A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the GypsiesHoyland, John
History
A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies
Hoyland, John
Romanies
It has been remarked, that this author drew his conclusions, not only
from what he understood of human nature in general, but from what he
daily saw before him, in the circumstances and actions of the people
whose crimes he was called upon to punish. And he reasons upon the
subject in the following manner: “Great poverty among the lower orders in
every country, has an immediate effect in multiplying the number of petty
thieves; and where the bounds of the moral principle have been once
over-stepped, however trivial the first offence, the step is easy from
petty theft to the greater crimes of burglary and robbery.”
May Britons in their conduct towards the Gypsies, be actuated by a policy
so liberal, as to induce the rising generation among this neglected
class, to attach themselves to civil society, and to enter into
situations designed to inculcate habits of industry, and prepare them to
become useful members of the community.
The successful experiments lately made by the British and Foreign School
Society, upon persons addicted to every species of depravity, leave no
doubt of the practicability of ameliorating the condition of Gypsies. It
is with pleasure that on this subject the following statement of facts is
introduced, respecting two schools established in the neighbourhood of
the metropolis. One of them at Kingsland, a situation which has been
termed, “A focus where the most abandoned characters constantly assembled
for every species of brutal and licentious disorder.” The other is at
Bowyer-lane, near Camberwell, a district inhabited by persons of the
worst description; among whom the police officers have been accustomed to
look for the various kinds of offenders, who have infested the Borough of
Southwark.
We are informed by the Committee of that School, that “in the district
embraced by their Society, the consequences of ignorance were evident to
the most superficial observer. Parents and children, appeared alike
regardless of morality and virtue; the former indulging in profligacy,
and the latter exhibiting its lamentable effects.
“Did the friends of _universal education_ require a fresh illustration,
they would find it in the scene we are now contemplating; and they would
confidently invite those who still entertain a doubt on the subject, to a
more close and rigid examination of that scene, satisfied with the effect
upon every candid and unprejudiced mind. For, assuredly, “men do not
gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles:” and when morality,
decency, and order, are gradually occupying the abodes of licentiousness,
misery, and guilt, the change must be attributed to some operating cause,
and _that_ cause must be derived from the Source of all Good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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