GYMNOSOPH1STS 



physical culture, and in the gym- 

 nasia the youth of Athens strove 

 to approach the ideal of finely 

 proportioned beauty as revealed 

 in marble by their famous sculptors. 

 From Greece the cult of gym- 

 nastics spread to Rome, where in 

 the Thermae or baths, to which 

 gymnasia were attached, athletic 

 exercises were practised. 



While it is true that active sports 

 of various kinds have been always 

 and universally popular, the 

 science of gymnastics proper was 

 neglected in medieval Europe, and 

 its serious revival in modern times 

 may be said to date from the dark 

 days after Jena, when Prussia 

 began Co fit herself for the final 

 struggle against Napoleon. Her 

 example was followed in later years 

 by other European countries, in- 

 cluding Great Britain, though not 

 in every case from a fixed purpose 

 of improving the national physique 



Before long two opposing theories 

 of gymnastics were developed. The 

 first, based upon German practice, 

 regarded free movements merely 

 as preliminary to the more strenu- 

 ous exercises performed with the 

 help of apparatus, such as the hori- 

 zontal bar, parallel bar, ladder and 

 rings, weights, etc., involving feats 

 of strength as well as of agility. 

 The Swedish system, on the other 

 hand, claims, and not unjustly, 

 that elaborate and costly appar- 

 atus, and, indeed, apparatus of 

 any kind, is a luxury that may be 

 dispensed with by those who de- 

 sire full and all-round bodily de- 

 velopment with the sense of 

 physical well-being which this in- 

 volves. In recent years Swedish 

 methods, with adaptations, have 

 become increasingly popular in 

 Great Britain, especially since the 

 system of training in the British 

 army has been altered in the same 

 direction with improved results on 

 the average standard of fitness 

 reached by the recruits. See Drill ; 

 Dumb-Bell ; Eurhythmies ; Indian 

 Club; Physical Training ; Swedish 

 Drill. 



Gymnosophists ( Gr. gymnos, 

 naked ; sophistes, wise man). Indian 

 philosophical sect, remarkable for 

 their austere method of life and in- 

 difference to pain. To purify the 

 soul they mortified the body. They 

 went naked, were vowed to celibacy, 

 and believed in the transmigration 

 of souls. 



Gymnospermae (Gr. gymnos, 

 naked; sperma, seed). Large class 

 of flowering plants distinguished 

 by having the. ovules and seeds 

 naked not enclosed in a chamber 

 (ovary or seed-vessel)., It consists 

 of the various natural orders of 

 coniferous trees yews ; pines, firs, 

 cy cads, cedars, cypresses, etc. They 



3762 



have needle-like evergreen leaves, 

 and the seed includes two coty- 

 ledons with a store of food for the 

 seedling in each. 



Gympie. Town of Queensland, 

 Australia. It is 90 m. N. of 

 Brisbane and 40 m. S. of Mary- 

 borough, its port. It is the centre 

 of a goldfield which also produces 

 silver, nickel, bismuth, antimony, 

 and coal. Pop. 1L718. 



Gyongyos. Town of Hungary, 

 in the co. of Heves. It is on the 

 Gyongyos river, 45 m. N E. of Buda- 

 pest. The town is noted for its 

 Franciscan monastery. A thriving 

 trade is carried on in cereals and 

 a very choice wine is made. The 

 manufactures include copper goods, 

 bricks and tiles. Pop. 18,314. 



Gymnastics. Statue of Greek athlete 

 using bronze scraper to cleanse bis 

 skin after exercise. It is regarded 

 as typifying the ancient Greek ideal 

 of physical fitness 



Vatican, Rome 



Gyp. Pseudonym of the French 

 writer Sybille Gabrielle Marie 

 Antoinette de Riquetti de Mira- 

 beau, comtesse de M artel de 

 Janville. See Martel, Comtesse de. 



Gyp. Name given to a male 

 servant of resident members of a 

 Cambridge college. His counterpart 

 at Oxford is scout. The gyp is as- 

 sisted by a woman, usually his wife, 

 who is called a bedmaker. The name 

 has been humorously derived from 

 Greek gyps (vulture), with refer- 

 ence to a supposed voracity in 

 snapping up perquisites. Pron. Jip. 



Gypsies. The people known in 

 England as Gypsies, and m other 

 countries by a variety of names 

 (Gitanos, Zigeuner, Tchinghianes, 

 Zingari), call themselves Roma 

 men. Large bands of these nomads 

 appeared in Western Europe about 

 1417, though there is evidence that 



GYPSIES 



smaller parties wandered west- 

 wards before that date. They came 

 from the Balkan peninsula, where 

 their tribes are still met with in 

 considerable numbers. Riidiger in 

 1777, and Jacob Bryant in 1785, 

 announced the discovery of their 

 ultimate origin from India. 



Interest in Gypsies was fostered 

 by the writings of George Borrow, 

 but the serious study of the prob- 

 lem of their origin was first under- 

 taken on the Continent. A. F. Pott, 

 of Halle, published in 1844 his Die 

 Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, in 

 which he displayed the grammar 

 and vocabulary of Romani, tracing 

 the bulk of the words of Indian 

 origin by means of parallels from 

 Sanskrit and modern Indian 

 tongues. At the same time he 

 noted a large number of words 

 borrowed from Greek, Hungarian, 

 Herman, and other languages, 

 picked up by the Gypsies in their 

 wanderings. F. Miklosich extended 

 and corrected Pott's work in his 

 liber die Mundarten und die Wan- 

 derungen der Zigeuner Europas 

 (On the Dialects and Wanderings 

 of the Gypsies of Europe), 1880. 

 He proved conclusively that the 

 route taken by the Gypsies after 

 leaving India lay through Armenia 

 and across Asia Minor to the 

 Balkans, where they must have 

 remained for some centuries. On 

 reaching the west they professed 

 to be pilgrims from Egypt, hence 

 the name by which they are known. 

 The story was pure fiction, but it 

 secured for them a freedom to 

 travel which they soon abused, 

 bringing upon themselves a 

 savage persecution. 



England perhaps has the clean- 

 est record in this respect, but it 

 is still popularly supposed that 

 Gypsies commit the crime of steal- 

 ing children. No case of this kind 

 has ever been proved with evidence 

 sufficient to satisfy an impartial 

 mind, and the accusation may be 

 dismissed as baseless. They are 

 thought to be a distinctly criminal 

 element in the population, yet an 

 analysis of charges brought against 

 Gypsies (including other vagrants 

 alleged to have been Gypsies) in 

 England during four recent years 

 shows that out of 1,682 prosecu- 

 tions only 18 were for crimes such 

 as murder, abduction, or attempted 

 suicide, 216 for theft, burglary, 

 and receiving stolen property, 349 

 f orassaults, drunkenness, obscenity, 

 and using threats, and 76 for 

 cruelty to horses, to children, 

 desertion of wife, and begging. The 

 remaining charges were for poach- 

 ing, fortune-telling, and stealing 

 wood, and for minor offences such 

 as damaging turf, making fires too 

 near the road, driving without 



