“Some few Gipsies who have arrived at what they consider the highest state of a respectable and civilised life, reside in houses which, in 99 cases out of 100, are in the lowest and most degraded part of the towns, among the scum and offscouring of all nations, and like locusts they leave a blight behind them wherever they have been. Others have their tents and vans, and there are many others who I have tents only. A tent as a rule is about 7ft. 6in. wide, 16ft. long, and 4ft. 6in. high at the top. They are covered with pieces of old cloth, sacking, &c., to keep the rain and snow out; the opening to allow the Gipsies to go in and out of their tent is covered with a kind of coverlet. The fire by which they cook their meals is placed in a kind of tin bucket pierced with holes, and stands on the damp ground. Some of the smoke or sulphur arising from the sticks or coke finds its way through an opening at the top of the tent about 2ft. in diameter. The other part of the smoke helps to keep their faces and hands the proper Gipsy colour. Their beds consist of a layer of straw upon the damp ground, covered with a sack or sheet, as the case may be. An old soapbox or tea-chest serves as a chest of drawers, drawing-room table, and clothes-box. In these places children are born, live, and die; men, women, grown-up sons and daughters, lie huddled together in such a state as would shock the modesty of South African savages, to whom we send missionaries to show them the blessings of Christianity. As in other cases where idleness and filth abounds, what little washing they do is generally done on the Saturday afternoons; but this is a business they do not indulge in too often. They are not overdone with cooking utensils, and the knives and forks they principally use are of the kind Adam used, and sensitive when applied to hot water. They take their meals and do their washing squatting upon the ground like tailors and Zulus. Lying, begging, thieving, cheating, and every other abominable, low, cunning craft that ignorance and idleness can devise, they practise. In some instances these things are carried out to such a pitch as to render them more like imbeciles than human beings endowed with reason. Chair-mending, tinkering, and hawking are in many instances used only as a ‘blind;’ while the women and children go about the country begging and fortune-telling, bringing to their heathenish tents sufficient to keep the family. The poor women are the slaves and tools for the whole family, and can be seen very often with a child upon their backs, another in their arms, and a heavily-laden basket by their side. Upon the shoulders of the women rests the responsibility of providing for the herds of ditch-dwelling heathens. Many of the women enjoy their short pipes quite as much as the men.