rapidly spreading themselves through Britain and other
parts of Europe, disfigured by their swarthiness, sun-burnt, filthy in
their clothing and indecent in all their customs." Under these
circumstances it is not to be wondered at, in these dark ages, that some
steps should be taken to stop these lawless desperadoes and vagabonds
from contaminating our English labourers' and servant girls with their
loose ideas of labour, cleanliness, honesty, morality, truthfulness, and
religion. It was soon manifest what kind of strange people had begun to
flock to our shores to make their domiciles among us, as will be seen in
a description given of them in an Act of Parliament passed in the
twenty-second year of the reign of Henry VIII., being only about seven
years after their landing in Scotland, and to which I have referred
before. In the tenth chapter of the said act they are described as--"An
outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no crafte nor feat
of merchandise; who have come into this realm and gone from shire to
shire and place to place in great company, and used great subtle and
crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand that by
palmistry they could tell the men's and women's fortunes, and so many
times by crafte and subtlety have deceived the people of their money, and
also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies. Wherefore all
are directed to avoid the realm and not to return under pain of
imprisonment and forfeitures of their goods and chattels; and on their
trials for any felonies which they may have committed they shall not be
entitled to a jury." As if this was not sufficient or as if it had not
the desired effect the authors anticipated viz., in preventing other
Gipsies flocking to our shores or driving those away from us who were
already in our midst another act was passed in the twenty-seventh year of
the same reign, more severe than the previous act, and part of it runs as
follows:--"Whereas certain outlandish people, who do not profess any
crafte or trade, whereby to maintain themselves, but go about in great
numbers from place to pace using insidious underhand means to impose on
His Majesty's subjects, making them believe that they understand the art
of foretelling to men and women their good and evil fortunes by looking
in their hands, whereby they frequently defraud people of their money;
likewise are guilty of thefts and highway robberies; it is hereby ordered
tha