character--_by their fruits ye shall know them_.

The Gipsies are not strangers to pawn-brokers shops; but they do not
visit these places for the same purposes as the vitiated poor of our
trading towns. A pawnshop is their bank. When they acquire property
illegally, as by stealing, swindling, or fortune-telling, they purchase
valuable plate, and sometimes in the same hour pledge it for safety.
Such property they have in store against days of adversity and trouble,
which on account of their dishonest habits, often overtake them. Should
one of their families stand before a Judge of his country, charged with a
crime which is likely to cost him his life, or to transport him, every
article of value is sacrificed to save him from death, or apprehended
banishment. In such cases they generally retain a Counsellor to plead
for the brother in adversity.

At other times they carry their plate about with them, and when visited
by friends, they bring out from dirty bags, a silver tea-pot, and a
cream-jug and spoons of the same metal. Their plate is by no means
paltry. Of course considerable property in plate is not very generally
possessed by them.

The Gipsies of this country are very punctual in paying their debts. All
the Shop-keepers, with whom they deal in these parts, have declared, that
they are some of their best and most honest customers. For the payment
of a debt which is owing to one of their own people, the time and place
are appointed by them, and should the debtor disappoint the creditor, he
is liable by their law of honour to pay double the amount he owes; and he
must pay it by personal servitude, if he cannot with money, if he wish to
be considered by his friends honest and respectable. They call this law
_pizharris_.

There are few of these unhappy people that can either read or write. Yet
a regular and frequent correspondence is kept up between the members of
families who have had the least advantage of the sort; and those who have
had no advantages whatever, correspond through the kindness of friends
who write for them. Numerous are the letters which they receive from
their relatives in New South Wales, to which Colony so many hundreds of
this unsettled race have been transported. Their letters are usually
left at one particular post-office, in the districts where they travel;
and should such letters not be called for during a long period, they are
usually kept by the post-master, who is sure they w