tural phraseology. The Hussites used in that way a Biblical imagery, like the Puritans of a later age. Like the Puritans, they called their opponents Moabites, Amalekites, and so on. With the Puritans, Egypt was always "the house of bondage," and that name was the common designation of any place of persecution.
Grellman refers to the name Polgar as Indian, and as common with the Gypsies; but he does not notice that the men in all the original Gypsy parties bore such sufficiently Christian appellations as Michael, Andrew, John, and Peter. Rommany is the Gypsy name for a Gypsy, and this is referred to the Sanscrit Rama, man, by one author, and by others to the Coptic Rom. Either is possible, but sufficiently remote. By the kind of deception referred to above, which made the Gypsies call themselves Catholics when in Catholic countries, it is probable that they may sometimes have gone so far as to say that they were Romans,—that is, adherents of Rome,—and habit may have fastened the name. This derivation is as good as either of the others.
But the language of the Gypsies has been most relied upon to prove their derivation from Hindostan, both by Grellman and Borrow. Remarkable similarities have been shown to exist between the Hindoo dialects and the Gypsy tongue. But the argument of language is better for Bohemian than for Hindoo origin. The Bohemians were Cechs, a branch of the great Slavic race of undoubted Asiatic origin; and the Cech language descended from the Sanscrit almost as directly as the Hindoo dialects did. Here is a good reason why the Hindoo dialects and the Gypsy tongue—if the Gypsies were Bohemians—should closely resemble one another. They were from the same parent stem. The learned Büsching said, "The Gypsy language is a mixture of corrupt words from the Wallachian, Slavonian, Hungarian, and other nations." These are the cognate languages of the Slavic race, all descended from the same source, and that also the source of the Cech. The first list of Gypsy words ever made was cited to prove an Egyptian origin, and they were Slavic. That was, perhaps, the best list ever made, as later ones show the results of the use of the languages of the various lands in which the Gypsies wander.
The complexion, habits, and character of the Gypsies resemble those of the Cechs as nearly as they do those of the Hindoos. The Cechs are an eminently gay and musical race. As regards complexion, it is found that the Gypsies in the Austrian army, who have been compelled to relinquish their wild life and dwell in houses, are as white as Europeans generally.
Assuming that Grellman has disproved all the other suggested origins in favor of the Hindoo theory, and considering the question as simply between India and Bohemia, it appears to me that the argument is altogether in favor of the derivation of the Gypsies from the latter country.
