with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

267
NOTES TO THE JOLLY BEGGARS.
Such a motley group of vagrants as Burns has so
happily described, may yet be found in many districts
of Scotland. There are houses of rendezvous where
the maimed supplicating soldier, the travelling ballad-
singing fiddler, the sturdy wench, with hands ever
ready to steal the pittance when it is not bestowed
the rough black-haired tinker, with his soldering
irons and pike-staff, and all the children of pre-
tended misfortune, assemble on a Saturday night to
pawn their stolen clothes, to sell their begged mealj
and on their produce to hold merriment and re«
velry.
The gypsies, or tinkers, form themselves into gangs
or parties, roaming from parish to parish, hanging
loose on the skirts of society. Their laws and regu-
lations are of their own framing. They cohabit with
one another, neither asking nor giving in marriage.
Their visible calling is the making of horn-spoons,
mending pans and kettles, and clasping and cement-
ing broken china ware. But the robbery of hen-
VOL. II. s
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