THE ORIGIN OF GYPSIES.

Grey River Argus, 24 April 1911, Page 1

THE ORIGIN OF GYPSIES.

I In the fifteenth century a new and undesirable element made its appearance in. the lower stratum of . English society, to swell the already overcrowded ranks of thriftless wanderers. These were bands of nomads, having no regular means of subsistence, who came to be known a's gypsies. The name gipsy, being a corruption of "Egyptian," assumes that Egypt was the original home of those straage people, as was widely believed when the}*- made their first appearance in Europe early in the fifteenth century. This, however, was a mistake, of which their language leaves no doubt, proclaiming as it does that they are wanderers from a more ' distant East, an outcast tribe from Hindustan. The French made a similar error in calling them Bohemians, imagining ithe3 r were expelled Hussites of Bohemia. In different countries they obtained different names for themselves; as Gitanos in Spain, Zingari in Italy, and Pharaohnepak (Pharaoah's people) in Hungary, although they called themselves Sinte, asserting that they came from Sind — that' is, Ind or Hindustan. Notwithstanding their intercourse with other nations, their manners, customs, visage, and appearance have remained distinctive for centuries : and in this country their pretended knowledge of futurity has given them ron si3era.ble power over the ignorant and superstitions. The b"older and more heroir.nl spirits of Elizabeth's time who "spurned the base merßanical .arts" found outlets for ).more honourable employment in life ■^beyond the se'as—4he ! wild and profligate, perhaps, in seeking adventures in the Spanish Main. But the less adventurous, and perhaps the more' unimaginative, to whom regular labour was equally ""irksome, instead of joining themselves to searovers went out of the towns and villages to the wealds and heaths: they discoloured their skinsi, gave . an Oriental fashion to their fagged apparel, learned the gypsy dialect, and pu!: on the gypsy nature of cheating and pilfering. — F. W. Hackwood in "TTie Good Old Times."