'A Gipsy.' 'All right,' said
the Devil; 'you are just the man I am wanting. I have been on the
look-out for you some time. Come in. I have been told the Gipsies are
the worst folks in all the world.' The Gipsy had not been long in hell
before the Devil perceived that he was too bad for his place, and the
place began to swarm with young imps to such a degree that the Devil
called the Gipsy to him one day, and said, 'Of all the people that have
ever come to this place you are the worst. You are too bad for us. Here
is your passport. Be off back again!' The Devil opened the door, and
said, as the Gipsy was going, 'Make yourself scarce.' So you see," said
Lee to me, "we are too bad for the Devil. We'll go anywhere, fight
anybody, or do anything. Now, lads, drink that 'fourpenny' up, and let's
send for some more." This is Gipsy life in England on a Sunday afternoon
within the sound of church bells.

[Picture: A Fortune-telling Gipsy enjoying her pipe]

The proprietor of the _Weekly Times_ very readily granted permission for
one of the principals of his staff to accompany me to one of the Gipsy
encampments a Sunday or two ago on the outskirts of London. Those who
know the writer would say the article is truthful, and not in the least
overdrawn:--"The lane was full of decent-looking houses, tenanted by
labourers in foundries and gas and waterworks; but there were spaces
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 lo