A short account of their parents may not be out of place here. The mother was a great fortune-teller and swindler. She once robbed a poor shepherd in Dorsetshire of twenty pounds, by promising to fill his box with money. Their father was a most depraved character. Their life and practices are well described in the language of the Apostle, _Let us eat and drink_, _for to morrow we die_. 1 Cor. xv. 32. The man was the buffoon of their company, and became more depraved every year. They often had a great deal of money, which was, no doubt, obtained through dishonest means. On one occasion, he and many other Gipsies, entered the parlour of a small public house on the borders of Hants, when emptying the contents of a dirty purse into an half-pint cup, he nearly filled it with sovereigns; and declared, they would not leave the house, till they had spent it all. His wife, at this time, who was intoxicated, was robbed of all the money she had got from the poor credulous shepherd, excepting one pound. The same man once put 150 sovereigns into his kettle, to treat himself with what he called, _gold water_, for his tea; a piece of folly and wickedness only equalled by a fact with which the author is well acquainted, when an old man had his gold put under his pillow, and often shown to him, when he was dying. We need not wonder, therefore, that the children of this Gipsy couple should be so ignorant, depraved, and destitute. For money that is ill-gotten, and squandered in extravagance, entails a double curse on the parties concerned. But to return to the subject of this chapter. To visit the Gipsies in their tents is of great importance. Clergymen of the Establishment, dissenting ministers, and home missionaries, have at various times done this, and conversed freely with them on the Christian religion; and it has _not been in vain_. Indeed, nothing that is done, through Jesus Christ, purposely to please God, and benefit the wretched, can fail to produce a good effect. The Rev. Messrs Hyatt and Cobbin, who were deputed by the Home Missionary Society, to visit many parts of England, to enquire into the condition of this people, had no doubt, but that much good may be done among them, if proper means are pursued. It has many times been proved, that to attempt to raise them in society, without the influence of religious instruction, would be improper. They have not sufficient principles of honesty, nor purity of conduct, till they are taught those principles, and changed, by religion. One, among several instances, may be named.