The connections
which they form with the Spaniards are not many; occasionally some
wealthy Gitano marries a Spanish female, but to find a Gitana
united to a Spaniard is a thing of the rarest occurrence, if it
ever takes place. It is, of course, by intermarriage alone that
the two races will ever commingle, and before that event is brought
about, much modification must take place amongst the Gitanos, in
their manners, in their habits, in their affections, and their
dislikes, and, perhaps, even in their physical peculiarities; much
must be forgotten on both sides, and everything is forgotten in the
course of time.
The number of the Gitano population of Spain at the present day may
be estimated at about forty thousand. At the commencement of the
present century it was said to amount to sixty thousand. There can
be no doubt that the sect is by no means so numerous as it was at
former periods; witness those barrios in various towns still
denominated Gitanerias, but from whence the Gitanos have
disappeared even like the Moors from the Morerias. Whether this
diminution in number has been the result of a partial change of
habits, of pestilence or sickness, of war or famine, or of all
these causes combined, we have no means of determining, and shall
abstain from offering conjectures on the subject.
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