No One
Would Think Anything Could Flourish On Such An Arid Sand, Exposed At A
Great Height On The Open Hill To The Cutting Winds.
Contrary, however, to
appearances, fair crops, and sometimes two crops of hay are yielded, and
there is always a good bite for cattle.
These squatters consequently came
to keep cows, sometimes one and sometimes two - anticipating the three
acres and a cow; and it is very odd to hear the women at the hop-picking
telling each other they are going to churn to-night. They have, in fact,
little dairies. Such are the better class of squatters. But others there
are who have shown no industry, half-gipsies, who do anything but
work - tramp, beg, or poach; sturdy fellows, stalking round with
toy-brooms for sale, with all the blackguardism of both races. They keep
just within the law; they do not steal or commit burglary; but decency,
order, and society they set utterly at defiance. For instance, a
gentleman pleased with the splendid view built a large mansion in one
spot, never noticing that the entrance was opposite a row of cottages, or
rather thinking no evil of it. The result was that neither his wife nor
visitors could go in or out without being grossly insulted, without rhyme
or reason, merely for the sake of blackguardism. Now, the pure gipsy in
his tent or the Anglo-Saxon labourer would not do this; it was the
half-breed. The original owner was driven from his premises; and they are
said to have changed hands several times since from the same cause. All
over the parish this half-breed element shows its presence by the
extraordinary and unusual coarseness of manner. The true English rustic
is always civil, however rough, and will not offend you with anything
unspeakable, so that at first it is quite bewildering to meet with such
behaviour in the midst of green lanes. This is the explanation - the gipsy
taint. Instead of the growing population obliterating the gipsy, the
gipsy has saturated the English folk.
When people saw the red man driven from the prairies and backwoods of
America, and whole states as large as Germany without a single Indian
left, much was written on the extermination of the aborigines by the
stronger Saxon. As the generations lengthen, the facts appear to wear
another aspect. From the intermarriage of the lower orders with the
Indian squaws the Indian blood has got into the Saxon veins, and now the
cry is that the red man is exterminating the Saxon, so greatly has he
leavened the population. The typical Yankee face, as drawn in - Punch - , is
indeed the red Indian profile with a white skin and a chimney-pot hat.
Upon a small scale the same thing has happened in this village by the
forest; the gipsy half-breed has stained the native blood. Perhaps races
like the Jew and gipsy, so often quoted as instances of the permanency of
type, really owe that apparent fixidity to their power of mingling with
other nations.
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