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A
HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES:
WITH
Specimens of the Gipsy Language.
BY WALTER SIMSON.
EDITED, WITH
PREFACE, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES, AND A DISQUISITION ON THE
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF GIPSYDOM,
BY JAMES SIMSON.
"Hast thou not noted on the bye way-side,
Where aged saughs lean o'er the lazy tide,
A vagrant crew, far straggled through the glade,
With trifles busied, or in slumber laid;
Their children lolling round them on the grass,
Or pestering with their sports the patient ass!
The wrinkled beldame there you may espy,
And ripe young maiden with the glossy eye;
Men in their prime, and striplings dark and dun,
Scathed by the storm and freckled with the sun;
Their swarthy hue and mantle's flowing fold,
Bespeak the remnant of a race of old.
Strange are their annals--list! and mark them well--
For thou hast much to hear and I to tell."--HOGG.
NEW YORK: M. DOOLADY, 448 BROOME STREET.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON.
1866.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
BY JAMES SIMSON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
CONTENTS.[1]
PAGE
EDITOR'S PREFACE 5
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 27
INTRODUCTION 55
CHAPTER.
I. CONTINENTAL GIPSIES 69
II. ENGLISH GIPSIES 90
III. SCOTTISH GIPSIES, DOWN TO THE YEAR 1715 98
IV. LINLITHGOWSHIRE GIPSIES 123
V. FIFE AND STIRLINGSHIRE GIPSIES 140
VI. TWEED-DALE AND CLYDESDALE GIPSIES 185
VII. BORDER GIPSIES 236
VIII. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE CEREMONIES 257
IX. LANGUAGE 281
X. PRESENT CONDITION AND NUMBER OF THE GIPSIES IN SCOTLAND 341
DISQUISITION ON THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF GIPSYDOM 371
INDEX 543
[1] The Contents of these Chapters will be found detailed in the
Index, forming an epitome of the work, for reference, or studying the
subject of the Gipsies.
Ever since entering Great Britain, about the year 1506, the Gipsies have
been drawing into their body the blood of the ordinary inhabitants and
conforming to their ways; and so prolific has the race been, that there
cannot be less than 250,000 Gipsies of all castes, colours, characters,
occupations, degrees of education, culture, and position in life, in the
British Isles alone, and possibly double that number. There are many of
the same race in the United States of America. Indeed, there have been
Gipsies in America from nearly the first day of its settlement; for many
of the race were banished to the plantations, often for very trifling
offences, and sometimes merely for being by "habit and repute
Egyptians." But as the Gipsy race leaves the tent, and rises to
civilization, it hides its nationality from the rest of the world, so
great is the prejudice against the name of Gipsy. In Europe and America
together, there cannot be less than 4,000,000 Gipsies in existence. John
Bunyan, the author of the celebrated _Pilgrim's Progress_, was one of
this singular people, as will be conclusively shown in the present work.
The philosophy of the existence of the Jews, since the dispersion, will
also be discussed and established in it.
When the "wonderful story" of the Gipsies is told, as it ought to be
told, it constitutes a work of interest to many classes of readers,
being a subject unique, distinct from, and unknown to, the rest of the
human family. In the present work, the race has been treated of so fully
and elaborately, in all its aspects, as in a great measure to fill and
satisfy the mind, instead of being, as heretofore, little better than a
myth to the understanding of the most intelligent person.
The history of the Gipsies, when thus comprehensively treated, forms a
study for the most advanced and cultivated mind, as well as for the
youth whose intellectual and literary character is still to be formed;
and furnishes, among other things, a system of science not too abstract
in its nature, and having for its subject-matter the strongest of human
feelings and sympathies. The work also seeks to raise the name of Gipsy
out of the dust, where it now lies; while it has a very important
bearing on the conversion of the Jews, the advancement of Christianity
generally, and the development of historical and moral science.
NEW YORK, _May 1st, 1866_.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
This work should have been introduced to the world long ere now. The
proper time to have brought it forward would have been about twenty
years ago,[2] when the subject was nearly altogether new, and when
popular feeling, in Scotland especially, ran strongly toward the body it
treats of, owing to the celebrity of the writings of the great Scottish
novelist, in which were depicted, with great truthfulness, some real
characters of this wayward race. The inducements then to hazard a
publication of it were great; for by bringing it out at that time, the
author would have enjoyed, in some measure, the sunshine which the fame
of that great luminary cast around all who, in any way, illustrated a
subject on which he had written. But for Sir Walter Scott's advice--an
advice that can only be appreciated by those who are acquainted with the
vindictive disposition which the Gipsies entertain toward those whom
they imagine to have injured them--our author would have published a few
magazine articles on the subject, when the tribe would have taken alarm,
and an end would have been made to the investigation. The dread of
personal danger, there is no doubt, formed a considerable reason for the
work being so long withheld from the public: at the same time, our
author, being a timid and nervous man, not a little dreaded the spleen
of the party opposed to the literary society with which he identified
himself, and the idea of being made the subject of one of the slashing
criticisms so characteristic of the times. But now he has descended into
the tomb, with most of his generation, where the abuse of a reviewer or
the ire of a wandering Egyptian cannot reach him.
[2] It has been brought down, however, to the present time.
Since this work was written there has appeared one by Mr. Borrow, on
the _Gitanos_ or Spanish Gipsies. In the year 1838, a society was formed
in Scotland, under the patronage of the Scottish Church, for the
reformation of the wandering portion of the body in that country, with
some eminent men as a committee of management, among whom was a reverend
gentleman of learning, piety, and worth, who said that he himself was a
Gipsy, and whose fine swarthy features strongly marked the stock from
which he was descended. There are others in that country of a like
origin, ornaments to the same profession, and many in other respectable
walks of life, of whom I will speak in my Disquisition on the Gipsies,
at the end of the work.
Although a few years have elapsed since the principal details of this
work were collected, the subject cannot be considered as old. The body
in Scotland has become more numerous since the downfall of Napoleon; but
the improved system of internal order that has obtained since that
period, has so very much suppressed their acts of depredation and
violence toward the community, and their savage outbursts of passion
toward those of their own race who had offended them, that much which
would have met with only a slight punishment before, or in some
instances been passed over, as a mere Gipsy scuffle, would now be
visited with the utmost penalty the law could inflict. Hence the wild
spirit, but not the number, of the body has been very much crushed. Many
of them have betaken themselves to regular callings of industry, or
otherwise withdrawn from public observation; but, in respect to race,
are as much, at heart, Gipsies as before. Many of the Scottish wandering
class have given way before an invasion of swarms of Gipsies from
Ireland.
It is almost unnecessary to give a reason why this work has been
introduced here, instead of the country in which it was written, and of
which, for the most part, it treats. Suffice it to say, that, having
come to this country, I have been led to bring it out here, where it may
receive, sooner or later, more attention from those at a distance from
the place and people it treats of, than from those accustomed to see and
hear of them daily, to many of whom they appear as mere vagabonds; it
being a common feature in the human mind, that that which comes
frequently under our observation is but little thought of, while that at
a distance, and unknown to us, forms the subject of our investigations
and desires.[3] In taking this view of the subject, the language of Dr.
Bright may be used, when he says: "The condition and circumstances of
the Gipsy nation throughout the whole of Europe, may truly be considered
amongst the most curious phenomena in the history of man." And although
this work, for the most part, treats of Scottish Gipsies, it illustrates
the history of the people all over Europe, and, it may be said, pretty
much over the world; and affords materials for reflection on so singular
a subject connected with the history of our common family, and so little
known to mankind in general. To the American reader generally, the work
will illustrate a phase of life and history with which it may be
reasonably assumed he is not much conversant; for, although he must have
some knowledge of the Gipsy race generally, there is no work, that I am
aware of, that treats of the body like the present. To all kinds of
readers the words of the celebrated Christopher North, as quoted in the
author's Introduction, may be addressed:
"Few things more sweetly vary civil life
Than a barbarian, savage Tinkler[4] tale."
[3] "Men of letters, while eagerly investigating the customs of
Otaheite or Kamschatka, and losing their tempers in endless disputes
about Gothic and Celtic antiquities, have witnessed, with apathy and
contempt, the striking spectacle of a Gipsy camp--pitched, perhaps,
amidst the mouldering entrenchments of their favourite Picts and
Romans. The rest of the community, familiar from infancy with the
general character and appearance of these vagrant hordes, have
probably never regarded them with any deeper interest than what
springs from the recollected terrors of a nursery tale, or the finer
associations of poetical and picturesque description."--_Blackwood's
Magazine._
[4] _Tinkler_ is the name generally applied to the Scottish Gipsies.
The wandering, tented class prefer it to the term Gipsy. The settled
and better classes detest the word: they would much rather be called
Gipsies; but the term Egyptian is the most agreeable to their
feelings. Tinkler has a peculiar meaning that can be understood only
by a Scotchman. In its radical sense it means Tinker. The verb tink,
according to Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, means to "rivet,
including the idea of the noise made in the operation of riveting; a
Gipsy word."
It is a singular circumstance that, until comparatively lately, little
was known of this body in Scotland, beyond their mere existence, and the
depredations which they committed on their neighbours; no further proof
of which need be given than a reference to the letters of Sir Walter
Scott and others, in the Introduction to the work, and the avidity with
which the few articles of our author in Blackwood's Magazine were read.
The higher we may rise in the scale of general information and
philosophic culture, the greater the attractions will this moral puzzle
have for our contemplation--the phenomenon of a barbarous race of men,
free as the air, with little but the cold earth for a bed, and the
canopy of heaven for a covering, obtruding itself upon a civilized
community, and living so long in the midst of it, without any material
impression being made on the habits of the representative part of it;
the only instance of the kind in the modern history of the world. In
this solitary case, having nothing from which to reason analogously as
to the result, observation alone must be had recourse to for the
solution of the experiment. It is from this circumstance that the
subject, in all its bearings, has been found to have such charms for the
curious and learned; being, as it were, a study in history of the most
interesting kind. It may be remarked that Professor Wilson, the
Christopher North of Blackwood, is said to have accompanied some of the
tribe in their peregrinations over parts of England and Wales. Without
proceeding to the same length, our author, in his own peculiar way,
prosecuted his researches with much indefatigability, assiduity, and
patience. He kept an open house for them at all times, and presented
such allurements as the skillful trapper of vermin will sometimes use in
attracting the whole in a neighbourhood; when if one Gipsy entered, many
would follow; although he would generally find them so shy in their
communications as sometimes to require years of such baiting to ensure
them for the elucidation of a single point of their history. In this way
he made himself appear, in his associations with them, as very odd, and
perhaps not of very sound mind, in the estimation of the wise ones
around him.
The popular idea of a Gipsy, at the present day, is very erroneous as to
its extent and meaning. The nomadic Gipsies constitute but a portion of
the race, and a very small portion of it. A gradual change has come over
their outward condition, all over Europe, from about the commencement of
the first American war, but from what time previous to that, we have no
certain data from which to form an opinion. In the whole of Great
Britain they have been very much mixed with the native blood of the
country, but nowhere, I believe, so much so as in Scotland. There is
every reason to suppose that the same mixture has taken place in Europe
generally, although its effects are not so observable in the southern
countries--from the circumstance of the people there being, for the most
part, of dark hair and complexion--as in those lying further toward the
north. But this circumstance would, to a certain extent, prevent the
mixture which has taken place in countries the inhabitants of which have
fair hair and complexions. The causes leading to this mixture are
various.
The persecutions to which the Gipsies were exposed, merely for being
Gipsies, which their appearance would readily indicate, seem to have
induced the body to intermarry with our race, so as to disguise theirs.
That would be done by receiving and adopting males of our race, whom
they would marry to females of theirs, who would bring up the children
of such unions as members of their fraternity. They also adopted the
practice to give their race stamina, as well as numbers, to contend with
the people among whom they lived. The desire of having servants, (for
Gipsies, generally, have been too proud to do menial work for each
other,) led to many children being kidnapped, and reared among them;
many of whom, as is customary with Oriental people, rose to as high a
position in the tribe as any of themselves.[5]
[5] Mr. Borrow labours under a very serious mistake when he asserts
that "The unfounded idea, that Gipsies steal children, to bring them
up as Gipsies, has been the besetting sin of authors, who have
attempted to found works of fiction on the way of life of this most
singular people." The only argument which he advances to refute this
belief in regard to Gipsies, which is universal, is the following:
"They have plenty of children of their own, whom they can scarcely
support; and they would smile at the idea of encumbering themselves
with the children of others." This is rather inconsistent with his own
words, when he says, "I have dealt more in facts than in theories, of
which I am, in general, no friend." As a matter of fact, children have
been stolen and brought up as Gipsies, and incorporated with the
tribe.
Then again, it was very necessary to have people of fair complexion
among them, to enable them the more easily to carry on their operations
upon the community, as well as to contribute to their support during
times of persecution. Owing to these causes, and the occasional
occurrence of white people being, by more legitimate means, received
into their body, which would be more often the case in their palmy days,
the half, at least, of the Scottish Gipsies are of fair hair and blue
eyes. Some would naturally think that these would not be Gipsies, but
the fact is otherwise; for, owing to the dreadful prejudice which has
always attached to the name of Gipsy, these white and parti-coloured
Gipsies, imagining themselves, as it were, banished from society, on
account of their descent, cling to their Gipsy connection; as the other
part of their blood, they imagine, will not own them. They are Gipsies,
and, with the public, they think that is quite enough. They take a pride
in being descended from a race so mysterious, so ancient, so universal,
and cherish their language the more from its being the principal badge
of membership that entitles them to belong to it. The nearer they
approach the whites as regards blood, the more acutely do they feel the
antipathy which is entertained for their race, and the more bitter does
the propinquity become to them. The more enlightened they become, the
stronger becomes their attachment to the sept in the abstract, although
they will despise many of its members. The sense of such an ancient
descent, and the possession of such an ancient and secret language, in
the minds of men of comparatively limited education and indifferent
rearing, brought up in humble life, and following various callings, from
a tinker upward, and even of men of education and intelligence,
occupying the position of lawyers, medical doctors, and clergymen,
possess for them a charm that is at once fascinating and enchanting. If
men of enlightened minds and high social standing will go to such
lengths as they have done, in their endeavours to but look into their
language, how much more will they not cling to it, such as it is, in
whose hearts it is? Gipsies compounded for the most part of white blood,
but with Gipsy feelings, are, as a general thing, much superior to those
who more nearly approach what may be called the original stock; and,
singularly enough, speak the language better than the others, if their
opportunities have been in any way favourable for its acquisition.
The primitive, original state of the Gipsies is the tent and tilted
cart. But as any country can support only a limited number in that way,
and as the increase of the body is very large, it follows that they
must cast about to make a living in some other way, however bitter the
pill may be which they have to swallow. The nomadic Gipsy portion
resembles, in that respect, a water trough; for the water which runs
into it, there must be a corresponding quantity running over it. The
Gipsies who leave the tent resemble the youth of our small seaports and
villages; for there, society is so limited as to compel such youth to
take to the sea or cities, or go abroad, to gain that livelihood which
the neighbourhood in which they have been reared denies to them. In the
same manner do these Gipsies look back to the tent from which they, or
their fathers, have sprung. They carry the language, the associations,
and the sympathies of their race, and their peculiar feelings toward the
community, with them; and, as residents of towns, have generally greater
facilities, from others of their race residing near them, for
perpetuating their language, than when strolling over the country.
The prejudice of their fellow creatures, which clings to the race to
which they belong, almost overwhelms some of them at times; but it is
only momentary; for such is the independence and elasticity of their
nature, that they rise from under it, as self-complacent and proud as
ever. They in such cases resort to the _tu quoque_--the _tit for tat_
argument as regards their enemies, and ask, "What is this white race,
after all? What were their forefathers a few generations ago? the
Highlands a nest of marauding thieves, and the Borders little better. Or
society at the present day--what is it but a compound of deceit and
hypocrisy? People say that the Gipsies steal. True; some of them steal
chickens, vegetables, and such things; but what is that compared to the
robbery of widows and orphans, the lying and cheating of traders, the
swindling, the robberies, the murders, the ignorance, the squalor, and
the debaucheries of so many of the white race? What are all these
compared to the simple vices of the Gipsies? What is the ancestry they
boast of, compared, in point of antiquity, to ours? People may despise
the Gipsies, but they certainly despise all others not of their own
race: the veriest beggar Gipsy, without shoes to his feet, considers
himself better than the queen that sits upon the throne. People say that
Gipsies are blackguards. Well, if some of them are blackguards, they
are at least illustrious blackguards as regards descent, and so in fact;
for they never rob each other, and far less do they rob or ruin those of
their own family." And they conclude that the odium which clings to the
race is but a prejudice. Still, they will deny that they are Gipsies,
and will rather almost perish than let any one, not of their own race,
know that they speak their language in their own households and among
their own kindred. They will even deny or at least hide it from many of
their own race.
For all these reasons, the most appropriate word to apply to modern
Gipsyism, and especially British Gipsyism, and more especially Scottish
Gipsyism, is to call it a caste, and a kind of masonic society, rather
than any particular mode of life. And it is necessary that this
distinction should be kept in mind, otherwise the subject will appear
contradictory.
The most of these Gipsies are unknown to the public as Gipsies. The
feeling in question is, for the most part, on the side of the Gipsies
themselves; they think that more of them is known than actually is. In
that respect a kind of nightmare continually clings to them; while their
peculiarly distant, clannish, and odd habits create a kind of separation
between them and the other inhabitants, which the Gipsy is naturally apt
to construe as proceeding from a different cause. Frequently, all that
is said about them amounts only to a whisper among some of the families
in the community in which they live, and which is confidentially passed
around among themselves, from a dread of personal consequences.
Sometimes the native families say among themselves, "Why should we make
allusion to their kith and kin? They seem decent people, and attend
church like ourselves; and it would be cruel to cast up their descent to
them, and damage them in the estimation of the world. Their cousins, (or
second cousins, as it may be,) travel the country in the old Tinkler
fashion, no doubt; but what has that to do with them?" The estimate of
such people never, or hardly ever, goes beyond the simple idea of their
being "descended from Tinklers;" few have the most distant idea that
they are Gipsies, and speak the Gipsy language among themselves. It is
certain that a Gipsy can be a good man, as the world goes, nay, a very
good man, and glory in being a Gipsy, but not to the public. He will
adhere to his ancient language, and talk it in his own family; and he
has as much right to do so, as, for example, a Highlander has to speak
Gaelic in the Lowlands, or when he goes abroad, and teach it to his
children. And he takes a greater pride in doing it, for thus he reasons:
"What is English, French, Gaelic, or any other living language, compared
to mine? Mine will carry me through every part of the known world:
wherever a man is to be found, there is my language spoken. I will find
a brother in every part of the world on which I may set my foot; I will
be welcomed and passed along wherever I may go. Freemasonry indeed! what
is masonry compared to the brotherhood of the Gipsies? A language--a
whole language--is its pass-word. I almost worship the idea of being a
member of a society into which I am initiated by my blood and language.
I would not be a man if I did not love my kindred, and cherish in my
heart that peculiarity of my race (its language) which casts a halo of
glory around it, and makes it the wonder of the world!"
The feeling alluded to induces some of these Gipsies to change their
residences or go abroad. I heard of one family in Canada, of whom a
Scotchman spoke somewhat in the following way: "I know them to be
Gipsies. They remind me of a brood of wild turkeys, hatched under a tame
bird; it will take the second or third descent to bring them to
resemble, in some of their ways, the ordinary barn-door fowl. They are
very restless and queer creatures, and move about as if they were afraid
that every one was going to tramp on their corns." But it is in large
towns they feel more at home. They then form little communities among
themselves; and by closely associating, and sometimes huddling together,
they can more easily perpetuate their language, as I have already said,
than by straggling, twos or threes, through the country. But their
quarrelsome disposition frequently throws an obstacle in the way of such
associations. Secret as they have been in keeping their language from
even being heard by the public while wanderers, they are much more so
since they have settled in towns.
