between the rows of houses, forming yards for the deposit of garbage, and in these unsavoury spots the Gipsies had drawn up their caravans, and pitched their smoke-blackened tents. These yards were separated from each other by rows of cottages, and each yard contained families related near or distantly, or interested in each other's welfare by long associations in the country during summer time, and in such places as we found them during the winter season. After spending several hours with these people in their tents and caravans, and passing from yard to yard, asking the talkative ones questions, we came to the conclusion that, in the whole bounds of this great metropolis, it would have been impossible to have found any miscalling themselves Gipsies whose mode of living more urgently called for the remedial action of the law than the tenants of Lamb-lane. In the first place, there was not a true Gipsy amongst them; nor one man, woman, or child who could in any degree claim relationship with a Gipsy. They were, all of them, idle loafers, who had adopted the wandering life of the Gipsy because of the opportunities it afforded of combining a maximum of idle hours with a minimum of work. The men exhibited this in their countenances, in the attitudes they took up, by the whining drawl with which they spoke; the women, by their dirtiness and inattention to dress; and the children, by their filthy condition. The men and women had fled from the restraints of house life to escape the daily routine which a home involved; the men had no higher ambition than to obtain a small sum of money on the Saturday to pay for a few days' food. There was not one man amongst them who could solder a broken kettle; a few, however, could mend a chair bottom, but there all industrial ability ended; and the others got their living by shaving skewers from Monday morning to Friday night, which were sold to butchers at 10d. or 1s. the stone. These men stayed at home, working over the brazier of burning coke during the week, while their wives hawked small wool mats or vases, but nothing of their own manufacture; and the grown-up lads, on market-days, added to the general industry by buying flowers in Covent-garden, and hawking them in the suburbs of the metropolis. We were assured by Mr. Smith that this class of pseudo-Gipsy was largely on the increase, and to check their spread Mr. Smith suggests that the provisions of an Act of Parliament should be mainly directed. Only one of all we saw and spoke to on Sunday was 'a scholar'—that is, could read at all—and this was a lad of about fourteen, who had spent a few hours occasionally at a Board school. With all the others the knowledge that comes of reading was an absolute blank. They knew nothing, except that the proceeds of the previous week had been below the average; social events of surpassing interest had not reached them, and the future was limited by 'to-morrow.' We questioned them upon their experiences of the past winter, and the preference they had for their tents over houses was emphatically marked. 'Brick houses,' said one woman, who was suckling a baby, 'are so full of draughts.' Night and day the brazier of burning coke was never allowed to go low, and under the tent the ground was always dry, however wet it might be outside, because of the heat from the brazier; besides, they lay upon well-trodden-down straw, six or eight inches deep, and covered themselves with their clothes, their wraps, their filthy rugs, and tattered rags, and were as warm as possible. The tents had many advantages over a brick house. Besides having no draughts, there was no accumulation of snow upon the tops of the tents; and so these witless people were content to endure poverty, hunger, cold, and dirt for the sake of minimising their contribution to the general good of the whole commonwealth. The poorest working man in London who does an honest week's work is a hero compared with such men as these. It would be impossible to nurture sentiment in any tent in Lamb-lane. There was no face with a glimmer of honest self-reliance about it, no face bearing any trace of the strange beauty we had noticed in other encampments, and no form possessed of any distinguishing grace. The whole of the yards were redolent of dirt; and the people, each and all, inexcusably foul in person. In several yards little boys or girls sat on the ground in the open air, tending coke fires over which stood iron pots, and, as the water boiled and raised the lids, it was plain that the women were taking advantage of the quiet hours of the afternoon for a wash. Before we came away from the last yard, lines had been strung across all the yards, and the hastily-washed linen rags were fluttering in the air. One tent was closed to visitors. It was then four o'clock, and a woman told us confidentially her friend was washing a blanket, which she would have to dry that same afternoon, as it would be 'wanted' at night; but 'the friend' professed her readiness to take charge of anything we had to spare for the washerwoman—a mouthful of baccy, a 'sucker' for the baby, or 'three ha'pence for a cup of tea.' Boys were there of fourteen and sixteen, with great rents in the knees of their corduroys, who only went out to hawk one day in the week—Saturday. They started with a light truck for Covent-garden at four in the morning, and would have from 4s. to 6s. to lay out in flowers. When questioned as to what flowers they had bought on the previous day, one lad said they were 'tulips, hyacinths, and cyclaments,' but nobody could give us an intelligible description of the last-named flowers. Two lads generally took charge of the flower truck, and the result of the day's hawking was usually a profit of half-a-crown to three shillings. These lads also assisted during the week in shaving skewers, and accompanied their fathers to market when they had a load to sell. In one tent we found a dandy-hen sitting; she had been so occupied one week, and the presence of the children and adults, who shared her straw bed, in no way discomposed her. We found that baccy and 'suckers' were the most negotiable exchanges with these people. The women, young and old, small boys and the men, all smoked, and the day became historic with them because, of the extra smokes they were able to have. The 'suckers' were the largest specimen of 'bulls' eyes' we could find—not those dainty specimens sold at the West-end or in the Strand, but real whoppers, almost the size of pigeons' eggs; and yet there was no baby whose mouth was not found equal to the reception and the hiding of the largest; and we noticed as a strange psychological fact that no baby would consent, though earnestly entreated by its mother, to suffer the 'sucker' to leave its mouth for the mother to look at. The babies knew better, shaking their wary little heads at their mothers. Instinct was stronger than obedience. We were not sorry to get away from Lamb-lane, with its filthy habitations, blanket washings, ragged boys and girls, lazy men and women. For the genuine Gipsy tribe, and their mysterious promptings to live apart from their fellows in the lanes and fields of the country, we have a sentimental pity; but with such as these Lamb-lane people, off-scourings of the lowest form of society, we have no manner of sympathy; and we hope that a gracious Act of Parliament may soon rid English social life of such a plague, and teach such people their duty to their children and to society at large—things they are too ignorant and too idle to learn for themselves."

My son sends me the following account of a visit he made to a Gipsy encampment near London:—I visited the camp at Barking Road this afternoon. Possibly you thought I might not go if you gave me a correct description of the route, for I certainly went through more muddy streets and over lock-bridges than your instructions mentioned. Presuming I was near the camp, I inquired of a policeman, and was surprised with the reply that there used to be one, but he had not heard anything of it for a long while. His mind was evidently wandering, or else he meant it as a joke, for we were then standing within three hundred yards of the largest encampment I have yet seen. It is situated at the back of Barking Road, in what may be termed a field, but it certainly is not a green one, for the only horse and donkey that I saw were standing against boxes eating—perhaps corn.

I am surprised that the Gipsies should choose such an exposed, damp place for camping-ground, as it is always partly under water, and the only shelter afforded being a few houses at the back and one side; the rest faces, and is consequently exposed to, the bleak winds blowing over the marsh and the river.

At the entrance I was met by a poor woman taking a child to the doctor, her chief dread being that if she did not the law would be down upon her. She had put the journey off to the last minute, for the poor thing looked nearly dead then.

Once in the camp one could not but notice the miserable appearance of the place. Women and children, not one of whom could read and write, with scarcely any clothing, the latter without shoes or stockings. Twenty to twenty-five old, ragged, and dirty tents—not canvas, but old, worn-out blankets—separated by the remains of old broken vans, buckets, and rubbish that must have taken years to accumulate. Everything betokened age and poverty. Evidently this field has been a camping-ground for some years. Three old vans were all the place could boast of, and one of those was made out of a two-wheeled cart.

I was for the first ten minutes fully occupied in trying to keep a respectable distance from a number of dogs of all sizes and breeds, which had the usual appetite for fresh meat and tweed trowsering, and, at the same time, endeavouring in vain to find solid ground upon which to stand, for the place at the entrance and all round the tents was one regular mass of deep "slush." It soon became known that my pockets were plentifully supplied with half-ounces of tobacco and sweets. These I soon disposed off, especially the latter, for there seemed no end to the little bare-footed children that could walk, and those that couldn't were brought in turn by their sisters or brothers. I was invited to visit all the tents, but I could gain but little information beyond an account of the severe winter, bad state of trade, your visit in one of the black, dense fogs, &c.

