their chief means of money making is fortune telling, and this is preferably carried on at camp, for the Romany sentiment is that a woman's place is in her home. Incidentally it may be remarked that gypsy girls are most carefully guarded and marriages with others than gypsies are discouraged. The fortune telling of the gypsies, or “dukkering," as they themselves call it, is a wonderful thing, and a power undeniably subnormal which reads "past, present and future, yer wish an’ all ye want to know.” But. though the Romany’s gifts are marvelous, they cannot strictly be said to be related to psychical phenomena. Tet they are as interesting, being delightfully human and as mysteriously baffling as East Indian Jugglery. The Romany’s usual method of divining the future is by tlm palm, though it is sometimes by cards, sometimes by dropping coins into clear water, and again by certain charms, varied by trifling sleight of hand performances. In the gypsy's palmistry there Is no book learning and little “science,” although she professes to attach some Importance to the lines of the heart and life. For the lines and mounts gypsies have their own •vnlanatlons. which sometimes hap-

pressiye twentieth century occasionally travels by railroad, Just as he occasionally makes use of the telegraph or even the telephone, his wanderings up and down the land are principally accomplished by means of the horsedrawn vehicles which present today much the same appearance that they did in the days of his forefathers on the other side of the Atlantic. There is this difference, however, that the big sleeping vans—their gaudily decorated exteriors calculated to stir the imagination of any boy—are more roomy and comfortable than were the gypsy wagons of a few years ago. The cots have modern mattresses and the up-to-date type of wood burning stove has supplanted the tripod and kettle of bygone days.

To that portion of the public which has been wont to regard the gypsy as all but akin to a beggar it mav cr«rn“ as something of a surprise if not a distinct shock to learn that many of these wanderers are decidedly well-to-do. In the portable homes of the

pen to coincide with those of the ordinary gorgio palmist, but which the most part are. not to be found in any written book.

It is almost entirely upon face reading and a cultivated keen, ready perception of general characteristics that the gypsy depends. Nothing escapes her quick eye. The bearing of a stranger, the dress, speech and manner. the expression and type of feature and a thousand details which would be overlooked as unimportant trifles by a gorglo, count with the Romany. She refuses to “dukker" before more than one person at a time, possibly on the plea that she belongs to a “secret order” which forbids it, or that a fortune told in such manner would not come true. These statements, though deliciously appetizing, are lacking in truth, for the fact is only that Bhe needs the undivided attention of the one who consults her. in order to get the best results of concentration of mind. In Justice to the gypsy, it should be taken into consideration that the atmosphere of scepticism which is apt to surround a gay party of curiosity seekers, is not conducive to success In the exercise of any profession. The Romany fortune teller is an adept in the art of flattery, for there are few exceptions to the rule that nothing is co interesting as one’s self. The gypsy knows how to.draw out unconscious admissions by confessions by her oft-repeated, “Do you on’stan’ me?” and "Can you look me in the eye an’ say it Is not the truth I’m a-tellln’ you?" She forms the aoknewledgment of truths at which she has already shrewdly guessed, and sqch ad-

'black or white, can be found near the camp to undertake the work. In the same category of wonders is the growing practice of the gypsy women to employ seamstresses to make their clothing.

Other evidence of how the habits, if not the characteristics, of the American gypsies are changing is afforded by the fact that many a prosperous gypsy now owns a home, or more especially a farm, which serves as a sort of base of operations for him —a refuge that corresponds in a sense to the winter quarters of a traveling circus. The wander-lust, the love of travel, is so strong in the average gypsy that he cannot be content to remain long in any one place, even though he own the property and has fixed It up exactly in accord with his own notions, but he will spend a portion of each year in such temporary home if for no other purpose than to enable his children to obtain some schooling.

missions are the stepping stones by which her “knowledge grows from more to more.” She can, for instance, recognize at a glance the tokens of sadness by. which the casual observer is blind, and whether the unmistakable stamp is from sorrow by visitation of death or the result of bitter earthly disappointment, the odds are that the gypsy will make the sitter tell her without being aware of having done so.

As a rule, as I have said, she flatters with brave promisee of fair futures, but if displeased she may bo threaten with the vigorous, compelling. dramatic art of which she is complete mistress that the horrors conjured from imagination stand out before- the “doomed" hearer with the real effect of a curse.—Century Magazine.

