Once A Gipsy...

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 80, 5 April 1939, Page 25

Once A Gipsy...

Gipsy life isn't all singing and dancing. This was the case for a group of them -who tried a "civilised life" in Toledo, Ohio, recently. They were forced to give up their homes and go back to tents, which they were allowed to pitch in the city park.

Even their origin is misunderstood, and they are falsely called '"gipsies,' , the name arising from the belief they came originally from Egypt. Most authorities think India was their first home.

Jt was not unusual that the gipsies could not make a go of it with city life, for they have found no country, in all their wanderings, where they have been able to settle down and build up a reputation for good citizenship. (•'ipsies call those outside their tribes "white people," and it is considered fun to cheat them. But to mislead a member of his own group is the greatest sin a gipsy can commit. It did not much disturb the Toledo gipsies when they were made to move. Although there are less than a million, the gipsies are spread over the world more than any other people.