Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in EuropeGrellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
History
Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in Europe
Grellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
Romanies
They were universally to be found in Italy, insomuch that even Sicily and
Sardinia were not free. But they were most numerous in the dominions of
the church; probably because _there_ was the worst police, with much
superstition: by the former they were left undisturbed, and the latter
enticed them to deceive the ignorant, as it afforded them an opportunity
of obtaining a plentiful contribution by their fortune-telling, and
enchanted amulets. There was a general law throughout Italy, that no
Gipsey should remain more than two nights in any one place: by this
regulation, it is true, no place retained its guest long; but no sooner
was one gone, than another came in his room: it was a continual circle,
and quite as convenient to them as a perfect toleration would have been.
Italy rather suffered than benefited by this law; as, by keeping these
people in constant motion, they would do more mischief there than in
places where they were permitted to remain stationary.
They are very scarce in many parts of Germany; as well as in Switzerland
and the Low-countries. A person may live many years in Upper Saxony, or
in the districts of Hanover and Brunswic, without seeing a single Gipsey:
when one happens to stray into a village, or town, he occasions as much
disturbance as if the black gentleman with his cloven foot had appeared;
he frights children from their play, and draws the attention of the older
people; till the police officers get hold of him, and make him again
invisible. In other provinces, on the contrary, particularly on the
Rhine, a Gipsey is a very common sight. Some years ago there were such
numbers of them in the dutchy of Wirtemburg, that they seen lying about
every where: but as, according to custom, they either lived by thieving,
by fortune-telling or other tricks, plundering the illiterate people of
their money, the government ordered detachments of soldiers to drive them
from their holes and lurking-places throughout the country; and then
transported the congregated swarm, in the same manner as they were
treated by the Duke of Deuxponts, as before related.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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