It doubtless holds in Spain, as in Great Britain, that as the Gipsy enters into settled life, and engages in a respectable calling, he hides his descent, and even mixes his blood with that of the country, and becomes ashamed of the name before the public; but is as much, at heart, a Gipsy, as any others of his race. And this theory is borne out by Mr. Borrow himself, when he speaks of “the unwillingness of the Spanish Gipsies to utter, when speaking of themselves, the detested expression Gitano; a word which seldom escapes their mouths.” We might therefore conclude, that the Spanish Gipsies, with the exception of the more original and bigoted stock, would hide their nationality from the common Spaniards, and so escape their notice. It is not at all likely that the half-pay Gipsy captain would mention to the public that he was a Gipsy, although he admitted it to Mr. Borrow, under the peculiar circumstances in which he met him. My Spanish acquaintance informs me that the Gitanos, generally, hide their nationality from the rest of the world.
Such a case is evidently told by Mr. Borrow, in the vagabond Gipsy, Antonio, at Badajoz, who termed a rich Gipsy, living in the same town, a hog, because he evidently would not countenance him. Antonio may possibly have been kicked out of his house, in attempting to enter it. He accused him of having married a Spaniard, and of fain attempting to pass himself for a Spaniard. As regards the wife, she might have been a Gipsy with very little of “the blood” in her veins; or a Spaniard, reared by Gipsies; or an ordinary Spanish maiden, to whom the Gipsy would teach his language, as sometimes happens among the English Gipsies. His wishing to pass for a Spaniard had nothing to do with his being, but not wishing to be known as, a Gipsy. The same is done by almost all our Scottish Gipsies. In England, those who do not follow the tent—I mean the more mixed and better-class—are even afraid of each other. “Afraid of what?” said I, to such an English Gipsy; “ashamed of being Gipsies?” “No, sir,” (with great emphasis;) “not ashamed of being Gipsies, but of being known to other people as Gipsies.” “A world of difference,” I replied. What does the world hold to be a Gipsy, and what does it hold to be the feelings of a man? If we consider these two questions, we can have little difficulty in understanding the wish of such Gipsies to disguise themselves. It is in this way, and in the mixing of the blood, that this so-called “dying out of the Gipsies” is to be accounted for.[271]
It is singular that Mr. Borrow should attribute the change which has come over the Spanish Gipsies, so much to the law passed by Charles III. in 1783; and that he should characterize it as an enlightened, wise, and liberal law; distinguished by justice and clemency; and as being calculated to exert considerable influence over the destiny of the race; nay, as being the principal, if not the only, cause for the “decline” of it in Spain. It was headed: “Rules for repressing and chastising the vagrant mode of life, and other excesses, of those who are called Gitanos.” Article II. forbids, under penalties, the Gipsies “using their language, dress, or vagrant kind of life, which they had hitherto followed.” Article XI. prohibits them from “wandering about the roads and uninhabited places, even with the pretext of visiting markets and fairs.” Article IX. reads thus: “Those who have abandoned the dress, name, language or jargon, associations and manners of Gitanos, and shall have, moreover, chosen and established a domicile, but shall not have devoted themselves to any office or employment, though it be only that of day-labourer, shall be proceeded against as common vagrants.” Articles XVI. and XVII. enact, that “the children, and young people of both sexes, who are not above sixteen years of age, shall be separated from their parents, who wander about and have no employment, [which was forbidden by the law itself,] and shall be destined to learn something, or shall be placed out in hospices or houses of instruction.” Article XX. dooms to death, without remission, Gipsies who, for the second time, relapse into their old habits.