[Picture: Inside a Christian Gipsy's Van—Mrs. Simpson's]

The men followed the occupation of either tinkers or peg-makers, and all the young women will pull out their pipe and ask for tobacco as readily as the old ones.

The camp is one of the Lees. The majority of the men, women, and children are of light complexion, and, as for a dark-eyed beauty, one was not to be found. I stayed most of the time under the "blanket" of the old man, Thomas Lee, who is a jolly old fellow about sixty, and the father of eleven young children. He was evidently the life of the camp, for they all flock round his tent to hear his interesting snatches of song and story.

He had heard that Her Majesty had sent 50 pounds to assist you in getting the children educated, and just before I left I was pleased to hear him give vent to his feelings with the rough but patriotic speech that "She was a rare good woman, and a Queen of the right sort."

It must not be inferred from what I have said, or shall say, that there are no good Gipsies among them. Here and there are females to be found ready at all hours and on all occasions to do good both to the souls and bodies of Gipsies and house-dwellers as they travel with their basket from door to door hawking their wares; and to illustrate the truth of this I cannot do better than refer to the case of the good and kind-hearted Mrs. Simpson, who is generally located with her husband and some grand-children in her van in the neighbourhood near Notting Hill, on the outskirts of London. Mrs. Simpson tells me that she is not a thorough Gipsy, only a half one. Her father was one of the rare old Gipsy family of Lees, of Norfolk, and her mother was a Gorgio or Gentile, who preferred following the "witching eye" and "black locks" to the rag and stick hovel—or, to be more aristocratic, "the tent"—whose roof and sides consisted of sticks and canvas, with an opening in the roof to serve as a chimney, through which the smoke arising from the hearth-stick fire could pass, excepting that which settled on the hands and face. Grass, green, decayed, or otherwise, to serve as a carpet, the brown trampled turf taking the place of mosaic and encaustic tile pavements, straw instead of a feather-bed, and a soap-box, tea-chest, and like things doing duty as drawing-room furniture. Mrs. Simpson, when quite a child, was always reckoned most clever in the art of deception, telling lies and fortunes out of a small black Testament, of which she could not read a sentence or tell a letter; sometimes reading the planets of silly geese, simpletons, and fools out of it when it was upside down, and when detected she was always ready with a plausible excuse, which they, with open mouths, always swallowed as Gospel; and for more than twenty-five years she kept herself and family in this way with sufficient money to keep them in luxury, loose living, and idleness, till the year of 1859, when, by some unaccountable means, her conscience, which, up to this time, had been insensible, dull, and without feeling, became awakened, sharp, and alive. Probably this quickening took place in consequence of her hearing a good Methodist minister in a mission-room in the neighbourhood. The result was that the money she took by telling fortunes began to burn her fingers, and to make it sit upon her conscience as easy as possible she had a large pocket made in her dress so that she could drop it in without much handling. It was no easy thing to give up such an easy way of getting a living to face the realities of an honest pedlar's life, in the midst of "slamming of doors," "cold-shoulders," "scowls," "frowns," and insults; and a woman with less determination of character would never have attempted it—or, at least, if attempted, it would soon have been given up on account of the insurmountable difficulties surrounding it. Many times she has sat by the wayside with her basket, after walking and toiling all day, and not having taken a penny with which to provide the Sunday's dinner, when at the last extremity Providence has opened her way and friends have appeared upon the scene, and she has been enabled to "go on her way rejoicing," and for the last twenty years she has been trying to do all the good she can, and to day she is not one penny the loser, but, on the other hand, a gainer, by following such a course. Personally, I have received much encouragement and valuable information at her hands to help me in my work to do the Gipsy children good in one form or other. I have frequently called to see the grand old Gipsy woman, sometimes unexpectedly, and when I have done so I have either found her reading the Bible or else it has been close to her elbow. Its stains and soils betoken much wear and constant use. Very different to the old woman who put her spectacles into her Bible as she set it upon the clock, and lost them for more than seven years. She is a firm believer in prayer; in fact, it seems the very essence of her life, and she can relate numbers of instances when and where God has answered her petitions. On her bed-quilt are the following texts of scripture, poetry, &c., which, as she says, these, with other portions of God's word, she "has learnt to read without any other aid except His Holy Spirit:"—"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falleth." "But whoso hath this world's goods and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive." "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters." "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." "I am the door; by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." "Let nothing be done through strife, but in lowliness of mind; let each esteem others better than themselves." "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." "Wives submit yourselves unto your husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." "Husbands love your own wives and be not bitter against them." "Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord." "Fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged." "Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as man pleases, but in singleness of heart fearing God." "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness," &c. "The wages of sin is death." "Let us run the race with patience." "Judge not, that ye be not judged." "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them." "He that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "Whatsoever ye find to do, do it with all your might." "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God and he shall be My son." "And they shall see His face and His name shall be in their foreheads." "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever."

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save me from its guilt and power.

"While I draw this fleeting breath, When mine eyes shall close in death, When I soar to worlds unknown, See Thee on Thy judgment throne; Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee."

* * * * *

"Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

"Just as I am—Thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down; Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!"

* * * * *

"Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

"Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day; Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away! Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

"I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me."

Upon these promises of help, comfort, warning, encouragement, and consolation, she has many times rested her wearied body after returning from her day's trudging and toil, and under these she has slept peacefully as in the arms of death, ready to answer the Master's summons, and to meet with her dear little boy who has crossed the river, when He shall say, "It is enough; come up hither," and "sit on My throne." Although she is a big, powerful woman, and has been more so in years that are past, when any one begins to talk about Heaven and the happiness and joy in reserve for those who have a hope of meeting with loved ones again, when the cares and anxieties of life are ended, it is not long before they see big, scalding, briny tears rolling down her dark, Gipsy-coloured face, and she will frequently edge in words during the conversation about her "Dear Saviour" and "Blessed Lord and Master." I may mention the names of other warm-hearted Gipsies who are trying to improve the condition of some of the adult portion of their brethren and sisters—dwellers upon the turf, and clod scratchers, who feed many of their poor women and children upon cabbage broth and turnip sauce, and "bed them down," after kicks, blows, and ill-usage, upon rotten straw strewn upon the damp ground. Mrs. Carey, Mr. and Mrs. Eastwood, Mrs. Hedges, and the three Gipsy brothers Smith, Mrs. Lee, and a few others, have not laboured without some success, at the same time they are powerless to improve the condition of the future generations of Gipsy women and children, young mongrels and hut-dwelling Gorgios, by applying the civilising influences of education and sanitary measures to banish heathenism worse than that of Africa, idleness, immorality, thieving, lying, and deception of the deepest dye from our midst, as exhibited in the dwellings of the rag and stick hovels to be seen flitting about the outskirts, fringe, and scum of our own neglected ragamuffin population, roaming about under the cognition that the name of a Gipsy is nauseous and disgusting in most people's mouths on account of the damning evil practices they have followed and carried out for centuries upon the honest and industrious artisans, tradesmen, and others they have been brought in contact with. A raw-boned Gipsy, with low, slanting forehead, deep-set eyes, large eyebrows, thick lips, wide mouth, skulkingly slow gait, slouched hat, and a large grizzly-coloured dog at his heels, in a dark, narrow lane, on a starlight night, is not a pleasant state of things for a timid and nervous man to grapple with; nevertheless this is one side of a Gipsy's life as he goes prowling about in quest of his prey, and as such it is seen by those who know something of Gipsy life.

"And they return at evening: they growl like a dog and compass the city; They—they prowl about for food. If (or since) they are not satisfied they spend the night (in the search)."

"Sunday at Home."

