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
and heaps of tin clippings and horn scrapings. In after life, they will
often think of and visit the scenes of such adventures. At other times,
our youth, when rambling, will often make a detour of several miles, to
avoid falling in with the dreaded Gipsies. The report of Gipsies being
about acts as a salutary check upon the depredatory habits of the youth
of our country towns on neighbouring crops; for, as the farmers make up
their minds to lose something by the Gipsies, at any rate, the wholesome
dread they inspire, even in grown-up lads, is such as, by night
especially, to scare away the thieves from those villages, whose
plunderings are much greater, and more unwillingly submitted to, from
the closeness of residence of the offenders; so that the arrival of the
Gipsies, in some places, is welcomed, at certain times of the year, as
the lesser of two evils; and, to that extent, they have been termed the
"farmers' friends." And if a little encouragement is given them--such as
the matter of "dogs' payment," that is, what they can eat and drink, and
a mouthful of something for the _cuddy_, for the first day after their
arrival--the farmer can always enlist an admirable police, who will
guard his property against others, with a degree of faithfulness that
can hardly be surpassed. I heard of a Scottish farmer, very lately,
getting the Gipsies to take up their quarters every year on the corner
of a potato or turnip field, with the express purpose of using them, as
half constables half scare-crows, against the common rogues of the
neighbourhood. "Now," said he to the principal Gipsy, "I put you in
charge of this property. If you want anything for yourselves, come to
the barn." Whatever might have been the experience of farmers near by,
this farmer never missed anything while the Gipsies were on his
premises.
[11] As children, have we not, at some time, run affrighted from a
Gipsy?--_Grellmann on the Hungarian Gipsies._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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