speaking the languages of the respective countries they inhabit,
preserved in _all places one_ peculiar to themselves, and have
transmitted it through a lapse of centuries to their descendants, almost
unimpaired.

Increased acquaintance with oriental customs and tongues, has, at length,
discovered the near coincidence they have with the language of the
Gypsies, and has developed an origin of this people, of which those of
the present age were, till now, entirely ignorant. It will appear
extraordinary, that these people should have been able, by oral means
alone, and under all disadvantages, to retain their language, and yet not
to have handed down with it, any tradition that might lead to a discovery
of who they were, or whence they came. But the knowledge recently
acquired, of their very abject condition in the country from which they
emigrated, offers a reason why the first comers might be anxious to
conceal their pedigree, the meanness of which would have but ill accorded
with the titles of rank assumed by some of their leaders.

The regulations proposed by the Empress Theresa, and the Emperor Joseph
II. could they have been carried into effect, would doubtless have
improved the state of the Gypsies. But an order for children to be torn
away from their parents, was so far from being dictated by the study of
human nature, that it did violence to the tenderest sensibilities, and
set at nought the kindest emotions. Its tendency was to produce in the
minds of Gypsies, disaffection to the state, and to indispose others from
aiding in the execution of the edict. The advantages to be derived by
Governments from a liberal toleration, being not then so well understood
as in succeeding times, they were not duly regarded.

Those potentates considering Zigeuners of Egyptian origin, might
reasonably conceive agriculture well adapted to their genius and
inclination; but it was a pursuit, which, more than any other, they
disapproved.

All other Governments appear to have been misled, in like manner, by the
deception which the first Gypsies practised; for had they been apprized
of this people's descent, and of the almost unalterable pertinacity of an
Indian caste, they would have been sensible that an attempt to change
their habits by force, was a measure the least likely to be attended with
success.

The Circular introduced in the ninth Section of this work, notices
Gypsies being hunted like beasts of prey, from township