_On the Dress of the Gipseys_.
IT cannot be expected that the description of the dress of a set of
people whose whole economy belongs to the class of beggars, should
exhibit any thing but poverty and want. The first of them that came to
Europe appeared ragged and miserable—unless we perhaps allow their
leaders to have been an exception;—in like manner their descendants have
continued for hundreds of years, and still remain. This is particularly
remarkable in the countries about the mouth of the Danube, which abound
with Gipseys; namely, Transylvania, Hungary, and Turkey in Europe, where
they dress even more negligently than in other parts.
The Gipseys consider a covering for the head as perfectly useless: the
wind will not easily blow his hat off, who never wears any thing of the
kind, excepting when he has a mind to make a figure, and even then a
rough cap usually supplies its place. During the winter, if the female
Gipseys do not knit socks, which those in Moldavia and Wallachia do, with
wooden needles, he winds a couple of rags round his feet, which in summer
are laid aside as unnecessary. He is not better furnished with linen, as
the women neither spin, sew, nor wash. For want of change, what he once
puts on his body, remains till it falls off of itself. His whole dress
often consists of only a pair of breeches and a torn shirt.
We are not to suppose, from what is said above, that the Gipseys are
indifferent about dress; on the contrary, they love fine clothes to an
extravagant degree: the want proceeds from necessity, which is become
with them a second nature, forgetting that labour and care are the means
to procure clothes, as well as nourishment. Whenever an opportunity
offers of acquiring a good coat, either by gift, purchase, or theft, the
Gipsey immediately bestirs himself to become master of it: possessed of
the prize, he puts it on directly, without considering in the least,
whether it suits the rest of his apparel. If his dirty shirt had holes
in it as big as a barn door, or his breeches were so out of condition
that one might perceive their antiquity at the first glance; were he
unprovided with shoes, stockings, or a covering for the head; neither of
these defects would prevent his strutting about in a laced coat, feeling
himself of still greater consequence in case it happened to be a red one.
Martin Kelpius therefore says, that the Gipseys in Transylvania spend all
their earnings in alehouses and in clothes. It would excite laughter in
the sternest philosopher, to see a Gipsey parading about, with a beaver
hat, a silk or red cloth coat, at the same time his breeches torn, and
his shoes or boots, if perchance he have either, covered with patches.
Benko, also, assures us, that this kind of state is common in
Transylvania; and adds, the Gipseys are particularly fond of clothes made
after the Hungarian fashion, or which had been worn by people of
distinction. The habits and properties of the Gipseys in Hungary are
precisely the same. The following passage, which appeared in the
Imperial Gazettes, is very much to the purpose: “Notwithstanding these
people are so wretched, that they have nothing but rags to cover them,
which do not at all fit, and are scarcely sufficient to hide their
nakedness, yet they betray their foolish taste and vain ostentation
whenever they have an opportunity.”
In Transylvania, some of them wear the Wallachian dress; but in Hungary
they are so attached to the habits of the country, that a Gipsey had
rather go half naked, or wrap himself up in a sack, than he would
condescend to wear a foreign garb, even though a very good one were given
to him. Green is a favourite colour with the Gipseys; but scarlet is
held in so great esteem by them, that a man cannot appear abroad in a red
habit, though worn out, without being surrounded by a crowd old and
young, who, in the open street, are solicitous to purchase of him, be it
coat, pellisse, or breeches. Unless severely pinched by the cold, or in
case of the greatest necessity, they will not deign to put on a boor’s
coat: they rather choose to buy for their own use cast-off clothes; and
if they happen to be ornamented with lace or loops, they strut about in
such dresses, as proudly as if they were not merely lords of the
district, but of the whole creation. Thus all the money they can spare,
is expended in obtaining a sort of clothes not at all becoming their
station, and which answer no other purpose, but to betray their weak
silly notions, and expose them to the ridicule of the more sensible part
of mankind. They do not pay the least regard to symmetry, nor care what
reasonable people think of their dress: provided they can only get
something shining to put on, that will catch the eye, they give
themselves no concern if the rest of their clothing be very bad, or
though they be nearly in a state of nudity. It is no uncommon spectacle
to see a Gipsey parading the streets in an embroidered pellisse, or laced
coat decorated with silver buttons, with a dirty ragged shirt,
barefooted, and without a hat; or with a pair of embroidered scarlet
breeches on, and perhaps no other covering but half a shirt.
Nothing pleases Hungarian Gipseys more than a pair of yellow
(_tschischmen_) boots, and spurs: no sooner do the latter glitter on his
feet, but he bridles up, and marches consequentially about, often eying
his fine boots, at the same time totally regardless of his breeches,
which may have lost a portion before or behind, or be in some other
respects quite shabby.
The usual dress of the women is no better than that of the men; indeed
they have generally been thought rather to go beyond them in filth and
nastiness. Their appearance is truly disgusting to any civilised person:
their whole covering consists of, either a piece of linen thrown over the
head and wound round the thighs, or an old shift hung over them, through
which their smoky hides appear in numberless places. Sometimes, in
winter, they wrap themselves in a piece of woollen stuff like a cloak.
Occasionally, their dress partakes of the other sex; as they do not
hesitate to wear breeches, or other male habilament. They use the same
covering for the feet as the men;—either a pair of coarse socks, knit
with wooden needles, which is commonly done in Moldavia and Wallachia; or
they sew them up in rags, which remain on till the stuff perishes and
falls off, or till spring arrives, at which season both men and women go
barefooted. {29}
The women are as fond of dress as the men, and equally ridiculous in
their choice of it; they are often seen in a _dress cap_, while their
rotten linen jacket scarcely serves to cover their nakedness. In Spain,
they plaster their temples with great patches of black silk; and hang all
sorts of trumpery in their ears, besides a number of baubles about the
neck.
The Gipseys were at very little trouble respecting the dress of their
children; these ran about naked, in the true Calmuc style, till ten years
of age, when the boys got breeches, and the girls aprons. But this
nuisance is at an end in the Imperial dominions, both in Germany and
Hungary, where an order to suppress it was issued out by the emperor
Joseph.
Before we dismiss the subject of dress, we may mention a laudable custom
established among the Gipseys, in order to save their clothes when they
have quarreled, and mean to fight. Before they proceed to action, a
truce takes place for a minute or two, to give the combatants time to
strip to their shirts, that their apparel may not suffer in the fray:
then the storm breaks loose, and each lays on the other as hard as he
can. The custom has this use in it, that whenever any body appears in a
ragged coat, he may affirm, on his honour, that it was not rendered so in
a Gipsey brawl.