Even my friends, the canal-boatmen, look upon Gipsies as the lowest of the low, and lower down the social scale than any boatman to be met with. Some of them have gone so far as to try to shake my nerves by telling me that, now I had taken the Gipsy women and children in hand, they would not give sixpence for my life. I could only reply with a smile, and tell them that I was in safe keeping till the work was done, as in the case of the canal movement. Frowns, dogs, sticks, stones, and oaths did not frighten me. The time had arrived when the vagabondish life of a Gipsy—so called—should be unmasked and the plain truth made known; and for this the Gipsies will thank me, if they take into consideration the object I have in view and the end I am seeking. My object is to elevate them, through the instrumentality of sanitary officer and schoolmaster being at work among the children, into respectable citizens of society, earning an honest livelihood by honourable and legitimate means; far better to do this than to go sneaking about the country, begging, cadging, lying, and stealing all they can lay their hands upon, and training their children to put up with the scoffs, sneers, and insults of the Gorgios or Gentiles for the sake of pocketing a penny at the cost of losing their manhood. A thousand times better live a life such as would enable them to look everybody straight in the face than burrowing and scratching their way into the ground, making skewers at one shilling per stone, and being considered as outlaws, having the mark of Cain upon their forehead, with their hands against everybody and everybody against them. There is no honour in a scamp's life, credit in being a thief, glory surrounding a rogue, and halo over the life of a vagabond and a tramp. To see a half-naked, full grown-man and his wife, with six or eight children, sitting on the damp ground in rag huts large enough only for a litter of pigs, scratching roasted potatoes out of the dying embers of a coke fire, as thousands are doing to-day, is enough to freeze the blood in one's veins, make one utter a shriek of horror and despair, and to bring down the wrath of God upon the country that allows such a state of things in her midst.

"How dark yon dwelling by the solemn grove!"



Part V. The sad Condition of the Gipsies, with Suggestions for their Improvement.

One thing that strikes me in going through the writings of those authors in this country who have endeavoured to deal with the Gipsy question is, their hesitation to tackle the Gipsy difficulty at home. On the surface of the books they have written there appears a disposition to mince the subject, at all events, that amount of courage has not been put into their works that characterised Grellmann's work upon the Gipsies of his own country. If an account similar to Grellmann's had appeared concerning our English Gipsies a century ago, and energetic action had been taken by our law-makers, instead of publishing an account of the Hungarian and other Continental Gipsies, it is impossible to calculate the beneficent results that would have accrued long before this, both to the Gipsies themselves and the country at large.

[Picture: Inside a Gipsy Fortune-teller's van near Latimer Road]

One writer deals principally with the Scotch Gipsies, another with the Spanish Gipsies, another is trying to prove the Egyptian origin of the Gipsies, another is tracing their language, another treats upon our English Gipsies in a kind of "milk-and-watery" fashion that will neither do them good nor harm—he pleases his readers, but leaves the Gipsies where he found them, viz., in the ditch. Another went to work on the principle of praying and believing for them; but, I am sorry to say, in his circumscribed sphere his faith and works fell flat, on account, no doubt, of this dear, good man and his friends undertaking to do a work which should in that day have been undertaken by the State, at least, that part of it relating to the education of the Gipsy children.

The Gipsy race is supposed to be the most beautiful in the world, and amongst the Russian Gipsies are to be found countenances, which, to do justice to, would require an abler pen than mine; but exposure to the rays of the sun, the biting of the frost, and the pelting of the pitiless sleet and snow destroys the beauty at a very early age, and if in infancy their personal advantages are remarkable, their ugliness at an advanced age is no less so, for then it is loathsome and appalling:—"He wanted but the dark and kingly crown to have represented the monster who opposed the progress of Lucifer whilst careering in burning arms and infernal glory to the outlet of his hellish prison." In our own country a number of Gipsies sit as models, for which they get one shilling per hour. They are not in demand as perfect specimens of the human figure from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot; but few of them, owing to their low, debasing habits, have arrived at that state of perfection. I know one real, fine, old Gipsy woman who sits to artists for the back of her head only, on account of her black, frizzy, raven locks. One will sit for her eyes, another for the nose, another for the hands and feet, another for the colour only. Alfred Smith sits for his feet, and there are others who sit for their legs and arms. No class of people, owing to their mixture with other classes, tribes, and nations, presents a greater variety of models for the artist than the Gipsy. If an artist wants to paint a thief he can find a model among the Gipsies. If he wants to paint a dark highwayman lurking behind a hedge after his prey he goes to the Gipsy. If he wants to paint Ajax he goes to the Gipsy. If he wants to paint a Grecian, Roman, or Spaniard he goes to the Gipsy. Of course there are exceptions, but if an artist wants to paint a large, fine, intellectual-looking figure, with an open countenance, he keeps away from the Gipsies and seeks his models elsewhere. Dregs among the Gipsies have produced queens for the artists.

Gipsies with a mixture of English blood in their veins have produced men with pluck, courage, and stamina, strongly built, with plenty of muscle and bone. Two "bruisers" of the Gipsy vagabond class have worn the champion's belt of the world; and, on the other hand, this mixture of English and Gipsy blood has produced some fine delicate Grecian forms of female beauty, dove-like, soft in eye, hand, and heart—the flashy fire in the eye of a Gipsy has been reduced to the modesty and innocence and simplicity of a child. Our present race of Gipsies, under the influence of education, refinement, and religion, will, if properly and wisely taken in hand and dealt with according to the light of reason and truth, produce a class of men and women well qualified to take their share, for weal or for woe, in the struggle of life.

Some first-rate songsters and musicians have been produced among the Gipsies, and whose merits have been acknowledged. Perhaps the highest compliment ever paid to a singer was paid by Catalini herself to one of the daughters of a tanned and tawny skin. It is well known in Russia that the celebrated Italian was so enchanted with the voice of a Moscow Gipsy (who, after the former had displayed her noble talent before a splendid audience in the old Russian capital, stepped forward and poured forth one of her national strains) that she tore from her own shoulders a shawl of cashmere which had been presented to her by the Pope, and, embracing the Gipsy, insisted on her acceptance of the splendid gift, saying that it was intended for the matchless songster, which she now perceived she herself was not. No doubt there are many good voices among our Gipsies; what is required to bring them out is education and culture. Our best Gipsy songsters and musicians are in Wales.

The following is a specimen of a Gipsy poetic effusion, which my Gipsy admirers will not consider an extraordinarily high-flown production—the outcome of nearly one million Gipsies who have wandered up and down Europe for more than three hundred years, as related by Borrow.



TWO GIPSIES.

"Two Gipsy lads were transported, Were sent across the great water; Plato was sent for rioting, And Louis for stealing the purse Of a great lady.

"And when they came to the other country, The country that lies across the water, Plato was speedily hung, But Louis was taken as a husband By a great lady.

"You wish to know who was the lady: 'Twas the lady from whom he stole the purse; The Gipsy had a black and witching eye, And on account of that she followed him Across the great water."

Smart and Crofton, speaking poetically and romantically of Gipsy life, say as follows:—

"With the first spring sunshine comes the old longing to be off, and soon is seen, issuing from his winter quarters, a little cavalcade, tilted cart, bag and baggage, donkeys and dogs, rom, romni, and tickni, chavis, and the happy family is once more under weigh for the open country. With dark, restless eye and coarse, black hair fluttered by the breeze, he slouches along, singing as he goes, in heart, if not in precise words—

"I loiter down by thorpe and town, For any job I'm willing; Take here and there a dusty brown, And here and there a shilling.

No carpet can please him like the soft green turf, and no curtains compare with the snow-white blossoming hedgerow thereon. A child of Nature, he loves to repose on the bare breast of the great mother. As the smoke of his evening fire goes up to heaven, and the savoury odour of roast hotchi witchi or of canengri soup salutes his nostrils, he sits in the deepening twilight drinking in with unconscious delight all the sights and sounds which the country affords; with his keen senses alive to every external impression he feels that

"'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear, 'Tis sweet to listen as the night winds creep From leaf to leaf.

He dreamily hears the distant bark of the prowling fox, and the melancholy hootings of the wood owls; he marks the shriek of the night-wandering weasel, and the rustle of the bushes as some startled forest creature darts into deep coverts; or, perchance, the faint sounds from a sequestered hamlet of a great city. Cradled from infancy in such haunts as these 'places of nestling green for poets made,' and surely for Gipsies too, no wonder if, after the fitful fever of town life, he sleeps well, with the unforgotten and dearly-loved lullabies of his childhood soothing him to rest."

