electing their own Wayda (or Judge) Waywode, or, as the name still exists among the Yetholm gipsies, Wadler, a Duke. They were to give up the name Tziganes, or gipsies, and take that of Uj Magyar, New Boors, forget their language, and use only that of the country. They were allowed some months to settle in towns and villages, build houses, and follow businesses, and dress like Boors. These orders, which were calculated for their redemption, were repeated in 1773, and made more rigid, but for obvious reasons they failed, and it was thought necessary to use compulsion. Wherefore it was ordered that no gipsy might marry who could not prove his position to support a wife and family; that their children should be taken from them by force and removed from all intercourse with the race. At Fahlendorf, in Schült, all the children of the gipsies above five years old were stolen during the night of the 21st of December, 1773, and placed with Boors who were paid eighteen guilders yearly by Government. Again, on the 24th of April, 1774, another set, who had in the meantime attained five years of age, were taken from the same place, and placed under the same discipline. The decrees were however, on the whole, but little obeyed-a fact which Hoyland thinks must have escaped the Emperor Joseph, or he would have included Hungary in his decree of 1782, which provided for the reformation of those in Transylvania. This order contained five points under the head of religion, and nine respecting temporal affairs. The people proposed to be benefited amounted to some eighty thousand miserable wretches, ignorant of God and of virtue' (Grellmann), and these are the regulations by which they were to be benefited. They were to learn the principles of religion, send their children early to school, prevent them running about naked, sleeping together promiscuously; attend church, and listen to spiritual teachers. Secondly, they were to conform to the customs of the country in diet, dress, and language, abandon wearing large cloaks, give up keeping horses (except the goldwashers). No goldwasher to barter at annual fairs: to avoid idleness, to keep to agriculture, and every territorial lord who takes them to allot them pieces of land. Those who neglected husbandry were to be beaten, and the use of music was only to be permitted when they had no field work to do. In addition to this, according to M. Tissot, Joseph the Second had cottages built for them, and distributed agricultural implements among them, telling them to cultivate their ground. Instead of inhabiting the commodious buildings that had been constructed for them, they placed their cattle in them, and themselves lived under their tents. To prevent their corn from ripening, they cooked it. When the young Tziganes grew up (who had been placed with the Boors), they had lost none of the instincts of their race, and took the first opportunity of escaping to rejoin their relations. The attempt appears to have been given up • The Country of the Tziganes. By Victor Tissot. Paris, Dentu.

6

after this, though it is evident that a sufficient length of time was not allowed to effect such a reformation, perhaps I should say transformation, as that aimed at, for it was evidently idle to expect so great a change in the nature of the individual subjects experimented upon. Had these well-meaning but loosely conducted experiments been carried on over the second generation, there is no reason to suppose they would have failed. As it was, they were given up before success could reasonably have been expected. The same authority states that there are now 11,500 Tziganes in Hungary, who still preserve all the exterior marks of their Hindoo origin. In the year 1867 it is said that 40,000 gipsies were encamped on the plain near Belgrade.

