opened was found to contain
only sticks, stones, and rags, without repeating it. So it goes from
mouth to mouth, until, all mutilated, it passes current for even worse
nonsense than it was at first. It may be observed, however,--and the
remark will be fully substantiated by any one who knows the
language,--that there is a Romany _turn_ to even the roughest corners of
these rhymes. _Kivi_, _stingli_, _stangli_, are all gypsyish. But, as I
have already intimated, this does not appear in any other nonsense verses
of the kind. There is nothing of it in

"Intery, mintery, cutery corn"--

or in anything else in Mother Goose. It is alone in its sounds and
sense,--or nonsense. But there is not a wanderer of the roads who on
hearing it would not explain, "Rya, there's a great deal of Romanes in
that ere."

I should also say that the word _na-kelas_ or _ne-kelas_, which I here
translate differently, was once explained to me at some length by a gypsy
as signifying "not speaking," or "keeping quiet."

Now the mystery of mysteries of which I have spoken in the Romany tongue
is this. The _hokkani boro_, or great trick, consists of three parts.
Firstly, the telling of a fortune, and this is to _pen dukkerin_ or _pen
durkerin_. The second part is the conveying away of the property, which
is to _lel dudikabin_, or to take lightning, possibly connected with the
very old English slang term of _bien lightment_. There is evidently a
great confusion of words here. And the third is to "_chiv o manzin apre
lati_," or to put the oath upon her, which explains itself. When all the
deceived are under oath not to utter a word about the trick, the gypsy
mother has "a safe thing of it."

The _hokkani boro_, or great trick, was brought by the gypsies from the
East. It has been practiced by them all over the world, it is still
played every day somewhere. This chapter was written long ago in
England. I am now in Philadelphia, and here I read in the "Press" of
this city that a Mrs. Brown, whom I sadly and reluctantly believe is the
wife of an acquaintance of mine, who walks before the world in other
names, was arrested for the same old game of fortune-telling and
persuading a simple dame that there was treasure in the house, and all
the rest of the grand deception. And Mrs. Brown, good old Mrs. Brown,
went to prison, where she will linger until a bribed alderman, or a
purchased pardon, or some one of the numerous devices by whic