The origin of the Gipsies has given rise, in recent times, to many
speculations. The most plausible one, however, seems to be that they are
from Hindostan; an opinion our author supports so well, that we are
almost bound to acquiesce in it. In these controversies regarding the
origin of the Gipsies, very little regard seems to have been had to what
they say of themselves. It is curious that in every part of Europe they
have been called, and are now called, Egyptians. No trace can now be
found of any enquiry made as to their origin, if such there was made,
when they first appeared in Europe. They seem then to have been taken at
their word, and to have passed current as Egyptians. But in modern times
their country has been denied them, owing to a total dissimilarity
between their language and any of the dialects of modern Egypt. A very
intelligent Gipsy informed me that his race sprung from a body of men--a
cross between the Arabs and Egyptians--that left Egypt in the train of
the Jews.[6] In consulting the record of Moses, I find it said, in Ex.
xii. 38, "and a mixed multitude went up also with them" (the Jews, out
of Egypt). Very little is said of this mixed multitude. In Lev. xxiv.
10, mention is made of the son of an Israelitish woman, by an Egyptian,
being stoned to death for blasphemy, which would almost imply that a
marriage had taken place previous to leaving Egypt. After this
occurrence, it is said in Num. xi. 4, "and the mixed multitude that was
among them fell a lusting" for flesh. That would imply that they had not
amalgamated with the Jews, but were only among them. The Scriptures say
nothing of what became of this mixed multitude after the Jews separated
from them (Neh. xiii. 3), and leave us only to form a conjecture
relative to their destiny.
[6] The intelligent reader will not differ with me as to the weight to
be attached to the Gipsy's remark on this point.
We naturally ask, what could have induced this mixed multitude to leave
Egypt? and the natural reply is, that their motive was the same that led
to the exodus of the Jews--a desire to escape from slavery. No
commentator that I have read gives a plausible reason for the mixed
multitude leaving Egypt with the Jews. Scott, besides venturing four
suppositions, advances a fifth, that "some left because they were
distressed or discontented." But that seems to fall infinitely short of
the true reason. Adam Clark says, "Probably they were refugees who came
to sojourn in Egypt, because of the dearth which had obliged them to
emigrate from their own countries." But that dearth occurred centuries
before the time of the exodus; so that those refugees, if such there
were, who settled in Egypt during the famine, could have returned to
their own countries generations before the time of that event. Scott
says, "It is probable some left Egypt because it was desolate;" and
Henry, "Because their country was laid waste by the plagues." But the
desolation was only partial; for we are told that "He that feared the
word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh, made his servants and
his cattle flee into the houses;" by which means they escaped
destruction from the hail, which affected only those remaining in the
field. We are likewise told that, although the barley and flax were
smitten by the same hail-storm, the wheat and rye, not being grown up,
were left untouched. These two latter (besides fish, roots and
vegetables) would form the staples of the food of the Egyptians; to say
nothing of the immense quantities in the granaries of the country. If
the Egyptians could not find bread in their own country, how were they
to obtain it by accompanying the Jews into a land of which they knew
nothing, and which had to be conquered before it could be possessed?
Where were they to procure bread to support them on the journey, if it
was not to be had at home?
The other reasons given by these commentators for the departure of the
mixed multitude from Egypt are hardly worth controverting, when we
consider the social manners and religious belief of the Egyptians. We
are told that, for being shepherds, the Israelites were an abomination
unto the Egyptians (Gen. xlvi. 34); and that the Egyptians considered it
an abomination to eat bread with a Hebrew, (Gen. xliii. 32,) so supreme
was the reign of caste and of nationality at that period in Egypt. The
sacrifices of the Jews were also an abomination to the Egyptians (Ex.
viii. 26). The Hebrews were likewise influenced by feelings peculiar to
themselves, which would render any alliances or even associations
between them and their oppressors extremely improbable; but if such
there should have been, the issue would be incorporated with the
Hebrews.
There could thus be no personal motive for any of the Egyptians to
accompany the Hebrews; and as little could there be of that which
pertains to the religious; for, as a people, they had become so "vain
in their imaginations," and had "their foolish hearts so darkened," as
to worship almost every created thing--bulls, birds, serpents, leeks,
onions and garlic. Such a people were almost as well nigh devoid of a
motive springing from a sense of elevated religion, as were the beasts,
the reptiles and the vegetables which they worshipped. A miracle
performed before the eyes of such a people would have no more salutary
or lasting influence than would a flash of lightning before the eyes of
many a man in every day life; it might prostrate them for a moment, but
its effects would be as transitory. Like the Jews themselves, at a
subsequent time, they might credit the miracle to Beelzebub, the prince
of devils; and, like the Gergesenes, rise up in a body and beseech Moses
and his people to "depart out of their coasts." Indeed, after the
slaying of the first-born of the Egyptians, we are told that "the
Egyptians were urgent upon the people that they might send them out of
the land in haste; for, they said, We be all dead men." Considering how
hard a matter it was for Moses to urge the Jews to undertake the exodus;
considering their stiff-necked and perverse grumbling at all that befell
them; notwithstanding that to them "pertained the fathers, the adoption,
the glory and the covenant;" the commands and the bones of Joseph; the
grievous bondage they were enduring, and the almost daily recourse to
which Moses had for a miracle to strengthen their faith and resolution
to proceed; and we will perceive the impossibility of the "mixed
multitude" leaving Egypt on any ground of religion.
This principle might even be urged further. If we consider the reception
which was given to the miracles of Christ as "a son over his own house,
and therefore worthy of more glory than Moses, who was but a servant,"
we will conclude that the miracles wrought by Moses, although personally
felt by the Egyptians, would have as little lasting effect upon them as
had those of the former upon the Jews themselves; they would naturally
lead to the Hebrews being allowed to depart, but would serve no purpose
of inducing the Egyptians to go with them. For if a veil was
mysteriously drawn over the eyes of the Jews at the advent of Christ,
which, in a negative sense, hid the Messiah from them (Mark iv. 11, 12;
Matt. xi. 25, 26; and John xii. 39, 40), how much more might it not be
said, "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, that they
should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts," and
let the people of Israel go, "till they would thrust them out hence
altogether;" and particularly so when the object of Moses' mission was
to redeem the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, and spoil and smite
the Egyptians.
The only reasonable conclusion to which we can come, as regards a motive
for the "mixed multitude" leaving Egypt along with the Jews, is, that
being slaves like themselves, they took advantage of the opportunity,
and slipped out with them.[7]
[7] Since the above was written, I have read Hengstenberg on the
Pentateuch, who supposes that the "mixed multitude" were an inferior
order of workmen, employed, like the Jews, as slaves, in the building
of the pyramids.
The Jews, on being reduced to a state of bondage, were employed by
Pharaoh to "build treasure cities, and work in mortar and brick, and do
all manner of service in the field," besides being "scattered abroad
through all the land of Egypt, to gather stubble in place of straw,"
wherewith to make their tale of bricks. In this way they would come much
in contact with the other slaves of the country; and, as "adversity
makes strange bed-fellows," they would naturally prove communicative to
their fellow-sufferers, and expatiate on the history of their people,
from the days of Abraham downward, were it only from a feeling of vanity
to make themselves appear superior to what they would consider the
ordinary dross around them. They would also naturally allude to their
future prospects, and the positive promise, or at least general idea,
which they had of their God effecting their deliverance, and leading
them into a country (Gen. 1. 24, 25) where all the miseries they were
then enduring would be forgotten. They would do that more especially
after Moses had returned from his father-in-law in Midian, to bring them
out of Egypt; for we are told, in Ex. iv. 29-31, that the elders of the
children of Israel were called together and informed of the intended
redemption, and that all the people believed. By such means as these
would the minds of some of the other slaves of Egypt be inflamed at the
very idea of freedom being perhaps in immediate prospect for so many of
their fellow-bondsmen.
Thereafter happened the many plagues; the causes of which must have been
more or less known to the Egyptians generally, from the public manner in
which Moses would make his demands (Ex. x. 7); and consequently to their
slaves; for many of the slaves would be men of intelligence, as is
common in oriental countries. Some of these slaves would, in all
probability, watch, with fear and trembling, the dreadful drama played
out (Ex. ix. 20). Others would, perhaps, give little heed to the various
sayings of the Hebrews at the time they were uttered; the plagues would,
perhaps, have little effect in reminding them of them. As they
experienced their effects, they might even feel exasperated toward the
Hebrews for being the cause of them; still it is more probable that they
sympathized with them, as fellow-bondsmen, and murmured against Pharaoh
for their existence and greater manifestation. But the positive order,
nay the entreaty, for the departure of the Israelites, and the passage
before their eyes of so large a body of slaves to obtain their freedom,
would induce many of them to follow them; for they would, in all
likelihood, form no higher estimate of the movement than that of merely
gaining that liberty which slaves, in all nations, and under all
circumstances, do continually sigh after.
The character of Moses alone was a sufficient guarantee to the slaves of
Egypt that they might trust themselves to his leadership and protection
(not to speak of the miraculous powers which he displayed in his
mission); for we are told that, besides being the adopted son of
Pharaoh's daughter, he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and mighty in word and deed. Having been, according to Josephus, a great
commander in the armies of Egypt, he must have been the means of
reducing to bondage many of the slaves, or the parents of the slaves,
then living in Egypt. At the time of the exodus we are told that he was
"very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants,
and in the sight of the people" (Ex. xi. 3). The burying of the
"first-born" was not a circumstance likely to prevent a slave gaining
his freedom amid the dismay, the moaning, and groaning, and howling
throughout the land of Egypt. The circumstance was even the more
favourable for his escape, owing to the Hebrews being allowed to go,
till it pleased God again to harden and stir up Pharaoh to pursue them
(Ex. xiv. 2-5 and 8), in order that his host might be overthrown in the
Red Sea.
The Jews, while in Egypt, seem to have been reduced to a state of
serfdom only--crown slaves, not chattels personal; which would give them
a certain degree of respect in the eyes of the ordinary slaves of the
country, and lead them, owing to the dignity of their descent, to look
down with disdain upon the "mixed multitude" which followed them. While
it is said that they were "scattered over the land of Egypt," we are
told, in Ex. ix. 4, that the murrain touched not the cattle of Israel;
and in the 26th verse, that "in the land of Goshen, where the people of
Israel were, there was no hail." And Moses said to Pharaoh, "Our cattle
also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for
thereof we must take to serve the Lord our God" (Ex. x. 26). From this
we would naturally conclude, that such of the Jews only as were capable
of work, were scattered over the land of Egypt to do the work of
Pharaoh, while the rest were left in the land of Goshen. By both the
Egyptians and their slaves, the Hebrews would be looked upon as a
mysterious people, which the former would be glad to send out of the
land, owing to the many plagues which they had been the cause of being
sent upon them; and while they got quit of them, as they did, there
would be no earthly motive for the Egyptians to follow them, through a
wilderness, into a country of which the Hebrews themselves knew nothing.
But it would be different with their slaves; they had everything to hope
from a change of condition, and would readily avail themselves of the
chance to effect it.
The very term "mixed multitude" implies slaves; for the Hebrew word
_hasaphsuph_, as translated by Bochartus, means _populi colluvies
undecunque collecta_--"the dregs or scum of the people gathered together
from all parts." But this interpretation is most likely the literal
meaning of a figurative expression, which was intended to describe a
body of men such as the slaves of Egypt must have been, that is, a
mixture that was compounded of men from almost every part of the world
known to the Egyptians; the two principal ingredients of which must have
been what may be called the Egyptian and Semitic. Moses seems to have
used the word in question in consequence of the vexation and snare which
the mixed multitude proved to him, by bringing upon the camp of his
people the plague, inflicted, in consequence of their sins, in the midst
of them. At the same time the Hebrews were very apt to term "dregs and
scum" all who did not proceed from the loins of their father, Abraham.
But I am inclined to believe that the bulk or nucleus of the mixed
multitude would consist of slaves who were located in Goshen, or its
neighbourhood, when the Jews were settled there by Pharaoh. These would
be a mixture of the shepherd kings and native Egyptians, held by the
former as slaves, who would naturally fall into the hands of the
Egyptian monarch during his gradual reconquest of the country; and they
would be held by the pure Egyptians in as little esteem as the Jews
themselves, both being, in a measure, of the shepherd race. In this way
it may be claimed that the Gipsies are even descendants of the shepherd
kings.
After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews and the "mixed multitude," in their
exuberance of feeling at having gained their freedom, and witnessed the
overthrow of their common oppressor in the Red Sea, would naturally have
everything in common, till they regained their powers of reflection, and
began to think of their destiny, and the means of supporting so many
individuals, in a country in which provisions could hardly be collected
for the company of an ordinary caravan. Then their difficulties would
begin. It was enough for Moses to have to guide the Hebrews, whose were
the promises, without being burdened and harassed by those who followed
them. Then we may reasonably assume that the mixed multitude began to
clamour for flesh, and lead the Hebrews to join with them; in return for
which a plague was sent upon the people. They were unlikely to submit to
be led by the hand of God, and be fed on angels' food, and, like the
Hebrews, leave their carcasses in the wilderness; for their religious
sentiments, if, as slaves of Egypt, they had religious sentiments, would
be very low indeed, and would lead them to depend upon themselves, and
leave the deserts of Arabia, for some other country more likely to
support them and their children. Undoubtedly the two people then
separated, as Abraham and Lot parted when they came out of Egypt.
How to shake off this mixed multitude must have caused Moses many an
anxious thought. Possibly his father-in-law, Jethro, from the knowledge
and sagacity which he displayed in forming the government of Moses
himself, may have assisted him in arriving at the conclusion which he
must have so devoutly wished. To take them into the promised land with
him was impossible; for the command of God, given in regard to Ishmael,
the son of Abraham, by Hagar the Egyptian, and which was far more
applicable to the mixed multitude, must have rung in his ears: "Cast out
this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be
heir with my son, Isaac;" "for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." As
slaves of Egypt they would not return to that country; they would not go
north, for that was the heritage of the people of Israel, which had to
be wrested from the fierce tribes of Palestine; they would not go
north-east, for there lay the powerful empire of Assyria, or the germs
out of which it sprung; they could not go south, for the ocean hemmed
them in, in that direction; and their only alternative was to proceed
east, through Arabia Petrea, along the gulf of Persia, through the
Persian desert, into northern Hindostan, where they formed the Gipsy
caste, and whence they issued, after the lapse of so many centuries, in
possession of the language of Hindostan, and spread themselves over the
earth. What a strange sensation passes through the mind, when such a
subject is contemplated! Jews and Gipsies having, in a sense, the same
origin, and, after such vicissitudes, meeting each other, face to face,
under circumstances so greatly alike, in almost every part of the world,
upward of 3000 years after they parted company. What destiny awaited the
Jews themselves on escaping from Egypt? They had either to subdue and
take the place of some other tribe, or be reduced to a state of slavery
by it and perhaps others combined; or they might possibly have been
befriended by some great empire as tributaries; or failing these three,
what remained for them was the destiny that befell the Gipsies.
On leaving Egypt, the Gipsies would possess a common language, which
would hold them together as a body; as slaves under the society of an
Egyptian monarchy, they would have few, if any, opinions of a religious
nature; and they would have but little idea of the laws of _meum_ and
_tuum_. The position in which they would find themselves placed, and the
circumstances surrounding them, would necessitate them to rob, steal, or
appropriate whatever they found to be necessary to their existence; for
whether they turned to the right hand or to the left, they would always
find territory previously occupied, and property claimed by some one; so
that their presence would always be unwelcome, their persons an
intrusion everywhere; and having once started on their weary pilgrimage,
as long as they maintained their personal independence, they would never
attain, as a body, to any other position than they have done, in popular
estimation, for the last four hundred and fifty years in Europe.
In entering Hindostan they would meet with a civilized people, governed
by rigid caste, where they would have no alternative but to remain aloof
from the other inhabitants. Then, as now, that country had many
wandering tribes within its borders, and for which it is peculiarly
favourable. Whatever might have been the amount of civilization which
some of the Gipsies brought with them from Egypt, it could not be
otherwise than of that _quasi_ nature which generally characterizes that
of slaves, and which would rapidly degenerate into a kind of barbarism,
under the change of circumstances in which they found themselves placed.
As runaway slaves, they would naturally be shy and suspicious, and be
very apt to betake themselves to mountains, forests and swamps, and hold
as little intercourse with the people of the country in which they were,
as possible. Still, having been reared within a settled and civilized
state, they would naturally hang around some other one, and nestle
within it, if the face of the country, and the character and ways of the
people, admitted of it. Having been bondsmen, they would naturally
become lazy after gaining their freedom, and revel in the wild liberty
of nature. They would do almost anything for a living rather than work;
and whatever they could lay their hands on would be fairly come by, in
their imagination. But to carry out this mode of life, they would
naturally have recourse to some ostensible employment, to enable them to
travel through the country, and secure the toleration of its
inhabitants. Here their Egyptian origin would come to their assistance;
for as slaves of that country, they must have had many among them who
would be familiar with horses, and working in metals, for which ancient
Egypt was famous; not to speak of some of the occult sciences which they
would carry with them from that country. In the first generation their
new habits and modes of life would become chronic; in the second
generation they would become hereditary; and from this strange
phenomenon would spring a race that is unique in the history of the
human family. What origin could be more worthy of the Gipsies? What
origin more philosophical?
Arriving in India a foreign caste, the Gipsies would naturally cling to
their common origin, and speak their common language, which, in course
of ages, would be forgotten, except occasional words, which would be
used by them as catch-words. At the present day my Gipsy acquaintances
inform me that, in Great Britain, five out of every ten of their words
are nothing but common Hindostanee. How strange would it be if some of
the other words of their language were those used by the people of Egypt
under the Pharaohs. Mr. Borrow says: "Is it not surprising that the
language of _Petulengro_, (an English Gipsy,) is continually coming to
my assistance whenever I appear to be at a loss with respect to the
derivation of crabbed words. I have made out crabbed words in Æschylus
by means of his speech; and even in my Biblical researches I have
derived no slight assistance from it." "Broken, corrupted and half in
ruins as it is, it was not long before I found that it was an original
speech, far more so, indeed, than one or two others of high name and
celebrity, which, up to that time, I had been in the habit of regarding
with respect and veneration. Indeed, many obscure points connected with
the vocabulary of these languages, and to which neither classic nor
modern lore afforded any clue, I thought I could now clear up by means
of this strange, broken tongue, spoken by people who dwell among
thickets and furze bushes, in tents as tawny as their faces, and whom
the generality of mankind designate, and with much semblance of justice,
as thieves and vagabonds."
