THE GIPSIES[2]

BY H. TORNAI DE KÖVËR

Gipsies! Music! Dancing! These are words of magic to the rich and poor,
noblemen and peasant alike, if he be a true Hungarian. There are two
kinds of gipsies. The wandering thief, who can not be made to take up
any occupation. These are a terribly lawless and immoral people, and
there seems to be no way of altering their life and habits, altho much
has been written on the subject to improve matters; but the Government
has shown itself to be helpless as yet. These people live here and
there, in fact everywhere, leading a wandering life in carts, and camp
wherever night overtakes them. After some special evil-doing they will
wander into Rumania or Russia and come back after some years when the
deed of crime has been forgotten. Their movements are so quick and
silent that they outwit the best detectives of the police force. They
speak the gipsy language, but often a half-dozen other languages
besides, in their peculiar chanting voice. Their only occupation is
stealing, drinking, smoking, and being a nuisance to the country in
every way.

The other sort of gipsies consist of those that have squatted down in
the villages some hundreds of years ago. They live in a separate part of
the village, usually at the end, are dirty and untidy and even an unruly
people, but for the most part have taken up some honest occupation.
They make the rough, unbaked earth bricks that the peasant cottages are
mostly made of, are tinkers and blacksmiths, but they do the lowest kind
of work too. Besides these, however, there are the talented ones. The
musical gipsy begins to handle his fiddle as soon as he can toddle.