Thus, if they came thieves, it
is not probable that they would become ashamed of the title of
thief in Spain, where the officers of justice were ever willing to
shield an offender on receiving the largest portion of the booty
obtained. If on their arrival they held the lives of others in
very low estimation, could it be expected that they would become
gentle as lambs in a land where blood had its price, and the
shedder was seldom executed unless he was poor and friendless, and
unable to cram with ounces of yellow gold the greedy hands of the
pursuers of blood, - the alguazil and escribano? therefore, if the
Spanish Gypsies have been more bloody and more wolfishly eager in
the pursuit of booty than those of their race in most other
regions, the cause must be attributed to their residence in a
country unsound in every branch of its civil polity, where right
has ever been in less esteem, and wrong in less disrepute, than in
any other part of the world.
However, if the moral state of Spain was not calculated to have a
favourable effect on the habits and pursuits of the Gypsies, their
manners were as little calculated to operate beneficially, in any
point of view, on the country where they had lately arrived.
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