"July 18, 1816. _The Gipsies._--Of late years some attempts have been made to reduce the numbers, or at any rate to civilize the habits, of that vagabond and useless race, the gipsies. In pursuance of such purpose, a society of gentlemen have been making all the preliminary inquiries requisite to a proper understanding of the subject. A series of questions have been proposed to competent persons in the different counties in England and Scotland. Reports in answer to these questions have been received, and their contents are thus briefly stated. "1. All Gipsies supposed the first of them came from Egypt. "2. They cannot form any idea of the number in England. "3. The Gipsies of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, parts of Buckinghamshire, Cambridge, and Huntingdonshire, are continually making revolutions within the range of those counties. "4. They are either ignorant of the number of Gipsies in the counties through which they travel, or unwilling, to disclose their knowledge. "5. The most common names are Smith, Cowper, Draper, Bosswell, Lovell, Loversedge, Allen, Mansfield, Glover, Williams, Carew, Martin, Stanley, Buckley, Plunkett, and Corrie. "6 and 7. The gangs in different towns have not any regular connection or organization; but those who take up their winter quarters in the same city or town, appear to have some knowledge of the different routes each horde will pursue; probably with a design to prevent interference. "8. In the county of Herts it is computed there may be sixty families, having many Children. Whether they are quite so numerous in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, the answers are not sufficiently definite to determine. In Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, great numbers are calculated upon. In various counties, the attention has not been competent to the procuring data for any estimate of families or individuals. "9. More than half their number follow no business; others are dealers in horses and asses; farriers, smiths, tinkers, braziers, grinders of cutlery, basket-makers, chair-bottomers, and musicians. "10. Children are brought up in the habits of their parents, particularly to music and dancing, and are of dissolute conduct. "11. The Women mostly carry baskets with trinkets and small wares; and tell fortunes. "12. Too ignorant to have acquired accounts of genealogy, and, perhaps, indisposed to it by the irregularity of their habits. "13. In most counties there are particular situations to which they are partial. In Berkshire is a marsh, near Newbury, much frequented by them; and Dr. Clarke states, that in Cambridgeshire, their principal rendezvous is near the western villages. "14. It cannot be ascertained, whether, from their first coming into the nation, attachment to particular places has prevailed.