until the grave closes over the departed. All that we take in the way of food is a cup of tea, or a bit of dry bread. We pay great reverence to our dead, more so than any other race on the face of the earth. There is a custom universal among our people, namely, of refraining from some usage or indulgence in honour of the departed. What I mean is this. Suppose the deceased was addicted to drink, it is common for the deceased’s brother to never taste liquor during the remainder of his life. That will do for an example. At our wakes no whisky is drunk, and a silence deep as the grave pervades the tents.
“There is nothing peculiar about our marriages. We just go to the minister, or else get a license. I must say that
THE SHERIFF’S LICENSE
is the most popular and the least expensive.
“Fifty years ago it was deemed an unheard of thing for a royal gipsy to marry a person of another race. In fact it was treason. To-day, among the genuine gipsies, it is nothing short of a crime. I have myself experienced the effects of this inter-marrying, and I tell you that it has not been satisfactory. One of my children has gone outside of our people. I make the statement, fearless of contradiction, that our people, in the aggregate, are the most moral that you can find. Search the
CRIMINAL RECORDS OF THE CENTURY
and you will not find an instance where a gipsy has stained his hands with human blood. He may have been hung for stealing a sheep or a horse, but not for committing a murder.
“About this fortune-telling, we believe that God Almighty has endowed our people with the faculty for foretelling events, and looking into the future. Strangers, of course, will laugh at that statement, but nevertheless, we maintain that it is correct. But fortune-telling is only a small part of the gipsy equipment. We do not attach much importance to it. We are of the dusky race, whose history began “on the dawn of the world.” John Bunyan was one of our people. Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, was a gipsy, and on Christmas Day we burn an ash tree in honour of Him, because He lived and died one of us.
“No sir, I’m not one of Lord Rosebery’s vagrants. If I am, then the Christ which Lord Rosebery professes to worship was also a vagrant. He too wandered wearily over the world, and was more homeless than the wild dove, which has a nest. Good morning.