The above forms a light historical study of the history of Petty Romany-that is, of all the various petty kingdoms, dukedoms, and clans scattered among the nations of Europe up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, as opposed to those that remained in or around Romania. The causes that had begun to work in the direction of the reformation of the gipsies towards the end of the last century were followed by others in this. Some time after the close of the French war, when scarcity was severely felt in Ireland, a stream of emigration set in from that unfortunate country. Among other results a large number of Irish gipsies and travellers invaded England and Scotland. Inasmuch as the road' can only support a certain number, several of 'the old stock,' who were ashamed of the predatory habits of the 'travellers,' as they called them, were forced to take to other means of making a living. In 1816 Hoyland the Quaker, who had himself married a gipsy, published his powerfully written work on the subject of their reclamation. This was followed by the celebrated articles in Blackwood, in 1817 et seq., written by Walter Simson and Sir Walter Scott, and the train thus lighted did not die out for half a century. In March 1827, a gipsy was condemned to death at Winchester under very distressing circumstances, of which the Rev. Jas. Crabbe, brother of the poet, happened to be a witness. This resulted in his establishment of the Southampton Committee,' whose labours for a time met with considerable success, and he personally was much beloved by the gipsies, many of whom are still living, and still speak of him with affection. It is said that in five years forty-six families were induced to settle in Southampton and follow trades. In 1832 Mr. Crabbe published his 'Gipsy's Advocate,' and enlisted the sympathies, among others, of the Rev. John Baird, minister of Kirk Yetholm, who in 1838-9 succeeded in forming a Society for the Reformation of the Gipsies in Scotland.' This Society published annual reports till 1847, when they gave up printing them. The committee was broken up in 1859. Mr. Crabbe also interested the Rev. John West, Rector of Chettle, Dorset, who, by the liberality of F. A. Stuart, in 1845 built the 'Gipsy Asylum'at Farnham, Bland

ford. The annual meetings of Mr. Crabbe were continued till 1847 by himself, and the last anniversary was held at Farnham in 1848. For a few years after this a missionary was employed, but virtually the fire had burned out, and the movement came to an end. On the whole, the subject had fallen into the hands of Pharisees of the old school, as all their writings show. But their efforts were by no means failures. They succeeded in civilising and settling large numbers of gipsies, who are now added to the wealth-producing portion of the community. But all the old poetry of the subject has for ever disappeared. A gipsy camp is a miserable sight, and it is wretched enough to know that the number of people living under these conditions in England and Wales alone is over 8,000, and is on the increase. In 1851 there were 7,659 persons living in 'caravans, tents, and the open air;' in 1861, 7,130; and in 1871, 8,025.

The principle followed all along from the beginning-on the large scale among the nations, and on the small scale among the parishes-in respect of the gipsies, viz., that of 'routing' them from place to place, has been radically a wrong one. Fix them, and in a short time they will grow to the spot like other people; but as long as they are pushed on, they have neither time to form local connections, nor spirit to care about improvement. Settled gipsies are the rule, and roving ones the exception, in Scotland, and no doubt in both countries the infusion of gipsy blood is larger than has been generally imagined, for once mingled with the English race they are lost sight of. The 'routing' policy is still followed in England as well as in France, where a colony has just been broken up by the mayor of Chantille. The English gipsies have provided against any inconvenience arising out of this practice near the metropolis by the purchase of some land at Battersea, on which all gipsies may encamp by paying one shilling.

It is curious to find among the gipsies of Mitcham Common today that the general name for shoes, 'CHORKAS,' is a corruption of one of the many Hindustani names for particular kinds of shoes, 'CHAR HASHIYA;' and that the name for a coat, at Yetholm SCHOCHIE, and at Mitcham CHUCKLE, is Hind. CHAPKAN or CHOPKAN, a particular kind of coat-points for the consideration of those who dispute Grellmann's theory of their Indian origin. 'JUKEL,' their name for 'dog,' Hind. 6 SHIGHAL' .e. JACKAL, points back to a time when that Canis was a domesticated animal in the East, as it is represented to be on the Egyptian monuments. Manishi, a woman (Yetholm), is Sanscrit Mânushi, woman, wife. The 'cosht,' or bent boughs that form the support of their tents, is Sanscrit KÂSIT, wood,' and Hebrew CUSHET,' a bow-of which latter language there are said to be some forty words in the Romany language.

WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS.

