heir own, they took those of every foreign
language and adapted them to the necessities of their own tongue. The
result was, that even the gipsies who were in bands, being without firm
union, were split in pieces among the various people, so that what they
still possessed did not remain common to all, and there arose in every
country a peculiar gipsy idiom, in which old recollections were mixed
up with the language of the country, in an original way. Finally the
_rom_ appropriated to himself almost everywhere, besides the common
language of the country that of the rogues, the thieves' dialect, to
which he imparted, in friendly exchange, words from his own language.
In Germany he understood gibberish, or _Jenisch_; in Bohemia,
_Hantyrka_; in French, _Argot_; in England, Slang; and in Spain,
_Germania_.

It is instructive to observe how their hereditary language became
corrupted; for the decadence of one language, through the overpowering
influence of another, proceeds according to fixed laws. First, foreign
words penetrate in a mass, because foreign cultivation has an imposing
effect; next the formation of sentences is taken from the foreign
language, because the mind of the people accustoms itself to think
after the method of the foreigners; and thirdly, they forget their
own inflections; then the language becomes a heap of ruins, a
weather-beaten organism, like a corroded mass of rock which crumbles
away into sand or gravel. The gipsy language has gone through the first
and second stages of decadence, and the third also in Spain.

The life of this race in Germany was far from comfortable. As their
hands were against the property of every one, so did the popular hatred
work against their lives. Charles V. commanded them to be banished, and
the new police ordinances of the Princes allowed them no indulgence.
Yet they were able to gain money from the country people by soothsaying
and secret arts, by doctoring man and beast, or as horse-dealers and
pedlers. Often, united with bands of robbers, they carried on a new
service during the long war, as camp followers. Wallenstein made use of
them as spies, as did the Swedes also later. The women made themselves
agreeable to the officers and common soldiers. The cunning men of the
band sold amulets and shod horses.

After the war they went about through the country audaciously, the
terror of the countryman. In 1663 a band of more than two hundred of
them invaded Thuringia, whe