“The Tempest."

“The Tempest" may be called the play of the tapper and lower sides of human nhture; the battle of intellect, conscience and spiritual aspiration against brute passion and appetite. Its leading character, Prospero. typifies the “better things,” while the lower' are set forth in Caliban, Trinculo. Stephano, et ml. Ariel is mereby the reflection of Prospero, the materialization, as It were, of his allconquering mind and spirit; -and Proapern himself is a reflection of the mental and spirtual in the universal humanity. Prospero wins, not only against the storm. Just as the brain and conscience of humanity- arc eventually to triumph over the forces of nature without us and the forces of the animal within us.

better class of gyp sies one may now find china and silverware; more surprising, yet by no means all the gpyBy housewives now do their own work, many of them having domestic servants, principally negroes, who- travel with the caravan. And finally, to cite the acme of pres-ent-day gypsy luxury, It may be noted that at many a gypsy camp the washing Is “sent out,” this being regular routine among the more prosperous gypsies if washerwomen,

ONE FRIEND ALWAYS

POET NEVER ENTIRELY DEVOID • OF ADMIRERS. Surely the Writer Can Laugh at Disparaging Critics When He la Really . Conscious of the Merit of Hia Lines. When I take my verses from table or shelf and git down at ease in my chair and con my lines over there all by myself, those delicate verses and rare; when I read my lines in the glow of the lamp, those musical lines of my own, and find my eyes both sentimentally damp, there in the dim lamplight alone; when I note the exquisite pathos and sweet, the sentiment tender and true, the faultless perfection of wording and feet, the tales of old joys and of new; when I sound the depths of humanity’s heart, and lift it to glorious height; when with divine genius and consummate art I bring songs of joy and delight; when on my tuned ear all the harmony rings, the harmony clear and divine, and I find dll through such half secrets, on wings as butterflies, light and as ® ne —l say when I sit down and read my own lines, ifß simple as can be tot see the fire of true genius that endlessly*shines—Jim Riley has nothing on me. When I read the humor I’ve written*, myself, such side-splitting humor and real; when I get my manuscript down from the shelf—Ah, well, you must know how I feel;; when I’m, tired of Dean Swift and Bret Harte and Nye, and crave the high mountain and lone, I pass all the everyday humorists by and read some good stuff of my own; it maynot be printed, but pray, what of that? I know every word, line and page; beside it the humor the world reads is flat, but mine seems to ripen with age; so much other humor I’ve read is *pure rot, redeemed by some luminous name, but mine is the kind that just touches the spot and burns with real humor’s bright flame; I see in it points that dre drawn subtly fine, and frame®, for the doubly elect; there's hardly a sen tence, indeed scarce a line, but so her reflection is wrecked on uncharted rocks of pure, unalloyed fun, on reefs of insight that are deep, and I find quite often that ere I am done I’ve laughed myself soundly to sleept and so I’m consumed) with conviction that’s sure, and all of my senses agree that I’ve written humor that’s bound to endure—Sam Clemens has nothing on me.

Oh, thousands of times have my sketches and rhymes come down, to be read, from some shelf; my verses have been read vast thousands of times—l’ve read them that many myself; I find in my hunger for truth and in what I might call the Pierian thirst so many things Shakespeare and I have both thought, though Shakespeare had thought of them first; and though I read him with unenvious eye, his verses have not quite the tone, the real ringing truth that I always descry in reading some lines of my own; I don’t begrudge Shakespeare the fame he may get;- he’s not in the race now for pelf; there isn’t an author that I’d sooner set in authorship next to myself; and so when dull critics may smite me to show how little their shriveled souls be, I’m never dismayed in the least, for I know I’ve ongfeal admirer in Me! —J. W. Foley, in New York Times.

The Home Voice.

Have you ever noticed tho close relationship between the home voice dnd the home atmosphere? And as the atmosphere is the sensitive, intangible thing, it is affected by the voice, not by the atmosphere. If the head of the house, whether it be the husband or the wife, has a whining voice, the atmosphere of that home is apt to be depressed. Everything is limp, so to speak, and spineless. Even the draperies hang in dejected folds. Nothing ever is right or bright or cheery. The home is a center of complaints.