THE first time I ever saw the head of a Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) was at Chicago. I happened to be talking one day with General Sheridan, when a magnificent specimen arrived from one of the frontier forts as a present from the officer in command there. I had heard of these animals, but had looked upon them as mythological beasts. I had been so much disappointed in America in my search for large game, had heard so many rumours which turned out to be without the smallest foundation in fact, and had listened to so many stories of abundance of game which proved to be entirely illusory—the animals existing only in the vivid imagination of the story-tellers-that I had begun seriously to doubt whether any Wapiti existed on the continent. The sight, however, of the pair of horns reassured me considerably, for obviously where one Wapiti stag was to be found there was a reasonable chance of killing others, and my enthusiasm rising to fever heat on a closer inspection of the antlers, nothing would satisfy me but I must be off at once to the fort.

It would be useless to enter into any description of the journey. The comfort of the Pullman cars, the discomfort of the heat and dust, the occasional bands of buffalo, the herds of antelope, the prairie dogs, the vast droves of Texan cattle and the picturesque cattle boys that drive them, the long dreary stretches of prairie where the melancholy solitude is broken only by occasional little stations at which the train stops are all familiar to everybody who has crossed the plains, and have been written about ad nauseam. Very curious are these small settlements, some of them consisting only of two or three mud, or rather adobe, houses, or of a few wooden shanties and a pumping-engine to supply water; others being large villages or small towns. They look as if Providence had been carrying a box of toy houses, and had dropped the lid and spilt out the contents on the earth. The houses have all come down right end uppermost, it is true, but otherwise they show no evidence of design: they are scattered about in every conceivable direction, dumped down anywhere, apparently without any particular motive or reason for being so situated. The chief peculiarity noticeable about these little settlements and their inhabitants is that on the approach of a train everybody rushes to the front of his VOL. VIII.-No. 44.

SS

house and rings an enormous bell. I received quite an erroneous impression from this ceremony the first time I crossed the plains. I had read somewhere that the Chinese on the occasion of an eclipse or some natural phenomenon of that kind, which they attribute to the action of a malignant being, endeavour to drive away the evil influence by ringing bells, beating gongs, and making other hideous noises; and I thought that the unsophisticated inhabitants of these frontier towns, not having become accustomed to the passage of a train, looked upon it as some huge, horrible, and dangerous beast, and sought to drive it away by employing the same means as the Chinese. I found out afterwards, however, that the object of the bell-ringing was to induce travellers to descend and partake of hash.

At one of these lonely little stations I was deposited one fine evening in the early fall just before sundown. For a few moments only the place was all alive with bustle and confusion. The train represented everything that was civilised, all the luxuries that could be carried in a train were to be found on board of it, the people were all clothed in fashionable dresses, it was like a slice cut out of one of the Eastern cities set down bodily in the midst of a perfect wilderness. In a few seconds it was gone, civilisation. vanished with it, the station relapsed into its normal condition of desolation, and I found myself almost alone in the heart of the desert.

The day had been hot, and the air was resonant with the noise of crickets and cicali. The almost level prairie stretched out around me, fading away towards the east in interminable distances, while in the west the sun was just sinking behind a range of low sand-hills and bluffs. The air was still and calm, the sky perfectly cloudless, and the setting sun cast a faint delicate rosy hue over the sand and burnt sun-scorched herbage of the prairie, giving it the general tint and appearance of the Egyptian desert. It was very beautiful but somewhat melancholy, and I confess I felt rather blue and dismal as I watched the train vanishing in the distance; nor were my spirits roused by learning from the station-master that Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack had left the fort that very morning on a hunting expedition. I had counted upon one or both of those famous scouts accompanying me, for General Sheridan had with characteristic kindness written to the officer commanding at the fort, requesting him to give me any assistance in his power, and if possible to let me have the valuable services of Mr. William Cody, otherwise Buffalo Bill, the government scout at the fort; and I began to inveigh against the bad luck that had arranged that he should go out hunting the very day I arrived. However, I had to take it all back,' for just as I was stepping into the ambulance waggon that was waiting to take us to the fort, two horsemen appeared in sight, galloping towards us, and the stationmaster sang out, Say! hold on a minute, here are the very men you want, I guess,' In another minute or two they cantered up, swung