The following is in their own Gipsy language to each other, and exhibits a true type of the feeling of revenge they foster to one another for wrongs done and injuries received, and may be considered a fair specimen of the disposition of thousands of Gipsies in our midst:—"Just see, mates, what a blackguard he is. He has been telling wicked lies about us, the cursed dog. I will murder him when I get hold of him. That creature, his wife, is just as bad. She is worse than he. Let us thrash them both and drive them out of our society, and not let them come near us, such cut-throats and informers as they are. They are nothing but murderers. They are informers. We shall all come to grief through their misdoings." Not much poetry and romance in language and characters of this description.

"These Indians ne'er forget Nor evermore forgive an injury."

The following is a wail of their own, taken from Smart and Crofton, and will show that the Gipsies themselves do not think tent life is so delightful, happy, and free as has been pictured in the imaginative brain of novel writers, whose knowledge has been gained by visiting the Gipsies as they have basked on the grassy banks on a hot summer day, surrounded by the warbling songsters and rippling brooks of water, as clear as crystal, at their feet, sending forth dribbling sounds of enchantment to fall upon musical ears, touching the cords of poetic affection and lyric sympathy:—"Now, mates, be quick. Put your tent up. Much rain will come down, and snow, too—we shall all die to-night of cold; and bring something to make a good fire, too. Put the tent down well, much wind will come this night. My children will die of cold. Put all the rods in the ground properly to make it stand well. The poor children cry for food. My God! what shall I do to give them food to eat? I have nothing to give them. They will die without food."

My object in this part will be to deal with the Gipsy question in a hard, matter of fact way, both as regards their present condition and the only remedy by which they are to be improved. No one believes in the power of the Gospel more than I do as to its being able to rescue the very dregs of society from misery and wretchedness; but in the case of the Gipsies and canal-boatmen they cannot be got together so as to be brought under its influence. Their darkness, ignorance, and flitting habits, prevent them either reading about Jesus or being brought within the magic spell of the Gospel. When once the Gipsy children have learned to read and write I shall then have more faith in the power of God's truth reaching the hearts of the Gipsies and producing better results.

The following letter has been handed to me by the uncle, to show what a little, dark-eyed Gipsy girl of twelve years of age can do. Notwithstanding all its faults it is a credit to the little beauty, especially if it is taken into consideration that she has had no father to teach her, and she has chiefly been her own schoolmaster and mistress. She is the only one who can read and write in a large family. Her books have been sign-boards, guide-posts, and mile-stones, and her light the red glare of a coke fire. I give the letter to show two things; first, that there is a strong desire among the poor Gipsy children for education; second, that there is that mental calibre about the Gipsy children of the present generation that only requires fostering, handling, educating, and caring for as other children are to produce in the next generation a class of people of whom no country need be ashamed. They will be equal to stand shoulder to shoulder with other labouring classes.

(Copy of envelope.)

"JOB CLATAN "Char bottomar "at ash be hols in "Darbyshere."

(Copy of letter.)

"febury 18 1880.

"Dear uncel and Aunt

"I wright these few li to you hoping find you all well.

"Fanny Vickers as sent you a rose father and Mother as sent there best love to you I think it is very strang you have never wrote it is Twenty year if live till may it is a strang thing you doant com to see her She is stark stone blind and lives with son john at gurtain I hope and trust you will send us word how you are getting Fanny mother is not only a very poor crater somtimes Mother often thinks she should often like to see your bazy and joby you might com land see us in the summer if we had nothing elce I ca il find them something to eat if mother never see you in this world she is hopining to see you in heaven so no more from your afexenen brother and sister Vickers good buy * * * * Kiss all on you * * * *"

In speaking of the Gipsies in Scotland sixty years ago, Mr. Deputy-Sheriff Moor, of Aberdeenshire, says as follows:—"Occasionally vagrants, both single and in bands, appear in this part of the country, resorting to fairs, when they commit depredations on the unwary." Sir Walter Scott, Bart., says of the Gipsies:—"A set of people possessing the same erratic habits, and practising the trade of tinkers, are well known in the Borders, and have often fallen under the cognisance of the law. They are often called Gipsies, and pass through the country annually in small bands, with their carts and asses. The men are tinkers, poachers, and thieves upon a small scale," and he goes on to say that "some of the more atrocious families have been extirpated." Mr. Riddell, Justice of Peace for Roxburghshire, says:—"They are thorough desperadoes of the worst class of vagabonds. Those who travel through this county give offence chiefly by poaching and small thefts. All of them are perfectly ignorant of religion. They marry and cohabit amongst each other, and are held in a sort of horror by the common people." Mr. William Smith, the Baillie of Kelso, and a gentlemen of high position, says:—"Some kind of honour peculiar to themselves seems to prevail in their community. They reckon it a disgrace to steal near their homes, or even at a distance if detected. I must always except that petty theft of feeding their shilties and asses on the farmers' grass and corn, which they will do whether at home or abroad." And he further says, "I am sorry to say, however, that when checked in their licentious appropriations they are much addicted both to threaten and to execute revenge." Mr. Smith always visited the Gipsies upon one of the estates of which he had the charge, consequently he would be likely to know more about them than most people. A number of other gentleman confirmed these statements. By comparing these remarks with the statements of Mr. Harrison in a letter published in the Standard last August, backing up my case, it will be seen that the Scotch Gipsies if anything have degenerated. Mr. Harrison's letter will be found in Part II.

Much has been said and written with reference to their health and age. For my own part I firmly believe that the great ages to which they say they live—of course there are many exceptions—are only myths and delusions, and another of their dodges to excite sympathy. From the days of their debauchery, and becoming what are termed under a respectable phrase for Gipsies, "old hags," they seem to jump from sixty to between seventy and eighty at a bound. I was talking to one I considered an old woman as to her age only a day or two ago, and she said, with a pitiful tone, "I am a long way over seventy," and I asked her if she could tell me the year in which she was born, to which she replied that she "was sixteen when the good Queen was crowned."

The following case, related to me by the tradesman himself, at Battersea—a sharp, quick, business gentleman, who boasted to me that he had never been sold before by any one—will show faintly how clever the Gipsy women are at lying, deception, and cheating:—Three pretty, well-dressed Gipsy women went into his shop one day last summer, and said that they had arranged to have a christening on the morrow, and as beer got into the heads of their men, and made them wild, which they did not like to see on such occasions, they had decided to have a quiet, little, respectable affair, and in place of beer they were going to have wine, cakes, and biscuits after their tea; and they ordered some currant cake, several bottles of wine, tea, sugar, and other things required on such occasions, to the amount of two pounds fourteen shillings. The Gipsies asked to have the bill made out and the goods packed in a hamper. And while this was being done the Gipsies said to the tradesman: "Now, as we have ordered so much from you, we think that you ought to buy a mat or two and other things of us." Without consulting his wife, he agreed to buy one or two things, to the amount of eleven shillings, which the tradesman had thought would have been deducted from their account; but the Gipsies thought differently—and here was the craft—and said, "We don't understand figures. You had better pay us for the mats, &c., and we will pay you for the wine." The tradesman, who was thrown off his guard, paid them the eleven shillings. With this they walked out of his shop, saying that they would take the bill with them, and send a man with the money and a barrow for the wine, cake, &c., in a few minutes, which they did not, but left the tradesman a wiser but sadder man for spending eleven shillings in things he did not require; and his remarks to me were, "No more Gipsies for me, thank you. I've had quite plenty of Gipsies for my lifetime."

Cases have been known when the Gipsy women have gone among the farmers' cattle and rubbed their nostrils with some nastiness to such an extent as to cause the cattle to loathe their food. The Gipsy in the lane—who of course knows all about the affair—goes to the farmer and tells him he can cure his cattle. This is agreed upon. All the Gipsy does is to visit the cattle secretly and slyly, and rub off the nastiness he has put on. The cattle immediately begin to eat their food, and the Gipsy gets his fee. They kill lambs by sticking pins into their heads.

