The foregoing is a very curious criticism; and although I could say a great deal more about it, I refrain from doing so.
[258] This Spanish Gipsy is reported by Mr. Borrow to have said: “She, however, remembered her blood, and hated my father, and taught me to hate him likewise. When a boy, I used to stroll about the plain, that I might not see my father; and my father would follow me, and beg me to look upon him, and would ask me what I wanted; and I would reply, ‘Father, the only thing I want is to see you dead!’”
This is certainly an extreme instance of the result of the prejudice against the Gipsy race; and no opinion can be formed upon it, without knowing some of the circumstances connected with the feelings of the father, or his relations, toward the mother and the Gipsy race generally. This Gipsy woman seems to have been well brought up by her protector and husband; for she taught her child Gipsy from a MS., and procured a teacher to instruct him in Latin. There are many reflections to be drawn from the circumstances connected with this Spanish Gipsy family, but they do not seem to have occurred to Mr. Borrow.
[259] It is claimed, by some Scottish Gipsies, that there are full-blood Gipsies at Yetholm, but I do not believe it. This, I may venture to say, that there can be no certainty, but, on the contrary, great doubt, on the subject. But, after all, what is a pure Gipsy? Was the race pure when it entered Scotland, or even Europe? The idea is perfectly arbitrary.
[260] It would be interesting to know where these writers got such ideas about the purity of the Gipsy blood. It certainly was not from Mr. Borrow’s account of the Gipsies in Spain, whatever they may have inferred from that work.
[261] An instance of this kind of shuffling is given by Mr. Borrow, in the tenth chapter of the “Romany Rye,” in the person of Ursula, a full or nearly full-blood Gipsy. She confines the crossing of the blood to such instances as when a Gipsy dies and leaves his children to be provided for by “gorgios, trampers, and basket-makers, who live in caravans;” but she says, “I hate to talk of the matter.” When Mr. Borrow asked her, if a Gipsy woman, unless compelled by hard necessity, would have anything to do with a gorgio, she replied, “We are not over-fond of gorgios, and we hate basket-makers and folks that live in caravans.” Here she makes a very important distinction between gorgios, (native English,) and basket-makers and folks that live in caravans, (mixed Gipsies.) She does not deny that a Gipsy woman will intermarry with a native under certain circumstances. A pretty-pure Gipsy, when angry, will very readily call a mixed Gipsy a gorgio, or, indeed, by any other name.
[262] Grellmann evidently alludes to Gipsies of mixed blood, when he writes in the following manner: “Experience shows that the dark colour of the Gipsies, which is continued from generation to generation, is more the effect of education and manner of life than descent. Among those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the imperial army, where they have learned to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their colour.” For my part, I cannot say that such language is applicable to full-blood Gipsies. Still, the change from tented to settled and tidy Gipsydom is apt to show its effects in modifying the complexion of such Gipsies, and to a much greater degree in their descendants.
[263] Mr. Offor, editor of a late edition of Bunyan’s works, writes, in “Notes and Queries,” thus: “I have avoided much intercourse with this class, fearing the fate of Mr. Hoyland, who, being a Quaker, was shot by one of Cupid’s darts from a black-eyed Gipsy girl; and J. S. may do well to be cautious.” Mr. Offor is not far wrong. A Gipsy girl can sometimes fascinate a “white fellow,” as a snake can a bird—make him flutter, and particularly so, should the “little Gipsy” be met with in some such dress as black silks and a white polka. This much can be said of Gipsy women, which cannot be said of all women, that they know their places, and are not apt to usurp the rights of the rajahs; they will even “work the nails off their fingers” to make them feel comfortable.
I should conclude, from what Mr. Offor says, that the Quaker married the Gipsy girl. If children were born of the union, they will be Gipsy-Quakers, or Quaker-Gipsies, whichever expression we choose to adopt.