I cannot agree with Mr. Borrow, when he says, that this law “differs in character” from any which had hitherto been enacted, in connection with the body in Spain, if I take those preceding it, as given by himself. The only difference between it and some of the previous laws is, that it allowed the Gipsy to be admitted to whatever office or employment to which he might apply himself, and likewise to any guilds or communities; but it prohibited him from settling in the capital, or any of the royal residences; and forbade him, on pain of death, to publicly profess what he was—that is, a Gipsy. With the trifling exceptions mentioned, the law of Charles III. was as foolish a one as ever was passed against the Gipsies. These very exceptions show what the letter, whatever the execution, of previous laws must have been. Nor can we form any opinion as to the effects the law in question had upon the Gipsies, unless we know how it was carried out. The law of the Empress Maria Theresa produced no effect upon the Gipsies in Hungary. “In Hungary,” says Mr. Borrow, “two classes are free to do what they please—the nobility and the Gipsies—the one above the law, the other below it.” And what did Mr. Borrow find the Gipsies in Hungary? In England, the last instances of condemnation, under the old sanguinary laws, happened a few years before the Restoration, although these were not repealed till 23d Geo. III., c. 54. The Gipsies in England can follow any employment, common to the ordinary natives, they please: and how has Mr. Borrow described them there? In Scotland, the tribe have been allowed to do nothing, not even acknowledge their existence, as Gipsies: and this work describes what they are in that country.
Instead of the law of Charles III. exercising any great beneficial influence over the character of the Spanish Gipsies, I would attribute the change in question to what Mr. Borrow himself says: “It must be remembered that during the last seventy years, a revolution has been progressing in Spain, slowly it is true; and such a revolution may have affected the Gitanos.” The Spanish Gipsy proverb, “Money is to be found in the town, not in the country,” has had its influence on bringing the race to settle in towns. And by residing in towns, and not being persecuted, they have, in Mr. Borrow’s own words, “insensibly become more civilized than their ancestors, and their habits and manners less ferocious.” The only good which the law of Charles III. seems to have done to the Spanish Gipsies was, as already said, to permit them to follow any occupation, and be admitted to any guilds, or communities, (barring the capital, and royal residences,) they pleased; but only on the condition, and that on the pain of death, that they renounced every imaginable thing connected with their tribe; which, we may reasonably assume, no Gipsy submitted to, however much in appearance he might have done so.
But it is doubtful if the law of Charles III. was anything but the one which it was customary for every Spanish monarch to issue against the tribe. Mr. Borrow says: “Perhaps there is no country in which more laws have been framed, having in view the suppression and extinction of the Gipsy name, race, and manner of life, than Spain. Every monarch, during a period of three hundred years, appears, at his accession to the throne, to have considered that one of his first and most imperative duties consisted in suppressing and checking the robberies, frauds, and other enormities of the Gitanos, with which the whole country seems to have resounded since the time of their first appearance.” The fact of so many laws being passed against the Gipsies, is, to my mind, ample proof, as I shall afterwards explain, that few, if any, of them were put, to any extent, in force; and that the act in question, viewed in itself, as distinct from the laws previously in existence, was little more than a form. It contains a flourish of liberality, implied in the Gitanos being allowed to enter, if they pleased, any guilds, (which they were not likely to do,) or communities, (where they were doubtless already;) but it debars, (that is, expels,) them from the king’s presence, at the capital or any of the royal residences. Moreover, it allowed the Gitano to be “admitted to whatever office or employment to which he might apply himself,” (against which, there probably was, or should have been, no law in existence.) His majesty must also impose his pragmatical conceit upon his loyal subjects, by telling them, that “Gitanos are not Gitanos”—that they “do not proceed from any infected root;” and threaten them, that if they maintain the contrary, and call them Gitanos, he will have them punished for slander!
The Gipsies, after a residence of 350 years in the country, would have comparatively little notice taken of them, under this law, except when they made themselves really obnoxious, or gave an official an occasion to display his authority, or his zeal for the public service.[272] Whatever may have been the treatment which the Gipsies experienced at the hands of the civil authorities, the church does not seem to have disturbed, and far less distressed, them. Mr. Borrow represents a priest of Cordova, formerly an Inquisitor, saying to him: “I am not aware of one case of a Gitano having been tried or punished by the Inquisition. The Inquisition always looked upon them with too much contempt, to give itself the slightest trouble concerning them; for, as no danger, either to the State or to the Church of Rome, could proceed from the Gitanos, it was a matter of perfect indifference to the holy office whether they lived without religion or not. The holy office has always reserved its anger for people very different; the Gitano having, at all times, been Gente barrata y despreciable.”
Should the Spanish Gipsies not now assist each other, to the extent they did when banditti, under the special proscription of the Government, it would be absurd to say that they were therefore not as much Gipsies as ever they were. The change in this respect arose, to some extent, from the toleration extended to them, as a people and as individuals, whether by the law, or society in general. Such Gipsies as Mr. Borrow seems to have associated with, in Spain, were not likely to be very reliable authority on the questions at issue; for he has described them as “being endowed with a kind of instinct, (in lieu of reason,) which assists them to a very limited extent, and no further.”
