evil and infamous practices; and the crime has de. scended to her through several generations. Many circumstances like the above are hidden to prevent the shame that would assuredly follow their exposure. But the day of Christ will exhibit both these deceivers -and the deceived, who are equally guilty in the sight of God. It were well if such characters had paid more attention to the words of the apostle Paul; And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction. The love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some have coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Not to mention many other facts with which the author is acquainted, and which he would relate, were he not likely thereby too much to enlarge his work, he will conclude this chapter with observing, that, thankfulness to Almighty God for the blessings we enjoy, less anxiety about future events, and more confidence in what God has revealed in his word and providence, would leave no room for the encouragement of Gipsy fortune-tellers, and their craft would soon be discontinued.

CHAP. III.

The Character, Manners, and Habits of the English Gipsies continued, with some Facts relating to their Sufferings.

AMONG this poor and destitute people, instances of great guilt, depravity, and misery, are too common; nor can it otherwise be expected, while they are destitute of the knowledge of salvation in a crucified and ascended Saviour. One poor Gipsy, who had wandered in a state of wretchedness bordering on despair for nearly forty years, had not in all that. time heard of the Name which is above every name; for there is salvation in no other; till in his last days some Christian directed him to the Bible, as a book that tells poor sinners the way to God. He gave a woman a guinea to read its pages to him; and he remunerated another woman, who read to him the book of Common Prayer. The last few years of his life were marked by strong conviction of sin. His children thought he must have been a murderer. They often saw him under the hedges at prayer. In his last moments he received comfort through a pious minister, who visited him in his tent, and made him acquainted with the promises of the gospel.

A similar instance has been related by a clergyman known to the author; nor should the interview of GEORGE THE THIRD with a poor Gipsy woman be forgotten; for a brighter example of condescending kindness is not furnished in the history of kings. This gracious monarch became the minister of instruction and comfort to a dying Gipsy, to whom he was drawn by the cries of her children, and saw her expire, cheered by the view of that redemption he had set before her.

But how few are there of the tens of thousands of Gipsies, who have died in Britain, that, whether living or dying, have been visited either by ministers or their people! The father of three orphan children, lately taken under the care of the Southampton Committee for the improvement of the Gipsies, had lived an atheist, but such he could not die. He had often declared there was no God; but before his death, he called one of his sons to him and said, I have always said there was no God, but now I know there is; I see him now. He attempted to pray, but knew not how! And many other Gipsies have been so afraid. of God, that they dreaded to be alone.

Another instance of the power and guilt of conscience, in the last hours of a Gipsy, who has been mentioned in a preceding chapter, came before the author, which he will notice. The poor victim was a fiddler, and often mixed with the worst and lowest of degraded characters in towns and villages, to add mirth to the unholy dance. In such employment the

most wicked and debasing passions of human nature were excited in him, and he became eager and remorseless in the practice of crime. But his days were cut short by intemperance. The wicked shall not live out half his days. When dying, he called his family around him, and exclaimed that he was a ruined man, and intreated his wife never to let his children practise fiddling. The old woman, frantic with grief at the death of her husband, leaped from her cart, and, looking up to heaven, charged the Divine Being with having killed her husband!!

It is a fact, not generally known, that the Gipsies of this country have not much knowledge of tribes or clans in counties distant from them, and they are often very particular to keep to their own. Nor will those who style themselves respectable, allow their children to marry into the more depraved clans.

The following are a few of the family names of the Gipsies of this country:-Williams, Jones, Plunkett, Cooper, Glover, Carew (descendants of the famous Bamfield Moore Carew), Loversedge, Mansfield, Martin, Light, Lee, Barnett, Boswell, Carter, Buckland, Lovell, Corrie, Bosvill, Eyres, Smalls, Draper, Fletcher, Taylor, Broadway, Baker, Smith, Buckly, Blewett, Scamp, and Stanley. Of the last-named family there are more than two hundred, most of whom are known to the author.

It is a well-authenticated fact, that many persons pass for Gipsies who are not. Such persons having done something to exclude them from society, join

themselves to this people, and marrying into their clans, become the means of leading them to crimes they would not have thought of but for their connection with such wicked people. Coining money and forging notes are, however, crimes which cannot be justly attributed to them. Indeed it has been too much the custom to impute to them a great number of crimes of which they either never were guilty, or which could only be committed by an inconsiderable portion of their race; and they have often suffered the penalty of the law, when they have not in the least deserved it. They have been talked of by the public, and prosecuted by the authorities, as the perpetrators of every vice and wickedness alike shocking to civil and savage life. Nor is this to be wondered at, living as they do, so remote from observation and the walks of common life.

Whoever has read Grellman's Dissertation on the Continental Gipsies, and supposes that those of England are equally immoral and vicious, are greatly mistaken. The former are a banditti of robbers, without natural affection, living with each other almost like brutes, and scarcely knowing, and assuredly never caring about, the existence of God; some of them are even supposed to be cannibals. The Gipsies of this country are altogether different; as monstrous ́crimes are seldom heard of among them.

The author is not aware of any of them being convicted of house-breaking, or high-way robbery. Seldom are they guilty of sheep-stealing, or robbing