Читать книгу Dissertation on the Gipseys онлайн

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By endeavouring to discover the causes of these bodily qualities of the Gipseys, we find them, or at least some of them, very evidently arising from their education and manner of life. They are lean; but how should they be corpulent? as they are seldom guilty of excess in eating or drinking; for if they get a full meal to-day, they must not repine should they be under the necessity of keeping fast to-morrow and the next day. They have iron constitutions, because they have been brought up hardily. The pitiless mother takes her three-months-old child upon her back, and wanders about in fair or foul weather, in heat or cold, without troubling her head what may happen to it. When a boy attains the age of three years, his lot becomes still harder. While an infant, and his age reckoned by weeks and months, he was at least wrapped up closely in rags; but now, deprived even of these, he is, equally with his parents, exposed to the rigour of the elements, for want of covering: he is now put to trial how far his legs will carry him, and must be content to travel about, with, at most, no other defence for his feet than thin socks. Thus he grows up, and acquires his good health by hardship and misery. We may as easily account for the colour of the Gipsey’s skin. The Laplanders, Samoieds, as well as the Siberians, likewise, have brown yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living, from their childhood, in smoke and dirt, in the same manner as the Gipseys: these would, long ago, have been divested of their swarthy complexions, if they had discontinued their filthy mode of living. Only observe a Gipsey from his birth, till he reaches man’s estate; and you must be convinced that their colour is not so much owing to their descent, as to the nastiness of their bodies. In summer, the child is exposed to the scorching sun; in winter, it is shut up in a smoky hut. It is not uncommon for mothers to smear their children over with a black ointment, and leave them to fry in the sun or near the fire. They seldom trouble themselves about washing, or other modes of cleaning themselves. Experience also shews us, that the dark colour of the Gipseys, which is continued from generation to generation, is more the effect of education, and manner of life, than descent. Among those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the Imperial army, where they have learnt to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their colour; though they had, probably, remained to the age of twelve or fourteen years under the care of their filthy parents; and must necessarily, when they first adopted a different mode of life, have borne the marks of the dirt contracted during this period. How much less, then, should we be able to distinguish a Gipsey if taken when a child from its sluttish mother, and brought up under some cleanly person! By the same reasoning we may account for their white teeth and sound limbs; namely, from their manner of life. The former are evidences of their spare diet: the latter prove them to have been reared more according to the dictates of nature, than those of art and tenderness.

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