ion of the sort in the county
of Hants. Eight Gipsy men united in stealing four sheep: four were
chosen by lot for the purpose. They sharpened their knives, rode to the
field, perpetrated the act, and before day-break brought to their camp
the sheep they had engaged to steal; and, before the evening of the same
day, they were thirty miles distant. But when pressed by hunger, they
have been known to take a worse method than this. For as the farmers
seldom deny them a sheep that has died in the field, if they apply for
it, _so many_ were found dead in this way, that a certain farmer
suspected the Gipsies of occasioning their deaths. He therefore caused
one of these animals to be opened, and discovered a piece of wool in its
throat, with which it had been suffocated. The Gipsies, who had no
objection to creatures that die in their blood, had killed all these
sheep in the above manner.

Horse-stealing is one of their principal crimes, and at this they are
very dextrous. When disposed to steal a horse, they select one a few
miles from their tent, and make arrangements for disposing of it at a
considerable distance, to which place they will convey it in a night. An
old and infirm man has been known to ride a stolen horse nearly fifty
miles in that time. They pass through bye-lanes, well known to them, and
thus avoid turnpikes and escape detection.

Unless they are taught better principles than at present they possess,
and unless those on whom they impose, use their understandings, it is to
be feared that swindling also will long continue among them; for they are
so ingenious in avoiding detection. When likely to be discovered, a
change of dress enables them to remove with safety to any distance.
Instances of this kind have been innumerable. But as it is the aim of
this book to solicit a better feeling towards them, rather than expose
them to the continuation of censure, the writer will not enter into
further detail in reference to their crimes, than barely to shew the
great evils into which they have been led by many of those in high life,
who have long encouraged them in the savage practice of prize-fighting.
Pugilism has been the disgrace of our land, and our nobility and gentry
have not been ashamed to patronize it.

Not long ago a fight took place in this county which will be a lasting
disgrace to the neighbourhood. One of the pugilists, a Gipsy, in the
pride of his heart, said during the fight, that he _nev