heir own base coin. When they buy food, they pay for it in good
money the first time, as they are held in such distrust; but when they
are about to leave a neighbourhood they again buy something, for which
they tender false coin, receiving the change in good money. In harvest
time all doors are shut against them, nevertheless they contrive, by
means of picklocks and other instruments, to effect an entrance into
houses, when they steal linen, clocks, silver, and any other movable
article which they can lay their hands upon. They give a strict account
of everything to their captain, who takes his share. They are very
clever in making a good bargain. When they know of a rich merchant
living in the place, they disguise themselves, enter into communication
with him, and swindle him, after which they change their clothes, have
their horses shod the reverse way, and the shoes covered with some soft
material, lest they should be heard, and gallop away. Grellmann
says:--"The miserable condition of the Gipsies may be imagined from the
following facts: many of them, and especially the women, have been
burned, by their own request, in order to end their miserable existence;
and we can give the case of a Gipsy, who, having been arrested, flogged,
and conducted to the frontier, with the threat that if he re-appeared in
the country he would be hanged, resolutely returned after three
successive and similar threats at three different places, and implored
that the capital sentence might be carried out, in order that he might be
released from a life of such misery." And he goes on to say that "these
unfortunate people were not even looked upon as human beings, for during
a hunting party the huntsmen had no scruple whatever in killing a Gipsy
woman who was suckling her child, just as they would have done any wild
beast which came in their way." And he further says that they received
"into their ranks all those whose crime, the fear and punishment of an
uneasy conscience, or the charm of a roaming life continually threw in
their path; they made use of them either to find their way into countries
of which they were ignorant, or to commit robberies which would otherwise
have been impracticable. They were not slow to form an alliance with
profligate characters, who sometimes worked in concert with them."

A century ago it was somewhat romantic, and answered very well as a
contrast to civilisation, to see a number of people moving about