“What becomes of the Gipsies is a question that cannot be settled by reference to any of Mr. Borrow’s writings, although these contain a few incidental remarks that throw some light on it when information of a positive and circumstantial nature is added” (p. 120). In offering to a London journal the double-article on _Mr. Leland on the Gipsies_ I said, on the 30th May, 1882:— “I admit that it is a very difficult and delicate matter for a journal to ‘go back on’ a position once taken up on any question; but I think that if you admit the intended article the point will be gained, without any responsibility on the part of the journal or editor;” and that the insertion of it would put the journal “in its proper position before the world, without recanting anything.” I further wrote that “Purely literary journals must necessarily labour under great disadvantages when called on to notice a book on a very special subject, unless they can find a writer who can do it for them.” If all that has been written on the Gipsies “ceasing to be Gipsies,” under any circumstances, “be allowed to go uncontradicted, it will become rooted in the public mind, and gather credit as time goes by, making it daily more difficult to set it aside, and allow truth to take its place”—as I wrote in reply to two fulsome eulogies on Charles Waterton. There are various phenomena connected with the subject of the Gipsies; not the least striking one being the popular impression about the _extinction_ of the _race_ by its _changing its habits_, which has been arrived at without investigation and evidence, and against all analogy and the “nature of things.” So fully has this idea taken possession of the public mind that a hearing on the true position of the question can scarcely be had. One purpose this has served, that it has saved the public almost every serious thought or care in regard to its duty towards the race, and relieved it of every _ultimate_ responsibility connected with it. But that is not a becoming position for any people to occupy—that of getting rid of its obligations by ignoring them. In 1871 I wrote thus:— “The subject of the Gipsies, so far as it is understood . . . presents little interest to the world if it means only _a certain style of life_ that may _cease at any moment_; in which case it would be deserving of little notice.” But all of the aspects connected with the popular idea of a Gipsy are of interest and importance when they represent the primitive condition of a people who sooner or later pass into a more or less settled condition, and look back to the style of life of their ancestors. In this respect the Gipsies differ from most of the wild races, inasmuch as they become perpetuated, especially in English-speaking countries, by those of more or less mixed blood. In regard to that I wrote thus in the Disquisition on the Gipsies:—