Omaha daily bee., 1888-11-25

Of all gipsies in Ireland, were as an
open book. Two facts gained are i'm
portant in general gypsy sociology; one
disclosing a marked popularity of Irish
people themselves. They are not, all
told-and this includes the skulking city
Romany unknown in their various town
vocations as members Of this outCast
race-upwards of 5000 gipsies in
all Ireland, of whom barely 1000 follow
the precarious but romantic life of the
road. Irish Catholics, including even
the most ignorant and superstitious of
the p%easantry, without exception hold
them IN something like a terrible de-
testation, and will have none of them,
save in their least offensive character
OF traders, thinkers and beggars. With
fine scorn they will perhaps hold IN
verse with them at icy distances on a
purely commercial basis. They will
occasionally permit a Gypsy to mend a
kettle, pot or pan, all the time shower
ing glib and awful reproaches upon him
for his uncanay mode of life, while
their hospitality is SO boundless that
they would not turn the devil himself
from their doors, rel if his horns and
hoofs were disclosed through the gauzy
guize of a "traveler" or mendicant.
But let a Gypsy, spae-wife or fortune
teller once slip into an Irish cabin and
begin any of her black-art conjurings,
the smoke of war will at once rise above
that spot. Calling upon all the cata-
CORY of saints in oue shrill and mighty
breath of fierce minor appeal, the Irish
mother will treat this female Gypsy
cheat to such a whirlwlnd of e%vections,
may be heard for half a league away,
Why, the very matching would be
pulled from the roof il necessary, to
speed and force the battle for the home
against her grewsome wiles. And my
Gypsy friends the world over know this
fact so we'll and bitterly, that univer-
sally with the race Ireland is termed.
in recognition of its barrennessf for their
purposes, the sallah lodlie, or unlucky
and accursed territory.
In consequence, the few Gipsies that
are found in Ireland are always of the
were, the outcasts OF outcasts. Tracing
the reasons for their remaining in such
~unfriendly environment and existing in
such beggarly vagabondism, the cur
ious fact is made ~apparentthat in nearly
all instances the families, or bands, as
they are foundh here to-day, are descend
ants Of those who have, in a sense, been
banished from more favorable territor-
les by their own kind; and have become
attached, as do all human beings save
Irish landlords, to hat something in
scene and cline, and love OF place even
in poverty, which holds the heart
closely to this emerald jewel of the sea.
Gypsy laws and edicts are memorable.
The former powerful Romany families
of England and Scotland land to illust-
rate their real power have only to in
stance the Smith family of the present
day, residing at Honiton, Devonshire,
England, who are worth in lands, town
properties and London and Northwest
ern railway. stocks, upwards OF a million
pounds sterling), now chiefly trans
planted to America, have had to do
with this. INSTRUMENTATION; offenses
against Gypsy equities; unendorsed
marriages between men and
women of unfriendly tribes; and
scores of other causes of similar import
as grave in their results from the stand
point Of gypsy law and ethics as crimes
and offenses against our own laws and
ethics, have made of Ireland, which
never warmed to these uncanny pill
grims, a sort of permanent penal terri
tory for gipsies whom gipsies of other
and more favored lands wifi not tolerate
near them. Strange as this may seem,
its truth is beyond cavil, as its effects
are inevitable. But these Irish gipsies
make the best they can of their beg
carly condition of ~pennance, with all
that sodden, yet often CHEEKY, trust in