imself. As Ferdusi sings:

"'Say what you will and do what you can,
No washing e'er whitens the black Zingan.'

"The only kindness he requires is a little charity and forgiveness when
he steals wood or wires a hare. All wrong doubtless; but something
should be allowed to one whose ancestors were called 'dead-meat eaters'
in the Shastras. Should the reader wish to reform a Gipsy, let him
explain to the Romany that the days for roaming in England are rapidly
passing away. Tell him that for his children's sake he had better rent a
cheap cottage; that his wife can just as well peddle with her basket from
a house as from a waggon, and that he can keep a horse and trap and go to
the races or hopping 'genteely.' Point out to him those who have done
the same, and stimulate his ambition and pride. As for suffering as a
traveller he does not know it. I once asked a Gipsy girl who was sitting
as a model if she liked the _drom_ (road) best, or living in a house.
With sparkling eyes and clapping her hands she exclaimed, 'oh, the road!
the road!'"

Mr. Beerbohm writes under date August 19th:--"In reading yesterday's
article on the customs and idiosyncrasies of Gipsies I was struck by the
similarity they present to many peculiarities I have observed among the
Patagonian Indians. To those curious in such matters it may be of
interest to know that the custom of burning all the goods and chattels of
a deceased member of the tribe prevails among the Patagonians as among
the Gipsies; and the identity of custom is still further carried out,
inasmuch as with the former, as with the latter, the name of the deceased
is never uttered, and all allusion to him is strictly avoided. So much
so, that in those cases when the deceased has borne some cognomen taken
from familiar objects, such as 'Knife,' 'Wool,' 'Flint,' &c., the word is
no longer used by the tribe, some other sound being substituted instead.
This is one of the reasons why the Tshuelche language is constantly
fluctuating, but few of the words expressing a proper meaning, as
chronicled by Fitzroy and Darwin (1832), being now in use."

The Rev. Mr. Hewett writes to the _Standard_, under date August 19th, to
say that he baptised two Gipsy children in 1871. One might ask, in the
language of one of the "Old Book," "What are these among so many?" The
following letter from Mr. Harrison upon the subject appeared on August
20th:--"I have just returned from the head-quarter