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GIPSIES-EGYPTIANS.

IN most parts of the continent the gipsies are called Cingari, or Zingari; the Spaniards call them Gitanos, the French Bohemiens or Bohemiennes.

It is not certain when the Gipsies, as they are now termed, first appeared in Europe; but mention is made of them in Hungary and Germany, so early as the year 1417. Within 10 years afterwards we hear of them in France, Switzerland and Italy. The date of their arrival in England is more uncertain; it is most probable that it was not until near a century afterward. In the year 1530, they are spoken of in the following manner, in the penal statutes.

"Forasmuch as before this time, divers and many outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor feat of merchandize, have come fato this realm, and gone from shire to shire, and place to place, in great company, and used great subtil and crafty means to deceive the people; bearing them in mind that they, by palmistry, could tell men's and women's fortunes; and so many times, by craft and subtilty, have deceived the people of their money; and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies, to the great hurt and deceit of the people they have come among," &c.

This is the preamble to an act, by which the Gipsies were ordered to quit the realm under heavy penalties. Two subsequent acts, passed in 1555 and 1565, made it death for them to remain in the kingdom; and it is still on record, that thirteen were executed under these acts, in the county of Suffolk, a few years before the restoration.

It was not till about the year 1783, that they were repealed.

The Gipsies were expelled France in 1560, and Spain in 1591: but it does not appear they have been extirpated in any country. Their collective numbers, in every quarter of the globe, have been calculated at 7 or 800,000*. They are most numerous in Asia, and in the northern parts of Europe. Various have been the opinion relative to their origin. That they came from Egypt, has been the most prevalent. This opinion (which has procured them here the name of Gipsies, and in Spain that of Gittanos) arose from some of the first who arrived in Europe, pretending that they came from that country; which they did, perhaps, to heighten their reputation for skill in palmistry and the occult sciences. It is now we believe pretty generally agreed, that they came originally from Hindostan; since their language so far coincides with the Hindostanic, that even now, after a lapse of nearly four centuries, during which they have been dispersed in various foreign countries, nearly one half of their words are precisely those of Hindostant; and scarcely any variation is to be found in vocabularies procured from the Gipsies in Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and those in England‡. Their manners, for the most part, coincide, as well as the language, in every quarter of the * Grellman's History of the Gipsies.

+ Grellman's opinion seems extremely plausible, that they are of the lowest class of Indians, called suders, and that they left India when Timur Bag ravaged that country in 1408 and 1409, putting to death immense numbers of all ranks of people.

Mr. Marsden first made inquiries among the English Gipsies concerning their language.-Vide Archæologia, vol. ii.

globe where they are found; being the same idle wandering set of beings, and seldom professing any mode of acquiring a livelihood, except that of fortune-telling*. Their religion is always that of p. 382-386. Mr. Coxe communicated a vocabulary of words used by those of Hungary.-See the same vol. of the Archæologia, p. 387. Vocabularies of the German Gipsies may be seen in Grellman's Book. Any person wishing to be convinced of this similarity of language, and being possessed of a vocabulary of words used in Hindostan, may be satisfied of its truth by conversing with the first Gipsey he meets.

* Margaret Finch, a celebrated modern adventuress, was buried October 24, 1740, at Beckenham, in Kent. This remarkable person lived to the age of 109 years. She was one of the people called Gipsies, and had the title of their queen. After travelling over various parts of the kingdom, during the greater part of a century, she settled at Norwood, a place notorious for vagrants of this description, whither her great age and the fame of her fortune-telling, attracted numerous visitors. From a habit of sitting on the ground, with her chin resting on her knees, the sinews at length became so contracted, that she could not rise from that posture. After her death they were obliged to inclose her body in a deep square box. Her funeral was attended by two mourning coaches, a sermon was preached on the occasion; and a great concourse of people attended the ceremony.

There is an engraved portrait of Margaret Finch, from a drawing made in 1739. Her picture adorned the sign of a house of public entertainment in Norwood, called the Gipsey house, which was situated in a small green, in a valley, surrounded by woods. On this green, a few families of Gipsies used to pitch their tents, during the summer season. In winter they either procure lodgings in London, or take up their abode in barns, in some of the more distant counties. In a cottage that adjoined the Gipsey house, lived an old woman, granddaughter of Queen Margaret, who inherited her title. She was niece of Queen Budget, who was buried (see Lysons, vol i. p. 107.) at Dulwich, in 1768. Her rank seemed, however, to be merely titular; nor do we find that the gipsies paid her any particular respect, or that she differed in any other manner than that of being a householder, from the rest of her tribe,—

the country in which they reside; and though they are no great frequenters either of mosques or churches, they generally conform to rites and ceremonies as they find them established.

Grellman says that, in Germany, they seldom think of any marriage ceremony; but their children are baptized and the mothers churched. In England their children are baptized, and their dead buried, according to the rites of the church; perhaps the marriage ceremony is not more regarded than in Germany; but it is certain they are sometimes married in churches. Upon the whole, as Grellman observes, we may certainly regard the Gipsies as a singular phenomenon in Europe. For the space of between three and four hundred years they have gone wandering about like pilgrims and strangers, yet neither time nor example has made in them any alteration: they remain ever and every where what their fathers were: Africa makes them no blacker, nor does Europe make them whiter.

Few of the descendants of the aboriginal Gipsies are to be found any where in Europe, and in England less than any where else. The severity of the police against this description of the degenerate vagabonds existing at the present day, have considerably thinned their phalanxes, and brought them to something like a due sense of the laws and expectations of civilized society. What remains of them, nevertheless, contrive one way or other to elude the vigilance of the laws by different masked callings, under

which they ostensibly appear to carry on their usual traffic.

The modern Gipsies pretend that they de rive their origin from the ancient Egyptians, who were famous for their knowledge in astronomy and other sciences; and, under the pretence of fortune-telling, find means to rob or defraud the ignorant and superstitious. To colour their impostures, they artificially discolour their faces, and speak a kind of gibberish or cant peculiar to themselves. They rove up and down the country in large companies, to the great terror of the farmers, from whose geese, turkeys, and fowls, they take considerable contributions.

When a fresh recruit is admitted into the fraternity, he is to take the following oath, administered by the principal marauder, after going through the annexed forms:

First, a new name is given to him, by which he is ever after to be called; then standing up in the middle of the assembly, and directing his face to the dimber damber, or principal man of the gang, he repeats the following oath, which is dictated to him by some experienced member of the fraternity; namely, "I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a true brother, and that I will, in all things, obey the commands of the great tawny prince, and keep his counsel, and not divulge the secrets of my brethren.

"I will never leave nor forsake the company, but observe and keep all the times of appointment, either by day or by night, in every place whatever.