Verily our men of rank and fortune are guilty in encouraging these shocking practices; and they are little better than murderers, who goad their fellow-men on to fight by the offer of money. Such persons are frequently instruments of sending sinners, the most unprepared, into the presence of a righteous God. What an account will they have to give when they meet the victims of their amusement at the bar of Christ!
The Gipsies often fight with each other at fairs, and
other places where they meet in great numbers. This is their way of settling old grudges; but so soon as one yields, the quarrel is made up, and they repair to a public house to renew their friendship. This forgiving spirit is a pleasing trait in their character.
CHAP. V. Further Account of the English Gipsies.
It has been the lot of Gipsies in all countries to be despised, persecuted, hated, and have the vilest things said about them. In many cases they have too much merited the odium which they have experienced in continental Europe; but certainly they are not deserving of universal and unqualified contempt and hatred in this nation. The dislike they have to rule and order has led many of them to maim themselves by cutting off a finger, that they might not serve in either the army or the navy: and I believe there is one instance known, of some Gipsies murdering a witness who was to appear against some of their people for horse-stealing: the persons who were guilty of the deed have been summoned to the bar of Christ, and in their last moments exclaimed with horror and despair, “Murder, murder.” But these circumstances do not stamp their race without exception as infamous monsters in wickedness. Not many years since several of their men were hung in different places for stealing fourteen horses near Bristol, who experienced the truth of that scripture, be sure your sins will find you out. Indeed there is not a family among them that has not to mourn over the loss of some relative for
the commission of this crime. But even in this respect their guilt has been much over-rated; for in many cases it is to be feared they have suffered innocently. There was formerly a reward of 40l to those who gave information of offenders, on their being capitally convicted. Those of the lower orders, therefore, who were destitute of principle, had a great temptation before them to swear falsely in reference to Gipsies; and of which it is known they sometimes availed themselves, knowing that few would befriend them. For the sake of the above sum, vulgarly, but too justly called blood-money, they perjured themselves, and were much more wicked than the people they accused. But the Gipsies were thought to be universally depraved, and no one thought it worth his while to investigate their innocence. Let us be thankful that many at the present day look upon them with better feelings.
Very lately one of these vile informers swore to having seen a Gipsy man on a horse that had been stolen; and although it came out on the trial, that it was night when he observed him, and that he had never seen him before, which ought to have rendered his evidence invalid, the prisoner was convicted and condemned to die. His life was afterwards spared by other facts having been discovered and made known to the judge, after he had left the city.
The Gipsies in this country have for centuries been accused of child-stealing; and therefore it is not to be wondered at, that, when children have been missing, the Gipsies should be taxed with having stolen them.
About thirty years since, some parents who had lost a child, applied to a man at Portsmouth, well known in those days, by the name of Payne, or Pine, as an astrologer, wishing to know from him what was become of it. He told them to search the Gipsy tents for twenty miles round. The distressed parents employed constables, who made diligent search in every direction to that distance, but to no purpose; the child was not to be found in their camps. It was however soon afterwards discovered, drowned in one of its father’s pits, who was a tanner. Thus was this pretended astrologer exposed to the ridicule of those who but a short time before foolishly looked on him as an oracle.
On another occasion the same accusation was brought against the Gipsies, and proved to be false. The child of a widow at Portsmouth was lost, and after every search was made on board the ships in the harbour, and at Spithead, and the ponds dragged in the neighbourhood, to no effect, it was concluded that the Gipsies had stolen him. The boy was found a few years afterwards, at Kingston-upon-Thames, apprenticed to a chimney sweeper. He had been enticed away by a person who had given him sweet-meats; but not by a Gipsy.