A difficulty somewhat similar to the origin of the Gipsies has been
started in reference to their language; whether it is a speech distinct
from any other surrounding it, or a few slang words or expressions
connected together by the usual languages of the countries in which the
race is to be found. The slightest consideration will remove the doubt,
and lead us to the former conclusion. It is true there must needs be
some native words mixed up with it; for what language, in ancient or
modern times, has come down free of a mixture with others? If that be
the case with languages classified, written, and spoken in a community,
with no disturbing element near it to corrupt it, is it to be expected
that the speech of a people like the Gipsies can be free of similar
additions or substitutions, when it possesses none of these advantages
for the preservation of its entirety and purity? From the length of time
the people have been in Europe, and the frequency of intercourse which
they have been forced by circumstances, in modern times especially, to
have with its natives, it would appear beyond measure surprising that
even a word of their language is spoken at all. And this fact adds great
weight to Sir Walter Scott's remark, when he says that "their language
is a great mystery;" and to that of Dr. Bright, when he speaks of its
existence as being "little short of the miraculous." But when we
consider, on strictly philosophical principles, the phenomenon of the
perpetuation of the Gipsy language, we will find that there is nothing
so very wonderful about it after all. The race have always associated
closely and exclusively together; and their language has become to them
like the worship of a household god--hereditary, and is spoken among
themselves under the severest of discipline. It is certain that it is
spoken at the present day, by some of the race, nearly as well as the
Gaelic of many of the immediate descendants of the emigrants in some of
the small Highland settlements in America, when it has not been learned
by book, even to the extent of conversing on any subject of ordinary
life, without apparently using English words. But, as is common with
people possessing two languages, the Gipsies often use them
interchangeably in expressing the smallest idea. Besides the way
mentioned by which the Gipsy language has been corrupted, there is
another one peculiar to all speeches, and which is, that few tongues are
so copious as not to stand in need of foreign words, either to give
names to things or wants unknown in the place where the language
originated, or greater meaning or elucidation to a thing than it is
capable of; and preëminently so in the case of a barbarous people, with
few ideas beyond the commonest wants of daily life, entering states so
far advanced toward that point of civilization which they have now
reached. But the question as to the extent of the Gipsy language never
can be conclusively settled, until some able philologist has the
unrestricted opportunity of daily intercourse with the race; or, as a
thing more to be wished than obtained, some Gipsy take to suitable
learning, and confer a rarity of information upon the reader of history
everywhere: for the attempt at getting a single word of the language
from the Gipsies, is, in almost every case, impracticable. Sir Walter
Scott seems to have had an intention of writing an account of the
Gipsies himself; for, in a letter to Murray, as given by Lockhart, he
writes: "I have been over head and ears in work this summer, or I would
have sent the Gipsies; indeed I was partly stopped by finding it
impossible to procure a few words of their language." For this reason,
the words furnished in this work, although few, are yet numerous, when
the difficulties in the way of getting them are considered. Under the
chapter of Language will be found some curious anecdotes of the manner
in which these were collected.
Of the production itself little need be said. Whatever may be the
opinion of the public in regard to it, this may be borne in mind, that
the collecting of the materials out of which it is formed was attended
with much trouble, and no little expense, but with a singular degree of
pleasure, to the author; and that but for the urgent and latest request
of him whom, when alive or dead, Scotchmen have always delighted to
honour, it might never have assumed its present form. It is what it
professes to be--a history, in which the subject has been stripped of
everything pertaining to fiction or even colouring; so that the reader
will see depicted, in their true character, this singular people, in the
description of whom, owing to the suspicion and secrecy of their nature,
writers generally have indulged in so much that is trifling and even
fabulous.
Such as the work is, it is offered as a contribution toward the filling
up of that void in literature to which Dr. Bright alludes, in the
introduction to his travels in Hungary, when, in reference to Hoyland's
Survey, and some scattered notices of the Gipsies in periodicals, he
says: "We may hope at some time to collect, satisfactorily, the
history of this extraordinary race." It is likewise intended as a
response to the call of a writer in Blackwood, in which he says: "_Our_
duty is rather to collect and store up the _raw materials_ of
literature--to gather into our repository scattered facts, hints and
observations--which more elaborate and learned authors may afterwards
work up into the dignified tissue of history or science."
I deem it proper to remark that, in editing the work, I have taken some
liberties with the manuscript. I have, for example, recast the
Introduction, re-arranged some of the materials, and drawn more fully,
in some instances, upon the author's authorities; but I have carefully
preserved the facts and sentiments of the original. I may have used some
expressions a little familiar and perhaps not over-refined in their
nature; but my excuse for that is, that they are illustrative of a
subject that allows the use of them.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The discovery and history of barbarous races of men, besides affording
exquisite gratification to the general mind of civilized society, have
always been looked upon as important means toward a right understanding
of the history of our species, and the relation in which it stands
to natural and revealed theology; and in their prosecution have
produced, in latter times, many instances of the most indefatigable
disinterestedness and greatest efforts of true courage of which our
nature is capable; many, in the person of the traveller, philanthropist
and missionary, cheerfully renouncing in their pursuit every comfort of
civilized life, braving death itself in every variety of form, and
leaving their bones on the distant shore, or far away in the unknown
interior of the dreary continent, without a trace of their fate to
console those most dearly attached to them. The result of the
discoveries hitherto made has invariably confirmed the conclusions of a
few superior minds, formed without the assistance drawn from such a
source, that under whatever circumstances man is placed, and whatever
advantages he may enjoy, there is very little real difference between
the characters, intrinsically considered, of the savage and man in what
is considered a civilized community. There is this difference between
what may be called barbarism, not unfrequently to be met with in a
civilized community, springing from the depravity natural to man, and
what obtains in a barbarous tribe or nation as such, that, in the
former, it forms the exception; the brother, the father, or the son of
the person of it often exhibiting the most opposite nature and conduct;
while, in the latter, it forms the rule, and what the individual cannot,
in a sense, avoid. But, in making this distinction, is there nothing to
be found within the former sphere somewhat anomalous to the position
thus presented?
The subject of the following enquiry forms the exception, and from its
being the only instance to be met with in the history of Europe, it may
be said to merit the greatest consideration of the statesman, the
historian, the philosopher, and the Christian.
It does not appear possible, from the peculiar mould in which the
European mind has been cast, for it to have remained in that state of
immobility which, from the remotest antiquity, seems to have
characterized that of Asia; in which continent society has remained
torpid and inactive, contented with what it has inherited, without
making any effort at change or advancement. This peculiarity of
character, in connexion with the influences of the Christian religion,
seems to have had the effect of bringing about that thorough
amalgamation of races and ideas in the various countries of Europe in
which more than one people happened to occupy the same territory, or
come under the jurisdiction of the same government, when no material
difference in religion existed. In no country has such an amalgamation
been more happily consummated than in our own; if not altogether as to
blood, at least as to feeling, the more important thing of the two; the
physical differences, in occasional instances, appearing in some
localities, on the closest observation of those curious individuals who
make such a subject the object of their learned researches.
Notwithstanding what has been said, how does it happen that in Europe,
but especially in our own country, there exists, and has for four
hundred years existed, a pretty numerous body of men distinct in their
feelings from the general population, and some of them in a state of
barbarism nearly as great as when they made their appearance amongst us?
Such a thing would appear to us in no way remarkable in the stationary
condition so long prevalent in Asia; where, in the case of India, for
example, are to be found, inhabiting the same territory, a heterogeneous
population, made up of the remnants of many nations; where so many
languages are spoken, and religions or superstitions professed, and the
people divided into so many castes, which are separated from each other
on the most trivial, and, to Europeans, ridiculous and generally
incomprehensible points; some eating together, and others not; some
eating mutton, and others not; some beef and fowls, others vegetables,
milk, butter and eggs, but no flesh or fish; those going to sea not
associating with those remaining at home; some not following the
occupation of others; and all showing the most determined antipathy to
associate with each other;--where, from the numerous facilities so
essential toward the perpetuation of peculiar modes of life, and the
want of the powerful elements of assimilation and amalgamation so
prominent in our division of the human race, a people may continue in a
stereotyped state of mind and habits for an indefinite length of time.
But in a country that is generally looked upon as the bulwark of the
Reformation, and the stronghold of European civilization, how does it
happen that we find a people, resembling in their nature, though not in
the degree, the all but fabulous tribe that was lately to be found in
the dreary wastes of Newfoundland, flying from the approach, and
crossing the imagination of the fishermen like a spectre? Or like the
wild men of the jungle, in some of the oceanic parts of Asia, having no
homes, roaming during the dry season in the forests, and sleeping under
or on the branches of trees, and in the rainy season betaking themselves
to caves or sheltering beneath rocks, making their beds of leaves, and
living on what they can precariously find, such as roots and wild honey;
yet, under the influence of the missionary, many of them now raising
crops, building dwellings, erecting schoolhouses, keeping the Sabbath,
and praising God? But some of the Gipsies with us may be said to do few
of these things. They live among us, yet are not of us; they come in
daily contact with us, yet keep such distance from the community as a
wild fowl, that occasionally finds its way into the farm-yard, does in
shrinking from the close scrutiny of the husbandman. They cling like
bats to ruined houses, caves, and old lime-kilns; and pitch their tents
in dry water-courses, quarry-holes, or other sequestered places, by the
way-side, or on the open moor, and even on dung-heaps for the warmth to
be derived from them during the winter season, and live under the bare
boughs of the forest during the summer;--yet amid all this apparent
misery, through fair means or foul, they fare well, and lead what some
call a happy life; while everything connected with them is most
solicitously wrapt up in inscrutable mystery. These Gipsies exhibit to
the European mind the most inexplicable moral problem on record; in so
far as such phenomena are naturally expected to be found among a people
whom the rays of civilization have never reached; while, in the case of
the Gipsies, the first principles of nature would seem to be set at
defiance.
"And thus 'tis ever; what's within our ken,
Owl-like, we blink at, and direct our search
To fartherest Inde, in quest of novelties;
Whilst here at home, upon our very thresholds,
Ten thousand objects hurtle into view,
Of interest wonderful."
But to give a fair description of the tented Gipsy life, I cannot employ
more appropriate language than that of Doctor Bright, when, in reference
to the English Gipsies, he says: "I am confident that we are apt to
appreciate much too lightly the actual happiness enjoyed by this class
of people, who, beneath their ragged tents, in the pure air of the
heath, may well excite the envy of many of the poor, though better
provided with domestic accommodation, in the unwholesome haunts of the
town. At the approach of night, they draw around their humble but often
abundant board, and then retiring to their tent, leave a faithful dog to
guard its entrance. With the first rays of morning, they again meet the
day, pursue their various occupations, or, rolling up their tents and
packing all their property on an ass, set forward to seek the delights
of some fresh heath, or the protection of some shaded copse. I leave it
to those who have visited the habitations of the poor, to draw a
comparison between the activity, the free condition, and the pure air
enjoyed by the Gipsy, and the idleness, the debauchery, and the filth in
which the majority of the poorer classes are enveloped."--"No sooner
does a stranger approach their fire on the heath, than a certain reserve
spreads itself through the little family. The women talk to him in
mystic language; they endeavour to amuse him with secrets of futurity;
they suspect him to be a spy upon their actions; and he generally
departs as little acquainted with their true character as he came. Let
this, however, wear away; let him gain their confidence, and he will
find them conversable, amusing, sensible and shrewd; civil, but without
servility; proud of their independence; and able to assign reasons for
preferring their present condition to any other in civilized society. He
will find them strongly attached to each other, and free from many cares
which too often render the married life a source of discontent."
In what direction may we look for the causes of such an anomaly in the
history of our common civilization? This question, however, will be
discussed by and by: in the meantime let us consider the fact itself.
In the early part of the fifteenth century there first appeared in
Europe large hordes of a people of singular complexion and hair, and
mode of life--apparently an Asiatic race--which, in spite of the
sanguinary efforts of the governments of the countries through which
they passed, continued to spread over the continent, and have existed in
large numbers to this day; many of them in the same condition, and
following the same modes of life, now as then; and preserving their
language, if not in its original purity, yet without its having lost its
character. This circumstance has given rise in recent times to several
researches, with no certain result, as to the country which they left on
entering Europe, and still less as to the place or the circumstances of
their origin. The latter is not to be wondered at, when it is considered
that, in the instances of even the most polished nations of antiquity,
nothing is to be found as to their origin beyond what is contained in
the myths and fables of their earliest poets and historians. But
considering the traces that have been left of the origin and early
history of the people and kingdoms of Europe, subsequent to the fall of
the Roman Empire, amid the barbarism and confusion attending their
establishment, and, in many respects, the darkness immediately and for a
long time following it, we would naturally think that, for an event
happening so recently as the fifteenth century, some reliable traces
would have been discovered and bequeathed to us on a subject that has
baffled the antiquarians of modern times.
If, however, there is any doubt as to the country which they left on
entering Europe, and their place of origin, there remains for us to
consider the people generally, and in an especial manner those who have
located themselves in Scotland; and give an account of their subsequent
history in its various aspects, and their present condition. But before
doing that, it would be well to take a general but cursory view of the
political as well as social condition of Europe at the time they made
their appearance in it, so as, in some measure, to account for the
circumstance of no trace being left of their previous history; form an
estimate of the relative position in which they have stood to its
general population since; and attempt to realize the feeling with which
they have always been regarded by our own people, so as to account for
that singular degree of dread and awe which have always been associated
with the mention of their name; the foundation of which has been laid in
infancy.
That which most forcibly strikes the mind of the student, in reading the
history of the age in which the Gipsies entered Europe, is the political
turmoil in which nearly the whole of the continent seems to have been
embroiled for the greater part of a century. The desperate wars waged by
England against what has been termed her natural enemy, for the recovery
and retention of her ancient continental possessions, and the struggle
of the other for her bare existence; the long and bloody civil wars of
England, and the distracted state of France, torn with dissensions
within, and menaced at various points from without; the long and
fanatical struggle of religion and race, between the Spaniards and their
invaders, for the possession of the peninsula; the brave stand made by
the Swiss for that independence so much theirs by nature; the religious
wars of the Hussites, and the commotions throughout central Europe; the
perpetual internal feuds of the corrupt and turbulent southern
republics; the approaching dissolution of the dissolute Byzantine
empire; the appalling progress of that terrible power that had emerged
from the wilds of Asia, subdued the empire, and threatened Europe from
its vulnerable point; all these seem to have been enough to have
engrossed the mental energies of the various countries of Europe, and
prevented any notice being taken of the appearance of the race in
question.
But over and above these convulsions, sufficient as they were to
exclusively engage the attention of the small amount of cultivated
intellect then in the world, there was one that was calculated even to
paralyze the clergy, to whom, in that age, fell the business of
recording passing events, and which seems to have prevented their even
taking notice of important matters in the history of that time. I mean
the schism that for so long rent the church into fragments, the greatest
schism, indeed, that the world ever saw, when, for so many years, two
and even three Popes reigned at once, each anathematizing and
excommunicating the other, for a schism which, after an infinity of
intrigues, was ultimately so happily patched up to the comfort of the
church. On the death of Urban V, Gregory XI became Pope, but soon after
died, and was succeeded by Urban VI; but the Cardinals, who were in the
French interest, after treating him as Pope for a short time, annulled
the whole proceedings, on the plea of having been constrained in the
election by the turbulence of the Roman populace, but really on account
of the extraordinary harshness with which he began his reign, and chose
one of themselves in his stead, under the name of Clement VII. The
former remained at Rome, and was supported by Italy, the Empire, England
and the North; while Clement proceeded to Avignon, and was acknowledged
by France, Spain, Scotland, and Sicily. Urban was respectively succeeded
by Boniface IX, Innocent VI, and Gregory XII; and Clement, at his death,
in 1394, by Benedict XIII, the most implacable spirit in prolonging the
schism, from whose authority France for a time withdrew, without
acknowledging any other head, but afterwards returned, at the same time
urging his resignation of the chair. At last the Cardinals, disgusted
with the unprincipled dissimulation of both, and at their wits' end in
devising a way to stay the scandal, and build up the influence of the
whole church, then so rapidly sinking in the estimation of the world,
amidst such unheard of calamities, deserted both, and summoned a
council, which met at Pisa, and in which both were deposed, and another,
in the person of Alexander V, elected to fill the chair. But in place of
proving a remedy, the step rendered the schism still more furious. After
that, John XXIII, successor to Alexander V, was reluctantly prevailed on
to call a council, which accordingly met at Constance, in 1414, but in
which he himself was deposed. Martin V being chosen, was succeeded by
Eugenius IV. But the Fathers of Basle elected Felix V, thus renewing the
schism, and dividing the church for some years, from France and the
Empire observing a neutrality, while England adhered to Eugenius, Aragon
and the smaller states to Felix; but the partisans of Felix gradually
losing their influence, Nicholas V, the successor of Eugenius, after
much cajolery, prevailed on him to resign his claim, and thus restored
peace to the world.
At that time the kinds of learning taught were, in the greater part of
Europe, confined to few, being almost entirely monopolised by the clergy
and a few laymen; by the former for the dogmatism of the schools and the
study of the canon law, and by the latter for civil jurisprudence and
medicine. Even the sons of nobles were generally wholly illiterate, one
of them, only, being educated, to act as the clerk of the family. We are
even told of a noble, when a conspiracy was detected, with the name of
his son attached to it, saying, "Thank God, none of my children were
ever taught to write." The great mass of the people, and especially
those of the lower classes, were as ignorant of direct educational
training as a tribe of semi-barbarians at the present day. Many of the
nobility, although as scantily educated as the lowest of our own people,
and having as much difficulty in inditing an epistle as some of these
would now have, would still admirably maintain their position in such a
state of society, by the influence which their high birth and breeding,
elevated bearing, superiority of character, and possession of domain,
gave them; and by the traditionary feudal awe that had sunk so deeply
into the feelings of their comparatively, and often absolutely, abject
dependents and followers, extending itself, when unaccompanied by overt
acts of oppression, to the inhabitants of the smaller towns, where so
many restraints surrounded their personal independence, from their
precarious modes of living, owing to all so much depending on each other
for a subsistence, and the endless jealousies prevailing among them.
At the same time all classes, although frequently possessing a
sufficiency, if not an abundance, of the rough necessaries of life,
enjoyed nothing of the comfort and elegancies of subsequent times. The
house of many a noble presented such a plainness in furnishing as a
person, in very moderate circumstances, would now be almost ashamed to
possess. The circumstances of the middle classes were much more lowly;
plain boards and wooden trenchers, few beds but many _shake-downs_,
rough stools and no chairs, with wonderfully few apartments relative to
the size of the family, and much sleeping on straw-heaps in the
_cock-loft_, marked the style of living of a class now deemed very
respectable. The huts of the poorest class were as often composed of
"sticks and dirt" as any other material, with _plenishing_ to
correspond. There was a marked exception to this state of comparative
barbarism to be found, however, in some of the cities of Italy, and
other parts of the Mediterranean, the seats of the flourishing republics
of the middle ages; arising not only from the affluence which follows in
the wake of extended commerce and manufactures, but also from the
feelings with which the wreck of a highly polished antiquity inspired a
people in whom the seeds of the former civilization had not died out;
heightened, as it must have been, by the influence of the once
celebrated, but then decaying, splendour which the court of the long
line of eastern emperors shed over the countries lying contiguous to it.
The inhabitants of the cities of the north, on the other hand, were
marked by a degree of substantial wealth and comfort, sense and ease,
civility and liberality, which were apt to distinguish a people situated
as they were, without the traditions and objects, meeting the eye at
every step in the south, of the greatest degree of culture in the polite
arts of life unto which a people can attain. But, with the exception of
the inhabitants of these cities, and some of those in a few of the
cities of western Europe, the clergy and some of the laity, the people,
as such, were sunk in deep ignorance and superstition, living in a state
of which, in our favoured times, we can form no adequate conception.
Then, life and property were held in little respect, and law trampled
upon, even if it existed under more than the shadow of its present form;
and no roads existed but such as were for the greater part of the year
impassable, and lay through forests, swamps and other uncultivated
wastes, the resorts of numerous banditti. Then, almost no intercourse
existed between the people of one part of a country and another, when
all were exceedingly sanguinary and rude.
What wonder, then, that, under such circumstances, the race in question
should have stolen into Europe unobserved, without leaving a trace of
the circumstances connected with the movement? The way by which they are
supposed to have entered Western Europe was by Transylvania, a
supposition which, if not true, is at least most likely. Although, when
first publicly taken notice of in Europe, they were found to move about
in large bands, it is unlikely that they would do that while entering,
but only after having experienced the degree of toleration and
hospitality which the representation of their condition called forth; at
least if we judge from the cunning which they have displayed in moving
about after their true character became known. Asia having been so long
their home, where from time immemorial they are supposed to have
wandered, they would have no misgiving, from their knowledge of its
inhabitants, in passing through any part of it. But in contemplating an
entry into Europe they must have paused, as one, without any experience
of his own or of others, would in entering on the discovery of an
unknown continent, and anxiously examined the merchants and travellers
visiting Europe, on the various particulars of the country most
essential to their prospects, and especially as to the characteristics
of the people. There seems no reason for thinking that they were
expelled from Asia against their will; and as little for supposing that
they fled rather than submit to a particular creed, if we judge from the
great readiness with which, in form, they have submitted to such in
Europe, when it would serve their purpose. The only conclusion, in
regard to their motive or migration, to which we can come, is, that
having, in the course of time, gradually found their way to the confines
of Western Asia, and most likely into parts of Northern Africa, and
there heard of the growing riches of modern Europe, they, with the
restlessness and unsettledness of their race, longed to reach the
Eldorado of their hopes--a country teeming with what they were in quest
of, where they would meet with no rivals of their own race to cross
their path. The step must have been long and earnestly debated, possibly
for generations, ere it was taken; spies after spies may have surveyed
and reported on the country, and the movement been made the subject of
many deliberations, till at last the influence, address, or resolution
of some chief may have precipitated them upon it, possibly at a time
when some accidental or unavoidable cause urged them to it. Nor would it
be long ere their example was followed by others of the tribe; some from
motives of friendship; others from jealousy at the idea of all the
imagined advantages being reaped by those going before them; and others
from the desire of revenging unsettled injuries, and jealousy combined.
