Gipsy Life: Being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvementSmith, George
History
Gipsy Life: Being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvement
Smith, George
Romanies -- Great Britain
Ethnologists and philologists may find certain words used by the Gipsies
to correspond with the Indian language, and this adds another proof to
those I have already adduced; but, to my mind, this, after the lapse of
so many centuries, considering all the changes that have taken place
since the Gipsies emigrated, is not the most convincing argument, any
more than our forms of letters, the outcome of hieroglyphics, prove that
we were once Egyptians. No doubt, there are a certain few words used by
all nations which, if their roots and derivations were thoroughly looked
into, a similarity would be found in them. As America, Australia, New
Zealand, and Africa have been fields for emigrants from China and Europe
during the last century, so, in like manner, Europe was the field for
certain low-caste poor emigrants from India during the two preceding
centuries, with this difference—the emigrants from India to Europe were
idlers, loafers who sought to make their fortunes among the Europeans by
practising, without work, the most subtle arts of double-dealing, lying,
deception, thieving, and dishonesty, and the fate that attends
individuals following out such a course as this has attended the Gipsies
in all their wanderings; the consequence has been, the Gipsy emigrants,
after their first introduction to the various countries, have, by their
actions, disgusted those whom they wished to cheat and rob, hence the
treatment they have received. This cannot be said of the emigrant from
England to America and our own or other colonies. An English emigrant,
on account of his open conduct, straightforward character, and industry,
has been always respected. In any country an English emigrant enters,
owing to his industrious habits, an improvement takes place. In the
country where an Indian emigrant of the Gipsy tribe enters the tendency
is the reverse of this, so far as their influence is concerned—downward
to the ground and to the dogs they go. In these two cases the difference
between civilisation and Christianity and heathenism comes out to a
marked degree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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