The Gipsies Advocate | Page 7

assurances of
continued good will. At such periods however they are too often
addicted to feasting and intemperance.
The graves of the deceased of this people, are usually kept in very good
order in the various Church yards where they lie interred. This is done
by the Sextons, for which they are annually remunerated. Sometimes
large sums of money are expended on the erection of head-stones; and
in one instance a monument was erected in the County of Wilts at
considerable cost. It is not very long since, that the parents of a
deceased Gipsy child, whom they loved very much, paid a great sum to
have it buried in the Church.
The Gipsies have a singular custom of burning all the clothes belonging
to any one among them deceased, with the straw, litter, &c, of his tent.
Whether this be from fear of infection, or from superstition, the Author

has not been able to learn. Perhaps both unite in the continuation of a
custom which must be attended with some loss to them. {28}
Seldom do these mysterious sons and daughters of Adam unite
themselves in the holy obligations of marriage, after the form of the
Established Church of our land. Nor, indeed, for so sacred a union,
have they any ceremony at all. The parents on each side are consulted
on such occasions, and if their consent be obtained, the parties become,
after their custom, husband and wife. Should the parents object, like the
thoughtless and imprudent persons in higher life, who flee to Gretna
Green, the Gipsy lovers also escape from their parents to another
district. When the couple are again met by the friends of the female,
they take her from her protector; but if it appear that he has treated her
kindly, and is likely to continue to do so, they restore her to him, and
all objections and animosities are forgotten.
As it seldom happens that they now stay more than a few days in one
place, the Gipsy, his wife, and each of their children, may severally
belong to different parishes. This is an objection to their ultimate
settlement in any one place. It will be some time before this objection
can be removed: not till the present generation of Gipsies has passed
away, and their posterity cease to make the wilderness their homes,
choosing a parish for a permanent place of settlement.
It may naturally be expected that these inhabitants of the field and
forest, the lane and the moor, are not without a knowledge of the
medicinal qualities of certain herbs. In all slight disorders they have
recourse to these remedies, and frequently use the inner bark of the elm,
star-in-the-earth, parsley, pellitory-in-the-wall, and wormwood. They
are not subject to the numerous disorders and fevers common in large
towns; but in some instances they are visited with that dreadful scourge
of the British nation, the Typhus fever, which spreads through their
little camp, and becomes fatal to some of its families. The small-pox
and measles are disorders they very much dread; but they are not more
disposed to rheumatic affections than those who live in houses. It is a
fact, however, that ought not to be passed over here, that when they
leave their tents to settle in towns, they are generally ill for a time. The

children of one family that wintered with us in 1831, were nearly all
attacked with fever that threatened their lives. This may be occasioned
by their taking all at once to regular habits, and the renunciation of that
exercise to which they have been so long accustomed, with some
disposing qualities in their change of diet and the atmosphere of a
thickly populated town.
This people often live to a considerable age, many instances of which
are well known. In his tent at Launton, Oxfordshire, died in the year
1830, more than a hundred years of age, James Smith, called by some,
the King of the Gipsies. By his tribe he was looked up to with the
greatest respect and veneration. His remains were followed to the grave
by his widow, who is herself more than a hundred years old, and by
many of his children, grand-children, great grand-children, and other
relatives; and by several individuals of other tribes. At the funeral his
widow tore her hair, uttered the most frantic exclamations, and begged
to be allowed to throw herself on the coffin, that she might be buried
with her husband. The religion of the Redeemer would have taught her
to say, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord.
A woman of the name of B--- lived to the reputed age of a hundred and
twenty years, and up to that age was accustomed to sing her