After the die had been cast, their first step would be to choose leaders
to proceed before the horde, spy out the richness of the land, and
organize stations for those to follow; and then continue the migration
till all the horde had passed over. Considering that the representative
part of the Gipsies have retained their peculiarities almost
uncontaminated, it is in the highest degree probable, it may even be
assumed as certain, that this was the manner in which they entered
Europe: at first stragglers, with systematic relays of stations and
couriers, followed up by such small, yet numerous and closely following,
companies, as almost to escape the notice of the authorities of the
countries through which they passed; a mode of travelling which they
still pursue in Great Britain. But when any special obstacle was to be
encountered in their journey--such, for example, as the hostility of the
inhabitants of any particular place--they would concentrate their
strength, so as to force their way through. Their next step would be to
arrange among themselves the district of country each tribe was to
occupy. After their arrival, they seem to have appeared publicly in
large bands, growing emboldened by the generous reception which they met
with for some time after their appearance; and they seem to have had the
sagacity to know, that if they secured the favour of the great, that of
the small would necessarily follow.
But if the first appearance of the Gipsies in Europe had a different
complexion from what I have conjectured, there are other causes to which
may be attributed the fact of its not being known. Among these is to be
found the distracted state of the Eastern Empire in its struggles with
the Turks, which led to the capture of its capital, and the subversion
of the Greek rule in the East. The literary and other men of note,
scattered over the provinces, likely to chronicle such an event as the
appearance of the Gipsies, must necessarily have betaken themselves to
the capital, as each district submitted to the conquerors, and so lost
the opportunity of witnessing the migration, under such circumstances as
would have made it observable, assuming that the Gipsies travelled in
large companies, which, under all the circumstances of the case, was
not, on all occasions, likely. The surrounding countries having been the
theatre of so many changes in the history of the human family, and the
inhabitants having undergone so many changes of masters, leading to so
many distinct races, from the intellectual and cultivated Greek to the
barbarous Arab and dusky Moor, of so various hues and habits, many of
whom would be found in such a city as Constantinople, what peculiarity
was there about the Gipsies to attract the notice of the haughty Greek,
characterized as he was by all the feelings of disdain which his
ancestors displayed in not even naming the Jews and early Christians?
Then, if we consider the peculiar turn which the new-born literary
pursuits of learned men assumed during that age--how it was exclusively
confined to the restoration of the classics, and followed in Europe by
the influx of the Greeks during the troubles of their country, we will
find another reason for the manner of the first appearance of the
Gipsies not being known. Nor is it to be expected that any light would
be thrown on the subject by the memoirs of any of our own countrymen,
visiting the East at a time when so little intercourse existed between
the West and that part of the world; nothing perhaps beyond a commercial
or maritime adventurer, under the flag of another nation, or one whose
whole acquirements consisted in laying lance in rest and mounting the
breach in an assault; it being a rare thing even to see an English ship
in the Mediterranean during the whole of the fifteenth century.
That the Gipsies were a tribe of Hindoo _Sudras_, driven, by the cruelty
of Timour, to leave Hindostan, is not for a moment to be entertained;
for why should that conqueror have specially troubled himself with the
_lowest_ class of Hindoos? or why should they, in particular, have left
Hindostan? It would have been the _ruling_, or at least the _higher_,
classes of Hindoo society against which Timour would have exercised any
acts of cruelty; the _lowest_ would be pretty much beneath his notice.
Not only do we not read of such a people as the Hindoos ever having left
their country on any such account--for it is contrary to their genius
and feelings of caste to do so--but the opinion that the Gipsies left
India on Timour's account rests on no evidence whatever, beyond the
simple circumstance that they were first taken notice of in Europe
_about_ the time of his overrunning India. Mr. Borrow very justly
remarks: "It appears singular that if they left their native land to
escape from Timour, they should never have mentioned, in the western
world, the name of that scourge of the human race, nor detailed the
history of their flight and sufferings, which assuredly would have
procured them sympathy; the ravages of Timour being already but too well
known in Europe." Still, Mr. Borrow does not venture to give reasons for
the trustworthiness or untrustworthiness of a passage in Arabschah's
life of Timour, in which it is said that Gipsies were found in Samarcand
at a time before that conqueror had even directed his thoughts to the
invasion of India. The description given of these Zingari or Gipsies of
Samarcand is as applicable to the Gipsies as possibly can be; for in it
it is said, "Some were wrestlers, others gladiators, others pugilists.
These people were much at variance, so that hostilities and battling
were continually arising amongst them. Each band had its chief and
subordinate officers." How applicable this description is to the
Scottish Gipsies, down to so late a period as the end of last century!
If there is little reason for thinking that the Gipsies left India owing
to the cruelties of Timour, there is less for supposing, as Mr. Borrow
supposes, that their being called Egyptians originated, not with
themselves, but with others; for he says that the tale of their being
Egyptians "probably originated amongst the priests and learned men of
the east of Europe, who, startled by the sudden apparition of bands of
people foreign in appearance and language, skilled in divination and the
occult arts, endeavoured to find in Scripture a clue to such a
phenomenon; the result of which was that the Romas (Gipsies) of
Hindostan were suddenly transformed into Egyptian penitents, a title
which they have ever since borne in various parts of Europe." Why should
the priests and learned men of the east of Europe go to the Bible to
find the origin of such a people as the Gipsies? What did priests and
learned men know of the Bible at the beginning of the fifteenth century?
Did every priest, at that time, know there even was such a book as the
Bible in existence? The priests and learned men of the east of Europe
were more likely to turn to the eastern nations for the origin of the
Gipsies, than to Egypt, were the mere matter of the skill of the Gipsies
in divination and the occult arts to lead them to make any enquiry into
their history. But what could have induced the priests and learned men
to take any such particular interest in the Gipsies? When the Gipsies
entered Europe, they would feel under the necessity of saying who they
were. Having committed themselves to that point, how could they
afterwards call themselves by that name which Mr. Borrow supposes the
priests and learned men to have given them? Or, I should rather say,
how could the priests and learned men think of giving them a name after
they themselves had said who they were? And did the priests and learned
men invent the idea of the Gipsies being pilgrims, or bestow upon their
leaders the titles of dukes, earls, lords, counts and knights of Little
Egypt? Assuredly not; all these matters must have originated with the
Gipsies themselves. The truth is, Mr. Borrow has evidently had no
opportunities of learning, or, at least, has not duly appreciated, the
real mental acquirements of the early Gipsies, an idea of which will be
found in the history of the race on their first general arrival in
Scotland, about a hundred years after they were first taken notice of in
Europe, during which time they are not supposed to have made any great
progress in mental condition. I may venture to say that the prophecy of
Ezekiel,[8] in regard to the scattering of the Egyptians, does not apply
to the Gipsies, for this reason, that such of these Egyptians as were
_carried away captive_ would become lost among other nations, while the
"mixed multitude" which left Egypt with the Jews, travelled East, _their
own masters_, and became the origin of the Gipsy nation throughout the
world. If we could but find traces of an Egyptian origin among the
Gipsies of Asia, say Central and Western Asia, the question would be
beyond dispute. But that might be a matter of some trouble. I am
inclined to believe that the people in India corresponding to the
Gipsies in Europe, will be found among those tented tribes who perform
certain services to the British armies; at all events there is such a
tribe in India, who are called Gipsies by the Europeans who come in
contact with them. A short time ago, one of these people, who followed
the occupation of a camel driver in India, found his way to England,
and "pulled up" with some English Gipsies, whom he recognized as his own
people; at least he found that they had the ways and ceremonies of them.
But it would be unreasonable to suppose that such a tribe in India did
not follow various occupations. Bishop Heber, on several occasions,
speaks of certain tents of people whom he met in India, as Gipsies. But
I can conceive nothing more difficult than an attempt to elucidate the
history of any of the infinity of sects, castes, or tribes to be met
with in India.[9] What evidently leads Mr. Borrow and others astray, in
the matter of the origin of the Gipsies, is, that they conclude that,
because the language spoken by the Gipsies is apparently, or for the
most part, Hindostanee, therefore the people speaking it originated in
Hindostan; as just a conclusion as it would be to maintain that the
Negroes in Liberia originated in England because they speak the English
language!
[8] Ezek. xxix. 12,-14, and xxx. 10, 23, and 26.--The scattering of
the Egyptians, here foretold, is a subject about which very little is
known. Scott, in commenting on it, says: "History informs us that
Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt, and carrying multitudes of prisoners
hence, dispersed them in different parts of his dominions: and
doubtless great numbers perished, or took shelter in other nations at
the same time. But we are not sufficiently informed of the
transactions of those ages, to show the exact fulfilment of this part
of the prophecy, as has been done in other instances."
The bulk of the Egyptians were doubtless restored to their country, as
promised in Ezek. xxix. 13, 14, and it is not impossible that the
Gipsies are the descendants of such as did not return to Egypt. The
language which they now speak proves nothing to the contrary, as,
since the time in question, they have had opportunities to learn and
unlearn many languages.
[9] Abbé Dubois says: "In every country of the Peninsula, great
numbers of foreign families are to be found, whose ancestors had been
obliged to emigrate thither, in times of trouble or famine, from their
native land, and to establish themselves amongst strangers. This
species of emigration is very common in all the countries of India;
but what is most remarkable is, _that in a foreign land, these
emigrants preserve, from generation to generation, their own language
and national peculiarities_. Many instances might be pointed out of
such foreign families, settled four or five hundred years in the
district they now inhabit, without approximating in the least to the
manners, fashions, or even to the language, of the nation where they
have been for so many generations naturalized. They still preserve the
remembrance of their origin, and keep up the ceremonies and usages of
the land where their ancestors were born, without ever receiving any
tincture of the particular habits of the countries where they
live."--Preface xvii.
At page 470, he gives an instance of a wandering tribe in the Mysore
and Telinga country, originally employed in agriculture, who, a
hundred and fifty years previously, took up their vagrant and
wandering life, in consequence of the severe treatment which the
governor of the province was going to inflict upon some of their
favourite chiefs. To this kind of life they have grown so much
accustomed, that it would be impossible to reclaim them to any fixed
or sedentary habits; and they have never entertained a thought of
resuming their ancient manners. They sojourn in the open fields, under
small tents of bamboo, and wander from place to place as humour
dictates. They amount to seven or eight thousand individuals, are
divided into tribes, and are under the government of chiefs, and
maintain a great respect for the property of others.
The leaders of the Gipsies, on the arrival of the body in Europe, and
for a long time afterwards, seem to have been a superior class to those
known as Gipsies to-day; although, if the more intelligent of the race
were observable to the general eye, they would, in many respects,
compare most favourably with many of our middle classes. If the leaders
of the Gipsies, at that time, fell behind some of even the nobility, in
the pittance of the education of letters which the latter possessed,
they made up for it in that practical sagacity, the acquisition of which
is almost unavoidable in the school in which, from infancy, they had
been educated--that of providing for the shifts and exigencies of which
their lives, as a whole, consisted; besides showing that superior
aptitude for many of the things of every-day life, so inseparable from
the success to which a special pursuit will lead. A Gipsy leader stood,
then, somewhat in the position towards a gentleman that a swell does
to-day; with this difference, that he was not apt to commit himself by
the display of that ignorance which unmasks the swell; an ignorance
which the gentleman, in spite of his little learning, no less shared in.
If the latter happened to be well educated, the Gipsy could still pass
muster, from being as well, or rather as ill, informed as many with whom
the gentleman associated. The Gipsy being alert, capable of playing many
characters, often a good musician, an excellent player at games of
hazard, famous at tale and repartee, clever at sleight of hand tricks,
ready with his weapon, at least in the boast of it, apt at field and
athletic sports, suspicious of everything and everybody around him, the
whole energies of his mind given to, and his life spent in,
circumventing and plundering those around him, while, in appearance,
"living in peaceable and catholic manner," and "doing a lawful
business," and having that thorough knowledge of men acquired by mixing
with all classes, in every part of the country--he became even more than
a match for the other, whose life was spent in occasional forays, field
sports and revellings, with so little to engage his intellectual nature,
from his limited education, the non-existence of books, and the forms of
government and social institutions, with those beautifully complicated
bearings and interests towards general society which the present age
displays. At such a time, conversation must have been confined to the
ordinary affairs of common life, the journal of much of which, beyond
one's own immediate neighbourhood, would be found in the conversation of
the accomplished Gipsy, who had the tact of ingratiating himself, in a
manner peculiar to himself, with all kinds of society, even sometimes
the very best. And it is remarkable that, when the Gipsies were
persecuted, it was seldom, if ever, at the instance of private
individuals, but almost always by those acting under authority. If they
were persecuted by a private individual, they would naturally leave for
another district, and place themselves, for a time, in the nominal
position of a clansman to such barons as would be always ready to
receive them. The people at large generally courted their friendship,
for the amusement which they afforded them, and the various services
which they rendered them, the most important of which was the safety of
property which followed from such an acquaintance. That being the case
even with people of influence, it may be judged what position the
Gipsies occupied towards the various classes downwards; the lowest of
which they have always despised, and delighted to tyrannize over. In
coming among them, the Gipsies, from the first, exhibited ways of life
and habits so dissimilar to those of the natives, and such tricks of
legerdemain so peculiar to Eastern nations, and such claims of seeing
into the future, as to cause many to believe them in league with the
evil one; a conclusion very easily arrived at, in the darkness in which
all were wrapped. Although the rabble of the Gipsies is said to have
presented, in point of accoutrements, a most lamentable appearance, that
could much more have been said of the same class of the natives, then,
and long after, if we judge of a Highland "tail," of a little more than
a century ago, as described by the author of Waverly; or even of the
most unwashed of what has been termed the "unwashed multitude" of
to-day. In point of adaptability to their respective modes of life, the
poorest of the Gipsies far excelled the others. To carry out the
character of pilgrims, the bulk of the Gipsies would go very poorly
dressed; it would only be the chiefs who would be well accoutred.
But the Gipsies that appear to the general eye have fallen much from
what they were. The superior class of Scottish Gipsies, possessing the
talents and policy necessary to accommodate themselves to the change of
circumstances around them, have adopted the modes of ordinary life to
such an extent, and so far given up their wandering habits, as to baffle
any chance of discovery by any one unacquainted with their history, and
who will not, like a bloodhound, follow them into the retreats in which
they and their descendants are now to be found. Such Gipsies are still a
restless race, and nourish that inveterate attachment to their blood
and language which is peculiar to all of them. When we consider the
change that has come over the face of society during the last hundred
years, or even during a much shorter time, we will find many causes that
have contributed to that which has come over the Gipsy character in its
more atrocious aspect. All classes of our own people, from the highest
to the lowest, have experienced the change; and nowhere to a greater
extent than in the Highlands, where, in little more than a hundred
years, a greater reformation has been effected, than took almost any
other part of the world perhaps three centuries to accomplish; and where
the people, as a body, have emerged, from a state of sanguinary
barbarism, into the most lawful and the most moral and religious
subjects of the British Empire. The Gipsies have likewise felt the
change. Even the wildest of them have had the more outrageous features
of their character subdued; but it is sometimes as an animal of prey,
sans teeth, sans claws, sans everything. Officials, in the zeal of their
callings, often greatly distress those that go about--compelling them,
in their wanderings, to "move on;" and look after them so closely, that
when they become obnoxious to the inhabitants, the offence has hardly
occurred, ere, to use an expression, they are snapped up before they
have had time to squeak. Amid such a state of things, it is difficult
for Gipsies to flourish in their glory; still, such of them as go about
in the olden form are deemed very annoying.
The dread which has always been entertained toward the Gipsies has been
carefully fostered by them, and has become the principal means
contributing to their toleration. They have always been combined in a
brotherhood of sentiment and interest, even when deadly feuds existed
among them; an injury toward one being generally taken up by others; and
have presented that union of sympathy, and lawless violence toward the
community, which show what a few audacious and desperate men, under such
circumstances, will sometimes do in a well regulated society. Sir Walter
Scott, relative to the original of one of his heroines, says: "She was
wont to say that she could bring, from the remotest parts of the island
friends, to revenge her quarrel, while she sat motionless in her
cottage; and frequently boasted that there was a time when she was of
still more considerable importance, when there were at her wedding
fifty saddled asses, and unsaddled asses without number." But of their
various crimes, none have had such terrors for the grown-up person as
those of fire-raising and child-stealing. The Gipsy could easily steal
into a well guarded but scattered premises, by night, and, in an
instant, spread devastation around him, and irretrievable ruin to the
rural inhabitant. But that which has, perhaps, contributed most to the
feeling in question, has been their habit of child-stealing, the terrors
of which have grown up with the people from infancy. This trait in the
Gipsy character has certainly not been so common, in latter times, as
some others; still, it has taken place. As an instance, it may be
mentioned that Adam Smith, the author of the great work called "An
Enquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nations," was actually carried
off by the Gipsies, when a child, and was some hours in their possession
before recovery. It is curious to think what might have been the
political state of so many nations, and of Great Britain in particular,
at the present time, if the father of political economy and free-trade,
as he is generally called, had had to pass his life in a Gipsy
encampment, and, like a white transferred to an Indian wigwam, under
similar circumstances, acquired all their habits, and become more
incorrigibly attached to them than the people themselves; tinkering
kettles, pots, pans and old metal, in place of separating the ore of a
beautiful science from the débris which had been for generations
accumulating around it, and working it up into one of the noblest
monuments of modern times.
When a child will become unruly, the father will often say, in the most
serious manner, "Mother, that canna be our bairn--the Tinklers must have
taken ours, and left theirs--are you sure that this is ours? Gie him
back to the Gipsies again, and get our ain." The other children will
look as bewildered, while the subject of remark will instantly stop
crying, and look around for sympathy; but meeting nothing but suspicion
in the faces of all, will instinctively flee to its mother, who as
instinctively clasps it to her bosom, quieting its terrors, as a mother
only can, with the lullaby,
"Hush nae, hush nae, dinna fret ye;
The black Tinkler winna get ye."[10]
[10] The Gipsies frighten their children in the same manner, by saying
that they will give them to the _Gorgio_.
