118 . GYPSIES. 



light their winter fires on the banks of the Potomac and 

 Kanawha. 



All Gypsies, however, do not go south in the winter. 

 I have known some who hired lodgings and went into 

 winter quarters in towns, in Bridgeport, Albany or New- 

 burgh. This is called leering from 'ker^ a house. That 

 there are people of Gfypsy blood who have left the roads 

 and live permanently in houses, is also true. I heard of 

 a Williams, a Gypsy, who kept a saloon in Bridgeport, 

 and I knew a pure blooded Stanley who was looking for 

 a place on the trolley cars in Brooklyn. Think of the 

 "deadly trolley" with a wild, roving Romany for con- 

 ductor. 



The brief description of the history and present condi- 

 tion of the Gypsies is not complete without some ac- 

 count of the Romany language. It is from the compari- 

 son of Romany with Sanskrit and modern Hindu dialects 

 that the Indian origin of the Gypsies has been proved, 

 and it is by his knowledge of it that the scholar to-day 

 wins their hearts and becomes able to study their charac- 

 ter and folk lore. 



When the Gypsy arrived in Europe he spoke a tongue 

 entirely distinct from the people about him. It had a 

 Hindu-Persian vocabulary and the elaborate xlryan gram- 

 mar. Grammar and vocabulary are preserved in consid- 

 erable purity in Turkey and Eastern Europe to this day, 

 as I found out to my sorrow in talking with the Hun- 

 garian Gypsies, who were continually using words and 

 forms which American Romanies, and, therefore I, know 

 nothing about. Four hundred years in Englishry have 

 very much corrupted the Tcdlo jib (black language) but 

 Leland avers that Romany inflexions were still used in 

 England early in the century. In Wales, too, the lan- 

 guage is purer and deeper than in England and America. 



The Romany language in its East European purity has 

 two genders and eight cases to the noun ; adjectives de- 



5Q 



