These people have for several generations lived distinct from the great
mass of the community, like the gypsies of Europe, whom in many respects
they closely resemble. They have the same settled aversion to labor and
the same disposition to avail themselves of the fruits of the industry
of others. They love a wild, out-of-door life, sing songs, tell
fortunes, and have an instinctive hatred of "missionaries and cold
water." It has been said--I know not upon what grounds--that their
ancestors were indeed a veritable importation of English gypsyhood; but
if so, they have undoubtedly lost a good deal of the picturesque charm
of its unhoused and free condition. I very much fear that my friend
Mary Russell Mitford,--sweetest of England's rural painters,--who has a
poet's eye for the fine points in gypsy character, would scarcely allow
their claims to fraternity with her own vagrant friends, whose camp-
fires welcomed her to her new home at Swallowfield.
"The proper study of mankind is man," and, according to my view, no
phase of our common humanity is altogether unworthy of investigation.
Acting upon this belief two or three summers ago, when making, in
company with my sister, a little excursion into the hill-country of New
Hampshire, I turned my horse's head towards Barrington for the purpose
of seeing these semi-civilized strollers in their own home, and
returning, once for all, their numerous visits.
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