The
law forbids them to be jockeys, or to follow the trade of trimming
and shearing animals, without some other visible mode of
subsistence. This provision, except in a few isolated instances,
they evade; and the law seeks not, and perhaps wisely, to disturb
them, content with having achieved so much. The chief evils of
Gitanismo which still remain consist in the systematic frauds of
the Gypsy jockeys and the tricks of the women. It is incurring
considerable risk to purchase a horse or a mule, even from the most
respectable Gitano, without a previous knowledge of the animal and
his former possessor, the chances being that it is either diseased
or stolen from a distance. Of the practices of the females,
something will be said in particular in a future chapter.
The Gitanos in general are very poor, a pair of large cachas and
various scissors of a smaller description constituting their whole
capital; occasionally a good hit is made, as they call it, but the
money does not last long, being quickly squandered in feasting and
revelry. He who has habitually in his house a couple of donkeys is
considered a thriving Gitano; there are some, however, who are
wealthy in the strict sense of the word, and carry on a very
extensive trade in horses and mules.
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