[Indexed as: “Gypsy Child Stealers.” The Advance (Greenville, Pa.), Jul. 24, 1873]

The gypsies, says the Springfield Republican, have a pretty extensive reputation as nuisances through New England, and the farmer has learned to lock up his barn and hennery, and collect his stray property under cover, when a wagon-load of the vagabonds halts in his neigborhood. But the gypsy’s depredations hereabouts do not generally extend beyond fowls, garden produce, and miscellaneous small articles, and here and there a horse. Down in Pennsylvania there is just now considerable excitement over a more serious class of crimes by these wanderers, being nothing less than the kidnapping of children. In the central part of the State several children have disappeared within a short time, under circumstances throwing suspicion upon gypsy bands. Horses and cattle have also been stolen to a considerable extent, and a vigilance committee is about to take the matter in hand. It is a pity that the committee can’t extend its operations through the country and suppress a class of thieving vagabonds whose only claim to existence is a certain atmosphere of romance which poets and novelists have for the most part (falsely enough) invested them. The kidnapping of children is reputed an especial weakness of the gypsies, and is a propensity to which writers of fiction are indebted for the plots of innumerable thrilling romances.