The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1917-11-30
These mysterious be0-
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R RARIS.-"Where are the gypslesT
"They have disappeared since
the war"
How could they disappear
from France, all frontiers being
guarded?"
"They did" replied the French
official, smiling.
Such was the result of my first in
quiry, and such is the final word Of a
curious story. Editors in America ask
ed me TO discover what has become of
the gypsies." The French foreign Of
fee sent me to the prefecture of police,
where l met NJ. Alfred Harduin, chief
of the second bureau of the first di-
vision.
"Are the gypsies in concentration
camps?" l asked.
"ThOse belonging to enemy countries,
yes" he answered, but almost none of
them have any nationality; that is to
say, their nationality could never be
established Such was the cause Of
the law of 1912"
But VI. Harduin knows, officially
only Paris and envir0ns, so he sent me
to the ministry of the Interior depart
ment of the surete general, where l
met the great Sebille, controleur-gen-
eral of the judicial Investigations serv-
ices, whose eyes see over all France.
1.-THE facts are the more curious" he
admitted, because France was literal
ly overrun with gypsies Immediately
before the war. OF forty thousand
'nomades' on the lists of the interior
twenty-six thousand were Romanichels
(Romanys or gypSies), and things had
reached a point, in 1912, that France
was obliged to make a special law to
regulate them"
Two rich and populous tribes, in par
ticular, the Gorgans and the Yankos,
seem to have made Il considerable stir
in the countryside with their fine
horses, gorgeous house wagons, women,
girls, bears, apes and raft of children,
dressing loud and living like princes.
"At Roisel, in the Somme," ran a
report, "a tribe of so-called Russian
gypsies (South Russia and Bohemia)
molested the populations
They were rich and naughty. They
wore brilliant clothing and ornaments
and had fine horses. Yet when a
French peasant would buy one of those
horses his tail would come out, his
glossy coat go ringwormed, his plump
ness sink in, and even "some teeth
came out (says Farmer Cardon), being
made of hardened bread crumb."
AS for gold (strange detaiD, they
found a massive gold chain of ancient
Workmanship around the waist of the
prince of the GOrgans, under his en-
broidered clothes, locked with q gold
paddock of which nobody had the key
On it were engraved "T. I. LIB. P
1872" and no explanation could be OBJ
tanned. The prince said simply, 'It's a
family heirloom" He carried a rich,
cruel whip of rawhide, supple oiled
leather and small lead thongs, more
like a weapon than a whip, jeweled in
it's handle to the tune of some $4,000,
estimated. Finally among his person
al belongings were siXty-seven Amer
lean gold dollars of 1858!
"How could the gypsies get away
when the war broke out?" 1 insisted,
when all frontier authorities were on
the lookout for enemy subjects and
spies?"
Instead of making a discourse the
controlleur-genera told me case of
some time before the mobilization.
A strong band Of gypsies (Kakaras-
ca-Kralovitch families) had penetrated |
from France to Switzerland and, at |