The title-page of this little publication states that it is “particularly addressed to the students of the universities.” It is based on a History of the Gipsies, published in 1865, in a prefatory note to which it was said that this subject,

“When thus comprehensively treated, forms a study for the most advanced and cultivated mind, as well as for the youth whose intellectual and literary character is still to be formed; and furnishes, among other things, a system of science not too abstract in its nature, and having for its subject-matter the strongest of human feelings and sympathies.”

This race entered Great Britain before the year 1506, and sooner or later became legally and socially proscribed. It has been my endeavour for some years back to have the social proscription removed (the legal one having ceased to exist), so that at least the name and blood of this people should be acknowledged by the rest of the world, and each member of the race as such treated according to his personal merits. The great difficulty I have encountered in this matter is the general impression that this race is confined to a few wandering people of swarthy appearance, who live in tents, or are popularly known as Gipsies; and that these “cease to be Gipsies” when they in any way “fall into the ranks,” and dress and live, more or less, like other people. Unfortunately many have so publicly committed themselves to this view of the subject that it is hardly possible to get them to revise their opinion, and admit the leading fact of the question, viz.: that the Gipsies do not “cease to be Gipsies” by any change in their style of life or character, and that the same holds good with their descendants. Taking the race or blood in itself, and especially when mixed with native, it has every reason to call itself, in one sense at least, English, from having been nearly four hundred years in England. The race has been a very hardy and prolific one, and (with the exception of a few families, about which there it no certainty) has got very much mixed with native blood, which so greatly modified the appearance of that part of it that it was enabled to steal into society, and escape the observation of the native race, and their prejudice against everything Gipsy, so far as they understood the subject.

It is a long stretch for a native family to trace its descent to people living in the time of Henry VIII., but a very short one for a semi-barbarous tribe as such, having so singular an origin as a tent, as applicable to all descending from it, however much part of their blood may be of the ordinary race; the origin of which is generally unknown to them. Thus they have no other sense of origin than a Gipsy one, and that “theirs is a Gipsy family,” of an arrival in England like that of yesterday, with words and signs, and a cast of mind peculiar to themselves, leading, by their associations and sympathies of race, to them generally, if not almost invariably, marrying among themselves, and perpetuating the race, as something distinct from the rest of the world, and scattered over its surface, in various stages of civilization and purity of blood.

Leaving out the tented or more primitive Gipsies, there is hardly anything about this people, when their blood has been mixed and their habits changed, to attract the eye of the world; hence it becomes the subject of a mental inquiry, so far as its nature is concerned. And the human faculties being so limited in their powers, even when trained from early youth, it will be, at the best, a difficult matter to get the subject of the Gipsies understood; while it appears to be a desperate effort to get people beyond a certain age, or of a peculiar mind or training, to make anything of it, or even to listen to the mention of it, which almost seems to be offensive to them. On this account, if the subject of the Gipsy race, in all its mixtures of blood and aspects of meaning, can ever become one of interest, or even known, to the rest of the human family, it must be taken up, for the most part, by young people whose minds are open to receive information, as illustrated by what I wrote in connexion with Scotch university students:—

“At their time of life they are more easily impressed with the truth of what can be demonstrated, than after having acquired modes of thought and feeling in regard to it, which have to be modified or got rid of, after more or less trouble and sometimes pain.”

This subject does not in any way clash with what is generally held in dispute among men, but touches many traits of their common humanity. Its investigation illustrates the laws of evidence on whatever subject to which evidence may be applicable—that all questions should be settled by facts, and not by suppositions; and that no one has a right to maintain capriciously that anything is a truth until it is proved to be an untruth. As regards John Bunyan, it is not in dispute that he was an English man, but whether he was of the native English race, or of the Gipsy English one, or of both, and holding by the Gipsy connexion. What is necessary to be done is not merely to correct, but to create, and permanently establish a knowledge that has now no existence with people generally, in consequence of the habits of the original Gipsies leading to their legal and social proscription, and the naturally secretive nature of the race, which has been intensified by the way in which they were everywhere treated or regarded.

Apart from this subject in itself, it may be said to be one of those side questions which it is always advisable for a student to have on hand, as a mental relief after severe studies, and to liberalize or expand his mind generally.

The question of John Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race, discussed in the following pages, is merely an incidental part of the subject of the Gipsies. What I have said there about the Rev. John Brown, of Bedford, makes it unnecessary for me to add much here, except to say that, as he has no standing in the discussion of the Gipsy question as applicable to Bunyan, he would not be listened to but for his being minister of Bunyan’s Church, and setting forth theories as to his nationality that meet the preconceived opinions and ardent wishes of others. His discovery of Bunyan’s descent is of great interest; but for it to be of any use, he should have taken it to such as were able to interpret it, instead of proclaiming that he had thereby done away with the idea of Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race, to the apparent welcome of those who will have it so. He had previously “done away with” the same idea by discovering that the name of Bunyan existed in England before the Gipsies arrived in it! As the occupant of Bunyan’s pulpit, it was clearly his sacred duty to carefully scrutinize the information left by Bunyan as to “what he said he was and was not, and his calling and surroundings,” for these exclusively constitute the question at issue, and as carefully study everything bearing on the subject. Had he done so, he would have found that the family of the illustrious dreamer did not enter England from Normandy with William the Conqueror (whatever might have been the blood of William and Thomas Bonyon in 1542), or were native English vagabonds, as some have thought, but Gipsies whose blood was mixed; so that John Bunyan doubtless spoke the language of the race in great purity, and was capable, after a little effort, to have written it. In England to-day there are many such men as Bunyan, barring his piety and genius, following his original calling, that speak the Gipsy language with more or less purity, saying nothing of others in much higher positions in life. Of the former especially I have met and conversed in America with a number, who had no doubt of John Bunyan having been one of their race.

