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themselves Egyptians, and others that feign knowledge of prophecy." This was the first of a series of acts directed against the gipsies through a period of nearly two centuries, all of them of a sanguinary description. A long list of gipsies might be given who were victims to their severity. In July 1611, four Faas were hanged as Egyptians, notwithstanding that they pleaded the possession of a special license to remain in Scotland; in July 1616, three gipsies, two of them Faas, the other a Baillie, were hanged in the same circumstances; in January 1624, Captain John Faa, and seven other gipsies of his gang, five of whom likewise bore the name of Faa, suffered the same fate; and a few days after their execution, Helen Faa, the wife of the captain, and ten other gipsy women, were drowned. To give an idea of the summary manner in which these poor wretches were disposed of, we may quote the words of an act of privy-council, dated Edinburgh, 10th November 1636, respecting a number of gipsies who had been apprehended and lodged in Haddington jail. Having been detained there a month, it was declared by the council that "whereas the keeping of them longer within the said tolbooth is troublesome and burdenable to the town of Haddington, and fosters the said thieves in an opinion of impunity to the encouraging of the rest of that infamous byke [hive] of lawless limmers to continue in their thievish trade; therefore the Lords of Secret Council ordain the sheriff of Haddington or his deputes, to pronounce doom and sentence of death against so many of these thieves as are men, and against so many of the women as wants children; ordaining the men to be hangit and the women to be drowned; and that such of the women as has children be scourged through the burgh of Haddington, and burnt in the cheek." Notwithstanding these severities the gipsies continued to infest Scotland, particularly such districts as Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire, and Tweeddale, where they formed regular clans or colonies, and are still known. We shall return to these Scottish gipsies; in the meantime, however, we shall collect and present in a condensed form such information as can be procured respecting the character, customs, and modes of thinking of the gipsies in general.

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CHARACTER AND HABITS OF THE GIPSIES.

Of this strange people, scattered, it is believed, over nearly the whole habitable world, whose tents, according to Mr Borrow, are pitched alike on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalayan hills, and whose language is heard at Moscow and Madrid, in the streets of London, and in those of Stamboul," it must be confessed that we shall never know much if we confound them with the common vagrants whose habits bear an external resemblance to theirs. The wild habits of the gipsies are all to be traced up to an inveterate peculiarity of race, of organisation, distinguishing them from the mere vagabonds which every

generation produces for itself, and not to be extirpated by the ordinary means which may be found effectual in the case of such.

The following is Mr Borrow's description of the features and physical appearance of the gitanos or Spanish gipsies; and it applies with little variation to their brethren of other countries. "They are for the most part," he says, "of the middle size, and the proportions of their frames convey a powerful idea of strength and activity united: a deformed or weakly object is rarely found amongst them in persons of either sex; such probably perish in infancy, unable to support the hardships and privations to which the race is still subjected from its great poverty; and these same privations have given, and still give, a coarseness and harshness to their features, which are all strongly marked and expressive. Their complexion is by no means uniform, save that it is invariably darker than the general olive hue of the Spaniards: not unfrequently countenances as dark as those of Mulattoes present themselves, and, in some few instances, of almost negro blackness. Like most people of savage ancestry, their teeth are white and strong; their mouths are not badly formed; but it is the eye, more than in any other feature, that they differ from other human beings. There is something remarkable in the eye of the gitano. Should his hair and complexion become fair as those of the Swede or the Finn, and his jockey gait as grave and ceremonious as that of the native of Old Castile; were he dressed like a king, a priest, or a warrior-still would the gitano be detected by his eye, should it continue unchanged. It is neither large nor small, and exhibits no marked difference in shape from eyes of the common cast. Its peculiarity consists chiefly in a strange staring expression-which, to be understood, must be seen-and in a thin glaze which steals over it when in repose, and seems to emit phosphoric light."

