Whether under any circumstances these repressive measures were or were not the means best calculated to attain the object in view, it is at least certain that their failure was assured beforehand by the negligent way in which they were put in force; or rather by the fact they were never put in force at all. The gypsies, and especially the females, as we have already mentioned, by virtue of their divinations and certain other services which they rendered to the upper and ruling classes of Spain, had secured friends, or at least neutrals, amongst the very people in whose hands lay the administration of the laws. They were thus able to annul, and even to ridicule, the successive legal enactments formulated to exterminate them.
Among the various reasons for the remarkable vitality of the Rommany sect in thus surviving centuries of oppression, there stand out prominently the strong tribal cohesion inter se of the Zincali: their marriage customs and the aversion with which they regarded any alliance with the Busné, or Gentile. A gitano might, in rare instances, marry a Spanish female, but in no case did a gitana consent to take a husband outside her own race. Thus the errate—the "black blood" of the Rommany, on which above all they prided themselves, was preserved uncontaminated. Whether, had the repressive laws been vigorously carried out, they would have met with better results, is an open question.
At length, in 1783, a fresh departure in policy was inaugurated by Charles III., or perhaps it would be safer to say, during the reign of that monarch, for he was more of a Nimrod than a statesman, and appears to have occupied himself with grand batidas for stags, wild boars, and other game, rather than with the welfare of his people, and this at the very time when the magnificent colonial empire of Spain was gradually slipping from his grasp. Whoever it may have been that inspired the new gypsy law of 1783, its author at least recognized the failure of the penal decrees of the three preceding centuries, and instituted in their place a more humane method of dealing with the nomads.
Under the new law the gypsies were, in the first place, declared "not to be so by nature or origin, nor to proceed from an infected root." It was enacted that to such of them as should abandon their distinctive mode of life, dress, and language, the whole share of offices, employments, trades and occupations, should be open equally with other Spanish subjects. The whole range of trade, art, science, and the professions, were thrown open to such of the gitanos as should abjure their former vagabond life with all its evil associations; and penalties were imposed on any who should attempt to molest them or to oppose their entry within the pale of civilized life.
Finally, the law was declared to be equal as between a reclaimed gypsy and any other "vassal" of Spain: but a death-penalty was prescribed against such of the nomad race as declined this invitation to embrace an honest life, and who continued their former habits.
The effect of this measure is marked, though the gitano survives. Fifty years of equal rights accomplished in this case what centuries of oppression had failed to achieve. Gitanismo is certainly not extinguished, but it was modified and brought more or less under control. The numbers of the gitanos have ever since decreased: they are slowly relinquishing their vagrant habits, and live more in cities and towns, and less in the mountains and fields. Ages, probably, would be required wholly to eradicate the inveterate criminality practised from birth by the Rommany race since unknown times—if, indeed, its entire eradication is possible. But certainly the humane measure of Charles III. during the lifetime of a man produced more tangible results than the persecution of preceding centuries.
The gitano caste in Spain were at one time estimated at 60,000. Fifty years ago, after half a century of equal laws, their numbers had fallen to 40,000, of which one-third were inhabitants of Andalucia; while at the present day, even that total might probably be reduced by one-half.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SPANISH GYPSY OF TO-DAY.
Hitherto we have dealt with the subject of the Spanish gypsy in a past tense and from an historic point of view. It remains to add that the Rommany sect, though decreasing in numbers and largely divested of their former dangerous character, continues plentiful enough throughout Spain, and especially in the southern provinces, their best known colonies being at the Triana suburb of Seville, and in the rock-caves of the Alpujarras at Granada, where certain tribes form one of the "stock sights" familiar to travellers in Southern Spain. Though the later laws have checked their vagabondism, yet the instinct of Ishmael survives, and, especially in the summer-time, the gypsies wander over the Andalucian vegas and flock to rural fairs, where the men drive their ancient trade of dealing in horses—mostly stolen, and all "faked" and got-up for sale, though in these matters the gypsies are perhaps no worse than their gentile rivals.
At the fairs the wealthier gypsies also trade in precious stones and jewellery; the poorer in hardware, "tinkery," and the like. The gitanas, gaudily arrayed in colours of startling hues, and blazing with heavy golden ornaments, deal in divinations and tell the buena ventura as of old, the younger girls ever ready to engage in their lissom dances and in the wild suggestive singing characteristic of the Rommany race.