Gipsies in times of yore were the scape-goats of the peasantry: if
"cock" were "purloined" or any other rural mischief done by night, it
was immediately fathered upon a neighbouring tent of "the dark race."
No further evidence was required than the pot boiling on stick
transverse: no one hesitated to conclude that the said pot contained
the _corpus delicti_: that the individual missing cock was there
parboiling, and that the swarthy race lolling around the fire, or
peeping from beneath the canvass roof, were resting from the unholy
labours of the night. Crime, however, has made such rapid marches that
it has long been seen that the gipsies could not perpetrate the whole
of it: and now it is pretty clear they are, and probably have always
been, innocent of the whole of it. It is an event of extreme rarity to
see a gipsy in a court of justice, and we have reason to believe that
it has come to pass that farmers entertain a belief that the tent of
the wanderer, with its nightly blaze and its dark shadows flitting
about it, is a protection to their property. There is every
probability in favour of the justice of this character. The life of
the gipsy is not unlucrative: his wants are few and coarse, and the
calls upon him are scarcely any. He pays no rent: he is exempt from
taxes: he spends nothing in the luxury of attire: no man can bring him
in a bill. Being himself a mender and universal repairer, he is under
the necessity of demanding no man's aid. His horse or his ass feeds on
Nature's common, the hedge-side, the waste corner, the forest thicket,
well known and long haunted by him and his tribe. Gipsies are subject
to few diseases: they seldom ask the doctor's assistance but for one
friendly office, and that serves a man his lifetime. The open air, the
inconstancy of their labour, the sufficiency of their food, and the
quantity of healthy exercise, necessarily render these Arabs of
civilization the healthiest part of the people. As the monks of old
always managed to select a happy site for their establishments, so
does the gipsy always contrive to fix upon a pleasant and healthy spot
for the pitching of his tent. It is sure to be near a brook for the
supply of fresh water for the pot, and a washing-place for the family
rags: it generally lies under the shelter of some umbrageous tree, it
will always be found to have a view of the road, and invariably placed
on the edge of some nice short and sweet morsel of grass for the
recreation of the quadrupeds of the party.
The character of the gipsy has not been well understood. It is
altogether oriental: he is quiet, patient, sober, long suffering,
pleasant in speech, indolent but handy, far from speculative, and yet
good at succedaneum: when his anger is kindled, it descends like
lightning: unlike his dog, his wrath gives no notice by grumbling: he
blazes up like one of his own fires of dried fern. Quarrels do not
often take place among them, but when they do, they are dreadful. The
laws of the country in which they sojourn have so far banished the use
of knives from among them that they only grind them, otherwise these
conflicts would always be fatal. They fight like tigers with tooth and
nail, and knee and toe, and seem animated only with the spirit of
daemonism. Luckily the worst weapon they use is a stick, and, if the
devil tempts, a hedge-stake.
We have been put in mind to say something of the gipsies by having
witnessed the consequences of one of these affrays, which has brought
us still better acquainted with these singular people. A quarrel
originating in jealousy had produced results of the most serious
nature. A blow on the head with a tent-pole had evidently produced
concussion of the brain if not fracture, and the victim was lying on
his straw bed in a state of profound coma. The tent was tripartite,
being formed of three main tops meeting in a centre: one was sacred to
the women--the gynekeion of the Greeks, the anderoon of the Persians:
in the others were collected the whole faction of the dying man. Nine
or ten swarthy but handsome countenances were anxiously watching the
struggling breath of their unhappy comrade--some sobbing, some
grief-stricken, some sombre, none savage. An old crone was
administering ineffectual milk, perhaps the very woman who had found
the same fluid so nutritious some thirty years ago. Before, or rather,
under her lay as noble a form as nature ever moulded, with a fine
dark, but thoroughly Indian face, covered with the clammy sweat of
apoplectic death. There was no want of light, the fire at the mouth
every now and then sent in a volume of illumination, and when the
medical men arrived there was scarcely a hand that did not contain a
candle in the hope of aiding their investigation. The man died on the
fourth day: the surgeons were compelled to mangle him in their search
for a fracture; after his death justice demanded a still further
investigation of the corpse: and yet during all these trying
circumstances an important witness can declare that the behaviour of
the supposed lawless people was not merely decent--it was more than
exemplary--it was delicate, tender, nay, refined; it was moreover
exempt from prejudice, at the same time that it was full of feeling.
Were the details in place here, it would perhaps be allowed that few
brighter examples of friendship and right feeling were to be found
than in this instance occurred among the "dark race," as they call
themselves.
_New Monthly Magazine._
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