sed Grellmann's work upon the Gipsies of his
own country. If an account similar to Grellmann's had appeared
concerning our English Gipsies a century ago, and energetic action had
been taken by our law-makers, instead of publishing an account of the
Hungarian and other Continental Gipsies, it is impossible to calculate
the beneficent results that would have accrued long before this, both to
the Gipsies themselves and the country at large.

[Picture: Inside a Gipsy Fortune-teller's van near Latimer Road]

One writer deals principally with the Scotch Gipsies, another with the
Spanish Gipsies, another is trying to prove the Egyptian origin of the
Gipsies, another is tracing their language, another treats upon our
English Gipsies in a kind of "milk-and-watery" fashion that will neither
do them good nor harm--he pleases his readers, but leaves the Gipsies
where he found them, viz., in the ditch. Another went to work on the
principle of praying and believing for them; but, I am sorry to say, in
his circumscribed sphere his faith and works fell flat, on account, no
doubt, of this dear, good man and his friends undertaking to do a work
which should in that day have been undertaken by the State, at least,
that part of it relating to the education of the Gipsy children.

The Gipsy race is supposed to be the most beautiful in the world, and
amongst the Russian Gipsies are to be found countenances, which, to do
justice to, would require an abler pen than mine; but exposure to the
rays of the sun, the biting of the frost, and the pelting of the pitiless
sleet and snow destroys the beauty at a very early age, and if in infancy
their personal advantages are remarkable, their ugliness at an advanced
age is no less so, for then it is loathsome and appalling:--"He wanted
but the dark and kingly crown to have represented the monster who opposed
the progress of Lucifer whilst careering in burning arms and infernal
glory to the outlet of his hellish prison." In our own country a number
of Gipsies sit as models, for which they get one shilling per hour. They
are not in demand as perfect specimens of the human figure from the crown
of the head to the sole of the foot; but few of them, owing to their low,
debasing habits, have arrived at that state of perfection. I know one
real, fine, old Gipsy woman who sits to artists for the back of her head
only, on account of her black, frizzy, raven locks. One will sit for her
eyes, another f