Lord Rosebery’s statement last Friday, in the St. Andrew’s Halls, that there were 138,000 vagrants in Scotland, persons who did nothing but roam the country and admire the scenery, induced me to pay the Gipsy King, Mr. George, a visit. His Majesty, with family, are presently located in Glasgow, in Great Western road. I found Mr. Smith in his tent, a large and commodius structure, some eight feet in height, the frame of strong ash girders covered with a dark purple cloth. The place answering to the kitchen is near the entrance, and the family had just finished breakfast a few minutes before I put in an appearance. They do not sit on chairs at meals, but squat in tailor-like fashion on the floor, and in the same attitude that I have seen American Indians do in their wigwams. The members of the Smith family are dark-eyed and dark-haired. The women have the true Zingara beauty of face, olive-tinted forehead, sharp glittering eyes, and their black hair, that peculiar metallic hue which one sees on the wings of the dusky raven. The women are fond of jewellery, heavy earrings fall on their necks, and their small copper-coloured hands sparkle with rings. A collie bitch, a cat, and a canary were the only animals about the hut. No part of the show ground is kept so scrupulously clean as that allocated to the Gipsies. Mr. Smith is a general type of the race—gentlemanly, intelligent, and courteous. In years he must be over sixty, but he is still as straight as a poplar, and wiry and muscular as a man of thirty, He has in his time been an extensive horse dealer, and for years made regular visits to Ireland. He has purchased hundreds of Irish horses and disposed of them in France and Germany. “No, sir,” he said, with an imperial toss of the head, “I’m not one of Lord Rosebery’s 138,000 vagrants. I belong to a race whose history began in the twilight of the world, back in a time when lords and dukes were not dreamt of. I pay a regular license for my caravan, and when I am moving about over the country I pay, like other gypsies, for permission to pitch my tent, the same as I do here. There is no vagrancy in that. I am unable to say how many gypsies may be in Scotland and England. Scotch Tinklers—men and women who wander about making spoons, soldering pails, and skellets—are not gypsies. They are simply pariahs. There is not a drop of gypsy blood in their veins. The scotch tinker lived originally in a house, but abandoned it from various causes. They are a drunken, useless class of people, these tinkers, but persons will have them related somehow to us true gypsies. I claim to be the “KING OF THE ENGLISH GYPSIES,”