The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-24

all idlers and vagabonds shall be re- lieved, punished and sett to wOrke.' '' Then, as now, Surrey was the place most favored by the unwelcome wan derers. There were other idlers and vagabonds who plagued our forefath- CTS, and who are quaintly described in an old statute as such as wake on the night and sleep on the day, and haunt customable taverns and ale-houses, and rout about; and no man wot from whence they come ne whither they go." Idle soldiers and wandering ma rines were then treated as felons, so that it is no matter of surprise that the early laws against the gypsies were severe in the extreme. Ii is sup posed that gipsies first entered this country in the year 1512. They seem to have had keen insight into hu- man nature, for whie in Continental countries they courted and received tolerance as pilgrims they pretended here that they were peaople of high position in Egypt, persecutsd and driv. en forth. Astrology and magic were fashionable at the time, and Egypt was the home of these arts. Hence the gipsies were at first welcomed and made much of. But very soon they prove tdo be pest, and in 1850 an act (22 Henry VIII, C. 10) ordered them to quit the country in sixteen days, talk ing all their goods, with the penalty of forfeiture and Imprisonment. They were described as "outlandish people, calling themselves Egyptians, using no crafts nor rent of merchandise, who have come into this realm, and gone from shire to shire and place to place in great company and used great sub tile and crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand that they, by palmistry, could tell mems and women's fortunes; and so, many times, by craft and subtilty, have de- ceived the people of their money and have also committed many henious felonies and Tobberies."
 But the art did not succeed. In 1854, the first year of Philip and Mary, a. far more stringent law was framed. It says that, in spite of the previous or dinance, divers of the said company, not fearing the penalty of the said statute, have enterprised to come over again into this realm, using their old accustomed devilish and naughty practices and devices, to the danger. ous example of their majssty's sub jects, and the utter undoing of many of them" Therefore, any person bringing a gipsy into the country would be fined forty pounds sterling, with any gipsy remaining in the. country more than a month was to be deemed a felon, to suffer death and loss of goods, and to lose the privilege. of sanctuary and clergy. But the reason- able alternative was given them of leaving their ids, naughty and tn- godly life,'' and honestly engaging In work. Consequently, a very large number were hanged under the act of Philip and Mary. Thirteen arg said to have been condemned to death at a single Surrey Assizes. This did not prevent many recruits, natives of the county, from joining then, about whose execution as felons some doubts arose. These were settled by an act of
 
 the former act, and making clear that native sipsies, or all of them above fourteen years of age, were to be treat, ed precisely like the foreigners.
 But what numbers were executed on these statutes" says a writer of 1912, you would wonder; yet, not withstanding, all would not prevails, but they wandered as before uppe and downe, and meeting once a year at q place appointed, sometimes at the Peake's Hole in Berhyshire, and oth. erwise by Ketbroakn at Blackheath." Scotland, always more tolerant of for signers than England, seems to have extended, hospitality to the gipsies at first. But here, also, they soon be- came an intolerable nuisance. A curi- ously worded act, to apply to "the idle people calling themselves Egyptians" as well as to others was passed in 1579. "Forsamekle as there is sundrie joyabla Acts of Parliament for the stanching of maisterful and idle beg gars.' It was ordered that "sik as make themselves fules and are bairdes, or other six like runners about sell be put into the kings waird, or irons as long as they have ony gudes of their awin to live on. And fra they have no quahair upon to live of their awin; that their earss be nailed to the trone or to any other three, and their cares cutted off, and 'banished the countrie, and sif thereafter they be found asaine, that they be hanged" This did not do, apparently. When the gip- sies came in 1512 they came to stay In 1909 g. further Scottish act directs that "Sorners, common thieves called Egyptians" pass out of the country under pain of death. E~ Si
 Both in Scotland and in England leg. islation proved quite ineffective The acts fell gradually into desuetude, The