“In Hungary the feudal system still exists in all its pristine barbarity. In no country does the hard hand of oppression bear so heavy upon the lower classes—not even in Russia. The peasants of Russia are serfs, it is true, but their condition is enviable compared with that of the same class in the other country; they have certain rights and privileges, and are, upon the whole, happy and contented, at least, there, whilst the Hungarians are ground to powder. Two classes are free in Hungary to do almost what they please—the nobility and the Gipsies (the former are above the law, the latter below it). A toll is wrung from the hands of the hard working labourers, that most meritorious class, in passing over a bridge, for example, at Perth, which is not demanded from a well-dressed person, nor from Zingany, who have frequently no dress at all, and whose _insouciance_ stands in striking contrast with the trembling submission of the peasants. The Gipsy, wherever you find him, is an incomprehensible being, but nowhere more than in Hungary, where in the midst of slavery he is free, though apparently one step lower than the lowest slave. The habits of the Hungarian Gipsies are abominable; their hovels appear sinks of the vilest poverty and filth; their dress is at best rags; their food frequently of the vilest carrion, and occasionally, if report be true, still worse: thus they live in filth, in rags, in nakedness. The women are fortune-tellers. Of course both sexes are thieves of the first water. They roam where they list.” The “Chronicle of Bologna,” printed about the year 1422, says:—“And of those who went to have their fortunes told few there were who had not their purses stolen, or some portion of their garments cut away. Their women also traversed the city six or eight together, entering the houses of the citizens, and diverting them with idle talk while one of the party secured whatever she could lay her hands upon. In the shops they pretended to buy, but in fact stole. They were amongst the cleverest thieves that the world contained. Be it noted that they were the most hideous crew ever seen in these parts. They were lean and black, and ate like pigs. The women wore mantles flung upon one shoulder, with only a vest underneath.” Forli, who wrote about them about the same time as the “Chronicle of Bologna,” does not seem to have liked them, and says they were not “even civilised, and resembling rather savage and untamed beasts.”