Field And Hedgerow By Richard Jefferies




























































































 -  They are kept alive as races by mixing; otherwise one of
two things would happen - the Jew and the gipsy - Page 103
Field And Hedgerow By Richard Jefferies - Page 103 of 204 - First - Home

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They Are Kept Alive As Races By Mixing; Otherwise One Of Two Things Would Happen - The Jew And The Gipsy Must Have Died Out, Or Else Have Supplanted All The Races Of The Globe.

Had the Jews been so fixed a type, by this time their offspring would have been more numerous than the Chinese.

The reverse, however, is the case; and therefore we may suppose they must have become extinct, had it not been for fresh supplies of Saxon, Teuton, Spanish, and Italian blood. It is, in fact, the inter-marriages that have kept the falsely so-called pure races of these human parasites alive. The mixing is continually going on. The gipsies who still stay in their tents, however, look askance upon those who desert them for the roof. Two gipsy women, thorough-bred, came into a village shop and bought a variety of groceries, ending with a pound of biscuits and a Guy Fawkes mask for a boy. They were clad in dirty jackets and hats, draggle-tails, unkempt and unwashed, with orange and red kerchiefs round their necks (the gipsy colours). Happening to look out of window, they saw a young servant girl with a perambulator on the opposite side of the 'street;' she was tidy and decently dressed, looking after her mistress's children in civilised fashion; but they recognised her as a deserter from tribe, and blazed with contempt. 'Don't - she - look a figure!' exclaimed these dirty creatures.

The short hours shorten, and the leaf-crop is gathered to the great barn of the earth; the oaks alone, more tenacious, retain their leaves, that have now become a colour like new leather. It is too brown for buff - it is more like fresh harness. The berries are red on the holly bushes and holly trees that grow, whole copses of them, on the forest slopes - 'the Great Rough;' the half-wild sheep have polished the stems of these holly trees till they shine, by rubbing their fleeces against them. The farmers have been drying their damp wheat in the oast-houses over charcoal fires, and wages are lowered, and men discharged. Vast loads of brambles and thorns, dead firs, useless hop-poles and hop-bines, and gorse are drawn together for the great bonfire on the green. The 5th of November bonfires are still vital institutions, and from the top of the hill you may see them burning in all directions, as if an enemy had set fire to the hamlets.

LOCALITY AND NATURE.

By the side of the rivers of Exmoor there grows a great leaf, so large it almost calls to mind those tropical leaves of which umbrellas and even tents are made. This is of a rounder shape than those of the palm, it is an elephant's ear among the foliage. The sweet river slips on with a murmuring song, for these are the rivers of the poets, and talk in verse for ever. Purple-tinted stones are strewn about the shallows flat like tiles, and out among the grass and the white orchis of the meadow.

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