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The council of Madrid published a schedule, 18th of August 1705,
from which it appears that the villages and roads were so much
infested by the Gitano race, that there was neither peace nor
safety for labourers and travellers; the corregidors and justices
are therefore exhorted to use their utmost endeavour to apprehend
these outlaws, and to execute upon them the punishments enjoined by
the preceding law. The ministers of justice are empowered to fire
upon them as public enemies, wherever they meet them, in case of
resistance or refusal to deliver up the arms they carry about them.
Philip the Fifth, by schedule, October 1st, 1726, forbade any
complaints which the Gitanos might have to make against the
inferior justices being heard in the higher tribunals, and, on that
account, banished all the Gypsy women from Madrid, and, indeed,
from all towns where royal audiences were held, it being the custom
of the women to flock up to the capital from the small towns and
villages, under pretence of claiming satisfaction for wrongs
inflicted upon their husbands and relations, and when there to
practise the art of divination, and to sing obscene songs through
the streets; by this law, also, the justices are particularly
commanded not to permit the Gitanos to leave their places of
domicile, except in cases of very urgent necessity.
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