Romany Life / Experienced and Observed during many Years of Friendly Intercourse with the Gypsies

ROMANY LIFE

DŌSHA.


EXPERIENCED AND OBSERVED DURING MANY YEARS OF FRIENDLY INTERCOURSE WITH THE GYPSIES BY FRANK CUTTRISS ILLUSTRATED WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHS AND OTHER PICTURES BY THE AUTHOR MILLS & BOON LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W.

First published 1915

IT is a curious fact, that while very few can be found nowadays to accept without question, fanciful or otherwise, unscientific statements concerning natural objects or supernatural happenings, many time-worn, misleading accounts of gypsies and what they are supposed to do—but do not—are still implicitly credited by a great majority of thinking people. A solution of this may be looked for in one or other of the following surmises, perhaps—more or less—in all:
That the widespread unacquaintance with the real Romany character and gypsy life is due to the dearth of reliable information, and to the fictional nature of much that has been written on the subject. That most writers have endeavoured to satisfy the public interest in the subject by the ever-available fiction, for the reason that the suspicious, reticent, and often unapproachable attitude of gypsies generally renders it difficult to provide material from the life. That the prevailing unsympathetic attitude of non-gypsies in general, and of many of those who would approach the gypsies for literary purposes in particular, reacts on them and increases the tenseness of the situation.