In reference to England, it is a beautiful exclamation of the Christian Observer: “Surely when our charity is flowing in so wide a channel, conveying the blessings of the gospel to the most distant quarters of the globe, we shall not hesitate to water this one barren and neglected field, in our own land.” Uniting cordially in this appeal, it is a great satisfaction to be able to state, there are traits of character in this people, which encourage attention to Gypsey soil. Let it but be cleared of weeds, and sown with good seed, and the judicious cultivator may calculate upon a crop to compensate his toil.
Greater proof of confidence, as to money transactions, not being misplaced in Gypsies need not be given, than in the testimony of the landlord at Kirk Yetholm, to William Smith, that his master knew he was as sure of their money, as if he had it in his pocket.
In Dr. Clarke’s Travels, published in the present year, Part the 2nd of Section 3rd, page 592, are the following observations respecting the Gypsies of Hungary: “The Wallachian Gypsies are not an idle race. They might rather be described as a laborious people; and the greater part of them honestly endeavour to earn a livelihood. It is this part of them who work as gold-washers.”
In page 637, the Doctor remarks: “The Wallachians of the Bannat, bear a very bad character, and perhaps many of the offences attributed to Gypsies, may be due to this people, who are the least civilized, and the most ferocious of all the inhabitants of Hungary.” { 262}
Could grateful sensibility of favors received, and of personal attachment, be more strikingly evinced than in the promptitude of Will Faa, who when he was eighty years of age, on hearing of his landlord being unwell, undertook, at the hazard of his life, a journey of a hundred miles, to see him before he died?
The attention of Gypsies to the aged and infirm of their fraternity, is not less exhibited in the case of Ann Day, whose age is inserted in a work on human longevity, published at Salisbury in 1799. She was aged 108, and had not slept in a bed during seventy years. She was well known in the counties of Bedford and Herts, and having been a long time blind, she always rode upon an ass, attended by two or three of the tribe. A friend of the author, a farmer near Baldock, who had frequently given food and straw for the old woman, says of the attendants she had, her comfort and support seemed to be their chief concern. He considers her longevity a proof of the kindness she received. Her interment, which was at Arsley, near Henlow, was attended by her son and daughter, the one 82, the other 85 years of age, each having great grand-children.