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The dress of the gipsies varies in different countries, but is generally ragged and peculiar. In Spain, the gipsy women. wear not the large red cloaks and immense bonnets of coarse beaver which distinguish their sisters of England; they have no other head-gear than a handkerchief, which is occasionally resorted to as a defence against the severity of the weather; their hair is sometimes confined by a comb, but more frequently permitted to stray dishevelled down the shoulders; they are fond of large earrings, whether of gold or silver. Inattention to cleanliness," continues Mr Borrow, "is a characteristic of the gipsies in all parts of the world. They are almost equally disgusting in this respect in Hungary, England, and Spain. The floors of their hovels are unswept, and abound with filth and mud; and in their persons they are scarcely less vile."

Wherever gipsies are found there is a striking similarity in their pursuits and occupations. "Everywhere," says Mr Borrow, "they seem to exhibit the same tendencies, and to hunt for their

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bread by the same means, as if they were not of the human, but rather of the animal species. In no part of the world are they found engaged in the cultivation of the earth, or in the service of a regular master; but in all lands they are jockeys, or thieves, or cheats; and if ever they devote themselves to any toil or trade, it is assuredly in every material point one and the same." Mr Hoyland, in his "Historical Survey of the Gipsies," gives the following account of their habits. "Some gipsies," he says, are stationary, and have regular habitations according to their situation in life. To this class belong those who keep public-houses in Spain; and others in Transylvania and Hungary who follow some regular business and live in miserable huts. But by far the greater number of these people lead a very different kind of life: they rove about from one district to another in hordes, having no habitation but tents, holes in the rocks, or caves. Some live in their tents during both summer and winter. In Hungary, those who have discontinued their rambling way of life, and built houses for themselves, seldom let a spring pass without taking advantage of the first settled weather to set up a tent for their summer residence. The wandering gipsy in Hungary and Transylvania endeavours to procure a horse; in Turkey, an ass serves to carry his wife and a couple of children, with his tent. When he arrives at a place he likes, near a village or a city, he unpacks, pitches his tent, ties his animal to a stake to graze, and remains some weeks there. His furniture seldom consists of more than an earthen pot, an iron pan, a spoon, a jug, and a knife, with sometimes the addition of a dish. These serve for the whole family. Working in iron is the most usual occupation of the gipsies. In Hungary this profession is so common, that there is a proverb there, So many gipsies, so many smiths.' But the gipsies of our time are not willing to work heavy works; they seldom go beyond a pair of light horse-shoes. In general, they confine themselves to the making of small articles, such as rings and nails; they mend old pots and kettles; make knives, seals, and needles; and sometimes they work in tin and brass. Their materials, tools, and apparatus are of a very inferior kind. The anvil is a stone; the other implements are a pair of hand-bellows, a hammer, a pincers, a vice, and a file. In favourable weather the work is carried on in the open air; when it is stormy, within the tent. The gipsy does not stand, but sits on the ground crosslegged at his work. He is generally dexterous and quick, notwithstanding the bad tools he works with. Another occupation much followed by gipsies is horse-dealing, to which they have been attached from the earliest period of their history. In those parts of Hungary where the climate is so mild that horses may lie out all the year, the gipsies avail themselves of this circumstance to breed, as well as to deal in horses; by which means they sometimes grow rich. Instances have been known on the continent of gipsies keeping from fifty to seventy horses each,

some of which they let out for hire, others they exchange or sell. But these are not numerous."

