The Habits of Gipsies
The report on gipsies and other nomads issued by the County of Kent is reasonable and benevolent in tone—in con- tast to the attitude to gipsies when they first appeared in England about four centuries ago when they were threatened with death, scourging and other terrible penalties. Kent, as one of the counties most concerned with the " gipsy problem," as asked by the Minister of Local Government and Planning to make a survey as a prelude to a national consideration of tie matter; and farmers, head teachers and others have given tieir views. The observers were faced with two initial diffi- allies. First, a very small number of the nomads in Kent Ere true gipsies at all; and, second, the larger camping-sites we not occupied by nomads but by " static " campers who have them only for brief periods of fruit- and hop-picking. Cipsies are still holding themselves apart from the ordinary inpulation, speaking their own language, taking little regular enployment and earning their living by fortune-telling and hawking; but they do tend to linger round large urban centres and many of them do send their children to school regularly ir winter. Farmers were mainly hostile in comment, though one distinguished between the real working gipsy and the "lazy sneak-thief "; head teachers found few problems with tie children except that they were timid and, with broken priods of school-attendance, learnt little more than a smatter- ing of the "three Rs." Observers differed as to whether any i strenuous attempt should be made to integrate gipsies into the national life; though they did think the Government should define its attitude. As the numbers are so small—there were fewer than 2,000 nomads of all kinds in Kent—and as it is stated that a man who gets regular employment drops out of the nomad ranks, it seems likely that, if work remains available, assimilation will gradually take place without severe dragooning.
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