In the home where the dominant voice is gruff or surly, an atmosphere of antagonism seems to prevail. Nobody seems to want to do what he ought to do. His manner implies a protest, a sulky compliance. Take again the patronizing voice In the home, the voice that condescends to tell the others what they should do. The family sit uneasily under it There is a feeling of subjection in that home, a lack of individuality.

The Partisanship of Historians,

Every historian likes to be Impartial; bat how can an Englishman be expected calmly to weigh and adjust the motives and methods of the Spanish in the Armada? What biographer of Lord Nelson appreciates the discipline and strategy of his FYench and Spanish opponents? What Frenchman feelß that the German campaign oi 1806 was a causeless assault upon a weaker power? War breeds war; the conqueror feels the need of maintaining his reputation, and the conquered seeks revenge. Then the Incidents of warfare In the field leave an ineffaceable mark of savagery, writes Prof. Albert Bushwell Hart; so that fbr decades women In western Europe terrir fled their whimpering children into alienee by the threat that the Croats would get them. There are parts of central France where the brutality of the Angevin kings of England to still remembered after six centuries.

SPREADING LIGHT IN KOREA

Campaign Against Tuberculosis la Progressing Well, According to «* - , ■ » Advices Received. That the campaign against tuberculosis is bearing fruit even In far off Korea Is evidenced by an interesting report Just received from Dr. Edwin 1L Kent, a Methodist Episcopal medical missionary stationed at Haiju In the northern part of the Korean peninsula. Speaking of the work of a dispensary established several months ftg» in connection wltlr a little hospital in Haiju, Dr. Kent says: “Since the dispensary opened it has treated 999 patients. From the first It has been noted > for the fresh air treatment of tuberculosis. The advice for tubercular patients, so often given, soon became known as the “Yeggy," the native helpers learned it by heart and at the word from the doctor turned loose on the unsuspect-ing-sufferer such a floods of good advice as he doubtless never had heard before. Such has become the hos? pital’s reputation for fresh air advice that not long since, a man expressed himself as only waiting for warm weather before going to the hospital, ‘for,’ said he, ‘the doctor wljl urge me to keep the. door. open, and that is very hard in winter.’ Nevertheless, Haiju has several converts to the fresh air preaching.” * Another interesting result of the health campaign is noted in a series of health talks held last spring. Dr. Kent says of them: “The subjects ranged all the way from washing in the springs to why the doctor did not give cough medicine. One evening the people were told they might' ask any questions they wished about America and Americans. A man immediately arose and asked: ‘Why do Americans abominate the Korean topknot? Why do American women have small waists? Why do American men walk with their wives?’ The man was a school teacher and it is safe to say that his boys - had been asking questions! However, it was a relief when the next man asked something so easy as a description of-New York city. But these health talks have not been without results. The talk on a pure water supply bore fruit, at least in so far as the spring iq front of the compound is concerned. Even the water carriers have taken the matter up and if they find a woman doing the family washing in the spring scold her so roundly that she is seldom found there again. The steady din of “Leave your floors open and breathe pure air” has also borne fruit. In many homes large holes were cut In the paper doors in the midst of winter, while many boasted that they left the door open at night. Another direct result of these lectures has been the establishment of three Korean milk merchants. Before the talks began it was rare indeed to find cow’s milk in a Korean house. Now that invaluable food is consumed in nearly 50 homes.”.

Walk and Know the World.

Waiting is not merely moving two legs rhythmically over certain inter,valß of ground. It is the primal and the only way to know the world, the deliberate entering into an inheritance whose parts are wind and weather, sky and prospect, man and animals, and all vital enjoyment Tha bicycle has some enjoyment in point of speed and gives a deceptive sense of power, but it is a foe to observation. All carriages, whether propelled by horse or motor, isolate the traveler from the ground, steal his attention from the world tifrough which he passes, and utterly destroy all feeling of achievement. The very word “mile” is a walker’s word—mille passus—a thousand double paces. So the Roman legions measured their conquering advances; so the legion of pedestrians estimate its conquests of the day. “So many thousand buffets have mine own two feet given the resisting soil ’twixt sun and sun; so many thousand times have the good muscleß of calf and thigh lent their elastic force.” What has the dusty reader of figures on a dial to match w’th that?—Atlantic Monthly.

A New Kind of Loan.

