eis presents declard and
specified.

"Fyrst--That yt maie appeare what persons arre apprehended, committed,
and brought to the House of Correction, it is ordered and appointed, that
all and every person and persons which shall be found and taken within
the hundreths and lymitts aforesaid above the age of 14 yeares, and shall
take upon them to be procters or procuraters goinge aboute without
sufficiente lycense from the Queen's Majestie; all idle persons goinge
aboute usinge subtiltie and unlawfull games or plaie; all such as faynt
themselves to have knowledge in physiognomeye, palmestrie, or other
absurd sciences; all tellers of destinies, deaths, or fortunes, and such
lyke fantasticall imaginations."

In Scotland, the Gipsies, and other vagrants of the same class, were
dealt with equally as severely under Mary Queen of Scots as they were
under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth in England. In an act passed in 1579 I
find the following relating to Gipsies and vagabonds:--"That sik as make
themselves fules and ar bairdes, or uther sik like runners about, being
apprehended, sall be put into the Kinge's Waird, or irones, sa lang as
they have ony gudes of their owin to live on, and fra they have not
quhair upon to live of thir owin that their eares be nayled to the trone
or to an uther tree, and thir eares cutted off and banished the countrie;
and gif thereafter they be found againe, that they be hanged.

"And that it may be knowen quwhat maner of persones ar meaned to be idle
and strong begares, and vagabounds, and worthy of the punischment before
specified, it is declared: That all idle persones ganging about in any
countrie of this realm, using subtil craftie and unlawful playes, as
juglarie, fast-and-lous, and sik uthers; the idle people calling
themselves _Egyptians_, or any uther, that feinzies themselves to have a
knowledge or charming prophecie, or other abused sciences, quairby they
perswade peopil that they can tell thir weirds, deaths, and fortunes, and
sik uther phantastical imaginations," &c., &c.

Another law was passed in Scotland in 1609, not less severe than the one
passed in 1579, called Scottish Acts, and in which I find the
following:--"Sorcerers, common thieves, commonly called Egyptians, were
directed to pass forth of the kingdom, under pain of death as common,
notorious, and condemned thieves." This was persecution with vengeance,
and no mistake; and it was under this kind of treatment, severe as it
was,