sy chi.
And the key to the type is supplied in the _Gypsies in Spain_ (see
especially chap. vii.). The gypsies, says Borrow, arc almost entirely
ignorant of the grand points of morality; but on one point they are in
general wiser than those who have had far better opportunities than such
unfortunate outcasts of regulating their steps and distinguishing good
from evil. They know that chastity is a jewel of high price, and that
conjugal fidelity is capable of occasionally flinging a sunshine even
over the dreary hours of a life passed in the contempt of almost all
laws, whether human or divine. There is a word in the gypsy language to
which those who speak it attach ideas of peculiar reverence, far superior
to that connected with the name of the Supreme Being, the creator of
themselves and the universe. This word is _Lacha_, which with them is
the corporeal chastity of the females; we say corporeal chastity, for no
other do they hold in the slightest esteem; it is lawful among them, nay
praiseworthy, to be obscene in look, gesture and discourse, to be
accessories to vice, and to stand by and laugh at the worst abominations
of the Busne (gorgios, or gentiles) provided their _Lacha ye trupos_, or
corporeal chastity, remains unblemished. The gypsy child, from her
earliest years, is told by her strange mother that a good Calli need only
dread one thing in this world, and that is the loss of her _Lacha_, in
comparison with which that of life is of little consequence, as in such
an event she will be provided for, but what provision is there for a
gypsy who has lost her _Lacha_. "Bear this in mind, my child," she will
say, "and now eat this bread and go forth and see what you can steal."
The Romany, in a word, is the sect of the Husbands (and Wives) and their
first precept is this: Be faithful to the _Roms_ (husbands) and take not
up with the gorgios, whether they be raior (gentlemen) or baior
(fellows).

{293} _Godly book_.

{295a} Chore, to steal.

{295b} Hokkawar, to cheat.

{295c} Lubbeny, the whore.

{296} _God_.

{298} Choomer, a kiss.

{299a} _Uncle_.

{299b} _Father_.

{301} Batu, father; coko, uncle.

{302a} _Law_.

{302b} _With child_.

{303} Tan, tent.

{305} _Tent_.

{306} Old Fulcher was an amateur in the meanest kinds of petty larceny
whose deplorable end is described in chapter xli. of the _Romany Rye_.

{307} The boxer who lost the fight near the Castle Hill (Norwich).