I have been informed of an instance of a Gipsy falling out with his wife, and, in the heat of his passion, shooting his own horse dead on the spot with his pistol, and forthwith performing the ceremony of divorce over the animal, without allowing himself a moment's time for reflection on the subject. Some of the country-people observed the transaction, and were horrified at so extraordinary a proceeding. It was considered by them as merely a mad frolic of an enraged Tinkler. It took place many years ago, in a wild, sequestered spot between Galloway and Ayrshire. This sacrifice of the horse is also observed by the Gipsies of the Russian Empire. In the year 1830, a Russian gentleman of observation and intelligence, proprietor of estates on the banks of the Don, stated to me that the Gipsies in the neighbourhood of Moscow, and on the Don, several hundred versts from the sea of Asoph, sacrificed horses, and ate part of their flesh, in the performance of some very ancient ceremony of idolatry. They sacrifice them under night, in the woods, as the practice is prohibited by the Russian Government. The police are often detecting the Gipsies in these sacrifices, and the ceremony is kept as secret as possible. My informant could not go into the particulars of the Gipsy sacrifice in Russia; but there is little doubt that it is the same which the tribe performed in Scotland. In Russia, the Gipsies, like those in this country, have a language peculiar to themselves, which they retain as a secret among their own fraternity. As regards the sacrificing of horses by the Gipsies of Scotland, at the present day, all that I can say is that I do not know of its taking place; nor has it been denied to me. The only conclusion to which I can come, in regard to the question, is that it is in the highest degree probable that, like their language and ceremony of marriage, it is still practised when it can be done. In carrying out this ceremony, there is an obstacle to be overcome which does not lay in the way of that of marriage, and it is this: Where are many of the Tinklers to find a horse, over which they can obtain a divorce? The difficulty with them is as great as it is with the people of England, who must, at a frightful expense, go to no less than the House of Lords to obtain an act to separate legally from their unfaithful partners.[186] The Gipsies, besides being generally unable or unwilling to bear the expense of what will procure them a release in their own way, find it a difficult matter, in these days, to steal, carry off, and dispose of such a bulky article as a horse, in the sacrifice of which they will find a new wife. I am not aware how they get quit of this solemn and serious difficulty, beyond this, that a Gipsy, a native of Yetholm, informed me that some of his brethren in that colony knock down their _asses_, for the purpose of parting with their wives, at the present day.[187]