Tallemant says that near Peye, in Picardy, a Gipsy offered a stolen sheep to a butcher for one hundred sous, or five francs; but the butcher declined to give more than four francs for it. The butcher then went away; whereupon the Gipsy pulled the sheep from a sack into which he had put it, and substituted for it a child belonging to his tribe. He then ran after the butcher, and said, "Give me five francs, and you shall have the sack into the bargain." The butcher paid him the money, and went away. When he got home he opened the sack, and was much astonished when he saw a little boy jump out of it, who in an instant caught up the sack and ran off. "Never was a poor man so hoaxed as this butcher." When they want to leave a place where they have been stopping they set out in an opposite direction to that in their right course. The Gipsies have a thousand other tricks—so says one of the Gipsy fraternity named Pechou de Ruby. Paul Lacroix says that when they take up their quarters in any village they steal very little in its immediate vicinity, but in the neighbouring parishes they rob and plunder in the most daring manner. If they find a sum of money they give notice to the captain, and make a rapid flight from the place. They make counterfeit money, and put it into circulation. They play all sorts of games; they buy all sorts of horses, whether sound or unsound, provided they can manage to pay for them in their own base coin. When they buy food, they pay for it in good money the first time, as they are held in such distrust; but when they are about to leave a neighbourhood they again buy something, for which they tender false coin, receiving the change in good money. In harvest time all doors are shut against them, nevertheless they contrive, by means of picklocks and other instruments, to effect an entrance into houses, when they steal linen, clocks, silver, and any other movable article which they can lay their hands upon. They give a strict account of everything to their captain, who takes his share. They are very clever in making a good bargain. When they know of a rich merchant living in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communication with him, and swindle him, after which they change their clothes, have their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft material, lest they should be heard, and gallop away. Grellmann says:—"The miserable condition of the Gipsies may be imagined from the following facts: many of them, and especially the women, have been burned, by their own request, in order to end their miserable existence; and we can give the case of a Gipsy, who, having been arrested, flogged, and conducted to the frontier, with the threat that if he re-appeared in the country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after three successive and similar threats at three different places, and implored that the capital sentence might be carried out, in order that he might be released from a life of such misery." And he goes on to say that "these unfortunate people were not even looked upon as human beings, for during a hunting party the huntsmen had no scruple whatever in killing a Gipsy woman who was suckling her child, just as they would have done any wild beast which came in their way." And he further says that they received "into their ranks all those whose crime, the fear and punishment of an uneasy conscience, or the charm of a roaming life continually threw in their path; they made use of them either to find their way into countries of which they were ignorant, or to commit robberies which would otherwise have been impracticable. They were not slow to form an alliance with profligate characters, who sometimes worked in concert with them."

A century ago it was somewhat romantic, and answered very well as a contrast to civilisation, to see a number of people moving about the country, dressed in beaver hats and bonnets, scarlet cloaks and hoods, short petticoats, velvet coats with silver buttons, and a plentiful supply of gold rings. The novelty of their person, with dark skin and eyes, black hair, and their fortune-telling proclivities, and other odd curiosities and eccentricities, answered well for a time as a kind of eye-blinder to their little thefts and like things; but that day is over. Their silver buttons are all gone to pot. Their silk velvet coats, plush waistcoats, and diamond rings have vanished, never more to return with their present course of life; patched breeches, torn coats, slouched hats, and washed gold rings have taken their places, and ragged garments in place of silk dresses for the poor Gipsy women. The Gipsy men "lollock" about, the women tell fortunes, and the children gambol on the ditch banks with impunity, nobody caring to interfere with them in any way. This kind of thing, as regards dash and show, is to a great extent passed, and those men who put on a show of work at all, it is as a general thing at tinkering, chair-mending, peg-splitting, skewer-making, and donkey buying. The men make the skewers and sell them at prices varying from one shilling to two shillings per stone; the wood for the skewers they do not always buy. A friend of mine told me a couple of months since that the Gipsies had broken down his fences with impunity, and had taken five hundred young saplings out of his plantation for this purpose. Chairs are bottomed at prices ranging from one shilling and upwards. Some of them do scissor-grinding, for which they charge exorbitant prices. Sir G. H. Beaumont, Bart., of Coleorton Hall, told me very recently that one of the Boswell gang had charged him two shillings for grinding one knife. Some of the women, who are not good hands at fortune-telling, sell artificial flowers, combs, brushes, lace, &c. The women who are good at fortune-telling can make a good thing out of it, even at this late day, in the midst of so much light and Christianity, and they carry it out very adroitly and cleverly too. Two or three months ago I was invited by some Gipsy friends to have tea with them on the outskirts of London. They very kindly sent for twopenny worth of butter for me, and allowed me the honour of using the only cup and saucer, which they said were over one hundred years old. The tea for the grown-up sons and daughters was handed round in mugs, jugs, and basins. The good old man cut my bread and butter with his dark coloured hands pretty thin, but the bread for his sons and daughters was like pieces of bricks, which, with pieces of bacon, he pitched at them without any ceremony, and as they caught it they, although men and women, kept saying "Thank you, pa," "Thank you, pa," and down it went without either knives or forks, or very little grinding. We were all sitting upon the floor, my table being an undressed brick out of some old building, and it was with some difficulty I could keep the pigs that were running loose in the yard from taking a piece off my plate, but with a pretty free use of my toe I kept sending the little grunters squeaking away. After tea I felt a little curious to know what was in the big old Gipsy dame's basket, for I had an idea one or two hair-brushes, combs, laces, and other small trifles which lay on the top of a small piece of oilcloth covering the inside of the basket had, by their greasy appearance, done duty for many a long day. I told the old Gipsy dame that I was going home the next day, and should like to take a little thing or two for my little ones at home, as having been bought of a Gipsy woman near London. The sharp old woman was not long in offering me one or two of her trifles that lay on the top of her basket, but these I said were not so suitable as I should like. "Had she nothing more suitable lower down as a small present?" After a little fumbling and flustering she began to see my motive, and said, "Ah! I see what you are after. I will tell you the truth and show you all." She turned the oilcloth off the basket, underneath of which were "shank ends" of joints, ham-bones, pieces of bacon, and crusts. "These," she said, "have been given to me by servant girls and others for telling their fortunes, really lies, and I have brought them here for my children to live upon, and this is how we live."

[Picture: Gipsy Fortune-tellers cooking their evening meal]

Fortune-telling is a soul-crushing and deadly crying evil, and it is far from being stamped out. A hawker's licence, about the size of one of these pages, covers a life-time of sin and iniquity in this respect. A basket with half-a-dozen brushes, combs, laces, a piece of oilcloth, and a pocket Bible, is all the stock-in-trade they require, and it will serve them for a year. They generally prophecy good. Knowing the readiest way to deceive, to a young lady they describe a handsome gentleman as one she may be assured will be her "husband." To a youth they promise a pretty lady with a large fortune. And thus suiting their deluding speeches to the age, circumstances, anticipations, and prospects of those who employ them, they seldom fail to please their vanity, and often gain a rich reward for their fraud.

A young lady in Gloucestershire allowed herself to be deluded by a Gipsy woman, of artful and insinuating address, to a very great extent. This lady admired a young gentleman, and the Gipsy promised that he would return her love. The lady gave her all the plate in the house, and a gold chain and locket, with no other security than a vain promise that they should be restored at a given period. As might be expected, the wicked woman was soon off with her booty, and the lady was obliged to expose her folly. The property being too much to lose, the woman was pursued and overtaken. She was found washing her clothes in a Gipsy camp, with the gold chain about her neck. She was taken up, but on restoring the articles was allowed to escape.

The same woman afterwards persuaded a gentleman's groom that she could put him in possession of a great sum of money if he would first deposit with her all he then had. He gave her five pounds and his watch, and borrowed for her ten more of two of his friends. She engaged to meet him at midnight in a certain place a mile from the town where he lived, and that he there should dig up out of the ground a silver pot full of gold covered with a clean napkin. He went with his pickaxe and shovel at the appointed time to the supposed lucky spot, having his confidence strengthened by a dream he happened to have about money, which he considered a favourable omen of the wealth he was soon to receive. Of course he met no Gipsy; she had fled another way with the property she had so wickedly obtained. While waiting her arrival a hare started suddenly from its resting-place and so alarmed him that he as suddenly took to his heels and made no stop till he reached his master's house, where he awoke his fellow-servants and told to them his disaster.

