A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language

By WALTER SIMSON.
EDITED, WITH PREFACE, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES, AND A DISQUISITION ON THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF GIPSYDOM,
By JAMES SIMSON.
“Hast thou not noted on the bye way-side, Where aged saughs lean o’er the lazy tide, A vagrant crew, far straggled through the glade, With trifles busied, or in slumber laid; Their children lolling round them on the grass, Or pestering with their sports the patient ass! The wrinkled beldame there you may espy, And ripe young maiden with the glossy eye; Men in their prime, and striplings dark and dun, Scathed by the storm and freckled with the sun; Their swarthy hue and mantle’s flowing fold, Bespeak the remnant of a race of old. Strange are their annals—list! and mark them well— For thou hast much to hear and I to tell.”—Hogg.
NEW YORK: M. DOOLADY, 448 BROOME STREET.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & MARSTON.
1866.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, By JAMES SIMSON, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Ever since entering Great Britain, about the year 1506, the Gipsies have been drawing into their body the blood of the ordinary inhabitants and conforming to their ways; and so prolific has the race been, that there cannot be less than 250,000 Gipsies of all castes, colours, characters, occupations, degrees of education, culture, and position in life, in the British Isles alone, and possibly double that number. There are many of the same race in the United States of America. Indeed, there have been Gipsies in America from nearly the first day of its settlement; for many of the race were banished to the plantations, often for very trifling offences, and sometimes merely for being by “habit and repute Egyptians.” But as the Gipsy race leaves the tent, and rises to civilization, it hides its nationality from the rest of the world, so great is the prejudice against the name of Gipsy. In Europe and America together, there cannot be less than 4,000,000 Gipsies in existence. John Bunyan, the author of the celebrated Pilgrim’s Progress , was one of this singular people, as will be conclusively shown in the present work. The philosophy of the existence of the Jews, since the dispersion, will also be discussed and established in it.