No country appears less adapted for that wandering life, which
seems so natural to these people, than England. Those wildernesses
and forests, which they are so attached to, are not to be found
there; every inch of land is cultivated, and its produce watched
with a jealous eye; and as the laws against trampers, without the
visible means of supporting themselves, are exceedingly severe, the
possibility of the Gypsies existing as a distinct race, and
retaining their original free and independent habits, might
naturally be called in question by those who had not satisfactorily
verified the fact. Yet it is a truth that, amidst all these
seeming disadvantages, they not only exist there, but in no part of
the world is their life more in accordance with the general idea
that the Gypsy is like Cain, a wanderer of the earth; for in
England the covered cart and the little tent are the houses of the
Gypsy, and he seldom remains more than three days in the same
place.

At present they are considered in some degree as a privileged
people; for, though their way of life is unlawful, it is connived
at; the law of England having discovered by experience, that its
utmost fury is inefficient to reclaim them from their inveterate
habits.

Shortly after their first arrival in England, which is upwards of
three centuries since, a dreadful persecution was raised against
them, the aim of which was their utter extermination; the being a
Gypsy was esteemed a crime worthy of death, and the gibbets of
England groaned and creaked beneath the weight of Gypsy carcases,
and the miserable survivors were literally obliged to creep into