Correspondence . 
(.March, 
178 
1st. What is it that constitutes a Gipsy ? and what must he do 
to “ cease to be a Gipsy,” and become more a native of the 
country than he is already ? 
2nd. Do habits, character, creed, or any other thing change 
this race or family into another, so that there is nothing con- 
nected with the blood to distinguish it, in fact or feeling, from the 
other inhabitants of England ? 
3rd. Does this race, in consequence of the prejudice against 
it, maintain an incognito against “Jews and Gentiles,” and fre- 
quently against part of “ the blood ” itself? 
4th. Does this blood, never having been acknowledged, and 
therefore existing in an outcast condition, transmit to its descend- 
ants a “ sense of tribe and a soul of nationality,” so that they 
maintain a feeling of being members of a race or tribe that is 
universal, with words and signs or a sympathy that is peculiar to ' 
all such ? 
5th. What effecft has the mixture of this blood on that of the 
ordinary native, when the marriage is with an incognito Gipsy, 
or one known to the world as such ? 
6th. Does not the sentiment of being “ a Gipsy ” consist in 
the connecting Gipsy link as to blood, and the children being 
brought up from infancy to know that they are “Gipsies” or 
“ members of the tribe,” and having the feeling strengthened 
and confirmed by associations with relations and friends who 
hold themselves to be the same, so that we can find the Gipsy 
sentiment in various positions in life, and sometimes closely 
connected with families of the ordinary natives of the country ? 
These are reasons which I think bring this question before 
some of the scientific journals of England, which should be the 
first to take it up on the grounds of fact and reason, apart from 
feelings of any kind. By them the Gipsy question should be 
thoroughly investigated and settled, and the Gipsy element in 
society — from the tent upwards — respected according to the 
merits of each member of it ; so that no prejudice should exist 
against it as part of the complex population of the British Isles, 
embracing many thousands in various positions in life. In this 
way I think that, merely as a question of the “ Science of race,” 
it constitutes a legitimate subject of discussion for Journals of 
Science of many kinds.— I am, &c., 
James Simson. 
New York, January 27th, 1883. 
[Such questions as Mr. Simson raises in the above letter are 
undoubtedly legitimate subjects for scientific consideration, and 
there cannot be any objection to their discussion in our pages. 
But the questions whether John Nokes or Thomas Styles belonged 
to some particular tribe seem to us of a totally different order.— 
Ed.J. S.] 
