FICTION.
NAPOLEON BOSWELL.•
JADED novel-readers, oppressed by a surfeit of sex problems, wearied by the vagaries of smart week-enders, sick of "actuality" on the one hand and of introspection on the
other, must occasionally feel the want of a literary rest-cure, where they can count upon immunity alike from the upholstery and the psychology of modernity. For such dyspeptics we can imagine no more suitable or salutary diet than that provided in the pages of Mr. Malleson's delightful record of modern gypsy life. From all the perturbing elements men- tioned above it is most refreshingly free. But while the life depicted may be entitled to the description of " simple " in so far as it is led largely in the open air and on the open road, far from marble halls, gay parterres, or even dapper bungalows, it is anything but insipid. The language of the Romanichel is at times luridly picturesque, and he can bite as well as bark. When "Poley" Boswell was inclined to play the slug-a-bed, his mother was not content with threatening to " cut the heart out of his breast" : she hurled brushes and kettle-lids at
him as he lay in the straw. The elder Boswell—" Poley's" grandfather—even when fast lapsing into dotage, retained his command of invective punctuated by the discharge of missiles. When his son was anxious about the old man's health, his wife speedily reassured him by observing that she was certain he was all right at breakfast time. "He was cussing of me awful about the bacon as didn't suit him, and he threw a plate at me and broke it. He was quite hisself then." Gentilla Stanley, who comes perhaps nearest to filling the rat of conventional heroine in these chapters, belies her elegant name by the vigour of her vocabulary. The
gypsies portrayed in these pages are neither vegetarians nor teetotallers, but they are a remarkably picturesque and unconventional set of people, inside England yet not of it, and constantly recalling by their physiognomy, their lan- guage, their superstitions, and their method of locomotion, their primitive ancestry—quorum plaustra:vagas rite trahunt demos. Lady Arthur Grosvenor in her interesting preface draws a sharp distinction between the real Romanichel and "the so-called gypsy of the present day, the posh-rat (half-breed), the common caravan or cart-dwelling vagabond, who has not a drop of true gypsy blood in his veins." The true gypsy dislikes to camp alongside of these " vagabond mumpers " who bring his race into disrepute by their bad behaviour. Lady Arthur Grosvenor dwells with enthusiasm on the fine qualities of the old gypsy families—their reverence for the dead, their genii's for companionship, and their instinctive good breeding. All that she says about their picturesqueness may be readily granted, and receives admirably pointed illustration in Mr. Malleson's studies. What could be more attractive, for instance, than their nomenclature, which abounds in strange exotic forenames like Alabyna and Gentilla and Coralina or imposing combinations like Gilderoy Lovell, Napoleon Boswell, Shandres Stanley P Of their customs none is more curious than that of the burning of the caravan in honour of the dead, a direct survival of the ancient practice which had its origin in the primitive desire to provide for the needs of the dead in their last journey. This forms the dramatic motive of the thrilling episode entitled "A Proof of Mettle," in which the old gypsy, Zachary Boswell, is drawn, as Lady Arthur Grosvenor tells us, from old Isaac Hearne, who died in February 1911 at the age of a hundred. He was "a real Nature's gentleman," and she goes on to inveigh against the harsh way the gypsies are treated nowadays.
" Commons all over England are shut against them. They are not allowed for a short hour to stop and bait their horses by the side of the road, though the horses may have been travelling since daybreak. The by-lane is forbidden ground either for baiting or for the camp at night. To add to all this, it is a matter of difficulty for them even to hire a night's resting place. Farmers hesitate to allow them to camp in their fields by reason of the bad name they have received."
• Napoleon Boswell. By Herbert H. Malleson. With a Preface by Lady Arthur Grosvenor. London: Smith, Elder and CO. [63.]
This bad name, Lady Arthur Grosvenor maintains, comes to them mainly from the excesses of the half-breeds or mumpers, but even so the record of crime in comparison with their numbers, estimated at eighteen thousand, is very small.
" Four hundred and seventy convictions only came under police notice in 1911. Cruelty to children and animals is practically nil." It may seem ungenerous to cavil at this plea for a more tolerant treatment of an ancient race who "only ask to live their life on the open road at peace with all men." But Mr. Malleson's engaging recital furnishes abundant proof that if the gypsies are harried by the minions of the law, their best representatives give abundant provocation, and, what is more, that in their constant conflicts with the heavy-heeled and slow-witted rural policeman—con- tests which inspire some of the most entertaining pages of this volume—the ancient race comes out on top with a frequency which seriously impairs the efficacy of Lady Arthur Grosvenor's statistics. When " Poley " Boswell, charged with killing a hare, was released owing to the splendid mendacity of his father and Shandres Stanley, Mr. Malleson comments on the incident in the following interesting passage :— "The whole thing was exceedingly reprehensible, looked at from any point of view, but it is a strange and solemn fact that, as Poley went his way, there was not the slightest ruffle upon the surface of the still waters of his conscience. Indeed, his conscience was like a pool calm between two sheltering banks. The one was heredity, the other was ignorance. His forefathers, when they entered Europe, secured their foothold by the most amazing fraud in history, and since that time neither Poley's ancestors nor Poley had added anything to their mental or moral stock-in-trade to teach them to deal gently with the weaknesses either of kings or gamekeepers."
But while Mr. Malleson cannot be invoked as successfully impugning the orthodox official view of gypsy ethics—his attitude is too detached and impartial—he can be cordially congratulated on the skill, the humour, and the circumstantial detail with which he has chronicled the chequered fortunes of his vagabond hero.
Previous page
