her witnesses, she succeeded in obtaining them. They had no sooner made their appearance than the accuser and his witnesses fled, and left the donkey to the right owner, the poor, accused and injured woman.
It cannot be expected that oppression will ever reform this people, or cure them of their wandering habits. Far more likely is it to confirm them in their vagrant propensities. And as their numbers do not decrease, oppression will only render them the dread of one part of their fellow-creatures, while it will make them the objects of scorn and obloquy to others.
It is the earnest wish of the author that milder measures may be pursued in reference to the Gipsies. To endeavour to improve their morals, and instruct them in the principles of religion, will, under the divine blessing, turn to better account than the hateful and oppressive policy so long adopted.
CHAP. VI. Further Account of the English Gipsies.
Many persons are of opinion in reference to the Gipsies, that, if all the parishes were alike severe in forcing them from their retreats, they would soon find their way into towns. But if this were the case, what advantage would they derive from it? In large towns, in their present ignorant and depraved state, would they not be still more wicked? They would change their condition only from bad to worse, unless they were treated better than they now are, and could be properly employed; but from the prejudice that exists among all classes of men against them, this is not likely to be the case: they would not be employed by any, while other persons could be got. At a hop plantation, so lately as 1830, Gipsies were not allowed to pick hops in some grounds, while persons as unsettled and undeserving, were engaged for that purpose. Had this been a parochial arrangement to benefit the poor of their own neighbourhood, who were out of employ, it were not blameable.
If they were driven to settle in towns, and could not, generally speaking, obtain employment, it might soon become necessary to remove all their children to their own parishes; a measure not only very unhappy
in itself, but one to which the Gipsies would never submit. Sooner would they die than suffer their children to go to the parish workhouses.
The severe and unchristian-like treatment they meet with from many, only obliges them to travel further, and often drives them to commit greater depredations. When driven by the constables from their station, they retire to a more solitary place in another parish, and there remain till they are again detected, and again mercilessly driven away. But this severity does not accomplish the end it has in view; their numbers remain the same, and they retain the same dislike to the crowded haunts of man. For they only visit towns in small parties, offering trifling wares for sale, or telling fortunes; and this is done to gain a present support.
In this neighbourhood there was lately a sweeping of the commons and lanes of the Gipsy families. Their horses and donkeys were driven off, and the sum of £3 5s levied on them as a fine to pay the constables for thus afflicting them. In one tent during this distressing affair, there was found an unburied child, that had been scalded to death, its parents not having money to defray the expenses of its interment. The constables declared that it would make any heart ache to see the anguish the poor people were in, when thus inhumanly driven from their resting places; but, said they, We were obliged to do our duty. To the credit of these men, thirteen in number, it should be mentioned, that, with only one exception, they returned the
fines to the people; and one of them, who is a carpenter, offered a coffin for the unburied child, should the parish be unwilling to bury it.