Two negroes had been called up before their employer because thye had had a fight about money. Abraham Jones claimed. that Thomas Short owed him five dollars. This Short- denied in the most vehement manner, calling on all the powers of heaven and earth to strike him dead if he owed Jones a cent. “I'se done loan dat Niggah five dollahs.” protested Abraham. “He ain’t done nothin’ ob de kin’!" contradicted Short. This colloquy kept up for several minutes. Finally the employer decided that Jones had loaned five dollars to Short. v. “What do yon mean by lying to me In this way?” he demanded sternly of Short. “Well, boes,” exclaimed Short, “you see. it wuz lak dts: Abraham, he done loan me dat five dollars, but it wuz a loan in de way of a gif.”- -Popular Magazine.

Did Net Bother Him.

“I don’t see how you can like to go to his church! ” “Why not?** .. t “He fairly roars his sermons.” * “I know, but I never sleep daytimes, anyhow.”

The Requisites.

“What do you think to necessary to the success of moving pH tares?” *T guess they are moving seeaea."

AROUND THE CAMP FIRE

PEACH'TREE CREEK BATTLE Bergeant Newberry Telia. Interesting.; Btory of Fight He Witnessed From Ravine. ~ ? On July 19 the - Fourth corps and Fourteenth corps and the First andSecond divisions of the Twentieth corps crossed Peach Tree creek to the eastern side and formed lines, while the Third division of the Tw%ntieth corps remained fn camp some six miles or mere from the battlefield. On the morning of the 20th I was ordered to take 15 men and a corporal and follow the line of march of the division and the batteries and ammunition wagons, ...and gather up and bring forward all who might fall out of ranks. It was a very hot day, and as the line of march was through woods the shade was some proteettom-We had advanced several miles, and the batteries and ammunition teams could follow the division’s line of march no farther because of obstructions and had to move off to the left, and did not join the division until the battle was over and the victory won. I concluded my orders required me to follow the line of marchoof the division, and I did so. We had gathered about 60 who had fallen out on account of the heat, and came to the creek about 11 a. m. We crossed, and the valley heyond was. from 200 to 400 yards wide and was covered with growing corn. We found a spring and a shady place, and halted for dinner, writes Joseph B. Newburg, sergeant Company 1., Seventy-ninth Ohio, how residing in Montana, in the National Tribune. After eating I went up on a hill hear the right flank of the Fourth corps, and, looking down the valley, caught sight of our headquarters flag. I gathered my men, and we got there as quickly as we could. It was now about 3 p. m., and there was a rapid skirmish on the ridge on the east side and our division in line of battle at its base. I sent the men that I had gathered to their commands, and then, as bullets were flying around us, I was ordered to take a few prisoners that had been cagtured back across th« creek and out of range. I got my men, and with the prisoners started toward a big cottonwood log that lay across the channel of the creek. As I neared tie log a soldier passed me with his gun and all of his equipments. He had but a few steps to go

Pitched Forward on His Face, Dead.

to reach the log, when he pitched forward on his face dead. After getting up on the ridge on the western side., I sent my men with the corporal and prisoners a little way up the creek Into a wooded ravine, where they would bd entirely out of danger from the bullets. I then took my position where I could see the whole line of our division as it charged up the ridge, and the battle roar began at about 4 o’clock p. m. A short lime afterward a fine young soldier of Company C, for whose father I had built a water sawmill in Clinton county, Ohio, In came near to me without / either gun or equipments, and turned to look at tip. - fight. Before he had stood there a minute a bullet struck him on the right thigh, and he died six days afterwards. At about 7 p. m. the rattle of the rifle fire slacked, and the shouts of victory came loud across the valley. Early In the morning to where the dead were gathered for burial, and counted 214 dead of our division and 468 of the Confederates ' that our men had gathered. The cause _ of such a difference in loss was that Gen. Hood sent his lines three or four lines deep In the charge, and six companies of the One Hundred and Fifth Illinois were armed -with the Heijry rifles. Company JC used the Spenser rifle. One of the captains I had'as prisoner told me that they learned of the gap in our lines on the morning of Die 20th, and thought they would come out through It and swing and gather a few Acorns (the badge of the Fourteenth corps), but when "they came to the gap they saw Instead the Stars (badge) c i the Twentieth corps.