This woman, who made so many dupes, rode a good horse, and dressed both gaily and expensively. One of her saddles cost thirty pounds. It was literally studded with silver, for she carried on it the emblems of her profession wrought in that metal—namely, a half moon, seven stars, and the rising sun. Poor woman! her sun is set. Her sins have found her out. Fortune-tellers die hard without exception, so I am told by the Gipsies themselves.

Some time ago a gentleman followed several Gipsy families. Arriving at the place of their encampment his first object was to gain their confidence. This was accomplished; after which, to amuse their unexpected visitant, they showed forth their night diversions in music and dancing; likewise the means by which they obtained their livelihood, such as tinkering, fortune-telling, and conjuring. That the gentleman might be satisfied whether he had obtained their confidence or not, he represented his dangerous situation, in the midst of which they all with one voice cried, "Sir, we would kiss your feet rather than hurt you!" After manifesting a confidence in return, the master of this formidable gang, about forty in number, was challenged by the gentleman for a conjuring match. The challenge was instantly accepted. The Gipsies placed themselves in a circular form, and both being in the middle commenced with their conjuring powers to the best advantage. At last the visitor proposed the making of something out of nothing. This proposal was accepted. A stone which never existed was to be created, and appear in a certain form in the middle of a circle made on the turf. The master of the gang commenced, and after much stamping with his foot, and the gentleman warmly exhorting him to cry aloud, like the roaring of a lion, he endeavoured to call forth nonentity into existence. Asking him if he could do it, he answered, "I am not strong enough." They were all asked the same question, which received the same answer. The visitor commenced. Every eye was fixed upon him, eager to behold this unheard-of exploit; but (and not to be wondered at) he failed! telling them he possessed no more power to create than themselves. Perceiving the thought of insufficiency pervading their minds, he thus spoke: "Now, if you have not power to create a poor little stone, and if 1 have not power either, what must that power be which made the whole world out of nothing?—men, women, and children! that power I call God Almighty."

I have been told that the dislike they have to rule and order has led many of them to maim themselves by cutting off a finger, that they might not serve in either the army or the navy; and I believe there is one instance known of some Gipsies murdering a witness who was to appear against some of their people for horse-stealing; the persons who were guilty of the deed are dead, and in their last moments exclaimed with horror and despair, "Murder, murder." But these circumstances do not stamp their race without exception as infamous monsters in wickedness.

The following is a remarkable instance of the love of costly attire in a female Gipsy of the old school. The woman alluded to obtained a very large sum of money from three maiden ladies, pledging that it should be doubled by her art in conjuration. She then decamped to another district, where she bought a blood-horse, a black beaver hat, a new side-saddle and bridle, a silver-mounted whip, and figured away in her ill-obtained finery at the fairs. It is not easy to imagine the disappointment and resentment of the covetous and credulous ladies, whom she had so easily duped. With the present race of our gutter-scum Gipsies the last remnant of Gipsy pride is nearly dead—poverty, rags, and despair taking the place.

Gipsies of the old type are not strangers to pawnbrokers' shops; but they do not visit these places for the same purposes as the vitiated poor of our trading towns. A pawnshop is their bank. When they acquire property illegally, as by stealing, swindling, or fortune-telling, they purchase valuable plate, and sometimes in the same hour pledge it for safety. Such property they have in store against days of adversity and trouble, which on account of their dishonest habits often overtake them. Should one of their families stand before a judge of his country, charged with a crime which is likely to cost him his life, or to transport him, every article of value is sacrificed to save him from death or apprehended banishment. In such cases they generally retain a counsel to plead for the brother in adversity. Their attachment to the horse, donkey, rings, snuff-box, silver spoons, and all things, except the clothes, of the deceased relatives is very strong. With such articles they will never part, except in the greatest distress, and then they only pledge some of them, which are redeemed as soon as they possess the means.

It has been stated by some writers, that there is hardly a Gipsy in existence who could not, if desired, produce his ten or twenty pounds "at a pinch." Some of those who work, no doubt, could; but it is entirely erroneous, as many other statements relating to the Gipsies, to imagine that the whole of them are as well off as all this. Smith tells us that there is not one in twenty who can show one pound, much less twenty. A Gipsy named Boswell travelled about in the Midland counties with a large van pretty well stocked with his wares, and everybody, especially the Gipsies, thought he was a rich man; but in course of time it came to pass that he died, which event revealed the fact that he was not worth half-a-crown. No class of men and women under the sun has been more wicked than the Gipsies, and no class has prospered less. By their evil deeds for centuries they have brought themselves under the curse of God and the lash of the law wherever they have been.

"To our foes we leave a shame! disgrace can never die; Their sons shall blush to hear a name still blackened with a lie."

Their miserable condition, the persecution, misrepresentation, and the treatment they are receiving are due entirely to their own evil-doing—lying, cheating, robbing, and murder bring their own reward. The Gipsies of to-day are drinking the dregs of the cups they had mixed for others. The sly wink of the eye intended to touch the heart of the innocent and simple has proved to be the electric spark that has reached heaven, and brought down the vengeance of Jehovah upon their heads. The lies proceeding from their bad hearts have turned out to be a swarm of wasps settling down upon their own pates; their stolen goods have been smitten with God's wrath; the horses, mules, and donkeys in their unlawful possession are steeds upon which the Gipsies are riding to hell; and the fortune-telling cards are burning the fingers of the Gipsy women; in one word, the curse of God is following them in every footstep on account of their present sins, and not on account of their past traditions. Immediately they alter their course of life, and "cease to do evil and learn to do well"—no matter whether they are Jews or barbarians, bond or free—the blessing of God will follow, and they will begin to thrive and prosper.

Smoking and eating tobacco adds another leaden weight to those already round their neck, and it helps to bow them down to the ground—a short black pipe, the ranker and oftener it has been used the more delicious will be the flavour, and the better they will like it. When their "baccy" is getting "run out," the short pipe is handed round to the company of Gipsies squatting upon the ground, without any delicacy of feeling, for all of them to "have a pull." Spittoons are things they never use. White, scented, cambric pocket-handkerchiefs are not often brought into request upon their "lovely faces." They prefer allowing the bottom of the dresses the honour of appearing before his worship "the nose." Nothing pleases the Gipsies better than to give them some of the weed. I saw a poor, dying, old Gipsy woman the other day. Nothing seemed to please her so much, although she could scarcely speak, as to delight in referring to the sins of her youth, of a kind before referred to, and no present was so acceptable to her as "a nounce of baccy." She said she "would rather have it than gold," and I "could not have pleased her better." I doubt whether she lived to smoke it. I think I am speaking within the mark when I state that fully three-fourths of the Gipsy women in this country are inveterate smokers. It is a black, burning shame for us to have such a state of things in our midst. In nine cases out of ten the children of drunken, smoking women will turn out to be worthless scamps and vagabonds, and a glance at the Gipsies will prove my statements.

Eternity will reveal their deeds of darkness—murders, immorality, torturous and heart-rending treatment to their poor slaves of women, beastly and murderous brutality to their poor children. There is a terrible reckoning coming for the "Gipsy man," who can chuckle to his fowls, and kick, with his iron-soled boot, his poor child to death; who can warm and shelter his blackbird, and send the offspring of his own body to sleep upon rotten straw and the dung-heap, covered over with sticks and rags, through which light, hail, wind, rain, sleet, and snow can find its way without let or hinderance; who can take upon his knees a dog and fondle it in his bosom, and, at the same time, spit in his wife's face with oaths and cursing, and send her out in the snow on a piercing-cold winter's day, half clad and worse fed, with child on her back and basket on her arm, to practise the art of double-dyed lying and deception on honest, simple people, in order to bring back her ill-gotten gains to her semi-clad hovel, on which to fatten her "lord and master," by half-cleaned knuckle-bones, ham-shanks, and pieces of bacon that fall from the "rich man's table."

