Note 16 — INTRODUCTION

In an article, already quoted, on the Gypsies of Belgium (ib. iii. 138) Professor Henri van Elven writes of the Caldarari:—‘They usually travelled in little two-wheeled carts covered over with tilts of grey cloth, and containing straw, baggage, and tinworkers’ tools. They have a great love for their horses, who are far from being in the miserable condition of horses of wandering mountebanks. I have seen the children share their bread with the horses. They buy and sell—sometimes steal—their horses. They have also dogs, large and well set-up. Their clothes are for the most part of Hungarian style, but also often like ours; notably, of gaudy colours, red and blue. All have long, black, curly hair, well furnished with inhabitants, which renders scratching a habit.16 The complexion is swarthy; the features are fine and strongly accentuated, both among the men and the women. The nose is fairly long, and aquiline; the teeth are yellow, through the use of tobacco in all forms among women as well as men, unless in the case of some young girls.… These Gypsies were tin-workers, repairing metal utensils, and also basket-makers. The women went from door to door, asking work and begging. The women and children usually go barefoot and bare-headed, even in bad weather, displaying an astonishing endurance. We have not observed any smelters among the Gypsies, but many exhibitors of animals, jugglers, and female fortune-tellers. With regard to the young girls given over to vice, they are better attired, wearing clothes of the Italian and Hungarian modes of bright colours. They go about in the evening especially, looking about them, or carrying playing-cards, or again with small articles of basket-work for sale.’