And the result is, that it will remain a "good bairn" for a long time
after. This feeling, drawn into the juvenile mind, as food enters into
the growth of the body, acts like the influence of the stories of ghosts
and hobgoblins, often so inconsiderately told to children, but differs
from it in this respect, that what causes it is true, while its effects
are always more or less permanent. It has had this effect upon our
youth--in connection with the other habits of the people, so outlandish
when compared with the ways of our own--that should they happen to go a
little distance from home, on such expeditions as boys are given to, and
fall in with a Gipsy camp, a strange sensation of fear takes possession
of them. The camp is generally found to be pitched in some little dell
or nook, and so hidden from view as not to be noticed till the stranger
is almost precipitated into its midst ere he is aware of it. What with
the traditionary feeling toward the Gipsies, and the motley assemblage
of wild looking men, and perhaps still wilder looking women, ragged
little urchins, ferocious looking dogs, prepared for an assault with an
instinct drawn from the character of their masters, and the droll
appearance of so many _cuddies_ (asses,) startled in their
browsing--animals that generally appear singly, but, when driven by
Gipsies, come in battalions;--the boys, at first rivetted to the spot
with terror, will slip away as quietly as possible till a little way
off, and then run till they have either arrived at home, or come within
the reach of a neighbourhood or people likely to protect them, although,
it might be, the Gipsies had not even noticed them.[11] Curiosity is so
strong in our youth, in such cases, as often to induce them to return to
the spot, after being satisfied that the Gipsies have decamped for
another district. They will then examine the débris of the encampment
with a great degree of minuteness, wreaking their vengeance on what is
left, by turning up with their feet the refuse of almost everything
edible, particularly as regards the bones and feathers of fowl and game,
and, if it happened to be near the sea, crab, limpet, and whelk shells,
and heaps of tin clippings and horn scrapings. In after life, they will
often think of and visit the scenes of such adventures. At other times,
our youth, when rambling, will often make a detour of several miles, to
avoid falling in with the dreaded Gipsies. The report of Gipsies being
about acts as a salutary check upon the depredatory habits of the youth
of our country towns on neighbouring crops; for, as the farmers make up
their minds to lose something by the Gipsies, at any rate, the wholesome
dread they inspire, even in grown-up lads, is such as, by night
especially, to scare away the thieves from those villages, whose
plunderings are much greater, and more unwillingly submitted to, from
the closeness of residence of the offenders; so that the arrival of the
Gipsies, in some places, is welcomed, at certain times of the year, as
the lesser of two evils; and, to that extent, they have been termed the
"farmers' friends." And if a little encouragement is given them--such as
the matter of "dogs' payment," that is, what they can eat and drink, and
a mouthful of something for the _cuddy_, for the first day after their
arrival--the farmer can always enlist an admirable police, who will
guard his property against others, with a degree of faithfulness that
can hardly be surpassed. I heard of a Scottish farmer, very lately,
getting the Gipsies to take up their quarters every year on the corner
of a potato or turnip field, with the express purpose of using them, as
half constables half scare-crows, against the common rogues of the
neighbourhood. "Now," said he to the principal Gipsy, "I put you in
charge of this property. If you want anything for yourselves, come to
the barn." Whatever might have been the experience of farmers near by,
this farmer never missed anything while the Gipsies were on his
premises.
[11] As children, have we not, at some time, run affrighted from a
Gipsy?--_Grellmann on the Hungarian Gipsies._
But a greater degree of awe is inspired by the females than the males of
the Gipsies. In their periodical wanderings, they will generally, with
their fortune-telling, turn the heads of the country girls in matters of
matrimony--setting them all agog on husbands; and render them, for the
time, of but little use to their employers. In teaching them the "art of
love," they will professedly so instruct them as to have as many lovers
at once as their hearts can desire. But if a country girl, with her many
admirers, has one to get quit of, who is "no' very weel faured, but a
clever fellow," or another, who is "no' very bright in the upper story,
but strapping enough to become the dish-clout," she will call in the
assistance of the strolling Gipsy; who, after carefully weighing the
circumstances of the case, will sometimes, after ordinary means have
failed, collect, unknown to her, a bucket full of everything odious
about a dwelling, wait at the back door the return of the rustic Adonis,
and, ere he is aware, dash it full in his face; then fold her arms
akimbo, and quietly remark, "That will cool your ears, and your courting
too, my man!" Such Gipsy women are peculiarly dreaded by the males of
our own people, who will much sooner encounter those of the other sex;
for, however much some of them may be satisfied, in their cooler
moments, that these Gipsy women will not attempt what they will
sometimes threaten, they generally deem them "unco uncanny," at any
time, and will flee when swearing that they will _gut_ or _skin alive_
all who may have anything to say to them.
To people unacquainted with the peculiarities of the Gipsies, it may
appear that this picture is overdrawn. But Sir Walter Scott, who is
universally allowed to be a true depicter of Scottish life, in every
form, says, in reference to the original of Meg Merrilies, in Guy
Mannering: "I remember to have seen one of her grand-daughters; that is,
as Dr. Johnson had a shadowy recollection of Queen Anne--a stately lady
in black, adorned with diamonds; so my memory is haunted by a solemn
remembrance of a woman, of more than female height, dressed in a long,
red cloak, who commenced acquaintance by giving me an apple, but whom,
nevertheless, I looked on with as much awe as the future Doctor could
look upon the Queen." And he approvingly quotes another writer, as to
her daughter, as follows: "Every week, she paid my father a visit for
her _awmons_, when I was a little boy, and I looked on her with no
common degree of awe and terror." The same feeling, somewhat modified, I
have heard expressed by Germans, Spaniards, and Italians. In England,
the people do not like to trouble the Gipsies, owing to their being so
"spiteful," as they express it. The feeling in question cannot well be
realized by people reared in towns, who have, perhaps, never seen
Gipsies, or heard much about them; but it is different with youths
brought up in the country. When the Gipsies, in their peregrinations,
will make their appearance at a farmer's house, especially if it is in
the pastoral districts, and the farmer be a man of information and
reflection, he will often treat them kindly, from the interest with
which their singular history inspires him; and others, not unkindly,
from other motives. The farmer's sons, who are young and hasty,
probably but recently returned from a town, where they have been jeered
at for their cowardice in being afraid to meddle with the Gipsies, will
show a disposition to use them roughly, on the cry arising in the house,
that "the Tinklers are coming." But the old father, cautious with the
teachings of years gone by, will become alarmed at such symptoms, and,
before the Gipsies have approached the premises, will urge his children
to treat them kindly. "Be canny now, bairns--be canny; for any sake
dinna anger them; gie them a' they want, and something more." With this,
a good fat sheep will sometimes be killed, and the band regaled with
_kail_, and its accompaniments; or, if they are very _nice gabbit_, it
will be served up to them in a roasted form. Thereafter, they will
retire to the barn, and start in the morning on something better than an
empty stomach.
And yet it is singular that, if the Gipsies are met in the streets of a
town, or any considerably frequented place, people will, in passing
them, edge off a little to the side, and look at them with a degree of
interest, which, on ordinary occasions, the Gipsies will but little
notice. But if a person of respectable appearance will scrutinize them
in an ominous way, they will observe it instantly; and, as a
swell-mobsman, on being stared at by a detective, on the mere suspicion
of his being such, generally turns the first cross street, and, in
turning, anxiously looks after his enemy, who, after calculating the
distance, has also turned to watch his movements, so the Gipsy will
become excited, soon turning round to watch the movements of the object
of his dread; a fear that will be heightened if any of his band has been
spoken to. And such is the masonic secrecy with which they keep their
language, that should they at the time have rested on the road-side, and
the stranger assume the most impressive tone, and say: "_Sallah, jaw
drom_"--(curse you, take the road), the effects upon them are at first
bewildering, and followed by a feeling of some dire calamity that is
about to befall them. When any of the poorest kind can be prevailed upon
to express a candid sentiment, and be asked how they really do get on,
they will reply, "It's only day and way we want, ye ken--what a farmer
body ne'er can miss; foreby selling a spoon, and tinkering a kettle now
and then."
In viewing the effects of civilization upon a barbarous race, we are
naturally led to confine our reflections to some of the instances in
which the civilized race has carried its influence abroad to those
beyond its pale, to the exclusion of those instances, from their
infrequency of occurrence, in which the barbarous race, of its own
accord or otherwise, has come within its circle. There are but two
instances, in modern times, in which the latter has happened, and they
are well worthy of our notice. The one is, the existence of the Gipsies,
in the very heart of civilization; the other, that of the Africans in
the various European settlements in the New World; and between these a
short comparison may be instituted, although at the risk of it being
deemed a digression.
The forcible introduction of barbarous men into the colonies of
civilized nations, in spite of the cruelties which many of them have
undergone, has greatly improved their condition--their moral and
intellectual nature--at the expense of the melancholy fact of it being
advanced as a reason of justification for that sad anomaly in the
history of our times. The African, it is admitted, was forcibly brought
under the influence of the refinement, religion, and morals of the
whites, whether as a domestic under the same roof, a field labourer, in
the immediate vicinity of the master, or in some other way under his
direct control and example. Not only was he, as it were, forced to
become what he is, but his obedient, light-hearted, and imitative
nature, even under many bodily sufferings, instinctively led him to
enter immediately into the spirit of a new life, presenting to his
barbarous imagination, so destitute of everything above the grossest of
animal wants and propensities, those wonderfully incessant and
complicated employments of a being, appearing to him as almost a god,
when compared with his own savage and unsophisticated nature. The
importations comprised Negroes of many dialects, which were distributed
on arrival in every direction. A large proportion would live singly with
the poorer classes of the colonists, as domestics; two or three would be
the limited number with many others, and the remainder would be disposed
of, in larger or smaller numbers, for the various services necessary in
civilized life. Single domestics would be under the necessity of
learning the language of the master; and, having none speaking their own
dialect to commune with, or only occasionally meeting such,
momentarily, they would soon forget it. When several of different
dialects lived together, they would naturally follow the same course, to
communicate with each other. All these circumstances, with the frequent
changes of masters and companions, and the general influence which the
whites exercised so supremely over them, have had the effect of almost
erasing every trace of the language, customs, and superstitions of
Africa, in parts of the United States of America, in little more than
one generation. The same may especially be said of what pertains to the
religious; for a race of men, in a state of nature, or but slightly
civilized, depending for such instruction on the adjunct of a superior
grade, in the person of a priest, would, on being deprived of such, soon
lose recollection of what had been taught them. Such an instance as to
language, and, I understand, to a great extent as to religion, is to be
found in St. Domingo; French and Spanish being spoken in the parts of
that island which belonged to these countries respectively. Still, such
traces are to be found in Cuba; but, were importations of Africans into
that island to cease, the same result would, in course of time, follow.
From such causes as those stated, the Negroes in the United States have,
to a very great extent, nay, as far as their advantages and
opportunities have gone, altogether, acquired the ways of civilized
life, and adopted the morals and religion of the white race; and their
history compares favourably with that of a portion of the Gipsy race,
which, being unique, and apparently incomprehensible, I will institute a
short enquiry into some of the causes of it.
While the language and common origin of the Gipsies hold them together
as a body, their mode of life has taken such a hold on the innate nature
of the representative part of them, as to render it difficult to wean
them from it. Like the North American Indians, they have been incapable
of being reduced to a state of servitude;[12] and, in their own peculiar
way, have been as much attached to a life of unrestricted freedom of
movement. Being an Oriental people, they have displayed the uniformity
of attachment to habit, that has characterized the people of that part
of the world. Like the maidens of Syria, wearing to-day the identical
kind of veil with which Rebecca covered herself when she met Isaac,
they have, with few exceptions, adhered to all that originally
distinguished them from those among whom they are found. In entering
Europe, they would meet with few customs which they would willingly
adopt in preference to their own. Their chiefs, being men of ambition,
and fond of a distinguished position in the tribe, would influence the
body to remain aloof from the people at large; and society being divided
between the nobles and their various grades of dependents, and the
restrained inhabitants of towns, with what part of the population could
the Gipsies have been incorporated? With the lowest classes only, and
become little better than serfs--a state to which it was almost
impossible for a Gipsy to submit. His habits rendered him unfit to till
the soil; the close and arbitrary laws of municipalities would debar him
from exercising almost any mechanical trade, in a way suitable to his
disposition; and, no matter what might have been his natural
propensities, he had almost no alternative left him but to wander,
peddle, tinker, tell fortunes, and "find things that nobody ever lost."
His natural disposition was to rove, and partake of whatever he took a
liking to; nothing coming so acceptably and so sweetly to him, as when
it required an exercise of ingenuity, and sometimes a degree of danger,
in its acquisition, and caused a corresponding chagrin to him from whom
it was taken, without affording him any trace of the purloiner. He must
also enjoy the sports of the river and lake, the field, hill and forest,
and the pleasure of his meal, cooked after his own fashion, in some
quiet spot, where he would pitch his tent, and quench his thirst at his
favourite springs. Then followed the persecution of his race; both by
law and society it was declared outcast, although, by a large part of
the latter, it was, from selfish motives, tolerated, and, in a measure,
courted. The Gipsy's mode of life; his predatory habits; his vindictive
disposition toward his enemies; his presumptuous bearing toward the
lower classes, who had purchased his friendship and protection; his
astuteness in doubling upon and escaping his pursuers; his audacity,
under various disguises and pretences, in bearding justice, and the
triumphant manner in which he would generally escape its toils; his
utter destitution of religious opinions, or sentiments; his being a
foreigner of such strongly marked appearance, under the legal and social
ban of proscription; and the hereditary name which has, in consequence,
attached to his race, have created those broad and deep-drawn lines of
isolation, fear and antipathy, which, in the popular mind, have
separated him from other men. To escape from the dreadful prejudice that
is, in consequence, entertained toward his race, the Gipsy will, if it
be possible, hide the fact of his being a Gipsy; and more especially
when he enters upon settled life, and mixes with his fellow-men in the
world.
[12] There is an exception, however, to this rule in the Danubian
Principalities, to which I will again refer.
In the general history of Europe, we can find nothing to illustrate that
of the Gipsies. But if we take a glance at the history of the New World,
we will find, in a mild and harmless form, something that bears a slight
resemblance to it. In various parts of the eastern division of North
America are to be found remnants of tribes of Indians, living in the
hearts of the settlements, on reserves of lands granted to them for
their support; a race bearing somewhat the same resemblance to the
European settlers that the Gipsies, with their dark complexion, and
long, coarse, black hair, seem to have borne to the natives of Europe.
Few of these Indians, although in a manner civilized, and professing the
Christian religion, and possessing houses, schools and churches, have
betaken, or, if they support their numbers, will ever betake, themselves
to the ways of the other inhabitants. They will engage in many things to
make a living, and a bare living; in that respect very much resembling
some of the Gipsies. They will often leave their home, and build their
wigwams whenever and wherever they have a mind, and indulge in the
pleasures of hunting and laziness; and often make numerous small wares
for sale, with the proceeds of which, and of the timber growing on their
lots of land, they will manage to pass their lives in little better than
sloth, often accompanied by drunkenness. If it prove otherwise, it is
generally from the Indian, or rather half or quarter breed, having been
wholly or partly reared with whites, or otherwise brought up under their
immediate influence; or from the ambition of their chiefs to raise
themselves in the estimation of the white race, leading, from the
influence which they possess, to some of the lower grades of the tribes
following their example. It may be that the "poor Indian" has
voluntarily exiled himself, in a fit of melancholy, from the wreck of
his patrimony, to make a miserable shift for himself elsewhere, as he
best may. In this respect the resemblance fails: that the Indian in
America is aboriginal, the Gipsy in Europe foreign, to the soil; but
both are characterized by a nature that renders them almost impervious
to voluntary change. In this they resemble each other: that they are
left to live by themselves, and transmit to their descendants their
respective languages, and such of their habits as the change in their
outward circumstances will permit. But in this they differ: that these
Indians really do die out, while the Gipsies are very prolific, and
become invigorated by a mixture of the white blood; under the cover of
which they gradually leave the tent, and become scattered over and
through society, enter into the various pursuits common to the ordinary
natives, and become lost to the observation of the rest of the
population.
The peculiar feeling that is entertained for what is popularly
understood to be a Gipsy, differs from that which is displayed toward
the Negro, in that it attaches to his traditional character and mode of
life alone. The general prejudice against the Negro is, to a certain
extent, natural, and what any one can realize. If the European has a
difficulty in appreciating the feeling which is exhibited by Americans
against the African, in their general intercourse of daily life, few
Americans can realize the feeling which is entertained toward the tented
Gipsy. Should such a Gipsy be permitted to enter the dwelling of a
native, the most he will let him come in contact with will be the chair
he will give him to sit on, and the dish and spoon out of which he will
feed him, all of which can again be cleaned. His guest will never weary
his patience, owing to the embodiment of restlessness which
characterizes his race; nor will his feelings ever be tried by his
asking him for a bed, for what the herb commonly called catnip is to the
animal somewhat corresponding to that word, a bundle of straw in an
out-house is to the tented Gipsy.
INTRODUCTION.
The new era which the series of splendid works, called the Waverly
Novels, created in literature, produced, among other effects, that of
directing attention to that singular anomaly in civilization--the
existence of a race of men scattered over the world, and known, wherever
the English language is spoken, as Gipsies; a class as distinct, in some
respects, from the people among whom they live, as the Jews at the
present day. The first of the series in which their singular characters,
habits, and modes of life were illustrated, was that of Guy Mannering;
proving one of the few happy instances in which a work of fiction has
been found to serve the end of specially stirring up the feelings of the
human mind, in its various phases, toward a subject with which it has a
common sympathy. The peasant and the farmer at once felt attracted by
it, from the dread of personal danger which they had always entertained
for the race, and the uncertainty under which they had lived, for the
safety of their property from fire and robbery, and the desire which
they had invariably shown to propitiate them by the payment of a species
of blackmail, under the form of kind treatment, and a manner of
hospitality when occasion called for it. The work at the same time
struck a chord in the religious and humane sentiments of others, and the
result, but a very tardily manifested one, was the springing up of
associations for their reformation; with comparatively little success,
however, for it was found, as a general thing, that while some of the
race allowed their children, very indifferently, even precariously, to
attend school, yet to cure them of their naturally wandering and other
peculiar dispositions, was nearly as hopeless as the converting of the
American Indians to some of the ways of civilized life. That general
class was also interested, which consist of the more or less educated,
moral, or refined, to whom anything exciting comes with relish. To the
historical student, the subject was fraught with matter for curious
investigation, owing to the race having been ignored, for a length of
time, as being in no respect different from a class to be found in all
countries; and, whatever their origin, as having had their nationality
extinguished in that general process which has been found to level every
distinction of race in our country. The antiquary and philologist, in
their respective pursuits, found also a sphere which they were unlikely
to leave unexplored, considering that they are often so untiring in
their researches in such matters as sometimes to draw upon themselves a
smile from the rest of mankind: and while the latter was thinking that
he had exhausted the languages of his native land, and was contemplating
others elsewhere, he struck accidentally upon a mine under his feet, and
at once turned up a specimen of virgin ore; coming all the more
acceptably to him, from those in possession of it keeping it as secret
as if their existence depended on its being concealed from others around
them. All, indeed, but especially those brought up in rural places, knew
from childhood more or less of the Gipsies, and dreaded them by day or
night, in frequented or in lonely places, knowing well that, if
insulted, they would threaten vengeance, if they could not execute it
then; which they in no way doubted, with the terror of doomed men.
Among others, I felt interested in the subject, from having been brought
up in the pastoral district of Tweed-dale, the resort of many Gipsies,
who were treated with great favour by the inhabitants, for many reasons,
the most important of which were the desire of securing their good-will,
for their own benefit, and the use which they were to them in selling
them articles in request, and the various mechanical turns which they
possessed; and often from the natural generosity of people so
circumstanced. My curiosity was excited, and having various sources of
information at command, I proceeded to write a few short articles for
Blackwood's Magazine, which were well received, as the following letters
from Mr. William Blackwood will show:
"I now send a proof of No. 2 Gipsy article. I hope you are pleased, and
will return it with your corrections on Monday or Tuesday. We shall be
glad to hear you are going on with the continuation, for I assure you
your former article has been as popular as anything almost we ever had
in the magazine."
Again,
"Your magazine was sent this morning by the coach, but I had not time to
write you last night. Mr. Walter Scott is quite delighted with the
Gipsies."
Again,
"I am this moment favoured with your interesting packet. Your Gipsies,
from the slight glance I have given them, seem to be as amusing as
ever."
