The treatment of the gypsy population of the United Kingdom is disgraceful. Local authorities are slow to provide permanent sites on which gypsies may camp. Some authorities prefer to neglect the problem of the education of gypsy children. But these authorities have a legal obligation both to provide camp sites and to ensure that the children attend school. It is a sad reflection on our society that there should be such reluctance to comply with the law. The reasons, however, are not difficult to find. Gypsies are widely reputed to be lazy, dirty and dishonest. No proud house-owner wishes to see a slovenly gypsy encampment a short distance down the road. His suburban spirit is shocked by the huddled caravans and ancient cars or ill-kept ponies; he is repelled by the slovenly women and the hordes of apparently unwashed children. And, of course, the majority of elected councilors are just such proud house-owners.
But gypsies are, in large part, what we have made them. Ever since their arrival in Britain more than three-and-a-half centuries ago, they have been treated as a criminal race. They came to this country proudly proclaiming themselves Counts of Egypt, but within a few years they found that every man"s hand was raised against them. Somehow they have survived, a burden upon our conscience. The law no longer discriminates against them, as it does in so many other countries, but our society is still hostile toward them.
We cannot hope for any dramatic changes in their position. The barrier of generations of mistrust can only be slowly broken down. The first step is to ensure that they are provided with adequate sites both for those willing to live in permanent camps and for those who are still confirmed nomads. After all, a camp site is far cheaper than a housing project, and gypsies who have been obliged to abandon their traditional sites because of the spread of our towns surely have a right to a place to live. Again, surely everybody would benefit from the provision of well-planned sites; the temporary encampments along the roads which so offend the tidy-minded would then disappear and the gypsies themselves would have somewhere to feel secure. At the moment, when so many of them are camped illegally, their lives are an unending battle against authority and they can never forget that they are outsiders, rejected by all.

填空题 Complete the following sentences with information given in the passage in a maximum of 4 words for each blank.
Local authorities are acting illegally when they can not guarantee that all 1 go to school.

填空题 Gypsies are regarded as being 1.

填空题 When the gypsies first arrived in Britain they were 1 their origins.

单选题 Choose the best answer according to the passage.
Why is British society hostile to gypsies?

单选题 Many gypsies camp illegally at present so they ---|||________|||---.