Gypsies, a race of people of wandering habits, presumed to be of Indian origin, found scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even in America, who appear to have begun to migrate westward from the valley of the Indus about A.D. 1000, and to have reached Europe in the 14th century, and to owe their name gypsies to their supposed origin in Egypt. They in general adhere to their unsettled habits wherever they go, show the same tastes, and follow the same pursuits, such as tinkering, mat-making, basket-making, fortune-telling. On their first appearance they were mere vagabonds and thieves.

GYPSIES. A set of vagrants, who, to the great disgrace of
our police, are suffered to wander about the country.
They pretend that they derive their origin from the
ancient Egyptians, who were famous for their knowledge
in astronomy and other sciences; and, under the pretence
of fortune-telling, find means to rob or defraud the ignorant
and superstitious. To colour their impostures, they
artificially discolour their faces, and speak a kind of
gibberish peculiar to themselves. They rove up and down the
country in large companies, to the great terror of the
farmers, from whose geese, turkeys, and fowls, they take very
considerable contributions.

When a fresh recruit is admitted into the fraternity, he is to
take the following oath, administered by the principal
maunder, after going through the annexed forms:

First, a new name is given him by which he is ever after to
be called; then standing up in the middle of the assembly,
and directing his face to the dimber damber, or principal
man of the gang, he repeats the following oath, which is
dictated to him by some experienced member of the fraternity:

I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a true brother, and that I will
in all things obey the commands of the great tawney
prince, and keep his counsel and not divulge the secrets of
my brethren.

I will never leave nor forsake the company, but observe and
keep all the times of appointment, either by day or by
night, in every place whatever.

I will not teach any one to cant, nor will I disclose any of
our mysteries to them.

I will take my prince's part against all that shall oppose him,
or any of us, according to the utmost of my ability; nor
will I suffer him, or any one belongiug to us, to be abused
by any strange abrams, rufflers, hookers, pailliards,
swaddlers, Irish toyles, swigmen, whip jacks, jarkmen,
bawdy baskets, dommerars, clapper dogeons, patricoes,
or curtals; but will defend him, or them, as much as I
can, against all other outliers whatever. I will not conceal
aught I win out of libkins or from the ruffmans, but
will preserve it for the use of the company. Lastly, I
will cleave to my doxy wap stiffly, and will bring her
duds, marjery praters, goblers, grunting cheats, or tibs
of the buttery, or any thing else I can come at, as
winnings for her weppings.

The canters have, it seems, a tradition, that from the three
first articles of this oath, the first founders of a certain
boastful, worshipful fraternity (who pretend to derive their
origin from the earliest times) borrowed both the hint and
form of their establishment; and that their pretended
derivation from the first Adam is a forgery, it being only
from the first Adam Tiler: see ADAM TILER. At the
admission of a new brother, a general stock is raised for
booze, or drink, to make themselves merry on the occasion.
As for peckage or eatables, they can procure without
money; for while some are sent to break the ruffmans,
or woods and bushes, for firing, others are detached to
filch geese, chickens, hens, ducks (or mallards), and pigs.
Their morts are their butchers, who presently make
bloody work with what living things are brought them; and
having made holes in the ground under some remote hedge
in an obscure place, they make a fire and boil or broil their
food; and when it is enough, fall to work tooth and nail:
and having eaten more like beasts than men, they drink
more like swine than human creatures, entertaining one
another all the time with songs in the canting dialect.

As they live, so they lie, together promiscuously, and know
not how to claim a property either in their goods or children:
and this general interest ties them more firmly together
than if all their rags were twisted into ropes, to bind
them indissolubly from a separation; which detestable
union is farther consolidated by the above oath.

They stroll up and down all summer-time in droves, and
Dexterously pick pockets, while they are telling of fortunes;
and the money, rings, silver thirribles, &c. which they
get, are instantly conveyed from one hand to another,
till the remotest person of the gang (who is not suspected
because they come not near the person robbed) gets possession
of it; so that, in the strictest search, it is impossible to
recover it; while the wretches with imprecations,
oaths, and protestations, disclaim the thievery.

That by which they are said to get the most money, is,
when young gentlewomen of good families and reputation
have happened to be with child before marriage, a round
sum is often bestowed among the gypsies, for some one
mort to take the child; and as that is never heard of
more by the true mother and family, so the disgrace is
kept concealed from the world; and, if the child lives, it
never knows its parents.