THE GYPSY'S LURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11504, 28 September 1915, Page 4

THE GYPSY'S LURE.

There is nothing in the memory of youth that has more of the element of fascination than tho wandering gipsy. In it was the fearsome as well. Measured by the conventional standards of life, it was a strange and uncanny career. There was_ mystery in its every movement, and change in its every day. There was no confining rules of conduct to be observed, no confinement in prison-like schoolroom when the world outsido beckoned so invitingly to tho spirit of youth, no compulsion to do aught else than fancy prompted, savs the " Philadelphia Press.'' Nor has this envy of the gipsy freedom been oonfined to the young. There is many a moment in mature life when tho thought of drifting hither and yon in the open air appeals strongly to the man who is chained to office or factory. To have the power to move or to tarry as vou will, to have a home wherever you choose to light a camp fire, to see the world and all that in it lies, these are not unpleasant thoughts to the person burdened with the daily round of duties. To the gipsy tho things that harass and worry the normal life are but the merest bubbles in the air. To him there is no .such thing as the high cost of living. Taxes are as unlTown to him as the irregularities of the Greek verb. Not even the income tax can mar his pleasure in life. In tho <*ipsv lexicon there is no such word as landlord and no .such thing as rent.. lie is above the conventionalities that hedge us about. He is free from responsibilities of every typo and kind. Panics pass him by, and good times and hard times are to him Just tho same. But, like the other things of the world that smack of freedom and irresponsibility, the gipsy is fast disappearing.