15, 16, & 17. When among strangers, they elude inquiries respecting their peculiar language, calling it gibberish. Don’t know of any person that can write it, or of any written specimen of it.
18. Their habits and customs in all places are peculiar.
19. Those who profess any religion, represent it to be that of the country in which they reside: but their description of it, seldom goes
beyond repeating the Lord’s prayer; and only a few of them are capable of that. Instances of their attending any place for warship are very rare.
20. They marry for the most part by pledging to each other, without any ceremony. A few exceptions have occurred when money was plentiful.
21. They do not teach their children religion.
22 & 23. Not one in a thousand can read.
24 & 25. Some go into lodgings in London, Cambridge, &c. during winter; but it is calculated three-fourths of them live out of doors in winter, as in summer.
Most of the answers are confirmed by Riley Smith, who, during many years, was accounted the chief of the Gypsies in Northamptonshire. He being much in request by some of the principal inhabitants of that county, as a musician, had the address to marry the cook out of one of their families, and afterward obtained a farm near Bedford; but being unsuccessful in agriculture, he returned to his former occupation.
John Forster and William Carrington, respectable merchants of Biggleswade, and neighbours to Riley Smith, procured answers from him to all the queries in the Circular; but they cannot be made the basis of any calculation of the number of Gypsies in the nation.