After having promised that the morals of the child should be watched
over, she was confided to his care. And the author has known a Gipsy
parent correct with stripes a grown daughter, for mentioning what a
profligate person had talked about.

The following is an instance of conjugal attachment. A poor woman, whose
eldest child is now under the care of the Society for the improvement of
the Gipsies, being near her confinement, came into the neighbourhood of
Southampton, to be with her friends, who are reformed, during the time.
This not taking place so soon as she expected, and having promised to
meet her husband at a distance on a certain day, he not daring to shew
himself in Hampshire, she determined on going to him; and having mounted
her donkey, set off with her little family. She had a distance of nearly
fifty miles to travel, and happily reached the desired spot, where she
met her husband before her confinement took place. The good people at
Warminster, near which place she was, afforded her kind and needful
assistance; and one well-disposed lady became God-mother to the babe, who
was a fine little girl; the grateful mother pledging that, at a proper
age, she should be given up to Christians to be educated.

Before this woman left Southampton, referring to many kind attentions
shewn her by the charitable of that place, she was heard to say,
_Well_--_I did not think any one would take such trouble for me_!

Professing to be church people whenever they speak of religion, the
Gipsies generally have their children baptized at the church near which
they are born, partly because they think it right, and partly, perhaps
chiefly, to secure the knowledge of the parish to which the child
belongs; for every illegitimate child is parishioner in the parish in
which it happens to be born. They will sometimes apply to the parish
officers for something toward the support of a child, which they call
_settling the baby_.

The sponsors at baptism are generally branches of the same family, and
they speak of their God-children with pleasure, who in return manifest a
high feeling of respect for them, and superstitiously ask their blessing
on old Christmas-days, when in company with them. It is worthy of remark
that all the better sort of Gipsies teach their children the LORD'S
PRAYER.

The anxiety evidenced by some parish officers to prevent these families
from settling in their districts, has occasionally led the Gipsies to