Those potentates considering Zigeuners of Egyptian origin, might reasonably conceive agriculture well adapted to their genius and inclination; but it was a pursuit, which, more than any other, they disapproved. All other Governments appear to have been misled, in like manner, by the deception which the first Gypsies practised; for had they been apprized of this people’s descent, and of the almost unalterable pertinacity of an Indian caste, they would have been sensible that an attempt to change their habits by force, was a measure the least likely to be attended with success. The Circular introduced in the ninth Section of this work, notices Gypsies being hunted like beasts of prey, from township to township in England; and it has been ascertained, that in some places they are routed, as it is termed, by order of magistrates, whenever they appear, and sent to prison on the vagrant act, without so much as a charge of depredation upon property. “This is to make their persons, an object of persecution, instead of the protection of our laws.” For the credit of our country it may be hoped, that instances of this sort, respecting Gypsies, are not very numerous; seeing all writers concur in stating, every attempt by coercive means to alter the peculiar habits of this people, have had a tendency to alienate them still more from civil associations, and directly to defeat the end proposed. It is time therefore that a better and a more enlightened policy should be adopted in Europe, towards a race of human beings, under so many hereditary disadvantages as are the helpless, the rude, the uninstructed Gypsies. In the decision on the vagrant case, in Crabbe’s “Hall of Justice,” {231a} and in the treatment of Gypsies on Knoland-Green, {231b} a temper is displayed so truly Christian, and so different from what is just alluded to, that in consulting the best feelings of human nature, it adds dignity to magistracy. Sir Frederick Morton Eden, in his first volume on the State of the Poor, p. 306, refers to an Act passed in 1741, respecting that class of the poor, who are considered by the Legislature as the outcasts of society, namely rogues, vagabonds, &c.; and he remarks: “From perusing the catalogue of actions which denominate a man, a disorderly person, a vagabond, or incorrigible rogue, the reader may perhaps incline to think that many of the offences specified in this Act, and in subsequent statutes, on the same subject, are of a very dubious nature, and that it must require nice legal acumen, to distinguish whether a person incurs any, and what, penalty, under the vagrant laws.” In support of this opinion, and of the indefinite and unjustifiable latitude of those statutes, a late decision at Maidstone, in the action of Robins, v. Boyce, affords a striking demonstration.