'THE GITANOS OUGHT TO BE CONDEMNED TO DEATH


'The reasons are many. The first, for being spies, and traitors to
the crown; the second as idlers and vagabonds.

'It ought always to be considered, that no sooner did the race of
man begin, after the creation of the world, than the important
point of civil policy arose of condemning vagrants to death; for
Cain was certain that he should meet his destruction in wandering
as a vagabond for the murder of Abel. ERO VAGUS ET PROFUGUS IN
TERRA: OMNIS IGITUR QUI INVENERIT ME, OCCIDET ME. Now, the IGITUR
stands here as the natural consequence of VAGUS ERO; as it is
evident, that whoever shall see me must kill me, because he sees me
a wanderer. And it must always be remembered, that at that time
there were no people in the world but the parents and brothers of
Cain, as St. Ambrose has remarked. Moreover, God, by the mouth of
Jeremias, menaced his people, that all should devour them whilst
they went wandering amongst the mountains. And it is a doctrine
entertained by theologians, that the mere act of wandering, without
anything else, carries with it a vehement suspicion of capital
crime. Nature herself demonstrates it in the curious political
system of the bees, in whose well-governed republic the drones are
killed in April, when they commence working.

'The third, because they are stealers of four-footed beasts, who
are condemned to death by the laws of Spain, in the wise code of
the famous King Don Alonso; which enactment became a part of the
common law.