Show t GYPSIES IN EPPING FOREST by ALBERTA PLATT 0 4 1 ii i 41 england northeast 0 london ly la the great epping forest it covers acres in tha older american states thera are few forests so large although it Is ehly alx teen miles from london the reason it haa stood during eo many centuries Is that it la a royal punting forest and A encampment has been since long before the time of queen elizabeth she herself used to go hunting in this great wood with her ladles and gentlemen and bad a house in the heart of it which ploll stands and Is called queen elizabeths hunting lodge more and more ot the woods waa from time to time fenced in by order of different rulers however till now no more than acres are left open for anybody who bukea to kaaa through nobody knows wt when a band of gypsies squatted upon a certain in forest but it was certainly over a hundred years ago by and by other caravans of theae people arrived and squatted near the others gradually they came to look on the placa as their homo and headquarters they slept in their wagons and raised and dogs and children in in erat nc numbers they becan 9 creat and annoyance to catt zens living near them because 0 their laziness thievery and disorderly conduct they were a blot on the r face of the forest some of them would go away when the wander fit came on them taking wagons dogs and children perhaps remaining away for months but how ever long they were absent back they were cure to come when the wander fit was over and settle down in the forest again stealing swindling and making trouble to honest people as before at length some gentlemen who owned property in the neighborhood a nd who haa been especially annoyed by the camps resolved to put them out of the woods legal notice was served on tho head man of each caravan to get his gang out of the forest at once fourteen head men were thus warned to go they would not they defied the law they declared they and their tribe had been there so long that they hada right to atay i then occurred one ot the strangest BC acnes ever witnessed in this civilized time you would have laughed till you THE LAV coald scarcely even calle any more it you had been it the forest keepers and a number of policemen came to put there off by force meantime the egypsy men had brought twenty of the big lagona they lived tn all to one place and there chained them together and padlocked them BO they could not be rolled off the common policemen took hammers and chisels and began pound ing the chains apart then a lot 0 gypsy women screeching like forty phonographs ran forward and threw their arms around the wagon wheels their men quick aa a wink chained the women themselves to the van wheels so that it these were they woud rou over lie women A avam 0 bare legged young gyp so abany they seemed to out of the ground darted to heir mothers threw themselves under tha van wheels and dune to the bomena beet and they too screeched uke forty phonographs playing therell be a hot time in the old town tonight to help on the flaa doss barked and chickens cackled like mad the officers were embarrassed they could not haul the lagona over women and children and they did not want to hurt them by dragging them away roughly there were so many ot the policemen and keeby however that they finally managed it while some kept guard at the wagons other pulled the women and children loose by main force and carried hem to an open spot in the common there they guarded then in what might be called concentration camp ot prisoners such as americana bad la the philippines and the had during tho boer war then ahll some x the officer fuard ed these the rest pulled thew oil the common into the roadway and thus broke up the encampment but the ar now euln in the british jilch court to find out whether long haa not given them a right to permanent |