kind. The anvil is a stone; the other implements are a pair of hand bellows, a hammer, a pair of pincers, a vice, and a file. These ape the tools which a Nomadic Gypsey takes with him in his perambulations.
Whenever he is disposed to work, he is at no loss for fuel: on his arrival at a station where he proposes to remain a few days, he takes his beast, loads him with wood, builds a small kiln, and prepares his own coal. In favourable weather, his work is carried on in the open air; when it is stormy, he retires under his tent. He does not stand, but sits down on the ground cross-legged to his work; which position is rendered necessary, not only by custom, but by the quality of his tools. The wife sits by to work the bellows, in which operation she is assisted by the elder children. The Gypsies are generally praised for their dexterity and quickness, notwithstanding the bad tools they have to work with.
Another branch of commerce much followed by Gypsies, is horse-dealing, to which they have been attached from the earliest period of their
history. In those parts of Hungary, where the climate is so mild, that horses may lie out all the year, the Gypsies avail themselves of this circumstance to breed, as well as to deal in horses; by which they sometimes not only procure a competency, but grew rich. Instances have been known on the Continent, of gypsies keeping from fifty to seventy horses each; and those the best bred horses of the country; some of which they let out for hire, others they exchange or sell. But this description of Gypsey horse-dealers is not numerous; the greater number of them deal in inferior kinds.
In addition to the two professions before-mentioned, commonly followed by the men, some of them employ themselves as carpenters and turners; the former making watering troughs and chests; the latter turn, trenchers and dishes; make sieves, spoons, and other trifling articles, which they hawk about. Many of them, as well as the smiths, find constant employment in the houses of the better sort of people; for whom they work the year round.
They are not paid in money, but beside other advantages find a certain subsistence.
Those who are not thus circumstanced, do not wait at home for customers, but with their implements in a sack thrown over their shoulders, seek business in the cities and villages. When any one calls, they throw down the bundle, and prepare the apparatus for work, before the door of their employer.
The Gypsies have a fixed dislike to agriculture; and had rather suffer hunger, or any privation, than follow the plough. Since the year 1768, the Empress Theresa has commanded that the Hungarian, and Transylvanian Gypsies should be instructed in husbandry; but these orders have been very little regarded. At this time there are so few of them farmers in those parts, that they are undeserving of notice. In Spain and other European countries, it would be difficult to find one who had ever made a furrow in his life.
Respecting fortune-telling, with which the female Gypsies impose on people’s credulity in every district and corner of Europe, the origin,
of the imposition is not to be attributed to them: the cheat was known and practised in Europe before their arrival; being deeply rooted in the ignorance of the middle age. The science of divination here was said to be already brought to a greater degree of perfection than among them. Rules were invented to tell lies from the inspection of the hand, in which the poor Gypsies were accounted mere bunglers. They in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were esteemed supernumeraries; there being men of great learning, who not only read lectures in Colleges on the art of chiromancy; but wrote many books, vilifying these people, and endeavouring to spoil their market. But these wise men are no more; their knowledge is deposited in the dead archives of literature; and probably had there been no Gypsies, with them would have died the belief in chiromancy, as is the case with respect to astrology, necromancy, oneirocritica, and the other offspring of imbecile fancy.