Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/167

 142 GIPSIES.

sustained brilliance, revealed preparations for their nightly repast. Children, with wild elf-locks, appeared and vanished. One or two of the young females, who came more distinctly within the range of our vision, exhibited striking features, and some of those graceful movements which Nature teaches.

The number of this singular people is not great in England, though it is difficult correctly to compute it, from their roving and scarcely tangible modes of exist ence. The men are sometimes seen vigorously labor ing among the hay-makers and hop-gatherers, in the counties of Surry and Kent.

Henry the Eighth, during whose reign the gipsies first appeared in Great Britain, enacted severe laws against them as vagrants, which were enforced by Elizabeth and Anne. In Scotland, they were in early times treated with more mildness, and the gude-wife, who gave them a night s hospitality, was often pleased to find that they remembered her afterwards by some slight gift, perhaps a horn spoon for her child. In the construction of this article, and of simple baskets, they are skilful, and likewise officiate as tinkers and rude musicians. Pilfering and palmistry are said to be indigenous among them ; yet, like our aboriginal Amer icans, they have some strong traits of character, sus ceptibilities both of revenge and of gratitude. Though their race have been for ages regarded with contempt or indifference, there have always been individuals to extend to them pity or kindness, and within the last twenty or thirty years, a few Christian philanthropists

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