large extent apply to the
Gipsies in Spain, Germany, France, Russia, and our own country. There is
no proof of our Gipsies eating children; but if I am to believe their own
statements, the dead dogs, cats, and pigs that happen to be in their way
run the risk of being potted for soup, and causing a "smacking of the
lips" as the heathens sit round their kettle--which answers the purpose
of a swill-tub when not needed for cooking--as it hangs over the coke
fire, into which they dip their platters with relish and delight. What
becomes of the dead donkeys, mules, ponies, and horses that die during
their trafficking is best known to themselves. No longer since than last
winter I was told by some Gipsies on the outskirts of London that some of
their fraternity had been seen on more than one occasion picking up dead
cats out of the streets of London to take home to their dark-eyed
beauties and lovely damsels. Only a few days since I was told by a lot
of Gipsies upon Cherry Island, and in presence of some of the Lees, that
some of their fraternity, and they mentioned some of their names, had
often picked up snails, worms, &c., and put them alive into a pan over
their coke fires, and as the life was being frizzled out of the creeping
things they picked them out of the pan with their fingers and put them
into their months without any further ceremony. I cannot for the life of
me think that human nature is at such a low ebb among them as to make
this kind of life general. At most I should think cases of this kind are
exceptional. Their food, whether it be animal or vegetable, is generally
turned into a kind of dirty-looking, thick liquid, which they think good
enough to be called soup. Their principal meal is about five o'clock,
upon the return of the mother after her hawking and cadging expeditions.
Their bread, as a rule, is either bought, stolen, or begged. When they
bake, which is very seldom, they put their lumps of dough among the red
embers of their coke fires. Sometimes they will eat like pigs, till they
have to loose their garments for more room, and other times they starve
themselves to fiddle-strings. A few weeks since, when snow was on the
ground, I saw in the outskirts of London eight half-starved, poor,
little, dirty, Gipsy children dining off three potatoes, and drinking the
potato water as a relish. They do not always use knife and fork. Table,
plates, and dishes are not universal among them. Their whole