The following is a specimen of house-dwelling Gipsies in the Midlands I have visited. In the room downstairs there were a broken-down old squab, two rickety old chairs, and a three-legged table that had to be propped against the wall, and a rusty old poker, with a smoking fire-place. The Gipsy father was a strong man, not over fond of work; he had been in prison once; the mother, a strong Gipsy woman of the old type, marked with small-pox, and plenty of tongue—by the way, I may say I have not yet seen a dumb and deaf Gipsy. She turned up her dress sleeves and showed me how she had "made the blood run out of another Gipsy woman for hitting her child." As she came near to me exhibiting her fisticuffing powers, I might have been a little nervous years ago; but dealing with men and things in a rough kind of fashion for so many years has taken some amount of nervousness of this kind out of me.

It may be as well to remark here that the Gipsy women can do their share of fighting, and are as equally pleased to have a stand-up fight as the Gipsy men are. One of these Gipsy women lives with a man who is not a thorough Gipsy, who spends a deal of his time under lock and key on account of his poaching inclinations; and other members of this large family are on the same kind of sliding scale, and not one of whom can read or write.

It is not pleasant to say strong things about clergymen, for whom I have the highest respect; nevertheless, there are times when respect for Christ's church, duty to country, love for the children and anxiety for their eternal welfare, compels you to step out of the beaten rut to expose, though with pain, wrong-doing. In a day and Sunday school-yard connected with the Church of England, not one hundred miles from London, there are to be seen—and I am informed by them, except during the hop-picking season, that it is their camping-ground, and has been for years—one van, in which there are man, wife, young woman, and a daughter of about fourteen years of age; the young woman and daughter sleep in a kind of box under the man and his wife. In another part of the yard is a Gipsy tent, where God's broad earth answers the purpose of a table, and a "batten of straw" serves as a bed. There is a woman, two daughters, one of whom is of marriageable age and the other far in her teens, and a youth I should think about sixteen years of age. I should judge that the mother and her two daughters sleep on one bed at one end of the tent and the youth at the other; there is no partition between them, and only about seven feet of space between each bed of litter. In another tent there is man, wife, and one child. When I was there, on the Sunday afternoon, they were expecting the Gipsy "to come home to his tent drunk and wake the baby." In another tent there was a Gipsy with his lawful wife and three children. One of the Gipsy women in the yard frequently came home drunk, and I have seen her smoking with a black pipe in her mouth three parts tipsy. Now, I ask my countrymen if this is the way to either improve the habits and morals of the Gipsies themselves, or to set a good example to day and Sunday scholars. Drunkenness is one of the evil associations of Gipsy life. Brandy and "fourpenny," or "hell fire," as it is sometimes called, are their chief drinks. A Gipsy of the name of Lee boasted to me only a day or two since that he had been drunk every night for more than a fortnight, his language being, "Oh! it is delightful to get drunk, tumble into a row, and smash their peepers. What care we for the bobbies." They seldom if ever use tumblers. A large jug is filled with this stuff, in colour and thickness almost like treacle and water, leaving a kind of salty taste behind it as it passes out of sight; but, I am sorry to say, not out of the body, mind, or brain, leaving a trail upon which is written—more! more! more! Under its influence they either turn saints or demons as will best serve their purpose. The more drink some of the Gipsy women get the more the red coloured piety is observable in their faces, and when I have been talking to them, or otherwise, they have said, "Amen," "Bless the Lord," "Oh, it is nice to be 'ligious and Christany," as they have closed round me; and with the same breath they have begun to talk of murder, bloodshed, and revenge, and to say, "How nice it is to get a living by telling lies." Half an ounce of tobacco and a few gentle words have a most wonderful effect upon their spirits and nerves under such circumstances. I have frequently seen drunken Gipsy women in the streets of London. Early this year I met one of my old Gipsy women friends in Garrett Lane, Wandsworth, with evidently more than she could carry, and a weakness was observable in her knees; and when she saw me she was not so far gone as not to know who I was. She tried to make a curtsy, and in doing so very nearly lost her balance, and it took her some ten yards to recover her perpendicular. With a little struggling, stuttering, and stumbling, she got right, and pursued her way to the tent.

In December of last year four Gipsies, of Acton Green, were charged before the magistrates at Hammersmith with violently assaulting an innkeeper for refusing to allow them to go into a private part of his house. A terrible struggle ensued, and a long knife was fetched out of their tents, and had they not been stopped the consequences might have been fearful. They were sent to gaol for two months, which would give them time for reflection. A few days ago two Gipsies from the East End of London were sent to gaol for thieving, and are now having their turn upon the wheel of fortune.

"Whirl fiery circles, and the moon is full: Imps with long tongues are licking at my brow, And snakes with eyes of flame crawl up my breast; Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns, And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands; Great trunks have some, and some are hung with beads. Here serpents dash their stings into my face, All tipped with fire; and there a wild bird drives His red-hot talons in my burning scalp. Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears Like crackling coals, and frogs strut up and down Like hissing cinders; wasps and waterflies Scorch deep like melting minerals. Murther! Fire!"

Cries the Gipsy, as he rolls about on his bed of filthy litter, in a tent whose only furniture is an old tin bucket pierced with holes, a soap-box, and a few rags, with a poor-looking, miserable woman for a wife, and a lot of wretched half-starved, half-naked children crying round him for bread. "Give us bread!" "Give us bread!" is their piteous cry.

The Gipsy in Hungary is a being who has puzzled the wits of the inhabitants for centuries, and the habits of the Hungarian Gipsies are abominable; their hovels, for they do not all live in tents and encampments, are sinks of the vilest poverty and filth; their dress is nothing but rags, and they live on carrion; and it is in this pitiable condition they go singing and dancing to hell. Nothing gives them more pleasure than to be told where a dead pig, horse, or cow may be found, and the Gipsies, young and old, will scamper to fetch it; decomposition rather sharpens their ravenous appetites; at any rate, they will not "turn their noses up" at it in disgust; in fact, Grellmann goes so far as to say that human flesh is a dainty morsel, especially that of children. What applies to the Hungarian Gipsies will to a large extent apply to the Gipsies in Spain, Germany, France, Russia, and our own country. There is no proof of our Gipsies eating children; but if I am to believe their own statements, the dead dogs, cats, and pigs that happen to be in their way run the risk of being potted for soup, and causing a "smacking of the lips" as the heathens sit round their kettle—which answers the purpose of a swill-tub when not needed for cooking—as it hangs over the coke fire, into which they dip their platters with relish and delight. What becomes of the dead donkeys, mules, ponies, and horses that die during their trafficking is best known to themselves. No longer since than last winter I was told by some Gipsies on the outskirts of London that some of their fraternity had been seen on more than one occasion picking up dead cats out of the streets of London to take home to their dark-eyed beauties and lovely damsels. Only a few days since I was told by a lot of Gipsies upon Cherry Island, and in presence of some of the Lees, that some of their fraternity, and they mentioned some of their names, had often picked up snails, worms, &c., and put them alive into a pan over their coke fires, and as the life was being frizzled out of the creeping things they picked them out of the pan with their fingers and put them into their months without any further ceremony. I cannot for the life of me think that human nature is at such a low ebb among them as to make this kind of life general. At most I should think cases of this kind are exceptional. Their food, whether it be animal or vegetable, is generally turned into a kind of dirty-looking, thick liquid, which they think good enough to be called soup. Their principal meal is about five o'clock, upon the return of the mother after her hawking and cadging expeditions. Their bread, as a rule, is either bought, stolen, or begged. When they bake, which is very seldom, they put their lumps of dough among the red embers of their coke fires. Sometimes they will eat like pigs, till they have to loose their garments for more room, and other times they starve themselves to fiddle-strings. A few weeks since, when snow was on the ground, I saw in the outskirts of London eight half-starved, poor, little, dirty, Gipsy children dining off three potatoes, and drinking the potato water as a relish. They do not always use knife and fork. Table, plates, and dishes are not universal among them. Their whole kitchen and table requirements are an earthen pot, an iron pan, which serves as a dish, a knife, and a spoon. When the meal is ready the whole family sit round the pot or pan, and then "fall to it" with their fingers and teeth, Adam's knives and forks, and the ground providing the table and plates. Boiled pork is, as a rule, their universal, every-day, central pot-boiler, and the longer it is boiled the harder it gets, like the Irishman who boiled his egg for an hour to get it soft, and then had to give it up as a bad job. Some of these kind-hearted folks have, on more than one occasion, given me "a feed" of it. It is sweet and nice, but awfully satisfying, and I think two meals would last me for a week very comfortably; all I should require would be to get a good dinner off their knuckle-bones, roll myself up like a hedgehog, doze off like Hubert Petalengro into a semi-unconscious state, and I should be all right for three or four days. "Beggars must not be choosers." They have done what they could to make me comfortable, and for which I have been very thankful. I have had many a cup of tea with them, and hope to do so again.

