Shoplifting, and other kinds of private larceny, are connected with stealing á pastésas, for in all dexterity of hand is required. Many of the Gitánas of Madrid are provided with large pockets, or rather sacks, beneath their gowns, in which they stow away their plunder. Some of these pockets are capacious enough to hold, at one time, a dozen yards of cloth, a Dutch cheese and a bottle of wine. Nothing that she can eat, drink, or sell, comes amiss to a veritable Gitána; and sometimes the contents of her pocket would afford materials for an inventory far more lengthy and curious than the one enumerating the effects found on the person of the man-mountain at Lilliput. _Chiving Drao_.—In former times the Spanish Gypsies of both sexes were in the habit of casting a venomous preparation into the mangers of the cattle for the purpose of causing sickness. At present this practice has ceased, or nearly so; the Gitános, however, talk of it as universal amongst their ancestors. They were in the habit of visiting the stalls and stables secretly, and poisoning the provender of the animals, who almost immediately became sick. After a few days the Gitános would go to the labourers and offer to cure the sick cattle for a certain sum, and if their proposal was accepted would in effect perform the cure. Connected with the cure was a curious piece of double dealing. They privately administered an efficacious remedy, but pretended to cure the animals not by medicines but by charms, which consisted of small variegated beans, called in their language bobis, {262a} dropped into the mangers. By this means they fostered the idea, already prevalent, that they were people possessed of supernatural gifts and powers, who could remove diseases without having recourse to medicine. By means of drao, they likewise procured themselves food; poisoning swine, as their brethren in England still do, {262b} and then feasting on the flesh, which was abandoned as worthless: witness one of their own songs:— ‘By Gypsy drow the Porker died, I saw him stiff at evening tide, But I saw him not when morning shone, For the Gypsies ate him flesh and bone.’ By drao also they could avenge themselves on their enemies by destroying their cattle, without incurring a shadow of suspicion. Revenge for injuries, real or imaginary, is sweet to all unconverted minds; to no one more than the Gypsy, who, in all parts of the world, is, perhaps, the most revengeful of human beings. Vidocq in his memoirs states, that having formed a connection with an individual whom he subsequently discovered to be the captain of a band of Walachian Gypsies, the latter, whose name was Caroun, wished Vidocq to assist in scattering certain powders in the mangers of the peasants’ cattle; Vidocq, from prudential motives, refused the employment. There can be no doubt that these powders were, in substance, the drao of the Spanish Gitános.