Might it not be in Spain as in Great Britain? Even in England, those that pass for Gipsies are few in number, compared to the mixed Gipsies, following various occupations; for a large part of the Gipsy blood in England has, as it were, been spread over a large surface of the white. In Scotland it is almost altogether so. There seems considerable reason for believing that Gipsydom is, perhaps, as much mixed in Spain as in Great Britain, although Mr. Borrow has taken no notice of it. We have seen, ([page 92.]) how severe an enactment was passed by Queen Elizabeth, against “any person, whether natural born or stranger, to be seen in the fellowship of the Gipsies, or disguised like them.” In the law of Ferdinand and Isabella, the first passed against the Gipsies, in Spain, a class of people is mentioned, in conjunction with them, but distinguished from them, by the name of “foreign tinkers.” Philip III., at Belan, in Portugal, in 1619, commands all Gipsies to quit the kingdom within six months. “Those who should wish to remain are to establish themselves in cities, and are not to be allowed to use the dress, name, and language, in order, that forasmuch as they are not such by nation,(!) this name, and manner of life, may be for evermore confounded and forgotten(!)” Philip IV., on the 8th May, 1633, declares “that they are not Gipsies by origin or nature, but have adopted this form of life(!)” This idea of “Gitanos not being Gitanos, and not proceeding from any infected root,” was not original with Charles III., in 1783; his proclamation having been in formal keeping with previous ones, whether of his own country, or, as in Scotland, in 1603, “recommended by the example of some other realm,” ([page 111].) There had evidently been a great curiosity to know who some of the “not Gipsies by origin and nature,” (evidently judging from their appearance,) could be; for Philip IV. enacts, “that they shall, within two months, leave the quarters where now they live with the denomination of Gitanos, and that they shall separate from each other, and mingle with the other inhabitants: that the ministers of justice are to observe, with particular diligence, whether they hold communication with each other, or marry among themselves.”
The “foreign tinkers” mentioned in the Act of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the individuals distinguished from the Gipsies in that of Queen Elizabeth, were doubtless mixed Gipsies; whose relationship with the Gipsies proper, and isolation from the common natives, are very distinctly pointed out in the above extract from the law of Philip IV. Mr. Borrow expresses a great difficulty to understand who these people could be, if not Gipsies. How easy it is to get quit of the difficulty, by concluding that they were Gipsies whose blood, perhaps for the most part, was native; and who had been brought into the body in the manner explained in the [Preface] to this work, and more fully illustrated in this [Disquisition]. If Mr. Borrow found in Spain a half-pay captain, in the service of Donna Isabel, with flaxen hair, a thorough Gipsy, who spoke Gipsy and Latin, with great fluency, and his cousin, Jara, in all probability another Gipsy, what difficulty can there be in believing, that the “foreign tinkers,” or tinkers of any kind, now to be met with in Spain, are, like the same class in Great Britain and Ireland, Gipsies of mixed blood? Indeed, the young Spaniard, to whom I have alluded, informs me that the Gipsies in Spain are very much mixed. Mr. Borrow himself admits that the Gipsy blood in Spain has been mixed; for, in speaking of the old Gipsy counts, he says: “It was the counts who determined what individuals were to be admitted into the fellowship and privileges of the Gitanos. . . . . They (the Gipsies) were not to teach the language to any but those who, by birth or inauguration, belonged to that sect.” And he gives a case in point, in the bookseller of Logrono, who was married to the only daughter of a Gitano count; upon whose death, the daughter and son-in-law succeeded to the authority which he had exercised in the tribe. If the Gipsies in Spain were not mixed in point of blood, why should they have taken Mr. Borrow for a Gipsy, as he said they did? The persecutions to which the race in Spain were subjected were calculated to lead to a mixture of the blood, as in Scotland, for the reasons given in the [Preface]; but, perhaps, not to the same extent; as the Spanish Acts seem to have given the tribe an opportunity of escape, under the condition of settling, &c., &c., which would probably be complied with, nominally, for the time being; while the face of part of the country would afford a refuge till the storm had blown over. (See [pages 71] and [114].)