gruesome implement, which if experience in death could give it life, or make it ring in the silent watches of the night, would be a ghastly, noisy guest indeed. I once told the story in "The Gypsies" (Boston, 1881)--now I have something to add to it. I had met in London with an Indian gypsy named Nano, who informed me that in India he had belonged to a wandering tribe or race who called themselves Rom, or Romani, who spoke Romani jib, and who were the Gypsies of the Gypsies. I have in my possession a strange Hindu knife with an enormously broad blade, six inches across towards the end, with a long handle richly mounted in bronze with a little silver. I never could ascertain till I knew Nano what it had been used for. Even the old king of Oude, when he examined it, went wrong and was uncertain. Not so the gypsy. When he was in my library, and his keen black eyes rested on it, he studied it for a moment, and then said: "I know well enough that knife. I have seen it before; it is very old, and it was long in use--it was the knife used by the public executioner in Bhotan. It is Bhotani." Nano had volunteered the explanation, and whatever his moral character might be, he was not given to romantic invention. Time passed, I went to America, stayed there four years, and returned. In 1888 I became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Art, and was on the Central Committee. One day we had a meeting at the house of a distinguished architect. When it was over, my host showed me his many treasures of art, or archæology. While examining these, my attention was attracted by an Indian knife. It was precisely like mine, but smaller. I asked what it was, and learned that it had long been used in some place in the East for the express purpose of sacrificing young girls. And in all respects it was what we might call the feminine counterpart of my knife. And if I ever had any lingering doubt as to the accuracy of Nano's account, it disappeared when I saw the one whose history was perfectly authentic. A few years ago in Heidelburg there were sold at auction a great number of executioners' swords, some of which had been used for centuries. A gentleman who had a special fondness for this kind of bric-à-brac, had for many years collected them.