s_,
or pigs that have died a natural death, and _hotchewitchi_, or hedgehog,
as did the belle of a Gipsy party to me at Walton-on-Thames in the summer
of 1872. They can give no reason whatever for this inconsistent
abstinence. But Mr Simson in his "History of the Gipsies" has adduced a
mass of curious facts, indicating a special superstitious regard for the
horse among the Rommany in Scotland, and identifying it with certain
customs in India. It would be a curious matter of research could we
learn whether the missionaries of the Middle Ages, who made abstinence
from horse-flesh a point of salvation (when preaching in Germany and in
Scandinavia), derived their superstition, in common with the Gipsies,
from India.

There can be no doubt that in seeking for the Indian origin of many Gipsy
words we are often bewildered, and that no field in philology presents
such opportunity for pugnacious critics to either attack or defend the
validity of the proofs alleged. The very word for "doubtful" or
"ambiguous," _dubeni_ or _dub'na_, is of this description. Is it derived
from the Hindu _dhoobd'ha_, which every Gipsy would pronounce _doobna_,
or from the English _dubious_, which has been made to assume the Gipsy-
Indian termination _na_? Of this word I was naively told, "If a juva's
bori (girl is big), that's _dub'ni_; and if she's shuvalo (swelled up),
_that's_ dubni: for it may pen (say) she's kaired a tikno (is
_enceinte_), and it may pen she hasn't." But when we find that the
English Gipsy also employs the word _dukkeni_ for "doubtful," and compare
it with the Hindustani _dhokna_ or _dukna_, the true derivation becomes
apparent.

Had Dr Pott or Dr Paspati had recourse to the plan which I adopted of
reading a copious Hindustani dictionary entirely through, word by word,
to a patient Gipsy, noting down all which he recognised, and his
renderings of them, it is very possible that these learned men would in
Germany and Turkey have collected a mass of overwhelming proof as to the
Indian origin of Rommany. At present the dictionary which I intend shall
follow this work shows that, so far as the Rommany dialects have been
published, that of England contains a far greater number of almost
unchanged Hindu words than any other, a fact to which I would especially
call the attention of all who are interested in this curious language.
And what is more, I am certain that the supply is far from being
exhausted, and that by patient re