Читать книгу I've been a Gipsying. Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans онлайн

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When I asked the “fire king” how he liked his new profession, he said, “Not at all; at first it was dreadful to get into the taste of the paraffin and oil. After you have put the blazing fusees into your mouth, they leave a taste that does not mix up very well with your food. Paraffin is a good thing for the rheumatics. I never have them now.” I questioned him as to the process the mouth underwent previous to the admission of lighted fusees. “If you keep your mouth wet,” he replied, “have plenty of courage, and breathe out freely, the blazing fire will not hurt you.” My new friend had much of a suspicious cast upon his features; so much so, indeed, that in one of his tramps from Norwich to Bury St. Edmunds, in one day he was taken up three times as “one who was wanted” by the policeman, for doing work not of an angelic kind.

In a van belonging to the owner of “a show of varieties,” there were eight children, besides man, wife, and mother-in-law. The showman could read, and chatter almost like a flock of crows; but none of the children, including several little ones, who assisted him in his performances, could either read or write, except one or two who had a “little smattering.” The showman quite gloried in having beaten the Durham School Board authorities, who had summoned him for not sending his children to school, while temporarily residing in the city. He defied them to produce the Act of Parliament compelling him as a traveller to send his children to school. The school authorities had sued him under their own by-laws, and as they could not produce the Act, he came off with flying colours.