FREDERICK S. ARNOLD. ll^ 



is wielded by the oldest members of the gang. I have 

 already alluded to this authority and influence in de- 

 scribing the hori dai Amelia Wells. Plato Buckland 

 and his wife — his wife to a much greater extent than he — 

 stood in like relation to a band of kdlo Ramanis, or 

 pure blood Gypsies, whom I saw several times in the 

 last two years. 



But the Romany gang does not always hold together 

 and there is nothing at any time to prevent any family 

 from separating and going off on its own account. So 

 often you will see one lonely black tent pitched near 

 its single war do in some wild glen, or in some common 

 field by a little frequented lane, and the smoke of a 

 single unsocial fire straggling from the other side of a 

 copse, in a spot where you expected to find only insects 

 and birds. My observation has led me to believe that 

 these less social wanderers are less prosperous than those 

 who travel in gangs, and I believe one reason why they 

 travel alone is because intemperate or dirty and shiftless 

 habits make them unpleasant wayfellows. 



If you want to see a Gypsy camp at its best go out to 

 it Sunday morning. On weekdays you will hardly find 

 a woman in the camp. Baskets on arm, the dark, black- 

 eyed dais (women) set out for town early every morning, 

 dressed in their gaudy, outlandish gowns and big bon- 

 nets and wearing their big gold ear rings. Or, if the 

 camp is some distance from the town, the buggies are 

 hitched up and the men drive them in and come after 

 them in the afternoon. 



All day they go from house to house, selling baskets, 

 trading them for old clothes, begging clothes, food, and 

 money, but above all telling fortunes — for the Gypsy 

 witch is the priestess of a vast amount of popular super- 

 stition which gets into print in the shape of ten-cent 

 dream-books, "Napoleon's oraculum, or book of fate," 

 &c., and which supports not only the Ramani chovihanis 



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