Some of the peculiarities in Gypsey habits to which we have just now adverted, had not escaped the observation of that accurate delineator of men and manners, our celebrated poet, Cowper; as will appear by the following sketch:
“I see a column of slow rising smoke,
O’er-top the lofty wood, that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe, there eat
Their miserable meal. A Kettle
Slung between two poles, upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morsel: flesh obscene of hog,
Or vermin; or, at best, of cock purloined
From his accustom’d perch. Hard faring race,
They pick their fuel out of every hedge,
Which kindled with dry leaves, and wood, just saves
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawney skin,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.”
Before the Gypsey’s acknowledgment, of preferring the flesh of animals which have died by disease, or what is called a natural death, the writer of this section, knew not how to credit the general testimony of the farmers and inhabitants of Northamptonshire, that they did not find the Gypsies committed any depredations on their property, unless it was in pilfering wood from the fences. He now thinks it probable, that others, who were unacquainted with this singular idea of the Gypsies, respecting animal food, may have imagined they were guilty of many more thefts for subsistence, than is really the case.
In the further progress of his inquiries, the writer has met with various instances in which confidence reposed in Gypsies, has not been disappointed.—He will mention a remarkable one at Feringbury, near Coggeshall, in Essex, on a farm which had been occupied by three generations of the family of Corders; during which time, not the least loss had been sustained, by accommodating Gypsies with lodgings in their barns and out-houses during
inclement weather; but, on the contrary, the family have considered them a protection to their property.
After the success of an experiment like the above, it would be superfluous to ask, if it is not sounder policy to excite the good, than the bad dispositions of human nature.
Must not the torrent of invective and abuse, almost universally poured upon this people, tend to disaffect and indispose them to civil association! Despised and ill-treated as they often are, have they not reason to imagine the hand of every man to be against them? Who then can wonder at their eluding, as much as possible, the inquiries of strangers!
Looking at their condition among the various inhabitants of Europe, dignified with the Christian name, the writer has often been reminded of the universality of the Gospel call, as illustrated in the parable of the great supper. After the invitation had been given throughout the streets and lanes of the cities, the command to the servants was: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.”
Here is a description that may have been intended specially to apply to this people, so exactly and even literally adapted to their condition, in all countries, is the language: “Go ye into the highways and hedges.” And the distinction in their case is rendered still more remarkable by the very pressing injunction, “Compel them to come in.”
Does it not admit of the inference, that as outcasts of society, being under greater disadvantages than the other incited classes, their situation requited a more powerful stimulus to be applied?