The marriage festival-the most important in the life of the gitanos-lasts three days, at the expiration of which time the gipsy's property, if he possessed any, is entirely wasted in riotous dissipation, and perhaps a debt contracted that will embarrass him the rest of his life. The Jews do not more effectually ruin themselves at their weddings. With Eastern hospitality they welcome every one, whether of the blood

or not.

Swinburne says that if at the marriages or funerals of these people, in Italy, the attending priests interpose any difficulties, the gipsies, taking the affair into their own hands, perform the ceremonies after the heathenish manner of their people. At weddings in Calabria there are paranymphs to give away the bride, and many unusual rites.

Not less remarkable are the marriage ceremonies of the bazeegues, a gipsy tribe of India. The girl is not given away by her parents, but selects a husband for herself. All the preliminaries being arranged, the parties assemble before the bride's house, between nine and ten o'clock at night, in a square made of four plan

tain-trees, and large enough to contain the company. The bridegroom, who is accompanied by all his relatives, male and female, places himself before the door, and calls out with a loud voice, "Give me my bride." The entrance to the hut is guarded by a brother, or some near relative of the bride, who prevents the bridegroom from going in by pushing him back violently whenever he makes the attempt. A general laugh is now raised against the uufortunate man, and many are the jokes played upon him. He makes, however, two more efforts, calling out all the while for his bride, but not succeeding retires in much apparent grief, and sits down in the center of the square to bewail his misfortunes.

When the guests think they have sufficiently tired the man's patience, they intercede in his behalf with the guardian of the door, who, thereupon, brings forth the bride and delivers her into the bridegroom's hands, saying, "Here is your bride, behave kindly to her." She also receives an exhortation to conduct herself like a good and obedient wife. With a little red powder, prepared for the occa

for this one day in her life, is expected to refrain from intoxicating liquor. After a short time the bridegroom accompanies his bride to the house, where the mothers of both are assembled, but neither of them are permitted to appear before him this night. They find consolation, however, in frequent libations of stimulating drinks. The bridegroom having rejoined the party in the square, every one sets seriously to work to accomplish, in the most expeditious manner, the business of in toxication. A little after daylight they propose to visit the house of the bridegroom's father. Whatever dowry the parents can give is now bestowed, and the happy couple, their little fingers again joined, lead the way. Before the door stands an earthern pot filled with water, in which is placed an emblem of plenty. On their arrival the mother comes forth with a sieve containing a rupee, some unbusked rice, paint, and doob grass, a plant held in high religious veneration by many tribes of Hindoos. She waves the sieve three times round the head of each, and then touches their foreheads with it. This ceremony performed, the husband leads his wife into the house, where she is received by the mother-in-law with many welcomes, and is promised, if she conduct | herself like a good wife, all her goods and furniture when she dies.

The men assemble before the house, the women remaining inside. A feast is prepared, and, for the second time, the company give themselves up to immoderate intoxication. In the evening the bride goes, or if there be a female of the party sufficiently steady to accompany her, is conducted to the hut allotted for her future residence. Such of the guests as are able now depart for home, while the rest, usually including the bridegroom, pass the night on the plain in a closing season of intoxication.

Upon the death of a Spanish gipsy the friends and relatives seat themselves around the body of the deceased, and, weeping, recount the history of his life. The entrance of the bearers is the signal for renewed lamentations. Those officiating are called "Leones," and are regarded with great aversion by the superstitious gitanos. While the males cry, "Away! accursed be your bodies!" the females cling to the corpse until it is carried off by violence. Widows never mar

ry again, and are distinguished by mourning vails and black shoes made like those of men, no slight mortification in a country where females are so remarkable for the beauty of their feet.

A writer in Hone's Table Book describes the funeral attentions of the gipsies to one of their number named Cooper, lying in state on a common near Epping Forest, England. The corpse, shrouded in linen and strown with the flowers of the season, was exposed in a tent, and six candles kept burning by its side. Cooper's wife, dressed in black, perceiving that the writer did not wish to see the face of her husband, said with perfect naïveté, "O sir! don't fear to look at him; I never saw his countenance so pleasant in all my life." Too much kindness, however, was apparent in the rustic to admit an idea of levity. The friends and relatives sat mutely in the adjoining tents, and absorbed their grief in their hearts and the silence of the summer air. A train of several pairs, suitably clothed, followed the gipsy to the grave. He was buried at the neighboring church in quiet solemnity.

The Oxford Journal relates a number of circumstances connected with the burial of an aged gipsy woman who died in a lane near Highworth on the 5th of August, 1830. When living she was in appearance the perfect counterpart of Meg Merriles, and for more than half a century had exercised her oracular powers in propounding the good or evil fortune of all the fair-going damsels of the country.

