“Adroit the line of palmistry to trace.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxLeyden
The confidence trick in a great variety of forms has in the past been worked by them with considerable success, female domestics being perhaps their especial victims, but well-to-do people have by no means escaped their wiles. A trick, having innumerable variants, and which, in days gone by, had a very long and successful run,—perhaps it is still going,—was played upon those who believed gypsies to be the possessors of mystical powers; it consisted in the superstitious dupe being induced to believe that a sum of money enclosed in a packet and handed to the gypsy in order that she might for a small sum repeat over it certain unintelligible words, would become doubled in quantity and value a certain time after it had been returned to the owner and had been hidden in accordance with the gypsy’s directions. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add that the gypsy either gave instructions for the hiding of the money in some place accessible to herself, or she acquired it by abstraction or substitution before returning the packet to the credulous owner, the result in any case being the same,—the gypsy got the money and was not to be found when the date given for the consummation of the spell arrived.
Numerous accounts of similar frauds exist, many possibly having some foundation in fact, while others may be set down as purposely distorted facts, or as fabrications specially devised for fostering ill-feeling against the gypsies, or for justifying, as far as possible, the tyrannical measures taken to exterminate them.
Looking back upon the harsh treatment meted out to the gypsies in former times, one can imagine the undercurrent of fear which prompted it, a fear bred of the superstitious beliefs of the times and kept alive by the outlandish appearance, seclusive habits, strange customs and secret tongue of the Romanies, items which, even to this day, are reckoned against them by the ignorant and superstitious. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible to find unbiassed accounts either of gypsy crime or petty frauds at almost any period in their history.
Generally speaking, the term “gypsies” in newspaper reports of police cases is a misnomer, the persons implicated being mostly Chorodies, who, with very few exceptions, have no blood-relationship with Romany people, neither have they much in common beside a similarity in their mode of life. The disparity is especially noticeable in the respective women, for Romany women have always been noted for their handsome features, and in instances where the mother has not the usual regularity and beauty of feature, her children are frequently exceedingly pretty; we cannot, however, say so much for the Chorodies, for, to quote the description of them by a well-known writer,—“their complexion, when not obscured with grime, is rather fair than dark, evincing that their origin is low, swinish Saxon, and not gentle Romany.” Written many years ago, this is true to-day, and it is these people principally who bring discredit to the gypsy name. Occasionally among these people I have seen families upon whom the unenviable epithet of Hinditymengre, or Filthy people, has been bestowed,—these are Irish vagrants, but, like George Borrow, I fail to see that they are dirtier than Chorodies generally, indeed I can scarcely imagine it to be possible. There is really no occasion for such dirty habits, as they have the same opportunities for their ablutions and equal facilities for general cleanliness as the Romanies.
Gypsies are ardent lovers of music, and have wonderfully retentive memories; some among them—notably Hungarians—have attained eminence as composers, and in our own land one may find really good Romany performers on the violin, harp, cornet, etc., although from lack of education gypsy music is more frequently of the country ball or dancing booth order.
A genius for dancing would appear to be inherited by the Romany chi, as most of the girls, even the veriest children, revel in it, while many of the young women are most graceful exponents of the “poetry of motion” and not only cultivate the art as a source of income, but in their exuberant health and spirits, seemingly indulge in it from sheer inability to restrain themselves; certainly some of their dances appear to be such as only a gypsy, with her physique and temperament, can accomplish, but in this respect the palm would probably be awarded to the gypsies of Spain.
Pliant of body and lithe of limb is the gypsy, but it is a grave mistake—and one which many benevolent people have made—to suppose that he has no strength of mind, and that he will readily accommodate himself to forms and conditions of life which are diametrically opposed to those in which he was nurtured, and which for centuries have characterized his race.