The Portland daily press., 1878-09-18
WEDNESDAY MORNING., SEPT. IS.

Gipsies and others in Eastern Europe find
place of refuge in Russia, which will long re-
main q suitable habitat for the wandering
tribes. 1t is certain, however, that in England
and France, and in the more cultivated coun-
tries of Europe, the influence of modern civil-
cation is becoming much more rapid and ire
sistible among the Gipsies than at any time
since their advent into Central Europe from
Hungary in the fourteenth century, and that
they are either degeneratlDg or disappearing
The conditions of life suitable to their exist
ence have been SO rapidly destroyed by the
advent of railroads and other tremendous
developments of industrial and social imp prove
ments in the past few years, that the Gipsies
find it impossible to exist after their old nomad
ic fashion, and have either emigrated or be-
come merely ordinary members of society.
Gypsy camps are still found in England and
in France, but very much fewer than they were
half century ago, and the researches of later
inqurers find their members very muCh less
national, pure-blooded and exclusive. Mr..
George Borrow could now no longer find in
the moors and the copses of England the mate
rial for "Lavengro" and the "Rommany Rye,
and the peculiarities of the race and language,
which he was the first to discover and eXpound
have disappeared almost within his own time.
There has been great falling off in the ranks
of the pure Gipsies in England, and their de
scendants are to be found in the lower ranks of
labor, scarcely to be distinguished from their
neighbors. and preserving only an imperfect
dialect and peculiar customs. The inhabitants
of the black tents themselves are neither 80
mysterious nor exclusive as in former times and
are bat poor and unskllfal cadgers and beg
gars deeply depressed, and conscious of pres
ent degradation and approaching extinction.
There is little or no material for poetry or re-
nance in the habitations Of the English gy psies
OF the present day, and neither Scott nor
Crabbe could find the strongly marked indigid-
uals in "Guy Mannering" and the "Outcast's
TaIA'' amoOo tho dauaparata tipkara apd han.
gars. who have scarcely more fibre and origi-
pality than the mass of unmarked tramps
The steam plough and the unsparing extension
OF agriculture have finally conquered in the
struggles OF the gypsies to maintain their blood
and peculiarites of living in England and
France
A portion of the more indomitable and uu-
tainted members of the race have found their
way to this country. They are but mere drop
in comparison with the immense streams of
foreign nationalities which we have been re-
ceiving, and their presence is but little noted;
but it is fact that the number of gypsies in
the United States have increased in very con-
siderable proportions in the past twenty years.
They do not establish their migratory homes
in New England and the Middle States, where
the busy strife of industry and the practical
intelligence of the people are repngnant to
their tastes, and opposed to their methods of
living; but in the South and West, and along
the border lands the encampments OF the gyp-
sizes are moreI common than they used to be.
They find there condition of civilization such
as that in which they have best maintained
themselves in Europe, neither too dense and
practical, nor too thinly peopled and savage.
The gypsies appear to be like certain sorts of
Birds that flourish best on the borders of civ
ilization and in the edge of settlements, and
form sort of connecting link between the
tame and the wild species. There cannot be
many of them, of course, for the whole race
is like scattered drops Of water, and this is
the first occasion in which their presence has
made itself publicly noted; but we believe
that the curious inquirer will find that the
purest blood of the English gypsies in the Dor
der States beyond the Mississippi and in the
South, rather than on the moors OF Yorkshire,
and that their final and long-delayed extinction
will occur in the limits of this continent. 1t is
not subject of national Importance, but the
student of -philology can never omit from his
examples OF development the history of that
strange race that has displayed such vitality of
blood under such disadvantages and for SO
many centuries.