A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language — John Shaqi
A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy LanguageSimson, Walter
History
A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language
Simson, Walter
Romanies; Romanies -- Languages
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otherwise withdrawn from public observation; but, in respect to race,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.
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