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The two employments of tinkering and horse-dealing have been the apparent means by which the male gipsies, at all times and in all places, have earned their livelihood. "The English gipsies," says Mr Borrow, are constant attendants at the racecourse; what jockey is not? Perhaps jockeyism originated with them, and even racing, at least in England. Jockeyism properly implies the management of the whip; and the word jockey is neither more nor less than the term, slightly modified, by which they designate the formidable whips which they usually carry. They are likewise fond of resorting to the prize-ring, and have occasionally attained some eminence in those brutalising exhibitions called pugilistic combats." Theft and robbery have always furnished the gipsy with a large proportion of what was necessary for his support; and in all countries the gipsies have made a conspicuous figure in the records of crime and violence. Housebreaking and highway robbery, horse and cattle stealing, and less adventurous pilfering, seem, until a late period, when the improvement of police has made impunity in such crimes less easy, to have been universal among them. Their trade of jockeys, too, has always enabled them to obtain money by cheating in a variety of ways. Altering, by the dexterous use of the scissors and paint, the appearance of the horses which they or some of their companions have previously stolen, they have been known to palm them off again in the way of sale on their original proprietors. They are accused also, especially in Spain, of poisoning and maiming cattle, with a view to obtain either the carcasses or the cattle themselves at a low price; and it is probably from this that the story of their disgusting preference of carrion for food has taken its rise. "It would be wrong," says Mr Borrow, "to conclude that the gipsies are habitual devourers of carrion. Many of the carcasses are not, in reality, the carrion which they appear, but are the bodies of animals which the gipsies themselves have killed by poison, in hope that the flesh might be abandoned to them.". Besides the eating of carrion,. the gipsies have not escaped, in credulous countries, the more horrible imputation of cannibalism. The charge of kidnapping children is better authenticated. In Spain, children appear sometimes to have been carried away by gipsies, and sold as slaves to the Moors in Africa; and it is well known that Adam Smith, the author of the "Wealth of Nations," was carried off when a child of three years of age by a gang of gipsies in Fifeshire, from whom he was recovered by his uncle, who rode after them in pursuit.

The gipsies did not monopolise the trade of fortune-telling on their first appearance in Europe, for that took place at a time when sorcerers abounded, and necromancy was an art believed in by many of the learned. Probably their natural cunning

taught them that this was the most profitable employment in which they could engage; and the story of their coming out of Egypt must have co-operated with the general wildness of their demeanour, and the unearthly expression of their eye, in placing them, in the popular estimation, at the head of their profession. Now, the gipsy women, especially the old and ugly ones, are in special request in all countries among those who wish to pry into futurity, and ascertain their marriage fate. The servantmaids of London pay their sixpences and shillings to gipsy women, who come to the low areas early in the morning, to tell them their fortunes, before the families are up; half-tipsy young men do the same thing in a frolic at fairs, where gipsies are usually to be found; in Spain, ladies of rank have been known to consult these swarthy seeresses; and even in our own country, educated young ladies are said to go in pairs and parties to have interviews with some keen-eyed hag relative to their matrimonial prospects.

Among the tricks practised by gipsy women on the continent, besides that of express fortune-telling, or La Bahi, as the gipsies themselves call it, are the Hokkano Baro, or Great Trick, which consists in persuading some credulous person to deposit money or precious articles in some place underground, with a view to obtain five or six times the quantity when they are again dug up; and the Ustilar Patesas, which consists in abstracting money by sleight-of-hand. While thus practising on other people's credulity, the gipsies do not appear to have any superstitious beliefs of their own, unless it be in the evil eye, or power of injuring people and making them sick by a glance, a belief founded on a physical fact; and in the loadstone, which the Spanish gipsies believe to be gifted with some miraculous qualities. Yet Mr Borrow, while he speaks of this exemption of the gipsies from belief in prophecy, relates the following extraordinary story, for the truth of which he vouches. While in Madrid, in the spring of 1838, he was thrown into prison for distributing Bibles; and here he was attended by his Basque servant, Francisco, a good-humoured fellow, of immense strength. In ten days they were released, and returned to their lodgings. Here they were visited by a man who had forced himself upon Mr Borrow's acquaintance some time before his imprisonment, and in consequence of his ferocious habits of speech, and his incessant demands for wine, had become exceedingly disagreeable. According to his own account, he was a gipsy by the mother's side; his name was Chaleco, and he was a captain on half-pay in the service of Donna Isabel, whose uniform he wore. He had received a shot through the lungs, as he said himself, which occasioned him the most horrible fits of coughing; and his whole manner was incoherent and insane. "In age he was about fifty, with thin flaxen hair covering the sides of his head, which at the top was entirely bald. His eyes were small, and, like ferrets',

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