And again,
"It was not in my power to get your number sent off. It is a
very interesting one. You will be much pleased with Mr. Scott's
little article on Buckhaven, in which he pays you some very just
compliments."[13]
[13] The following is the article alluded to: "The following enquiries
are addressed to the author of the Gipsies in Fife, being suggested by
the research and industry which he has displayed in collecting
memorials of that vagrant race. They relate to a class of persons who,
distinguished for honest industry in a laborious and dangerous
calling, have only this in common with the Egyptian tribes, that they
are not originally native of the country which they inhabit, and are
supposed still to exhibit traces of a foreign origin. . . . . I mean
the colony of fishermen in the village of Buckhaven, in Fife.
. . . . .
"I make no apology to your respectable correspondent for engaging him
in so troublesome a research. The local antiquary, of all others,
ought, in the zeal of his calling, to feel the force of what Spencer
wrote and Burke quoted: 'Love esteems no office mean.'--'Entire
affection scorneth nicer hands.' The curious collector who seeks for
ancient reliques among the ruins of ancient Rome, often pays for
permission to trench or dig over some particular piece of ground, in
hopes to discover some remnant of antiquity. Sometimes he gets only
his labour, and the ridicule of having wasted it, to pay for his
pains; sometimes he finds but old bricks and shattered pot-sherds; but
sometimes also his toil is rewarded by a valuable medal, cameo,
bronze, or statue. And upon the same principle it is, by investigating
and comparing popular customs, often trivial and foolish in
themselves, that we often arrive at the means of establishing curious
and material facts in history."
This extract is given for the benefit of the latter part of it, which
applies admirably to the present subject; yet falls as much short of
it as the interest in the history of an Egyptian mummy falls short of
that of a living and universally scattered race, that appears a riddle
to our comprehension.
At the same time I was much encouraged, by the author of Guy Mannering,
to prosecute my enquiries, by receiving several communications from him,
and conversing with him at Abbotsford, on the subject.
I received a letter from Sir Walter, in which he says:
"This letter has been by me many weeks, waiting for a frank, and
besides, our mutual friend, Mr. Laidlaw, under whose charge my
agricultural operations are now proceeding in great style, gave me some
hope of seeing you in this part of the country. I should like much to
have asked you some questions about the Gipsies, and particularly that
great mystery--their language. I cannot determine, in my own mind,
whether it is likely to prove really a corrupt eastern dialect, or
whether it has degenerated into mere jargon."
About the same time I received the following letter from Mr. William
Laidlaw, the particular friend of Sir Walter Scott, and manager of his
estate at Abbotsford, as mentioned in the foregoing letter; the author
of "Lucy's Flittin," and a contributor to Blackwood:
"I was very seriously disappointed at not seeing you when you were in
this (part of the) country, and so was no less a person than the mighty
minstrel himself. He charged me to let him know whenever you arrived,
for he was very anxious to see you. What would it be to you to take the
coach, and three days before you, and again see your father and mother,
come here on an evening, and call on Mr. Scott next day? We would then
get you full information upon the science of defence in all its
departments. Quarterstaff is now little practised; but it was a sort of
legerdemain way of fighting that I never had _muckle broo of_, although
I know somewhat of the method. It was a most unfortunate and stupid
trick of the man to blow you up with your kittle acquaintances. I hope
they will forgive and forget. I am very much interested about the
language (Gipsy). Mr. Scott has repeatedly said, that whatever you hear
or see, you should _never let on to naebody_, no doubt excepting
himself. Be sure and come well provided with specimens of the vocables,
as he says he might perhaps have it in his power to assist you in your
enquiries."
Shortly after this, Sir Walter wrote me as follows:
"The inclosed letter has long been written. I only now send it to show
that I have not been ungrateful, though late in expressing my thanks.
The progress you have been able to make in the Gipsy language is most
extremely interesting. My acquaintance with most European languages, and
with slang words and expressions, enables me to say positively, that
the Gipsy words you have collected have no reference to either, with the
exception of three or four.[14] I have little doubt, from the sound and
appearance, that they are Oriental, probably Hindostanee. When I go to
Edinburgh, I shall endeavour to find a copy of Grellmann, to compare the
language of the German Gipsies with that of the Scottish tribes. As you
have already done so much, I pray you to proceed in your enquiries, but
by no means to make anything public, as it might spread a premature
alarm, and obstruct your future enquiries. It would be important to get
the same words from different individuals; and in order to verify the
collection, I would recommend you to set down the names of the persons
by whom they were communicated. It would be important to know whether
they have a real language, with the usual parts of speech, or whether
they have a collection of nouns, combined by our own language. I suspect
the former to be the case, from the specimens I have had. I should like
much to see the article you proposed for the magazine. I am not
squeamish about delicacies, where knowledge is to be sifted out and
acquired. I like Ebony's[15] idea of a history of the Gipsies very much,
and I wish you would undertake it. I gave all my scraps to the magazine
at its commencement, but I think myself entitled to say that you are
welcome to the use of them, should you choose to incorporate them into
such a work. Do not be in too great a hurry, but get as many materials
as you can."[16]
[14] I sent him a specimen of forty-six words. [Many words used in
Scotland, in every day life, are evidently derived from the Gipsy,
owing, doubtless, to the singularity of the people who have used them,
or the happy peculiarity of circumstances under which they have been
uttered; the original cause of such passing current in a language, no
less than that degree of personal authority which sometimes occasions
them to be adopted. _Randy_, a disreputable word for a bold, scolding,
and not over nicely worded woman, is evidently derived from the Gipsy
_raunie_, the chief of a tribe of viragos; so that the exceptions
spoken of are as likely to have been derived from the Gipsy as _vice
versa_.--ED.]
[15] The name by which Mr. Blackwood was known in the celebrated
Chaldee manuscript, published in his magazine.
[16] Previous to this, Mr. Blackwood wrote me as follows: "I received
your packet some days ago, and immediately gave it to the editor. He
desires me to say that your No. 5, though very curious, would not
answer, from the nature of the details, to be printed in the magazine.
In a regular history of the Gipsies, they would, of course, find a
place." This was what suggested the idea of the present work.
And again as follows:
"An authentic list of Gipsy words, as used in Scotland, especially if in
such numbers as may afford any reasonable or probable conjecture as to
the structure of the language, is a desideratum in Scottish literature
which would be very acceptable to the philologist, as well as an
addition to general history. I am not aware that any such exists, though
there is a German publication on the subject, which it would be very
necessary to consult.[17] That the language exists, I have no doubt,
though I should rather think the number to which it is known is somewhat
exaggerated. I need not point out to you the difference between the
_cant_ language, or _slang_, used by thieves or flash men in general,
and the peculiar dialect said to be spoken by the Gipsies.[18] The
difference ought to be very carefully noticed, to ascertain what sort of
language they exactly talk; whether it is an original tongue, having its
own mode of construction, or a speech made up of cant expressions,
having an English or Scotch ground-work, and only patched up so as to be
unintelligible to the common hearer. There is nothing else occurs to me
by which I can be of service to your enquiry. My own opinion leads me to
think that the Gipsies have a distinct and proper language, but I do not
consider it is extensive enough to form any settled conclusion. If there
occur any facts which I can be supposed to know, on which you desire
information, I will be willing to give them, in illustration of so
curious an enquiry. I have found them, in general, civil and amenable to
reason; I must, nevertheless, add that they are vindictive, and that, as
the knowledge of their language is the secret which their habits and
ignorance make them tenacious of, I think your researches, unless
conducted with great prudence, may possibly expose you to personal
danger. For the same reason, you ought to complete all the information
you can collect, before alarming them by a premature publication, as,
after you have published, there will be great obstructions to future
communications on the subject."
[17] Grellmann. I am not aware that he ever compared the words I sent
him with those in this publication, as he wrote he would do, in the
previous letter quoted.
[18] Throughout the whole of his works there does not appear, I
believe, a single word of the proper Scottish Gipsy; although slang
and cant expressions are to be found in considerable numbers. [Some of
these are of Gipsy extraction.--ED.]
From what has been said, it will be seen that the following
investigation has had quite a different object than a description of the
manners and habits of the common vagrants of the country; for no
possible entertainment could have been derived from such an undignified
undertaking. And yet many of our youth, although otherwise well
informed, have never made this distinction; owing, no doubt, to the
encreased attention which those in power have, in late years, bestowed
on the internal affairs of the country, and the unseen, but no less
surely felt, pressure of the advancement of the general mass, and
especially of the lower classes of the community, forcing many of these
people into positions beyond the observation of those unacquainted with
their language and traits of character. When it is, therefore,
considered, that the body treated of, is originally an exotic,
comprising, I am satisfied, no less than five thousand souls in
Scotland,[19] speaking an original and peculiar language, which is
mysteriously used among themselves with great secrecy, and differing so
widely from the ordinary natives of the soil, it may well claim some
little portion of public attention. A further importance attaches to the
subject, when it is considered that a proportionate number is to be
found in the other divisions of the British Isles, and large hordes in
all parts of Europe, and more or less in every other part of the world;
in all places speaking the same language, with only a slight difference
in dialect, and manifesting the same peculiarities. In using the
language of Dr. Bright, it may be said, that the circumstance is the
most singular phenomenon in the history of man; much more striking,
indeed, than that of the Jews. For the Jews have been favoured with the
most splendid antecedents; a common parentage; a common history; a
special and exclusive revelation; a deeply rooted religious prejudice,
and antipathy; a common persecution; and whatever might appear necessary
to preserve their identity in the world, excepting an isolated
territorial and political existence.[20] The Gipsies, on the other
hand, have had none of these advantages. But it is certain that the
leaders of their bands, in addition to their piteous representations,
must have had something striking about them, to recommend them to the
favourable notice which they seem to have met with, at the hands of some
of the sovereigns of Europe, when they made their appearance there, and
spread over its surface. Still, their assumptions might, and in all
probability did, rest merely upon an amount of general superiority of
character, of a particular kind, without even the first elements of
education, which in that age would amount to something; a leading
feature of character which their chiefs have ever since maintained; and
yet, although everything has been left by them to tradition, the Gipsies
speak their language much better than the Jews.
[19] There cannot be less then 100,000 Gipsies in Scotland. See
Disquisition on the Gipsies.--ED.
[20] The following is a description of the Jews, throughout the world,
as given by them, in their letters to Voltaire: "A Jew in London bears
as little resemblance to a Jew at Constantinople, as this last
resembles a Chinese Mandarin! A Portuguese Jew, of Bordeaux, and a
German Jew, of Metz, appear two beings of a different nature! It is,
therefore, impossible to speak of the manners of the Jews in general,
without entering into a very long detail, and into particular
distinctions. The Jew is a chamelion, that assumes all the colours of
the different climates he inhabits, of the different people he
frequents, and of the different governments under which he lives."
These words are much more applicable to the Gipsy tribe, in
consequence of their drawing into their body the blood of other
people.--ED.
Gipsies and Jews have many things in common. They are both strangers and
sojourners, in a sense, wherever they are to be found; "dwelling in
tents," the one literally, the other figuratively. They have each
undergone many bloody persecutions; the one for his stubborn blindness
to the advent of the Messiah, the other for being a heathen, and worse
than a heathen--for being nothing at all, but linked with the evil one,
in all manner of witchcraft and sin. Each race has had many crimes
brought against it; the Gipsy, those of a positive, and the Jew, those
of a constructive and arbitrary nature. But in these respects they
differ: the Jew has been known and famed for doing almost anything for
money; and the Gipsy for the mere gratification of his most innate
nature--that of appropriating to himself, when he needs it, that which
is claimed by any out of the circle of his consanguinity. The one's soul
is given to accumulating, and, if it is in his power, he becomes rich;
the other more commonly aims at securing what meets his ordinary wants,
and, perhaps, some little thing additional; or, if he prove otherwise,
he liberally spends what he acquires. The Gipsy is humane to a stranger,
when he has been rightly appealed to; but when that circumstance is
wanting, he will never hesitate to rob him, unless when he stands
indebted to him, or, it may be, his immediate relations, for previous
acts of kindness. To indulge his hatred towards an enemy, a Jew will
oppress him, if he is his debtor, "exacting his bond;" or if he is not
his debtor, he will often endeavour to get him to become such, with the
same motive; or it may be, if his enemy stands in need of accommodation,
he will not supply his wants; at other times, if he is poor, he will
ostentatiously make a display of his wealth, to spite him; and, in
carrying out his vengeance, will sometimes display the malignity,
barring, perhaps, the shedding of blood, of almost every other race
combined. In such a case, a Gipsy will rob, burn, maltreat, maim, carry
off a child, and sometimes murder, but not often the two last at the
present day.[21] The two races are to be found side by side, in
countries characterized by almost every degree of climate and stage of
civilization, each displaying its peculiar type of feature, but
differing in this respect, that the Gipsies readily adopt others into
their tribe, at such a tender age as to secure an infallible attachment
to their race and habits. This circumstance has produced, in many
instances, a change in the colour of the hair and eyes of the
descendants of those adopted. In some such cases, it requires an
intimate knowledge of the body, to detect the peculiarity common to all,
and especially in those who have conformed to the ways of the other
inhabitants. In this they agree--that they despise and hate, and are
despised and hated by, those among whom they live. But in this they
differ--that the Jew entered Europe, as it were, singly and by stealth,
pursuing pretty much the avocations he yet follows; but the Gipsies, in
bands, and openly, although they were forced to betake themselves to
places of retreat, and break up into smaller bands. It is true that the
Jew was driven from his home eighteen centuries ago, and that it is not
yet five since the Gipsy appeared in Europe. We know who the Jew is, and
something of the providence and circumstances under which he suffers,
and what future awaits him; but who is this singular and unfortunate
exile, whose origin and cause of banishment none can comprehend--who is
this wandering Gipsy?
[21] This, I need hardly say, is a description of what may be called a
_wild_ Gipsy.--ED.
After the receipt of the second of Sir Walter Scott's letters, already
alluded to, I discontinued the few short articles I had written for
Blackwood, on the Fifeshire Gipsies; but I have incorporated the most
interesting part of them into the work, forming, however, only a small
part of the whole. Since it was written, I have seen Mr. Borrow on the
Gipsies in Spain, and the short report of the Rev. Mr. Baird, to the
Scottish Church Society; the latter printed in 1840, and the former in
1841. The _Gitanos_ in Spain and the _Tinklers_ in Scotland are, in
almost every particular, the same people, while the Yetholm Gipsy words
in Mr. Baird's report and those collected by me, for the most part,
between the years 1817 and 1831, are word for word the same.
In submitting this work to the public, I deem it necessary to say a word
or two as to the authorities upon which the facts contained in it rest.
My authorities for those under the heads of Fife and Linlithgowshire
Gipsies, were aged and creditable persons, who had been eye-witnesses to
the greater part of the transactions; in some cases, the particulars
were quite current in their time. The details under the head of Gipsies
who frequented Tweed-dale, Ettrick Forest, Annandale, and the upper ward
of Lanarkshire, were chiefly derived from the memories of some of my
relatives, and other individuals of credit, who had many opportunities
of observing the manners of these wanderers, in the South of Scotland,
the greater number being confirmed by the Gipsies, on being
interrogated. The particulars under the head of the ceremonies of
marriage and divorce, and the sacrifice of horses, were related by
Gipsies, and confirmed by other undoubted testimony, as will appear in
detail. Almost every recent occurrence and matter relative to the
present condition, employment, and number of the body, is the result of
my own personal enquiries and observations, while the whole specimens of
the language, and the facts immediately connected therewith, were
written down, with my own hand, from the mouths of the Gipsies
themselves, and confirmed, at intervals, by others. Indeed, my chief
object has been to produce facts from an original source, in Scotland,
as far as respects manners, customs, and language, for the purpose of
ascertaining the origin of this mysterious race, and the country from
which they have migrated; and the result, to my mind, is a complete
confirmation of Grellmann, Hoyland, and Bright, that they are from
Hindostan.
In writing the history of any barbarous race, if history it can be
called, the field for our observation must necessarily be very limited.
This may especially be said of a people like the Gipsies; for, having,
as a people, neither literature, records, nor education,[22] all that
can be drawn together of their history, from themselves, must be
confined to that of the present, or of such time as the freshness of
their tradition may suffice to illustrate; unless it be a few precarious
notices of them, that may have been elicited from their having come, it
may be, in violent contact with their civilized neighbours around them.
In attempting such a work, in connection with so singular a people, the
difficulties in the way of succeeding in it are extraordinarily great,
as the reader may have perceived, from what has already been written,
and as the "blowing up," alluded to in Mr. Laidlaw's letter, will
illustrate, and which was as follows:
[22] There are, comparatively speaking, few Gipsies in Scotland that
have not some education, in common with the ordinary natives of the
soil; but the same cannot be said of England.--ED.
I had obtained some of the Gipsy language from a principal family of the
tribe, on condition of not publishing names, or place of residence; and,
at many miles' distance, I had also obtained some particulars relative
to the customs and manners of the race, from a highly respectable
farmer, in the south of Scotland. At his farm, the family alluded to
always took up their quarters, in their periodical journeys through the
country. The farmer, without ever thinking of the consequences, told
them that I was collecting materials for a publication on the Tinklers,
in Scotland, and that everything relative to their tribe would be given
to the world. The aged chief of the family was thrown into the greatest
distress, at the idea of the name and residence of himself and family
being made public. I received a letter from the family, deeply lamenting
that they had ever communicated a word to me relative to their language,
and stating that the old man was like to break his heart, at his own
imprudence, being in agony at the thought of his language being
published to the world. I assured them, however, that they had no cause
for fear, as I had never so much as mentioned their names to their
friend, the farmer, and that I would strictly adhere to the promise I
had given them. This was one of the many instances in which I was
obstructed in my labours, for, however cautious I might personally be,
others, who became in some way or other acquainted with my object, were,
from inconsiderate meddling, the cause of many difficulties being thrown
in my way, and the consequent loss of much interesting information. But
for this unfortunate circumstance, I am sanguine, from the method I took
in managing the Gipsies, I would have been able to collect songs, and
sentences of their language, and much more information than what has
been procured, at whatever value the reader may estimate that; for the
Gipsies are always more or less in communication with each other, in
their various divisions of the country, especially when threatened with
anything deemed dangerous, which they circulate among themselves with
astonishing celerity.
Professor Wilson, in a poetical notice of Blackwood's Magazine, writes:
"Few things more sweetly vary civil life
Than a barbarian, savage Tinkler tale;
Our friend, who on the Gipsies writes in Fife,
We verily believe promotes our sale."
And, in revising his works, in 1831, Sir Walter Scott, in a note to
Quentin Durward, says, relative to the present work:
"It is natural to suppose, the band, (Gipsy), as it now exists, is much
mingled with Europeans; but most of these have been brought up from
childhood among them, and learned all their practices. . . . When they
are in closest contact with the ordinary peasants around them, they
still keep their language a mystery. There is little doubt, however,
that it is a dialect of the Hindostanee, from the specimens produced by
Grellmann, Hoyland, and others who have written on the subject. But the
author, (continues Sir Walter,) has, besides their authority, personal
occasion to know, that an individual, out of mere curiosity, and
availing himself, with patience and assiduity, of such opportunities as
offered, has made himself capable of conversing with any Gipsy whom he
meets, or can, like the royal Hal, drink with any tinker, in his own
language.[23] The astonishment excited among these vagrants, on finding
a stranger participant of their mystery, occasions very ludicrous
scenes. It is to be hoped this gentleman will publish the knowledge he
possesses on so singular a topic. There are prudential reasons for
postponing this disclosure at present, for, although much more
reconciled to society since they have been less the objects of legal
persecution, the Gipsies are still a ferocious and vindictive
people."[24]
[23] Allowance must be made for the enthusiasm of the novelist.
[24] Abbotsford, 1st Dec., 1831.
CHAPTER I.
CONTINENTAL GIPSIES.
Before giving an account of the Gipsies in Scotland, I shall, by way of
introduction, briefly notice the periods of time at which they were
observed in the different states on the continent of Europe, and point
out the different periods at which their governments found it necessary
to expel them from their respective territories. I shall also add a few
facts illustrative of the manners of the continental tribes, for the
purpose of showing that those in Scotland, England, and Ireland, are all
branches of the same stock. I shall, likewise, add a few facts
illustrative of the tribe who found their way into England. I am
indebted for my information on the early history of the continental
Gipsies, chiefly to the works of Grellmann, Hoyland and Bright.