One writer observes:—"Commend me to Gipsy life and hard living. Robust exercise, out-door life, and pleasant companions are sure to beget good dispositions both of body and mind, and would create a stomach under the very ribs of death capable of digesting a bar of pig-iron." Their habits of uncleanliness are most disgusting. Occasionally you will meet with clean people, and children with clean, red, chubby faces; but in nine cases out of ten they are of parents who have had a different bringing up than squatting about in the mud and filth. One woman I know at Notting Hill, and who was born in an Oxfordshire village, is at the present time surrounded with filth of the most sickening kind, which she cannot help, and to her credit manages to keep her children tolerably clean and nice for a woman of her position. There is another at Garrett Lane, Wandsworth; another at Sheepcot Lane, Battersea; two at Upton Park; one at Cherry Island; two at Hackney Wick, and several others in various parts on the outskirts of London. At Hackney Wick I saw twenty tents and vans, connected with which there were forty men and women and about seventy children of all ages, entirely devoid of all sanitary arrangements. A gentleman who was building some property in the neighbourhood told me that he had seen grown-up youths and big girls running about entirely nude in the morning, and squatting about the ground and leaving their filth behind them more like animals than human beings endowed with souls and reason. When I was there it was with some difficulty I could put my foot in a clean place. The same kind of thing occurs in a more or less degree wherever Gipsies are located, and, sad to relate, house-dwelling Gipsies are very little better in this respect. Grellmann, speaking of the German and Hungarian Gipsies many years ago, says:—"We may easily account for the colour of their skin. The Laplanders, Samoyeds, as well as the Siberians, have bronze, yellow-coloured skins, in consequence of living from their childhood in smoke and dirt, as the Gipsies do. These would long ago have got rid of their swarthy complexions if they had discontinued this Gipsy manner of living. Observe only a Gipsy from his birth till he comes to man's estate, and one must be convinced that their colour is not so much owing to their descent as to the nastiness of their bodies. In summer the child is exposed to the scorching sun, in winter it is shut up in a smoky hut. Some mothers smear their children over with black ointment, and leave them to fry in the sun or near the fire. They seldom trouble themselves about washing or other modes of cleaning themselves. Experience also shows us that it is more their manner of life than descent which has propagated this black colour of the Gipsies from generation to generation." I am told, and I verily believe it, that many of the children are not washed for years together. I have seen over and over again dirt peeling off the poor children's bodies and faces like a skin, and leaving a kind of white patch behind it, presenting a kind of a piebald spectacle. Some of the children never take their clothes off till they drop off in shreds. Many of the Gipsies, both old and young, have only one suit of clothes. English delicacy of feeling and sentiment for female virtue must stand abashed with horror at this kind of civilisation in the nineteenth century of Christian England. I have seen washing done on the Sunday afternoon among them, and while the clothes have been drying on the line the women and children have been roasting themselves before the fires in nearly a nude state. A Sunday or two ago a poor Gipsy woman was washing her only smoky-looking blanket late in the afternoon, and upon which she would have to lay that night. It was a cold, wintry, drizzling afternoon, and how it was to get dry was a puzzle to me. A Gipsy woman, named Hearn, said to me a few days ago, in answer to some conversation relating to their dirty habits; "The reason for the Gipsies not washing themselves oftener was on account of their catching cold after each time they washed." She "only washed herself once in a fortnight, and she was almost sure to catch cold after it." In some things the real old Gipsies are very particular, i.e., they will on no account take their food out of cups, saucers, or basins, that have been washed in the same pansions in which their linen has been washed; so sensitive are they on this point that if they found out that by an accident this custom had been transgressed they would immediately break the vessel to pieces. This is a custom picked up by the Gipsies among the Jews in their wandering from India through the Holy Land. Another practice they adopt in common with the Jews is, swearing or taking oaths over their dead relations. The customs, practices, and words picked up by them during their wanderings have added to their mystification. While they will respect certain delicacy observed among the Jews, they will eat pork, the most detestable of all food in the eyes of the Israelites, and will even pay a greater price for it than for beef or mutton. An Englishwoman, who had married a Gipsy named Smith, told me very recently, in presence of her mother-in-law and another woman, that she had seen her husband eat a small plate of cooked snails as a dainty. While the daughter-in-law was telling me this, the old Gipsy mother-in-law, with one foot in the grave, not far from Mary's Place, near the Potteries, Notting Hill, was trying to make me believe what a choice dish there was in store for me if I would allow her to cook me a hedgehog. She said I should "find it nicer than the finest rabbit or pheasant I had ever tasted." The fine, old, Gipsy woman, as regards her appearance, although suffering from congestion of lungs and inflammation, and expecting every moment to be her last, would joke and make fun as if nothing was the matter with her. When I questioned her upon the sin of lying, she said, "If the dear Lord spares me, I shall tell lies again. I could not get on without it; how could I? I could not sell my things without lies." She was rather severe, and this was a pleasing feature in the old woman's character, upon a Gipsy who was pretending to "'ligious," and yet living upon the money gained by his wife in telling fortunes. She said, "If I must be ''ligious,' I would be ''ligious.' You might," said the old woman, "as well eat the devil as suck his broth. Ah! I hate the fellow." After asking her, and getting her interpretation of "God bless you" in Romany, which is Mi-Doovel-Parik-tooti—and she was the only Gipsy round London who could put the words in Romany—and some other conversation accompanied with "coppers and baccy," &c., and to which she replied, "Amen!" with as much earnestness as if she was the greatest saint outside heaven, we parted.

Much has been said and written years ago about the chastity, fidelity, and faithfulness of the Gipsies towards each other. This may have been the case, and in a few exceptional cases it holds good now; but if I am to believe these men themselves they are very isolated indeed, and what I have said upon this point about the brick-yard employes in my "Cry of the Children from the Brick-yards of England," and also those living in canal-boats, in "Our Canal Population," holds good, but with ten times more force concerning the Gipsies. Immorality abounds to a most alarming degree. Incest, wantonness, lasciviousness, lechery, whoring, bigamy, and every other abomination low, degrading, carnal appetites, propensity, and lust originate and encourage they practise openly, without the least blush; in fact, I question if many of them know what it is to blush at all.

I have heard a deal of disgusting, filthy language in my time among brick-yard and canal-boat women, but not a tithe so sickening as among some Gipsy women. I pitied them, and to look upon them as charitably as possible I set it down to their extreme ignorance of the language they used. A Gipsy at Upton Park last week named D—- gloried to my face in the fact that he was not married. This same man has a brother not far from Mitcham Common living with two sisters in an unlawful state. Abraham Smith, a Gipsy at Upton Park, who is over seventy, and tells me that he is trying to serve God and get to heaven, mentioned a case to me of a Gipsy and a woman at Hackney Wick. The man has several children by a woman now living with another man, and the woman has several children by another man.

This Gipsy, S—-, and his woman S—-, turned both lots of their former own children adrift upon the wide, wide world, uncared for, unprotected, and abandoned, while they are living and indulging in sin to their hearts' content, without the least shame and remorse. Inquire of whoever I may, and look whichever way Providence directs me among the various phases of Gipsy life, I find the same black array of facts staring me in the face, the same dolorous issues everywhere. The words reason, honour, restraint, and fidelity are words not to be found in their vocabulary. My later inquiries fully confirm my previous statements as to two-thirds living as husband and wife being unmarried. I have not found a Gipsy to contradict this statement. Abraham Smith fully agrees with it.