Her remains were consigned to the earth in Highworth churchyard, a great concourse of spectators having been attracted to the spot by the novelty of the sight. The interment was conducted with the greatest decorum, the interest of the scene being in no wise damped by the incessant rain. The husband, whose venerable locks were uncovered to the pitiless storm, acted as chief mourner. offspring formed a numerous procession. They appeared fully impressed with the solemnity of the duty they were about to perform for one who had been a wife and mother nearly three-score years.

His

With her remains in the coffin were enclosed a knife and fork and plate. Five tapers had been placed on the lid and kept constantly burning until removal for burial. After this ceremony the whole of the gipsy's wardrobe was burned, and her

that he was employing the gipsies to cir

he met with them for purposes of sorcery.

next world. The gipsies also believe that wearing the garments of the dead would destroy the living.

Mr. Borrow visited Spain as an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and in that capacity attempted to give the gitanos some knowledge of the Scriptures. From the motto upon his title page, a couplet from Ferdousi, "For that which is unclean thou canst entertain no hope; no washing will make the gipsy white," he does not appear to have anticipated many immediate conversions, but rather hoped that good would result from directing the attention of the Christian world to this degraded people. He cast the seed upon stony ground, trusting it might "eventually spring up in this or that direction, as barley has dropped from the cerements of a mummy, and has sprung up, and displayed vitality after lying choked and hidden for two thousand years."

Our missionary translated the entire New Testament into Spanish Rommany, and printed at Madrid the Gospel of St. Luke, the version of which had been in part corrected by two female gipsies bribed for the purpose by a glass of Malaga every day they presented themselves at the tertulias, or conversations. This book, the first ever published in the language of the gipsies, was highly prized by the gitanos, more, however, for the novelty of the thing than the doctrine. Though unable to read, the women were particularly anxious to obtain copies to carry in their pockets, especially when engaged in thieving expeditions, as charms that would preserve them from all danger and mischance. Some of the gitanos went so far as to declare that in this respect the books were as efficacious as the bar laché, or loadstone, which they are in general so fond of possessing. They liked the new religion, however. The Spaniards, unable to comprehend how an unbaptized Englishman could care for the souls of the despised gitanos, sent the author to prison, and, had the Inquisition existed, would have burned his body. Some believed

At the conversaziones he found the women more inclined to listen to what he had to say than the men, a fact generally admitted by missionaries. The men were so occupied with the things of this world,

Seldom to church, 'twas such a busy life, But duly sent their family and wife. Indeed, there does not appear to have been a male gipsy present, except on two or three occasions, and then to ask the loan of money. But our missionary, though dispensing the Gospel without price, was by no means so free with his ounces of gold. "Not to your whole race, my excellent friend," said he; "are you frantic? Sit down and be discreet?"

The gitanos, all of them thieves by profession, listened with admiration, but not of the eternal truths explained to them. They were surprised that their jargon could be written and read, and only upon one occasion gave words of assent, and those of the negative kind: "Brethren, you tell us strange things, though perhaps you do not lie; a month since I would sooner have believed those tales than at this day I should see one who could write Romany."

In Madrid the missionary counted as many as seventeen gitanos assembled at one time in his apartment. It was the custom at these tertulias to discourse for the first quarter of an hour upon indifferent matters, and then by degrees introduce the subject of religion. Finally, he became so bold as to venture to speak against their inveterate practices, thieving, lying, and fortune-telling, which evoked much opposition and feminine clamor. One day he addressed them earnestly upon the similarity in the situation of the Hebrews in Egypt and that of the gitanos in Spain, and spoke of the power of God, manifested in preserving both as separate and distinct people among the nations until the present day. After concluding he looked around. "The features of the assembly were twisted, and the eyes of all turned upon me with a frightful squint; not an individual present but squinted; the genteel Teka, the good-humored Chicarona, the Casdami, etc., all squinted. The gipsy fellow, the contriver of the burla, squinted worst of all."

busy, bustling city of Liverpool. One of them you would guess to be a matron, though not far past the season of youth. The other is a young girl, apparently about twelve years of age. They seem to observe little of the persons or doings of the crowd by which they are surrounded, and to take no interest in aught save the forest of masts, gay with the flags of many nations, that bestud the turbid river toward which they are moving. They are Lucy Allen and her daughter Rosa.

vessel, that she may make the voyage in a shorter time than others; and so, with the impatience of affection, they are on their way to the pier. Rosa looks frightened, and clings closer to her mother, as they struggle through the crowd, which is hurrying hither and thither, each individual of it seeming to forget, as he runs the race of life, that any one is on the course but himself.

A fortnight earlier a noble vessel might have been seen leaving her moorings near