accounted the most enlightened, that the
contrast which their destitute state presents to the numerous advantages
of civilized life, and to the refinements of polished society, is truly
astonishing. If there possibly can be a single Briton who is a skeptic
to the benefits of education, let him only take a view of the
intellectual degradation and disgusting condition of the Gypsies. But if
Britons have made greater advancement in civilization than some other
nations, the Gypsies here are left at a greater distance, and furnish the
more occasion for their condition being improved.

It does not appear that the Pariars, or Suders, from whom it is believed
these swarthy itinerants of our age are descended, were farther advanced
in the knowledge of moral obligations, than were the Spartan people; who,
however celebrated for some of their Institutions, accounted the
successful perpetration of thefts to be honourable.

The Gypsies at Kirk Yetholm, as stated by Baillie Smith, in this part of
their conduct, are an exact counterpart of the Spartans. To a people of
Greece, the foremost of their time in legislative arrangements, who had
cultivated so little sense of the turpitude of injustice, surely a much
more criminal neglect may be imputed, than to the ignorant, untutored
race we have been surveying!

Malcolm, in his Anecdotes of the manners and customs of London, p. 350,
says of the English Gypsies: "Despised, and neglected, they naturally
became plunderers and thieves to obtain a subsistence." But when he
afterward states, that "They increased rapidly, and at length were found
in all parts of the country," we may be disposed to think that British
fastidiousness was not less ingenious than that of the Spaniards, who
considered themselves _contaminated_ by a touch of the Gypsies, unless it
were to have their fortunes told. Venality and deception meeting with so
much encouragement, those propensities of the human heart would be
generated and fostered, which at length produced flagrant impositions,
and the greatest enormities.

The dominion of superstition was at its zenith, in what are termed the
middle ages: so absolute and uncontrolled was its influence, that because
of reputed skill in exorcism and witchcraft, the deluded Germans reposed
implicit confidence in persons so ignorant as the Gypsies.

What an impeachment of British sagacity, is the following observation of
Sir Frederick Morton Eden, in his first volume on