a
child belonging to his tribe. He then ran after the butcher, and said,
"Give me five livres, and you shall have the sack into the bargain." The
butcher paid him the money, and went away. When he got home he opened the
sack, and was much astonished when he saw a little boy jump out of it,
who, in an instant, caught up the sack and ran off. "Never was a poor man
so thoroughly hoaxed as this butcher," says Tallemant des Reaux.

The gipsies had thousands of other tricks in stock as good as the ones we
have just related, in proof of which we have but to refer to the testimony
of one of their own tribe, who, under the name of Pechon de Ruby,
published, towards the close of the sixteenth century, "La Vie Genereuse
des Mattois, Guex, Bohemiens, et Cagoux." "When they want to leave a place
where they have been stopping, they set out in an opposite direction to
that in which they are going, and after travelling about half a league
they take their right course. They possess the best and most accurate
maps, in which are laid down not only all the towns, villages, and rivers,
but also the houses of the gentry and others; and they fix upon places of
rendezvous every ten days, at twenty leagues from the point from whence
they set out.... The captain hands over to each of the chiefs three or
four families to take charge of, and these small bands take different
cross-roads towards the place of rendezvous. Those who are well armed and
mounted he sends off with a good almanac, on which are marked all the
fairs, and they continually change their dress and their horses. When they
take up their quarters in any village they steal very little in its
immediate vicinity, but in the neighbouring parishes they rob and plunder
in the most daring manner. If they find a sum of money they give notice to
the captain, and make a rapid flight from the place. They coin counterfeit
money, and put it into circulation. They play at all sorts of games; they
buy all sorts of horses; whether sound or unsound, provided they can
manage to pay for them in their 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 in