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1 6 Ceremonial Customs of the British Gipsies.
Asia and Siberia, North Africa, and the whole of Europe, from which continent they have spread comparatively recently into North and South America and Australia.
As no statistics are available, it is impossible to state exactly how many Gipsies there are in the British Isles. Estimates vary from 1500 to 600,000, the latter being absurdly high, and the former much too low. In all probability the correct number lies somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000.
Leaving Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland out of consideration, for there are practically no Gipsies there, this population is fairly evenly distributed as far as numbers are concerned. Exactly the same kind of Gipsy is not, however, to be met with everywhere. Draw a line from the mouth of the Tyne to Morecambe Bay, and another from Lowestoft to Birmingham and thence to the Bristol Channel, and the country is very roughly divided up according to the character of its Gipsy population. In the North we find what in Scotland are known as tinklers, and in Westmorland and Cumberland as potters, — a class which has resulted from the union of pure Gipsies with " gaberluuzie men " and other " sturdy rogues and vaga- bonds." Their dialect of Roniani retains no traces of the original structure of the language, whilst most of the root words have been debased, or replaced by the "cant" of the non-Gipsy, or gdjo, element. About 50 per cent, of their vocabulary at the most can be recognized to be of Roinani origin. These tinklers and potters are probably descended from the Gipsies who arrived here in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The central area is occupied by the purest Gipsies that we have in Britain. It is only within the last two or three generations that they have intermarried with gdjos, and shown other signs of decadence. One family, the Woods, deserves special mention. They are the descendants of a certain Abram Wood, who first went up into Wales soon after 1700 a.d.
