droons. Even in England there
are straight-haired and curly-haired Romanys, the two indicating not a
difference resulting from white admixture, but entirely different
original stocks.

It will, I trust, be admitted, even from these remarks, that Romanology,
or that subdivision of ethnology which treats of gypsies, is both
practical and curious. It deals with the only race except the Jew, which
has penetrated into every village which European civilization has ever
touched. He who speaks Romany need be a stranger in few lands, for on
every road in Europe and America, in Western Asia, and even in Northern
Africa, he will meet those with whom a very few words may at once
establish a peculiar understanding. For, of all things believed in by
this widely spread brotherhood, the chief is this,--that he who knows the
_jib_, or language, knows the ways, and that no one ever attained these
without treading strange paths, and threading mysteries unknown to the
Gorgios, or Philistines. And if he who speaks wears a good coat, and
appears a gentleman, let him rest assured that he will receive the
greeting which all poor relations in all lands extend to those of their
kin who have risen in life. Some of them, it is true, manifest the
winsome affection which is based on great expectations, a sentiment
largely developed among British gypsies; but others are honestly proud
that a gentleman is not ashamed of them. Of this latter class were the
musical gypsies, whom I met in Russia during the winter of 1876 and 1877,
and some of them again in Paris during the Exposition of 1878.

ST. PETERSBURG.

There are gypsies and gypsies in the world, for there are the wanderers
on the roads and the secret dwellers in towns; but even among the
_aficionados_, or Romany ryes, by whom I mean those scholars who are fond
of studying life and language from the people themselves, very few have
dreamed that there exist communities of gentlemanly and lady-like gypsies
of art, like the Bohemians of Murger and George Sand, but differing from
them in being real "Bohemians" by race. I confess that it had never
occurred to me that there was anywhere in Europe, at the present day,
least of all in the heart of great and wealthy cities, a class or caste
devoted entirely to art, well-to-do or even rich, refined in manners,
living in comfortable homes, the women dressing elegantly; and yet with
all this obliged to live by law, as did the Jews once, in Ghe