s, that, if all the
parishes were alike severe in forcing them from their retreats, they
would soon find their way into towns. But if this were the case, what
advantage would they derive from it? In large towns, in their present
ignorant and depraved state, would they not be still more wicked? They
would change their condition only from bad to worse, unless they were
treated better than they now are, and could be properly employed; but
from the prejudice that exists among all classes of men against them,
this is not likely to be the case: they would not be employed by any,
while other persons could be got. At a hop plantation, so lately as
1830, Gipsies were not allowed to pick hops in some grounds, while
persons as unsettled and undeserving, were engaged for that purpose. Had
this been a parochial arrangement to benefit the poor of their own
neighbourhood, who were out of employ, it were not blameable.

If they were driven to settle in towns, and could not, generally
speaking, obtain employment, it might soon become necessary to remove all
their children to their own parishes; a measure not only very unhappy in
itself, but one to which the Gipsies would never submit. Sooner would
they die than suffer their children to go to the parish workhouses.

The severe and unchristian-like treatment they meet with from many, only
obliges them to travel further, and often drives them to commit greater
depredations. When driven by the constables from their station, they
retire to a more solitary place in another parish, and there remain till
they are again detected, and again mercilessly driven away. But this
severity does not accomplish the end it has in view; their numbers remain
the same, and they retain the same dislike to the crowded haunts of man.
For they only visit towns in small parties, offering trifling wares for
sale, or telling fortunes; and this is done to gain a present support.

In this neighbourhood there was lately a sweeping of the commons and
lanes of the Gipsy families. Their horses and donkeys were driven off,
and the sum of 3 pounds 5_s_ levied on them as a fine to pay the
constables for thus afflicting them. In one tent during this distressing
affair, there was found an unburied child, that had been scalded to
death, its parents not having money to defray the expenses of its
interment. The constables declared that it would make any heart ache to
see the anguish the poor people were in, when thus