Amongst all peoples, examples of deformed humanity are occasionally brought into the world; but the proportion of such among true gypsies would appear to be small, and while Romany folk are notably quick, keen-witted and brainy, I have not observed—even among the very small proportion of deformed—that the idiocy, goitre, or other characteristic features of cretinism exist to any marked degree.
METHOD OF CARRYING BABY AND BASKET.
Formerly, it was a rigid Romany law that no gypsy should marry outside the race, therefore imaginative writers with little or no inner knowledge of the people, have jumped to the conclusion that gypsies must of necessity suffer from consanguineous marriage. It is true that Romany cousins occasionally contract marriage, but it must be borne in mind that this marriage of cousins occurs to a much greater extent among the rest of our population, and a knowledge of the subject generally forces on one the opinion that consanguineous marriages are not proportionately more frequent among gypsies than English people in general.
It is quite natural that a gypsy should prefer as a partner for life one of his own race, and as it has been estimated that there are some twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand gypsies in this country, and it is a fact that the greater number of gypsies do not marry those related to them, even distantly, one can but characterize any disparagement of the gypsy in this direction as an unchristian endeavour to incite public feeling against him.
Referring to the custom of gypsies marrying only those of their own race, matters are not quite as they were formerly, although in some tribes still the marrying of a Gentile by one of its members is sufficient to deprive the offender of all intimate intercourse with the remainder of the family, but in this respect, the possession by the interloper of a liberal share of this world’s goods may make much difference, for a wealthy Gentile is not always so heartily despised by the Romanies as they would have one believe; in bygone times even members of the peerage have led to the altar dusky brides from the gypsy tent.
The complexion of different tribes of gypsies varies very much,—from a light olive to a decided walnut brown. I know one family of which all the members are “almost black” in the popular sense of the term. I have been informed that “the last of the real old black gypsies” was buried at a family burial-place called Mousehold, near Norwich, many years since. If, however, the individual then laid to rest was of darker complexion than the members of several families of my acquaintance, then he or she was undoubtedly “some black,” as our American friends would have it.
Of the “black” gypsies to whom I have referred, one of the families can boast of having had, not many years since, two of their number who bore the titles of Gypsy King and Queen. Unfortunately, the appellations yielded no emolument, and it is to be feared if the King had been caught using a rabbit net, the magistrate would have had so little respect for the title that he would have imposed on his majesty the same sentence as on a common poacher.