It appears that none of these wanderers had been seen in Christendom
before the year 1400.[25] But, in the beginning of the fifteenth
century, this people first attracted notice, and, within a few years
after their arrival, had spread themselves over the whole continent. The
earliest mention which is made of them, was in the years 1414 and 1417,
when they were observed in Germany. In 1418, they were found in
Switzerland; in 1422, in Italy; in 1427, they are mentioned as being in
the neighbourhood of Paris; and about the same time, in Spain.[26]
[25] Sir Thomas Brown's vulgar errors.
[26] Bright's travels in Hungary.
They seem to have received various appellations. In France, they were
called _Bohemians_; in Holland, _Heydens_--heathens; in some parts of
Germany, and in Sweden and Denmark, they were thought to be _Tartars_;
but over Germany, in general, they were called _Zigeuners_, a word which
means wanderers up and down. In Portugal, they received the name of
_Siganos_; in Spain, _Gitanos_; and in Italy, _Cingari_. They were also
called in Italy, Hungary, and Germany, _Tziganys_; and in Transylvania,
_Cyganis_. Among the Turks, and other eastern nations, they were
denominated _Tschingenes_; but the Moors and Arabians applied to them,
perhaps, the most just appellation of any--_Charami_, robbers.[27]
[27] Hoyland's historical survey of the Gipsies.
"When they arrived at Paris, 17th August, 1427, nearly all of them had
their ears bored, with one or two silver rings in each, which, they
said, were esteemed ornaments in their country. The men were black,
their hair curled; the women remarkably black, and all their faces
scarred."[28] Dr. Hurd, in his account of the different religions of the
world, says, that the hair of these men was "frizzled," and that some of
the women were witches, and "had hair like a horse's tail." It is, I
think, to be inferred from this passage, that the men had designedly
curled their hair, and that the hair of the females was long and
coarse--not the short, woolly hair of the African. I have, myself, seen
English female Gipsies with hair as long, coarse, and thick as a black
horse's tail.
[28] Ibid.
"At the time of the first appearance of the Gipsies, no certain
information seems to have been obtained as to the country from which
they came. It is, however, supposed that they entered Europe in the
south-east, probably through Transylvania. At first, they represented
themselves as Egyptian pilgrims, and, under that character, obtained
considerable respect during half a century; being favoured by different
potentates with passports, and letters of security. Gradually, however,
they really became, or were fancied, troublesome, and Italy, Sweden,
Denmark and Germany, successively attempted their expulsion, in the
sixteenth century."[29]
[29] Bright.
With the exception of Hungary and Transylvania, it is believed that
every state in Europe attempted either their expulsion or extermination;
but, notwithstanding the dreadful severity of the numerous laws and
edicts promulgated against them, they remained in every part of Europe,
in defiance of every effort made by their respective governments to get
rid of their unwelcome guests.
"German writers say that King Ferdinand of Spain, who esteemed it a good
work to expatriate useful and profitable subjects--Jews, and even
Moorish families--could much less be guilty of an impropriety, in laying
hands on the mischievous progeny of Gipsies. The edict for their
extermination was published in the year 1492. But, instead of passing
the boundaries, they only slunk into hiding places, and shortly after
appeared in as great numbers as before. The Emperor, Charles V,
persecuted them afresh; as did Philip II. Since that time, they nestled
in again, and were threatened with another storm, but it blew over
without taking effect.
"In France, Francis I passed an edict for their expulsion, and at the
assembly of the states of Orleans, in 1561, all governors of cities
received orders to drive them out with fire and sword. Nevertheless, in
process of time, they collected again, and encreased to such a degree
that, in 1612, a new order came out for their extermination. In the year
1572, they were compelled to retire from the territories of Milan and
Parma; and, at a period somewhat earlier, they were chased beyond the
Venetian jurisdiction.
"They were not allowed the privilege of remaining in Denmark, as the
code of Danish law specifies: 'The Tartar Gipsies, who wander about
everywhere, doing great damage to the people, by their lies, thefts and
witchcraft, shall be taken into custody by every magistrate.' Sweden was
not more favourable, having attacked them at three different times. A
very sharp order for their expulsion came out in 1662. The diet of 1723
published a second; and that of 1727 repeated the foregoing, with
additional severity.
"They were excluded from the Netherlands, under the pain of death, by
Charles V, and afterwards, by the United States, in 1582. But the
greatest number of sentences of exile have been pronounced against them
in Germany. The beginning was made under Maximilian I, at the Augsburg
Diet, in 1500; and the same business occupied the attention of the Diet
in 1530, 1544, 1548, and 1551; and was also again enforced, in the
improved police regulations of Frankfort, in 1577."[30] The Germans
entertained the notion that the Gipsies were spies for the Turks. They
were not allowed to pass through, remain, or trade within the Empire.
They were ordered to quit entirely the German dominions, by a certain
day, and whoever injured them, after that period, was considered to have
committed no crime.
[30] Hoyland.
"But a general extermination never did happen, for the law banishing
them passed in one state before it was thought of in the next, or when a
like order had long become obsolete, and sunk into oblivion. These
undesirable guests were, therefore, merely compelled to shift their
quarters to an adjoining state, where they remained till the government
began to clear them away, upon which the fugitives either retired whence
they came, or went on progressively to a third place--thus making a
continual circle."[31]
[31] Grellmann.
That almost the whole of Christendom had been so provoked by the conduct
of the Gipsies as to have attempted their expulsion, or rather their
extermination, merely because they were jugglers, fortune-tellers,
astrologers, warlocks, witches and impostors, is a thing not for a
moment to be supposed. I am inclined to believe that the true cause of
the promulgation of the excessively sanguinary laws and edicts, for the
extermination of the whole Gipsy nation in Europe, must be looked for in
much more serious crimes than those mentioned; and that these greater
offences can be no other than theft and robbery, and living upon the
inhabitants of the countries through which they travelled, at free
quarters, or what we, in Scotland, call sorning.[32] But, on the other
hand, I am convinced that the Gipsies have committed few murders on
individuals _out_ of their own tribe. As far as our authorities go, the
general character of these people seems to have been the same, wherever
they have made their appearance on the face of the earth; and the chief
and leading feature of that extraordinary character appears to me to
have been, in general, an hereditary propensity to theft and robbery, in
men, women and children.
[32] Dr. Hurd says, at page 785, "Our over credulous ancestors vainly
imagined that those Gipsies or Bohemians were so many spies for the
Turks; and that, in order to expiate the crimes which they had
committed in their own country, they were condemned to steal from and
rob the Christians."
[Living at free quarters by force, or masterful begging, or "sorning,"
is surely a trifling, though troublesome, offence for the original
condition of a wandering tribe, which has so progressed as, at the
present day, to fill some of the first positions in Scotland.--ED.]
In whatever country we find the Gipsies, their manners, habits, and cast
of features are uniformly the same. Their occupations are in every
respect the same. They were, on the continent, horse-dealers,
innkeepers, workers in iron, musicians, astrologers, jugglers, and
fortune-tellers by palmistry. They are also accused of cheating, lying,
and witchcraft, and, in general, charged with being thieves and robbers.
They roam up and down the country, without any fixed habitations, living
in tents, and hawking small trifles of merchandise for the use of the
people among whom they travel. The whole race were great frequenters of
fairs. They seldom formed matrimonial alliances out of their own
tribe.[33] It will be seen, in another part of this work, that the
language of the continental Gipsies is the same as that of those in
Scotland, England and Ireland. As to the religious opinions of the
continental Gipsies, they appear to have had none at all. It is said
they were "worse than heathens." "It is, in reality," says Twiss,
"almost absurd to talk of the religion of this set of people, whose
moral characters are so depraved as to make it evident they believe in
nothing capable of being a check to their passions." "Indeed," adds
Hoyland, "it is asserted that no Gipsy has any idea of submission to any
fixed profession of faith." It appears to me that, to secure to
themselves protection from the different governments, they only
conformed outwardly to the customs and religion of the country in which
they happened to reside at the time.
[33] Hoyland.
Cantemir, according to Grellmann, says that the Gipsies are dispersed
all over Moldavia, where every baron has several families subject to
him. In Wallachia and the Sclavonian countries they are quite as
numerous. In Wallachia and Moldavia they are divided into two
classes--the princely and boyardish. The former, according to Sulzer,
amount to many thousands; but that is trifling in comparison with the
latter, as there is not a single Boyard in Wallachia who has not at
least three or four of them for slaves; the rich have often some
hundreds under their command,[34] Grellmann divides those in
Transylvania into four classes: 1st. city Gipsies, who are the most
civilized of all, and maintain themselves by music, smith-work, selling
old clothes, horse-dealing, &c.; 2d. gold-washers; 3d. tent Gipsies; and
4th. Egyptian Gipsies. These last are more filthy, and more addicted to
stealing than any of the others. Those who are gold-washers, in
Transylvania and the Banat, have no intercourse with others of their
nation; nor do they like to be called Gipsies. They sift gold sand in
summer, and in winter make trays and troughs, which they sell in an
honest way. They seldom beg, and more rarely steal. Dr. Clarke says of
the Wallachian Gipsies, that they are not an idle race; they ought
rather to be described as a laborious race; and the majority honestly
endeavour to earn a livelihood.
[34] In the narrative of the Scottish Church Mission of Enquiry to the
Jews, in 1839, are to be found the following remarks relative to the
Gipsies of Wallachia:
"They are almost all slaves, bought and sold at pleasure. One was
lately sold for 200 piastres, but the general price is 500. Perhaps £3
is the average price, and the female Gipsies are sold much cheaper.
The sale is generally carried on by private bargain. The men are the
best mechanics in the country; so that smiths and masons are taken
from this class. The women are considered the best cooks, and
therefore almost every wealthy family has a Gipsy cook. Their
appearance is similar to that of the Gipsies in other countries; being
all dark, with fine black eyes, and long black hair. They have a
language peculiar to themselves, and though they seem to have no
system of religion, yet are very superstitious in observing lucky and
unlucky days. They are all fond of music, both vocal and instrumental,
and excel in it. There is a class of them called the Turkish Gipsies,
who have purchased their freedom from government; but these are few in
number, and all from Turkey. Of these latter, there are twelve
families in Galatz. The men are employed as horse-dealers, and the
women in making bags, sacks, and such articles. In winter, they live
in town, almost under ground; but in summer, they pitch their tents in
the open air, for, though still within the bounds of the town, they
would not live in their winter houses during summer."
That these Gipsies should be in a state of slavery is, perhaps, a more
marked exception to their race than the Indians in Spanish America
were to those found in the territories colonised by the Anglo-Saxons.
The Empress Maria Theresa could make nothing of the Gipsies in
Hungary, where they are said to be almost as little looked after as
the wolves of the forest; so that the slavery of the Gipsies in
Wallachia must be of a very nominal or mild nature, or the subjects of
it must be far in excess of the demand, if £3 is the average price of
a good smith or mason, and less for a good female cook. These
Wallachian Gipsies evidently prefer a master whose property they will
consider as their own, and whose protection will relieve them from the
interference and oppression of others. A slavery that is not absolute
or oppressive must gratify the vanity of the owner, and be easily
borne by a race that is semi-civilized and despised by others around
it.
Since the conclusion of the Russian war, the manumission of the
Gipsies of the Principalities was debated and carried by a majority of
something like thirteen against eleven; but I am not aware of its
having been put in force. They are said to have been greatly attached
to the late Sultan--calling him the "good father," for the interest he
took in them. As spies, they rendered his generals efficient services,
while contending with the Russians on the Danube.--ED.
"Bessarabia, all Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania swarm with
Gipsies; even in Constantinople they are innumerable. In Romania, a
large tract of Mount Hæmus, which they inhabit, has acquired from them
the name of _Tschenghe Valken_--Gipsy Mountain. This district extends
from the city of Aydos quite to Phillippopolis, and contains more
Gipsies than any other province in the Turkish empire.
"They were universally to be found in Italy, insomuch that even Sicily
and Sardinia were not free. But they were most numerous in the dominions
of the Church; probably because there was the worst police, with much
superstition. By the former, they were left undisturbed; and the latter
enticed them to deceive the ignorant, as it afforded them an opportunity
of obtaining a plentiful contribution by their fortune-telling and
enchanted amulets. There was a general law throughout Italy, that no
Gipsy should remain more than two nights in any one place. By this
regulation, it is true, no place retained its guests long; but no sooner
was one gone than another came in his room: it was a continual circle,
and quite as convenient to them as a perfect toleration would have been.
Italy rather suffered than benefited by this law; as, by keeping these
people in constant motion, they would do more mischief there, than in
places where they were permitted to remain stationary.
"In Poland and Lithuania, as well as in Courland, there are an amazing
number of Gipsies. A person may live many years in Upper Saxony, or in
the districts of Hanover and Brunswick, without seeing a single Gipsy.
When one happens to stray into a village or town, he occasions as much
disturbance as if the black gentleman with his cloven foot appeared; he
frightens children from their play, and draws the attention of the older
people, till the police get hold of him, and make him again invisible.
In some of the provinces of the Rhine, a Gipsy is a very common sight.
Some years ago, there were such numbers of them in the Duchy of
Wurtemberg, that they were seen lying about everywhere; but the
government ordered departments of soldiers to drive them from their
holes and lurking-places throughout the country, and then transported
the congregated swarm, in the same manner as they were treated by the
Duke of Deuxponts. In France, before the Revolution, there were but few
Gipsies, for the obvious reason that every Gipsy who could be
apprehended fell a sacrifice to the police."[35]
[35] Grellmann.--I would suppose that these severe edicts of the
French would drive the Gipsies to adopt the costume and manners of the
other inhabitants. In this way they would disappear from the public
eye. The officers of justice would of course direct their attention to
what would be understood to be Gipsies--that is tented Gipsies, or
those who professed the ways of Gipsies, such as fortune telling. I
have met with a French Gipsy in the streets of New York, engaged as a
dealer in candy.--ED.
As regards the Gipsies of Spain, Dr. Bright remarks: That the
disposition of the Gitano is more inclined to a fixed residence than
that of the Gipsy of other countries, is beyond doubt. The generality
are the settled inhabitants of considerable towns, and, although the
occupations of some necessarily lead them to a more vagrant life, the
proportion is small who do not consider some hovel in a suburb as a
home. 'Money is in the city--not in the country,' is a saying frequently
in their mouths. In the vilest quarters of every large town of the
southern provinces, there are Gitanos living together, sometimes
occupying whole barriers. But Seville is, perhaps, the spot in which the
largest proportion is found. Their principal occupation is the
manufacture and sale of articles of iron. Their quarters may always be
traced by the ring of the hammer and anvil, and many amass considerable
wealth. An inferior class have the exclusive trade in second-hand
articles, which they sell at the doors of their dwellings, or at benches
at the entrance of towns, or by the sides of frequented walks. A still
inferior order wander about, mending pots, and selling tongs and other
trifling articles. In Cadiz, they monopolize the trade of butchering,
and frequently amass wealth. Others, again, exclusively fill the office
of Matador of the Bull Plaza, while the Toreros are for the most part of
the same race. Others are employed as dressers of mules and asses; some
as figure-dancers, and many as performers in the theatre. Some gain a
livelihood by their musical talents. Dancing, singing, music and
fortune-telling are the only objects of general pursuit for the females.
Sometimes they dance in the inferior theatres, and sing and dance in the
streets. Palmistry is one of their most productive avocations. In
Seville, a few make and sell an inferior kind of mat. Besides these,
there is a class of Gipsies in Spain who lead a vagrant life
throughout--residing chiefly in the woods and mountains, and known as
mountaineers. These rarely visit towns, and live by fraud and pillage.
There are also others who wander about the country--such as tinkers,
dancers, singers, and jobbers in asses and mules.
Bishop Pocoke, prior to 1745, mentions having met with Gipsies in the
northern part of Syria, where he found them in great numbers, passing
for Mahommedans, living in tents or caravans, dealing in milch cows,
when near towns, manufacturing coarse carpets, and having a much better
character than their relations in Hungary or England. By the census of
the Crimea, in 1793, the population was set down at 157,125, of which
3,225 were Gipsies. Bishop Heber states that the Persian Gipsies are of
much better caste, and much richer than those of India, Russia or
England. In India, he says, the Gipsies are the same tall, fine-limbed,
bony, slender people, with the same large, black, brilliant eyes,
lowering forehead, and long hair, curled at the extremities, which are
to be met with on a common in England. He mentions, in his journal of
travels through Bengal, having met with a Gipsy camp on the Ganges. The
women and children followed him, begging, and had no clothes on them,
except a coarse kind of veil, thrown back from the shoulders, and a
ragged cloth, wrapped round their waists, like a petticoat. One of the
women was very pretty, and the forms of all the three were such as a
sculptor would have been glad to take as his models.
Besides those in Europe, it is stated by Grellmann that the Gipsies are
also scattered over Asia, and are to be found in the centre of Africa.
In Europe alone, he supposes (in 1782), their number will amount to
between seven and eight hundred thousand. So numerous did they become in
France, that the king, in 1545, sixteen years before they were expelled
from that kingdom, entertained an idea of embodying four thousand of
them, to act as pioneers in taking Boulogne, then in possession of
England. It is impossible to ascertain, at the present day, how many
Gipsies might be even in a parish; but, taking in the whole world, there
must be an immense number in existence.
About the time the Gipsies first appeared in Europe, their chiefs, under
the titles of dukes, earls, lords, counts, and knights of Little Egypt,
rode up and down the country on horseback, dressed in gay apparel, and
attended by a train of ragged and miserable inferiors, having, also,
hawks and hounds in their retinue. It appears to me, that the excessive
vanity of these chiefs had induced them, in imitation of the customs of
civilized society, to assume these high-sounding European titles of
honour. I have not observed, on record, any form of government, laws or
customs, by which the internal affairs of the tribe, on the Continent,
were regulated. On these important points, if I am not mistaken, all the
authors, with the exception of Grellmann, who have written on the
Gipsies, are silent. Grellmann says of the Hungarian Gipsies: "They
still continue the custom among themselves of dignifying certain
persons, whom they make heads over them, and call by the exalted
Sclavonian title of Waywode. To choose their Waywode, the Gipsies take
the opportunity, when a great number of them are assembled in one place,
commonly in the open field. The elected person is lifted up three times,
amidst the loudest acclamation, and confirmed in his dignity by
presents. His wife undergoes the same ceremony. When this solemnity is
performed, they separate with great conceit, imagining themselves people
of more consequence than electors returning from the choice of an
emperor. Every one who is of a family descended from a former Waywode is
eligible; but those who are best clothed, not very poor, of large
stature, and about the middle age, have generally the preference. The
particular distinguishing mark of dignity is a large whip, hanging over
the shoulder. His outward deportment, his walk and air, also plainly
show his head to be filled with notions of authority." According to the
same authority, the Waywode of the Gipsies in Courland is distinguished
from the principals of the hordes in other countries, being not only
much respected by his own people, but even by the Courland nobility. He
is esteemed a man of high rank, and is frequently to be met with at
entertainments, and card parties, in the first families, where he is
always a welcome guest. His dress is uncommonly rich, in comparison with
others of his tribe; generally silk in summer, and constantly velvet in
winter.
As a specimen of the manners and ferocious disposition of the German
Gipsies, so late as the year 1726, I shall here transcribe a few
extracts from an article published in Blackwood's Magazine, for January,
1818. This interesting article is partly an abridged translation, or
rather the substance, of a German work on the Gipsies, entitled "A
Circumstantial Account of the Famous Egyptian Band of Thieves, and
Robbers, and Murderers, whose Leaders were executed at Giessen, by Cord,
and Sword, and Wheel, on the 14th and 15th November, 1726, &c." It is
edited by Dr. John Benjamin Wiessenburch, an assessor of the criminal
tribunal by which these malefactors were condemned, and published at
Frankfort and Leipsic, in the year 1727. The translator of this work is
Sir Walter Scott, who obligingly offered me the use of his "scraps" on
this subject. The following are the details in his own words.
