[dasboot]

"..plague that can't be stopped..."

Yep.

"Our account of the Spanish peninsula would be incomplete without a notice of that remarkable race, the Gypsies, who have long existed in this country, isolated from the rest of the community. they are also found in several other countries of Europe; but the accounts of those in Spain, where they are said to number some forty or fofty thousand individuals, are the most complete."

"For a period of more than four hundred years, this singular group of people have been strolling, with little change, over Europe, like foreigners and strangers. Their "hand against every man, and every man's hand against them", they are the Ishmaelites of civilization. Africa makes them no blacker, nor Europe whiter; they neither learn to be lazy in Spain, nor diligent in Germany; they neither reverence Christ in Christiandom, nor Mahomet in Turkey. The year in which they first made their appearance in Europe is nowhere recorded; but it is clear they did not originate in that quarter of the globe."

"Everywhere , the Gypsy race live the vagabond life."

"They generally reside in tents, which they pitch in bye-places; and, when the resources of that neighborhood are exhausted,--that is, when every henroost they can reach is robbed and every movable thing they can lay their hands on is pilfered; when the men have jockeyed all who will deal with them in horses, and prescribed for all men and animals who will be doctored by them; and when the fortunes of all the silly people of the vicinity have been told by the women,--the vagrant troop suddenly decampfrom their filthy lair, greatly to the relief of the inhabitants of the vicinity. Though probably one of the most beautiful races by nature,--as might be inferred from the beauty of their infants even now,--yet habitual exposure to the burning rays of the sun, the biting of the frost, and the peltin of the rain and snow, destroys their buaety at an early age, and the ugliness at an advanced period of life is no less remarkable than the lovliness of their infancy."

more.....

[dasboot]

"Learned men trace them to the neighborhood of the River Indus, and supposed them to have been Hindoos of a very low caste, driven from their country by Tartar invaders. In Spain, they are also called Gitanos, and in England, Gypsies, from a general belief that they were originally Egyptians. The French call them Bohemians, as they first attracted attention in Bohemia, though they had been previously been long wondering in the remote parts of Sc;avonia. In their own language they call themselves and their language Rommany, a word of Sanscrit origin, signifying "The Husbands". The unchangeableness of their manners and institutions points to a very ancient and an oriental origin."

" In 1417, they are mentioned near the North Sea, and the next year in Switzerland; in 1422 in Italy, and, a few years after, in France and Spain. They did not travel in a single body, but in seperate hordes, each having its leader, sometimes called a 'Count' , as, in England, their chief is still called 'King of the Beggars'. Others gave themselves out for dukes and kings of Lesser Egypt. People believed then to be Egyptians and pilgrims, who were constrained to wander on some religious account.. The Gypsies told fabulous stories to spread this belief, and these were recieved with such credulity, that they were allowed everywhere free passage.. Even in Spain, the Inquisition overlooked these practical pagans, being, probably, intent at hawking at richer, and therefor more profitable game. In Hungary, too, they were no less free, though in the midst of slaves. The early golden age of the Gypsies, alluded to above, lasted half a century, when their impostures were exposed, and they were discovered to be inveterate vagabonds and robbers by profession. From this period, they began to suffer persecution."