The Gipsies in this country have for centuries been accused of child-stealing; and therefore it is not to be wondered at, that, when children have been missing, the Gipsies should be taxed with having stolen them. About thirty years since, some parents who had lost a child, applied to a man at Portsmouth, well known in those days, by the name of Payne, or Pine, as an astrologer, wishing to know from him what was become of it. He told them _to search the Gipsy tents for twenty miles round_. The distressed parents employed constables, who made diligent search in every direction to that distance, but to no purpose; the child was not to be found in their camps. It was however soon afterwards discovered, drowned in one of its father's pits, who was a tanner. Thus was this pretended astrologer exposed to the ridicule of those who but a short time before foolishly looked on him as an oracle. On another occasion the same accusation was brought against the Gipsies, and proved to be false. The child of a widow at Portsmouth was lost, and after every search was made on board the ships in the harbour, and at Spithead, and the ponds dragged in the neighbourhood, to no effect, it was concluded that the Gipsies had stolen him. The boy was found a few years afterwards, at Kingston-upon-Thames, apprenticed to a chimney sweeper. He had been enticed away by a person who had given him sweet-meats; but not by a Gipsy. I may be allowed here to say a word about this boy's mother. She was a good and pious woman, and had known great trials. Her husband was drowned in her presence but a short time before she lost her son in the mysterious way mentioned; and before he was heard of, she was removed to the enjoyment of a better world. Her death was a very happy one, for it took place while she was engaged in public worship. _Many are the afflictions of the righteous_, _but the Lord delivereth them out of them all_. Instances have been known of house-breakers leaving some of their stolen goods near the tents of the Gipsies; and these being picked up by the children, and found upon them, have been the cause of much unjust suffering among them. The grandfather of three little orphans now under the care of the Southampton Committee, was charged with stealing a horse, and was condemned and executed; although the farmer of whom he bought it, came forward and swore to the horse being the same which he had sold him. His evidence was rejected on account of some slight mistake in the description he gave of it. When under the gallows, the frantic Gipsy exclaimed--_Oh God_, _if thou dost not deliver me_, _I will not believe there is a God_!