"A curious preliminary dissertation records some facts respecting the
German Gipsies, which are not uninteresting.
"From the authorities collected by Wiessenburch, it appears that these
wanderers first appeared in Germany during the reign of Sigismund. The
exact year has been disputed; but it is generally placed betwixt 1416
and 1420. They appeared in various bands, under chiefs, to whom they
acknowledged obedience, and who assumed the titles of dukes and earls.
These leaders originally affected a certain degree of consequence,
travelling well equipped, and on horseback, and bringing hawks and
hounds in their retinue. Like John Faw, 'Lord of Little Egypt,' they
sometimes succeeded in imposing upon the Germans the belief in their
very apocryphal dignity, which they assumed during their lives, and
recorded upon their tombs, as appears from three epitaphs, quoted by Dr.
Wiessenburch. One is in a convent at Steinbach, and records that on St.
Sebastians' eve, 1445, 'died the Lord Pannel, Duke of Little Egypt, and
Baron of Hirschhorn, in the same land.' A monumental inscription at
Bautmer, records the death of the 'Noble Earl Peter, of Lesser Egypt, in
1453;' and a third, at Pferz, as late as 1498, announces the death of
the 'high-born, Lord John, Earl of Little Egypt, to whose soul God be
gracious and merciful.'
"In describing the state of the German Gipsies, in 1726, the author whom
we are quoting gives the leading features proper to those in other
countries. Their disposition to wandering, to idleness, to theft, to
polygamy, or rather promiscuous licence, are all commemorated; nor are
the women's pretentions to fortune-telling, and their practice of
stealing children, omitted. Instead of travelling in very large bands,
as at their first arrival, they are described as forming small parties,
in which the females are far more numerous than the men, and which are
each under command of a leader, chosen rather from reputation than by
right of birth. The men, unless when engaged in robbery or theft, lead a
life of absolute idleness, and are supported by what the women can
procure by begging, stealing or telling fortunes. These resources are so
scanty that they often suffer the most severe extremities of hunger and
cold. Some of the Gipsies executed at Giessen pretended that they had
not eaten a morsel of bread for four days before they were apprehended;
yet are they so much attached to freedom, and licence of this wandering
life, that, notwithstanding its miseries, it has not only been found
impossible to reclaim the native Gipsies, who claim it by inheritance,
but even those who, not born in that state, have associated themselves
with their bands, and become so wedded to it, as to prefer it to all
others.[36]
[36] The natives here alluded to were evidently Germans, married to
Gipsy women, or Germans brought up from infancy with the Gipsies, or
mixed Gipsies, taking after Germans in point of appearance.--ED.
"As an exception, Wiessenburch mentions some gangs, where the men, as in
Scotland, exercise the profession of travelling smiths, or tinkers, or
deal in pottery, or practise as musicians. Finally, he notices that in
Hungary the gangs assumed their names from the countries which they
chiefly traversed, as the band of Upper Saxony, of Brandenburg, and so
forth. They resented, to extremity, any attempt on the part of other
Gipsies to intrude on their province; and such interference often led to
battles, in which they shot each other with as little remorse as they
would have done to dogs.[37] By these acts of cruelty to each other,
they became gradually familiarized with blood, as well as with arms, to
which another cause contributed, in the beginning of the 18th century.
[37] This is the only continental writer, that I am aware of, who
mentions the circumstance of the Gipsies having districts to
themselves, from which others of their race were excluded. This author
also speaks of the German Gipsies stealing children. John Bunyan
admits the same practice in England, when he compares his feelings, as
a sinner, to those of a child carried off by Gipsies. He gives the
Gipsy _women_ credit for this practice.--ED.
"In former times, these outcasts were not permitted to bear arms in the
service of any Christian power, but the long wars of Louis XIV had
abolished this point of delicacy; and both in the French army, and those
of the confederates, the stoutest and boldest of the Gipsies were
occasionally enlisted, by choice or compulsion. These men generally
tired soon of the rigour of military discipline, and escaping from their
regiments on the first opportunity, went back to their forests, with
some knowledge of arms, and habits bolder and more ferocious than those
of their predecessors. Such deserters soon become leaders among the
tribes, whose enterprises became, in proportion, more audacious and
desperate.
"In Germany, as in most other kingdoms of Europe, severe laws had been
directed against this vagabond people, and the Landgraves of Hesse had
not been behind-hand in such denunciations. They were, on their arrest,
branded as vagabonds, punished with stripes, and banished from the
circle; and, in case of their return, were put to death without mercy.
These measures only served to make them desperate. Their bands became
more strong and more open in their depredations. They often marched as
strong as fifty or a hundred armed men; bade defiance to the ordinary
police, and plundered the villages in open day; wounded and slew the
peasants, who endeavoured to protect their property; and skirmished, in
some instances successfully, with parties of soldiers and militia,
dispatched against them. Their chiefs, on these occasions, were John La
Fortune, a determined villain, otherwise named Hemperla; another called
the Great Gallant; his brother, Antony Alexander, called the Little
Gallant; and others, entitled Lorries, Lampert, Gabriel, &c. Their
ferocity may be judged of from the following instances:
"On the 10th October, 1724, a land-lieutenant, or officer of police,
named Emerander, set off with two assistants to disperse a band of
Gipsies who had appeared near Hirzenhayn, in the territory of Stolberg.
He seized on two or three stragglers whom he found in the village, and
whom, females as well as males, he seems to have treated with much
severity. Some, however, escaped to a large band which lay in an
adjacent forest, who, under command of the Great Gallant, Hemperla,
Antony Alexander, and others, immediately put themselves in motion to
rescue their comrades, and avenge themselves of Emerander. The
land-lieutenant had the courage to ride out to meet them, with his two
attendants, at the passage of a bridge, where he fired his pistol at the
advancing gang, and called out 'charge,' as if he had been at the head
of a party of cavalry. The Gipsies, however, aware, from the report of
the fugitives, how weakly the officer was accompanied, continued to
advance to the end of the bridge, and ten or twelve, dropping each on
one knee, gave fire on Emerander, who was then obliged to turn his horse
and ride off, leaving his two assistants to the mercy of the banditti.
One of these men, called Hempel, was instantly beaten down, and
suffered, especially at the hands of the Gipsy women, much cruel and
abominable outrage. After stripping him of every rag of his clothes,
they were about to murder the wretch outright; but at the earnest
instance of the landlord of the inn, they contented themselves with
beating him dreadfully, and imposing on him an oath that he never more
would persecute any Gipsy, or save any _fleshman_, (dealer in human
flesh,) for so they called the officers of justice or police.[38]
[38] Great allowance ought to be made for the conduct of these
Gipsies. Even at the present day, a Gipsy, in many parts of Germany,
is not allowed to enter a town; nor will the inhabitants permit him to
live in the street in which they dwell. He has therefore to go
somewhere, and live in some way or other. In speaking of the Gipsies,
people never take these circumstances into account. The Gipsies
alluded to in the text seem to have been very cruelly treated, in the
first place, by the authorities.--ED.
"The other assistant of Emerander made his escape. But the principal was
not so fortunate. When the Gipsies had wrought their wicked pleasure on
Hempel, they compelled the landlord of the little inn to bring them a
flagon of brandy, in which they mingled a charge of gunpowder and three
pinches of salt; and each, partaking of this singular beverage, took a
solemn oath that they would stand by each other until they had cut
thongs, as they expressed it, out of the fleshman's hide. The Great
Gallant at the same time distributed to them, out of a little box,
billets, which each was directed to swallow, and which were supposed to
render them invulnerable.
"Thus inflamed and encouraged, the whole route, amounting to fifty well
armed men, besides women armed with clubs and axes, set off with horrid
screams to a neighbouring hamlet, called Glazhutte, in which the object
of their resentment sought refuge. They took military possession of the
streets, posting sentinels to prevent interruption or attack from the
alarmed inhabitants. Their leaders then presented themselves before the
inn, and demanded that Emerander should be delivered up to them. When
the innkeeper endeavoured to elude their demand, they forced their way
into the house, and finding the unhappy object of pursuit concealed in a
garret, Hemperla and others fired their muskets at him, then tore his
clothes from his body, and precipitated him down the staircase, where he
was dispatched with many wounds.
"Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village began to take to arms; and
one of them attempted to ring the alarm-bell, but was prevented by an
armed Gipsy, stationed for that purpose. At length their bloody work
being ended, the Gipsies assembled and retreated out of the town, with
shouts of triumph, exclaiming that the fleshman was slain, displaying
their spoils and hands stained with blood, and headed by the Great
Gallant, riding on the horse of the murdered officer.
"I shall select from the volume another instance of this people's
cruelty still more detestable, since even vengeance or hostility could
not be alleged for its stimulating cause, as in the foregoing narrative.
A country clergyman, named Heinsius, the pastor of a village called
Dorsdorff, who had the misfortune to be accounted a man of some wealth,
was the subject of this tragedy.
"Hemperla, already mentioned, with a band of ten Gipsies, and a villain
named Essper George, who had joined himself with them, though not of
their nation by birth, beset the house of the unfortunate minister,
with a resolution to break in and possess themselves of his money;
and if interrupted by the peasants, to fire upon them, and repel
force by force. With this desperate intention, they surrounded the
parsonage-house at midnight; and their leader, Hemperla, having cut a
hole through the cover of the sink or gutter, endeavoured to creep into
the house through that passage, holding in his hand a lighted torch made
of straw. The daughter of the parson chanced, however, to be up, and in
the kitchen, at this late hour, by which fortunate circumstance she
escaped the fate of her father and mother. When the Gipsy saw there was
a person in the kitchen, he drew himself back out of the gutter, and
ordered his gang to force the door, regarding the noise which
accompanied this violence as little as if the place had been situated in
a wilderness, instead of a populous hamlet. Others of the gang were
posted at the windows of the house, to prevent the escape of the
inmates. Nevertheless, the young woman, already mentioned, let herself
down from a window which had escaped their notice, and ran to seek
assistance for her parents.
"In the meanwhile the Gipsies had burst open the outward door of the
house, with a beam of wood which chanced to be lying in the court-yard.
They next forced the door of the sitting apartment, and were met by the
poor clergyman, who prayed them at least to spare his life and that of
his wife. But he spoke to men who knew no mercy; Hemperla struck him on
the breast with a torch; and receiving the blow as a signal for death,
the poor man staggered back to the table, and sinking in a chair, leaned
his head on his hand, and expected the mortal blow. In this posture
Hemperla shot him dead with a pistol. The wife of the clergyman
endeavoured to fly, on witnessing the murder of her husband, but was
dragged back, and slain by a pistol-shot, fired either by Essper George,
or by a Gipsy called Christian. By a crime so dreadful those murderers
only gained four silver cups, fourteen silver spoons, some trifling
articles of apparel, and about twenty-two florins in money. They might
have made more important booty, but the sentinel, whom they left on the
outside, now intimated to them that the hamlet was alarmed, and that it
was time to retire, which they did accordingly, undisturbed and in
safety.
"The Gipsies committed many enormities similar to those above detailed,
and arrived at such a pitch of audacity as even to threaten the person
of the Landgrave himself; an enormity at which Dr. Wiessenburch, who
never introduces the name or titles of that prince without printing them
in letters of at least an inch long, expresses becoming horror. This was
too much to be endured. Strong detachments of troops and militia scoured
the country in different directions, and searched the woods and caverns
which served the banditti for places of retreat. These measures were for
some time attended with little effect. The Gipsies had the advantages of
a perfect knowledge of the country, and excellent intelligence. They
baffled the efforts of the officers detached against them, and, on one
or two occasions, even engaged them with advantage. And when some
females, unable to follow the retreat of the men, were made prisoners on
such an occasion, the leaders caused it to be intimated to the
authorities at Giessen that if their women were not set at liberty, they
would murder and rob on the high roads, and plunder and burn the
country. This state of warfare lasted from 1718 until 1726, during which
period the subjects of the Landgrave suffered the utmost hardships, as
no man was secure against nocturnal surprise of his property and person.
"At length, in the end of 1725, a heavy and continued storm of snow
compelled the Gipsy hordes to abandon the woods which had long served
them as a refuge, and to approach more near to the dwellings of men. As
their movements could be traced and observed, the land-lieutenant,
Krocker, who had been an assistant to the murdered Emerander, received
intelligence of a band of Gipsies having appeared in the district of
Sohnsassenheim, at a village called Fauerbach. Being aided by a party of
soldiers and volunteers, he had the luck to secure the whole gang, being
twelve men and women. Among these was the notorious Hemperla, who was
dragged by the heels from an oven in which he was attempting to conceal
himself. Others were taken in the same manner, and imprisoned at
Giessen, with a view to their trial.
"Numerous acts of theft, and robbery, and murder were laid to the charge
of these unfortunate wretches; and, according to the existing laws of
the empire, they were interrogated under torture. They were first
tormented by means of thumb-screws, which they did not seem greatly to
regard; the Spanish boots, or 'leg-vices,' were next applied, and seldom
failed to extort confession. Hemperla alone set both means at defiance,
which induced the judges to believe he was possessed of some spell
against these agonies. Having in vain searched his body for the supposed
charm, they caused his hair to be cut off; on which he himself observed
that, had they not done so, he could have stood the torture for some
time longer. As it was, his resolution gave way, and he made, under the
second application of the Spanish boots, a full confession, not only of
the murders of which he was accused, but of various other crimes. While
he was in this agony, the judges had the cruelty to introduce his
mother, a noted Gipsy woman, called the crone, into the torture-chamber;
who shrieked fearfully, and tore her face with her nails, on perceiving
the condition of her son, and still more on hearing him acknowledge his
guilt.
"Evidence of the guilt of the other prisoners was also obtained from
their confessions, with or without torture, and from the testimony of
witnesses examined by the fiscal. Sentence was finally passed on them,
condemning four Gipsies, among whom were Hemperla and the Little
Gallant, to be broken on the wheel, nine others to be hanged, and
thirteen, of whom the greater part were women, to be beheaded. They
underwent their doom with great firmness, upon the 14th and 15th
November, 1726.
"The volume contains . . . . . . . some rude prints, representing the
murders committed by the Gipsies, and the manner of their execution.
There are also two prints representing the portraits of the principal
criminals, in which, though the execution be indifferent, the Gipsy
features may be clearly traced."
Leaving this view of the character of the continental Gipsies, we may
take the following as illustrative of one of its brighter aspects. So
late as the time of the celebrated Baron Trenck, it would appear that
Germany was still infested with prodigiously large bands of Gipsies. In
a forest near Ginnen, to which he had fled, to conceal himself from the
pursuit of his persecutors, the Baron says: "Here we fell in with a gang
of Gipsies, (or rather banditti,) amounting to four hundred men, who
dragged me to their camp. They were mostly French and Prussian
deserters, and, thinking me their equal, would force me to become one of
their band. But venturing to tell my story to their leader, he presented
me with a crown, gave us a small portion of bread and meat, and suffered
us to depart in peace, after having been four-and-twenty hours in their
company."[39]
[39] Life of Baron Trenck, translated by Thomas Holcroft, Vol. I, page
138.
I shall conclude the notices of the continental Gipsies by some extracts
from an article published in a French periodical work, for September,
1802, on the Gipsies of the Pyrenees; who resemble, in many points, the
inferior class of our Scottish Tinklers, about the beginning of the
French war, more, perhaps, than those of any other country in Europe.
"There exists, in the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, a people
distinct from the rest of the inhabitants, of a foreign origin, and
without any settled habits. It seems to have fixed its residence there
for a considerable time. It changes its situation, multiplies there, and
never connects itself by marriage with the other inhabitants. This
people are called Gitanos, a Spanish word which signifies Egyptians.
There are many Gitanos in Catalonia, who have similar habits to the
above-mentioned, but who are very strictly watched. They have all the
vices of those Egyptians, or Bohemians, who formerly used to wander over
the world, telling fortunes, and living at the expense of superstition
and credulity. These Gitanos, less idle and less wanderers than their
predecessors, are afraid of publicly professing the art of
fortune-tellers; but their manner of life is scarcely different.
"They scatter themselves among villages, and lonesome farms, where they
steal fruit, poultry, and often even cattle; in short, everything that
is portable. They are almost always abroad, incessantly watching an
opportunity to practise their thievery; they hide themselves with much
dexterity from the search of the police. Their women, in particular,
have an uncommon dexterity in pilfering. When they enter a shop, they
are watched with the utmost care; but with every precaution they are not
free from their rapines. They excel, above all, in hiding the pieces of
silver which are given in exchange for gold, which they never fail to
offer in payment, and they are so well hidden that they are often
obliged to be undressed before restitution can be obtained.
"The Gitanos affect, externally, a great attachment to the Catholic
religion; and if one was to judge from the number of reliques they carry
about with them, one would believe them exceedingly devout; but all who
have well observed them assure us they are as ignorant as hypocritical,
and that they practise secretly a religion of their own. It is not rare
to see their women, who have been lately brought to bed, have their
children baptized several times, in different places, in order to obtain
money from persons at their ease, whom they choose for godfathers.
Everything announces among them that moral degradation which must
necessarily attach to a miserable, insulated caste, as strangers to
society, which only suffers it through an excess of contempt.
"The Gitanos are disgustingly filthy, and almost all covered with rags.
They have neither tables, chairs, nor beds, but sit and eat on the
ground. They are crowded in huts, pell-mell, in straw; and their neglect
of the decorum of society, so dangerous to morals, must have the most
melancholy consequences on wretched vagabonds, abandoned to themselves.
They consequently are accused of giving themselves up to every disorder
of the most infamous debauchery, and to respect neither the ties of
blood nor the protecting laws of the virtues of families.
"They feed on rotten poultry and fish, dogs and stinking cats, which
they seek for with avidity; and when this resource fails them, they live
on the entrails of animals, or other aliments of the lowest price. They
leave their meat but a very few minutes on the fire, and the place where
they cook it exhales an infectious smell.
"They speak the Catalonian dialect, but they have, besides, a language
to themselves, unintelligible to the natives of the country, from whom
they are very careful to hide the knowledge of it.
"The Gitanos are tanned like the mulattoes, of a size above mediocrity,
well formed, active, robust, supporting all the changes of seasons, and
sleeping in the open fields, whenever their interest requires it. Their
features are irregular, and show them to belong to a transplanted race.
They have the mouth very wide, thick lips, and high cheek-bones.
"As the distrust they inspire causes them to be carefully watched, it is
not always possible for them to live by stealing: they then have
recourse to industry, and a trifling trade, which seems to have been
abandoned to them; they show animals, and attend the fairs and markets,
to sell or exchange mules and asses, which they know how to procure at a
cheap rate. They are commonly cast-off animals, which they have the art
to dress up, and they are satisfied, in appearance, with a moderate
profit, which, however, is always more than is supposed, because they
feed these animals at the expense of the farmers. They ramble all night,
in order to steal fodder; and whatever precautions may have been taken
against them, it is not possible to be always guarded against their
address.
"Happily the Gitanos are not murderers. It would, without doubt, be
important to examine if it is to the natural goodness of their
disposition, to their frugality, and the few wants they feel in their
state of half savage, that is to be attributed the sentiment that repels
them from great crimes, or if this disposition arises from their
habitual state of alarm, or from that want of courage which must be a
necessary consequence of the infamy in which they are plunged."[40]
[40] _Annales de Statistique, No. III, page 31-37._--What the writer
of this article says of the aversion which the Gipsies have to the
shedding of human blood, _not of their own fraternity_, appears to
have been universal among the tribe; but, on the other hand, they seem
to have had little or no hesitation in putting to death _those of
their own tribe_. This writer also says, that the Gipsies of the
Pyrenees have a religion of their own, which they practise _secretly_,
without mentioning what this secret religion is. It is probable that
his remark is applicable to the sacrifice of horses, as described in
chapter viii.