A GIPSY EXODUS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 9

A GIPSY EXODUS.

The Geneva correspondent of the Daily Mail writes: — "According to a gypsy legend, the summer of 1906 will witness a revolution and civil war in Bohemia, and a3 the gypsies and Bcthemians firmly believe in the prophecy they are leaving their country in largo bands and invading Europe. In Northern Switzerland the authorities are at their wits- end to know what to do with the many roving bands. Largo | numbers of gypsios are starving. They are supplied with food and then expelled from the country across the nearest frontier, only to be sent back again by the- German and French authorities. One band of Bohemians has been crossing and recrossing the German, French, and Swiss frontiers since January last. They do not in the least mind going to prison en raasse, but the authorities do not care to incur tho expense of keeping their families and belongings " < In the House of Lords, on 31st April, Lord Tvreedmouth explained that the alien gypsies now a soarco of trouble in \ Scotland' evaded the Alien 3 Act by j I coming in different ships in numbeis : less thnn twenty at a time. They were not ciestituLii, as 'they had horses and j carts. Ho wft^ told they were peaocI able, though they might be guilty of pettjr Larcenies. It was possible to ! have them deported as undesirables, [ but at present there seemed to be no rcaasn for snch action. Some- German residents in^ Glasgow were trying to send them back to their own country, or to tho chisf of their ,tribe who was in Italy. Lord Twcsdihouth's remark that thoy wojo really birds of passage on thoir way to that country was greeted • vritk laughter. Lord Balfouv of Bnr- | loigh, who had raised tho question, said the gypsio3 had encamped 'at Bannockburn, stolo poultry, and milked cows betore ihe farmou rose in tho morning. The fertility of the tsoil is measured not by th.; amount of plant food it con- ' tains, bat its capacity to yield crops, and in order to stimulate ii» ability in this respect tillage » vitally important.