In connection with divination, deceit, and robbery, it may be observed that gypsies in Eastern Europe, as in India, often tell fortunes or answer questions by taking a goblet or glass, tapping it, and pretending to hear a voice in the ring which speaks to them. This method of divination is one of the few which may have occurred sporadically, or independently in different places, as there is so much in a ringing, vibrating sound which resembles a voice. The custom is very ancient and almost universal; so Joseph (Genesis xliv. 5) says ("Vulgate"), "Scyphus quam furati estis, ipse est, in quo bibit Dominus meus, et in quo augurari solet." "The goblet which ye have stolen, is it not this wherein my lord drinketh and in which he is wont to divine?" Joseph says again (ver. 15), "Know ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine." A great number of very orthodox scholars have endeavoured to show that "divine" here means merely "to conjecture wisely," or "to see into," in order to clear Joseph from the accusation of fortune-telling: but the cup and his interpretation of dreams tell another story. In those days in the East, as now, clever men made their way very often by fortune-telling and theurgia in different forms in great families, just as ladies and gentlemen are "invited out" in London and Paris to please the company with palmistry. This divining by goblets is still common in the East. In Norden's "Reise nach Egypten," &c., we are told that a native said to the travellers that he had interrogated his coffee-cup, and it had replied that the travellers were those of whom the Prophet had predicted they would come as spies and lead the way for a great immigration of Franks. In an Arabic commentary of the twelfth century the replies which the goblet gave to Joseph when it tapped on it are given in full. As coffee-drinking is very ancient it is probable that divination by means of the grounds grew out of foretelling with the cup. Horst ("Dæmonomagie," vol. ii.) remarks that "prediction by means of drinking or coffee-cups," &c., is called in magic, Scyphomancy, and that the reader may judge how common it was in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century by consulting the famous humorous poem of the "Renomist," Song iii. ver. 47. Certain goblets of thin glass will give out quite a loud ring if only blown upon, and by blowing or breathing in a peculiar way the sound may be greatly increased or modified, so as to sound like the human voice. This was shown me by an old custode in the museum at the Hague. It is a curious trick worth trying--especially by those who would pass for magicians!