Later with a preliminary “did I ever show you this?” he produced for my inspection an extraordinarily massive and evidently old silver watch-chain of a curb pattern. He informed me that originally it belonged to, and was worn by, a gypsy—long since dead, for whom it had been made specially, and to his instructions,—certainly it was the largest and heaviest watch-chain I have ever seen, curiously so in fact, and I persuaded him to allow me to weigh it. I found that it turned the scale at one pound five ounces avoirdupois and I noticed it was stamped on every piece; it bore signs of having been worn, probably for many years, and I mentally pictured a man with the aldermanic stomach needed to display it properly. Altogether it seemed the kind of appendage one could not lose, for upon becoming detached from the person the loss of weight would be immediately noticed. I have often wondered if the original watch partook of the huge proportions of the chain. Before finally dismissing the theme of fortune telling, I feel that as my gypsy friends have afforded me unique opportunities for studying the question from their point of view, I have at the same time been able to bring my unbiassed judgment to bear from the position of an outsider, and I owe it to the Romanies to state some of their reasons for thinking the law in the matter deals hardly with them, while I cannot but admit the good intention to suppress all proved attempts to obtain money by false pretences. It cannot be denied that the Western nations are unable to fathom the mysticism of the Far East, neither can they explain the means by which Orientals—who are uncivilized in our meaning of the term—receive and transmit information without the aid of modern science but with greater facility and rapidity. Again, some of the Native Indian races seem to have entirely under control influences of which we of the West know nothing, or to which we perhaps give vague names to cover our ignorance. If, to this, we add the fact that in sheer trickery, deception and sleight of hand, the Oriental has no equal, we have a combination which must be regarded as in some degree the heritage of the Romany, and sweeping condemnation of the practices of such people, who are not understood, is likely to be unjust. Always, there have been, of course, gypsies whose practices would be based on trickery and deception,—always, too, there have been others, who have in no small degree inherited the occult powers of their ancestors, and who would scorn the deceits of their humbler and less scrupulous brethren; the former class have no better defence of their fortune telling than—that they must live somehow, and if people can be found who are silly enough to believe what they tell them, they are perfectly justified in taking their money for it; the latter class, however, when practising fortune telling exercise a profound knowledge of human nature, and consciously or unconsciously bring into operation powers