The young Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the dancer will not
have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the Honourable
Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer
of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or if such a
person does not come forward, the dishonourable offer of a cornet of a
regiment of crack hussars. It makes poor Jews, male and female, forsake
the synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the Jew to take up
with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess with a musician
of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain Mulligan. With
respect to the gypsies, it is making the women what they never were
before--harlots; and the men what they never were before--careless
fathers and husbands. It has made the daughter of Ursula the chaste take
up with the base-drummer of a wild-beast show. It makes Gorgiko Brown,
{340} the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife of an evening, and
thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him.
'Brother,' said Mr. Petulengro the other day to the Romany Rye, after
telling him many things connected with the decadence of gypsyism, 'there
is one Gorgiko Brown, who, with a face as black as a tea-kettle, wishes
to be mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a
third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum-and-water, and attempts to
enter into conversation with the company about politics and business.
The company flout him or give him the cold shoulder, or perhaps complain
to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he has in the
parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-room, and
perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to move.'
With respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people, like the young
Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages, or
connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown
do--thrust himself into society which could well dispense with him, and
out of which he is not kicked, because, unlike the gypsy, he is not poor.
The writer would say much more on these points, but want of room prevents
him; he must therefore request the reader to have patience until he can
lay before the world a pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be
entitled 'Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for
Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies, and