Their impositions being detected, it is probable some of them were reduced to the necessity of having recourse to legitimate means of subsistence, for within thirty years afterward, we have accounts of Gypsies in Hungary being employed in the working of iron. This occupation, appears from old writings, to have been a favourite one with them. Bellonius also takes notice of its being so; and there is a record of the Hungarian King Uladislaus, in the year 1496, cited by the Abbé Pray in his Annals; and by Friedwalsky in his Mineralogy, wherein it is ordered, “That every
officer and subject, of whatever rank and condition, do allow to Thomas Polgar, leader of twenty-five tents of wandering Gypsies, free residence every where, and on no account to molest him, or his people; because they had prepared military stores for the Bishop Sigismund at Fünfkirchen.”
grellmann.
SECTION II.
Accounts of the Gypsies in various countries.
To propose means for improving the condition of Gypsies, before we have informed ourselves of their real state, and what has been done for them, would be as injudicious, as for a Physician to prescribe for a patient, without being acquainted with the nature or extent of his disease, and the means attempted for his cure. To form a just opinion, on the case of the Gypsies, it appears necessary to ascertain their general habits, and their mode of life.
From Pasquier’s Recherches de la France, B. IV. C. 9, is selected the following account of the Gypsies in that country: “On August 17th, 1427, came to Paris, twelve Penitents, Penanciers, as they called themselves, viz: a Duke, an Earl, and ten men, all on horse-back,
and calling themselves good christians. They were of Lower Egypt, and gave out, that not long before, the Christians had subdued their country, and obliged them to embrace christianity, on pain of being put to death. Those who were baptized, were great Lords in their own country; and had a King and Queen there. Some time after their conversion, the Saracens over-ran their country, and obliged them to renounce christianity.
“When the Emperor of Germany, the King of Poland, and other Christian Princes, heard of this; they fell upon them, and obliged the whole of them, both great and small, to quit their country, and go to the Pope at Rome; who enjoined them seven years’ penance, to wander over the world, without lying in a bed. They had been wandering five years when they came to Paris; first the principal people, and soon after the commonalty, about 100, or 120, reduced from 1000, or 1200, when they came from home; the rest being dead, with their King and Queen. They were lodged by the police, out of the city, at Chapel St. Denis
“Nearly all of them had their ears bored, and one or two silver rings in each, which they said were esteemed ornaments in their country. The men were black, their hair curled; the women remarkably black, all their faces scarred, deployez, their hair black, their only clothes a large old shaggy garment, flossoye, tied over the shoulders with a cloth or cord, sash, lien, and under it a poor petticoat, roquet. In short, they were the poorest miserable creatures that had ever been seen in France; and notwithstanding their poverty, there were among them women, who by looking into people’s hands told their fortunes. And what was worse, they picked people’s pockets of their money; and got it into their own, through telling these things by art, magic, &c.