, a thing in itself impossible, not only the
English Gipsies, but the whole race, have ever professed it; therefore,
whatever misery they may have suffered on that account they may be
considered as having called it down upon their own heads.

"Dabbling in sorcery is in some degree the province of the female Gipsy.
She affects to tell the future, and to prepare philters by means of which
love can be awakened in any individual towards any particular object; and
such is the credulity of the human race, even in the more enlightened
countries, that the profits arising from their practices are great. The
following is a case in point:--Two females, neighbours and friends, were
tried some years since in England for the murder of their husbands. It
appeared that they were in love with the same individual, and had
conjointly, at various times, paid sums of money to a Gipsy woman to work
charms to captivate his affection. Whatever little effect the charm
might produce, they were successful in their principal object, for the
person in question carried on for some time a criminal intercourse with
both. The matter came to the knowledge of the husbands, who, taking
means to break off this connection, were respectively poisoned by their
wives. Till the moment of conviction these wretched females betrayed
neither emotion nor fear; but then their consternation was indescribable,
when they afterwards confessed that the Gipsy who had visited them in
prison had promised to shield them from conviction by means of her art.

"Poisoning cattle is exercised by them in two ways: by one, they merely
cause disease in the animals, with the view of receiving money for curing
them upon offering their services. The poison is generally administered
by powders cast at night into the mangers of the animals. This way is
only practised upon the larger cattle, such as horses and cows. By the
other, which they practise chiefly on swine, speedy death is almost
invariably produced, the drug administered being of a highly intoxicating
nature, and affecting the brain. Then they apply at the house or farm
where the disaster has occurred for the carcase of the animal, which is
generally given them without suspicion, and then they feast on the flesh,
which is not injured by the poison, it only affecting the head."

In looking at the subject from a plain, practical, common-sense point of
view--divested of "opinions," "surmises," "technicalities,"
"similarit