s, jugs, and basins.
The good old man cut my bread and butter with his dark coloured hands
pretty thin, but the bread for his sons and daughters was like pieces of
bricks, which, with pieces of bacon, he pitched at them without any
ceremony, and as they caught it they, although men and women, kept saying
"Thank you, pa," "Thank you, pa," and down it went without either knives
or forks, or very little grinding. We were all sitting upon the floor,
my table being an undressed brick out of some old building, and it was
with some difficulty I could keep the pigs that were running loose in the
yard from taking a piece off my plate, but with a pretty free use of my
toe I kept sending the little grunters squeaking away. After tea I felt
a little curious to know what was in the big old Gipsy dame's basket, for
I had an idea one or two hair-brushes, combs, laces, and other small
trifles which lay on the top of a small piece of oilcloth covering the
inside of the basket had, by their greasy appearance, done duty for many
a long day. I told the old Gipsy dame that I was going home the next
day, and should like to take a little thing or two for my little ones at
home, as having been bought of a Gipsy woman near London. The sharp old
woman was not long in offering me one or two of her trifles that lay on
the top of her basket, but these I said were not so suitable as I should
like. "Had she nothing more suitable lower down as a small present?"
After a little fumbling and flustering she began to see my motive, and
said, "Ah! I see what you are after. I will tell you the truth and show
you all." She turned the oilcloth off the basket, underneath of which
were "shank ends" of joints, ham-bones, pieces of bacon, and crusts.
"These," she said, "have been given to me by servant girls and others for
telling their fortunes, really lies, and I have brought them here for my
children to live upon, and this is how we live."

[Picture: Gipsy Fortune-tellers cooking their evening meal]

Fortune-telling is a soul-crushing and deadly crying evil, and it is far
from being stamped out. A hawker's licence, about the size of one of
these pages, covers a life-time of sin and iniquity in this respect. A
basket with half-a-dozen brushes, combs, laces, a piece of oilcloth, and
a pocket Bible, is all the stock-in-trade they require, and it will serve
them for a year. They generally prophecy good. Knowing the readiest way
to deceive, to a y