to the author, and are the most
ancient clans in this part of England.

It is a well-authenticated fact, that many persons pass for Gipsies who
are not. Such persons having done something to exclude them from
society, join themselves to this people, and marrying into their clans,
become the means of leading them to crimes they would not have thought
of, but for their connection with such wicked people. Coining money and
forging notes are, however, crimes which cannot be justly attributed to
them. Indeed it has been too much the custom to impute to them a great
number of crimes of which they either never were guilty, or which could
only be committed by an inconsiderable portion of their race; and they
have often suffered the penalty of the law, when they have not in the
least deserved it. They have been talked of by the public, and
prosecuted by the authorities, as the perpetrators of every vice and
wickedness alike shocking to civil and savage life. Nor is this to be
wondered at, living as they do, so remote from observation and the walks
of common life.

Whoever has read Grellman's Dissertation on the Continental Gipsies, and
supposes that those of England are equally immoral and vicious, will be
found greatly mistaken. The former are a banditti of robbers, without
natural affection, living with each other almost like brutes, and
scarcely knowing, and assuredly never caring about the existence of God;
some of them are even counted cannibals. The Gipsies of this country are
altogether different; for monstrous crimes are seldom heard of among
them.

The author is not aware of any of them being convicted of house-breaking,
or high-way robbery. Seldom are they guilty of sheep-stealing, or
robbing henroosts. {45} Nor can they be justly charged with stealing
children; this is the work of worthless beggars who often commit far
greater crimes than the Gipsies.

They avoid poaching, knowing that the sporting gentlemen would be severe
against them, and that they would not be permitted to remain in the lanes
and commons near villages. They sometimes take osiers from the banks and
coppices of the farmer, of which they make their baskets; and
occasionally have been known to steal a sheep, but never when they have
had any thing to eat, or money to buy it with; for according to a proverb
they have among themselves, _they despise those who risk their necks for
their bellies_.

The author however recollects a transgress