I 3 2 



MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. 



dering about, in preying upon the 

 Gentiles, but not living amongst 

 them " (p. 221). That is its original 

 condition, no doubt. The power of 

 the rural police must be in its nature 

 limited : it does not extend over the 

 tribe in towns, or in the country 

 when it does not trespass on private 

 property, or encumber the roads; 

 nor could the force otherwise le- 

 gally interfere with the tribe un- 

 less when it engaged in actions for- 

 bidden to it, in common with the 

 rest of the population. Mr. Bor- 

 row has at various times given ex- 

 pression to a number of amazingly 

 crude remarks on this subject. Did 

 he never meet with Gipsies who did 

 not live in the old fashion ? and did 

 he not find them Gipsies as much as 

 those following the original habits ? 

 It has often been a subject of reflec- 

 tion to me, why people should have 

 taken a view of this subject so dia- 

 metrically opposed to the facts of it, 

 and without in any way investigat- 

 ing it.* 



The strangest phenomenon con- 

 nected with the Gipsies is, in some 

 respects, Mr. Borrow himself. Here 

 has he been "a-sweeping" the 

 Gipsy chimney for the last thirty 

 odd years, and has not got further 

 in the job than sticking in the vent, 

 and preventing it drawing, or being 

 swept by others. And heaven knows 

 that that chimney wants cleaning 

 badly. As to the so-called disap- 

 pearance of the Gipsies, I could not 

 look upon what he says as his real 



* A Gipsy, of some property, who gave 

 one of her sons a good education, de- 

 clared that the young man was entirely 

 spoiled (p. 364). It is well to notice the 

 fact, that by giving a Gipsy child a good 

 education, it became "entirely spoiled." 

 It would be well if we could " spoil " all 

 the Gipsies. A thoroughly-spoiled Gipsy 

 makes a very good man, but leaves him 

 a Gipsy notwithstanding. A " thorough 

 Gipsy" has two meanings ; one strongly 

 attached to the tribe, and its original hab- 

 its, or one without these original habits. 

 There are a good many " spoiled " Gip- 

 sies, male and female, in Scotland (Ed., p. 

 364). 



opinions, were it not for his incon- 

 sistent and illogical ideas about 

 other matters connected with their 

 history. Even to the last he sticks 

 to his old opinion regarding the 

 disappearance of the tribe by in- 

 termarriage, in the face of the great- 

 ly-mixed breeds he found at Yet- 

 holm, some of whom he described, 

 as we have already seen, " as nei- 

 ther the children nor the grand-chil- 

 dren of real Gipsies, but only the 

 remote descendants," " in whom a 

 few drops of Gipsy blood were mix- 

 ed with some Scottish and a much 

 larger quantity of low Irish "* (p. 

 328). And that throws a great light 

 upon all he said about the three 



* The Rev. John Baird, the Minister of 

 Yetholm, in his first missionary report in 

 1840, when he had thirty -eight Gipsy 

 children attending his school, mentions 

 that a few of the Gipsy population there 

 " possess fair complexions, and some of 

 them even red hair," so that a " stranger, 

 entering their dwellings, would never for 

 one moment regard them as real Gip- 

 sies." " However, this is true of much the 



smaller proportion The present 



race are little more than half caste." 



The woman Mr. Borrow first address- 

 ed, said of this Gipsy colony, that " they 

 are far less Gipsy than Irish, a great deal 

 of Irish being mixed in their veins with a 

 very little of the much more respectable 

 Gipsy blood " (p. 311). .This idea is doubt- 

 less an assumption, so far as it applies to 

 common Irish blood as imported, although 

 it may apply to Irish blood gipsified in 

 Ireland before it found its way into Scot- 

 land. In the History of the Gipsies, we 

 find the following : 



" Almost all the Scottish Gipsies assert 

 that their ancestors came by way of Ire- 

 land into Scotland. 



" [This is extremely likely. On the 

 publication of the edict of Ferdinand of 

 Spain, in 1492, some of the Spanish Gip- 

 sies would likely pass over to the'South 

 of Ireland, and thence find their way into 

 Scotland before 1506. Anthonius Gawino, 

 above referred to, would almost seem to 

 be a Spanish name. We may, therefore, 

 very safely assume that the Gipsies of 

 Scotland are of Spanish' Gipsy descent 

 (Ed., p. 98)]-" 



The Yetholm Gipsies may even have 

 called themselves Irish, when that would 

 have served a better purpose than to be 

 known as Gipsies. 



