The Gipsies Advocate | Page 9

the
overseers ten pounds, declaring that, if that sum were not given them,
they would remain there. Seven pounds were advanced, and they soon
left the place.

CHAP. III. The Character, Manners and Habits of the English Gipsies,
continued.
From the mode of living among the Gipsies, the parents are often
necessitated to leave their tents in the morning, and seldom return to
them before night. Their children are then left in or about their solitary
camps, having many times no adult with them; the elder children then

have the care of the younger. Those who are old enough gather wood
for fuel; nor is stealing it thought a crime. By the culpable neglect of
the parents in this respect, the children are often exposed to accidents
by fire; and melancholy instances of children being burnt and scalded
to death, are not unfrequent. The author knows one poor woman, two of
whose children have thus lost their lives, during her absence from her
tent, at different periods: and very lately a child was scalded to death in
the parish where the author writes.
The Gipsies are not very regular in attending to the calls of appetite and
hunger. Their principal meal is supper, and their food is supplied in
proportion to the success they have had through the day; or, to use their
own words, the luck they have met with.
Like the poor of the land through which they wander, they are fond of
tea, drinking it at every meal. When times are hard with them, they use
English herbs, of which they generally carry a stock, such as agrimony,
ground-ivy, wild mint, and the root of a herb called spice-herb.
The trades they follow are generally chair-mending, knife-grinding,
tinkering, and basket-making, the wood for which they mostly steal.
Some of them sell hardware, brushes, corks, &c.; but in general, neither
old nor young among them, do much that can be called labour. And it is
lamentable that the greatest part of the little they do earn, is laid by to
spend at their festivals; for like many tribes of uncivilized Indians, they
mostly make their women support their families, who generally do it by
swindling and fortune-telling. Their baskets introduce them to the
servants of families, of whom they beg victuals, to whom they sell
trifling wares, and tell their fortunes, which indeed is their principal
aim, as it is their greatest source of gain. They have been awkwardly
fixed, both servants and the Gipsy fortune-teller, when the lady of the
house has unexpectedly gone into the kitchen and surprised them while
thus employed; and sometimes, to avoid detection, the obnoxious party
has been hurried into a closet, or butler's pantry, where there has been
much plate. Few are aware of the losses that have attended the conduct
of unprincipled servants in this, as in other respects. It may be hoped
that few families would knowingly look over conduct so improper, so

dangerous.
Many of these idle soothsayers endeavour to persuade the people whom
they delude, that the power to foretell future events, is granted to them
from heaven, to enable them to get bread for their families. It would be
well were the prognostications of these women encouraged only among
servants; but this is not the case. They are often invited into gay and
fashionable circles, whom they amuse, if, by the information possessed
by the parties, they are not cunning enough to deceive. They are well
paid, and are thus encouraged in their iniquity by those who ought to
know, and teach them better. But it is astonishing how many
respectable people are led away with the artful flattery of such visitors.
They forget that the Gipsy fortune-teller has often made herself
acquainted with their connexions, business, and future prospects, and
consider not that God commits not his secrets to the wicked and
profane. They use not the reason heaven has given them, and are
therefore more easily led astray by these crafty deceivers.
They generally prophesy good. Knowing the readiest way to deceive, to
a young lady they describe a handsome gentleman, as one she may be
assured will be her "husband." To a youth they promise a pretty lady,
with a large fortune. And thus suiting their deluding speeches to the age,
circumstances, anticipations and prospects of those who employ them,
they seldom fail to please their vanity, and often gain a rich reward for
their fraud.
They suit their incantations, or their pretended means of gaining
knowledge, to their employers. Two female servants went into the
camp of some Gipsies near Southampton, to have their fortunes told by
one well known to the author, and a great professor of the art. On
observing them to appear like persons in service, she said to a