Whatever the future may bring forth, I have no reason to change what I wrote in Contributions to Natural History, etc., in 1871, in regard to the only bar in the way of receiving Bunyan as a Gipsy being the prejudice of caste against the name:—

“Even in the United States I find intelligent and liberal-minded Scotchmen, twenty years absent from their native country, saying, ‘I would not like it to be said,’ and others, ‘I would not have it said,’ that Bunyan was a Gipsy” (p. 158).

This feeling cannot be changed in a day, however involuntary it frequently is, or however much it may be repudiated in public.

The Gipsy, whatever his position in life, and however much his blood may be mixed, is exceedingly proud of the romance of his descent. The following extracts are taken from the Disquisition on the Gipsies on that subject:—

“He pictures to himself these men [John Faw, Towla Bailyow, and others, in 1540], as so many swarthy, slashing heroes, dressed in scarlet and green, armed with pistols and broad-swords, mounted on blood-horses, with hawks and hounds in their train. True to nature, every Gipsy is delighted with his descent, no matter what other people, in their ignorance of the subject, may think of it, or what their prejudices may be in regard to it” (p. 500).—“If we refer to the treaty between John Faw and James V., in 1540, we will very readily conclude that, three centuries ago, the leaders of the Gipsies were very superior men in their way; cunning, astute, and slippery Oriental barbarians, with the experience of upwards of a century in European society generally; well up to the ways of the world and the general ways of Church and State, and, in a sense, at home with kings, popes, cardinals, nobility, and gentry. That was the character of a superior Gipsy in 1540. In 1840 we find the race represented by as fine a man as ever graced the Church of Scotland” (p. 465).—“Scottish Gipsies are British subjects as much as either Highland or Lowland Scots; their being of foreign origin does not alter the case; and they are entitled to have that justice meted out to them that has been accorded to the ordinary natives. They are not a heaven-born race, but they certainly found their way into the country as if they had dropped into it out of the clouds. As a race, they have that much mystery, originality, and antiquity about them, and that inextinguishable sensation of being a branch of the same tribe everywhere, that ought to cover a multitude of failings connected with their past history. Indeed, what we do know of their earliest history is not nearly so barbarous as that of our own; for we must contemplate our own ancestors at one time as painted and skin-clad barbarians. What we do know for certainty of the earliest history of the Scottish Gipsies is contained more particularly in the Act of 1540; and we would naturally say that, for a people in a barbarous state, such is the dignity and majesty, with all the roguishness displayed in the conduct of the Gipsies of that period, one could hardly have a better, certainly not a more romantic descent; provided the person whose descent it is, is to be found amid the ranks of Scots, with talents, a character, and a position equal to those of others around him. For this reason, it must be said of the race, that whenever it shakes itself clear of objectionable habits, and follows any kind of ordinary industry, the cause of every prejudice against it is gone, or ought to disappear; for then, as I have already said, the Gipsies become ordinary citizens of the Gipsy clan. It then follows, that in passing a fair judgment upon the Gipsy race, we ought to establish a principle of progression, and set our minds upon the best specimens of it, as well as the worst, and not judge of it solely from the poorest, the most ignorant, or the most barbarous part of it” (p. 479).

Satisfied with, even proud of, their descent, the Gipsies hide it from the rest of the world, for reasons that are obvious, however much I have explained them on previous occasions. And thus, as I wrote in Contributions to Natural History, etc.,

“It unfortunately happens that, owing to the peculiarity of their origin, and the prejudice of the rest of the population, the race hide the fact of their being Gipsies from the rest of the world, as they acquire settled habits, or even leave the tent, so that they never get the credit of any good that may spring from them as a people” (158). And this may have been going on from the time of their arrival in England.

With reference to this phenomenon, I wrote thus in the Disquisition on the Gipsies:—

“Now, since John Bunyan has become so famous throughout the world, and so honoured by all sects and parties, what an inimitable instrument Providence has placed in our hands wherewith to raise up the name of Gipsy! Through him we can touch the heart of Christendom!” (p. 530).

It would be a sad thing to have the century close without the Gipsy race being acknowledged by the rest of the world, in some form or other, or that that should be deemed unworthy of our boasted civilization! To get this subject completely before the British public would resemble the recovery of a lost art, or the discovery of a new one. People taking it up there would require to show a high degree of courage, candour, and courtesy, and all the better qualities of their nature.

On the 8th September I wrote thus to the editor of the Daily News:—“I intend printing the articles sent you as the bulk of a pamphlet, . . . so that I am in hopes you will have previously printed them in the Daily News,” which he does not seem to have done.

New York, 2d October, 1882.