eek
business in the cities and villages. When any one calls, they throw down
the bundle, and prepare the apparatus for work, before the door of their
employer.

The Gypsies have a fixed dislike to agriculture; and had rather suffer
hunger, or any privation, than follow the plough. Since the year 1768,
the Empress Theresa has commanded that the Hungarian, and Transylvanian
Gypsies should be instructed in husbandry; but these orders have been
very little regarded. At this time there are so few of them farmers in
those parts, that they are undeserving of notice. In Spain and other
European countries, it would be difficult to find one who had ever made a
furrow in his life.

Respecting fortune-telling, with which the female Gypsies impose on
people's credulity in every district and corner of Europe, the origin, of
the imposition is not to be attributed to them: the cheat was known and
practised in Europe before their arrival; being deeply rooted in the
ignorance of the middle age. The science of divination here was said to
be already brought to a greater degree of perfection than among them.
Rules were invented to tell lies from the inspection of the hand, in
which the poor Gypsies were accounted mere bunglers. They in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were esteemed supernumeraries; there
being men of great learning, who not only read lectures in Colleges on
the art of chiromancy; but wrote many books, vilifying these people, and
endeavouring to spoil their market. But these wise men are no more;
their knowledge is deposited in the dead archives of literature; and
probably had there been no Gypsies, with them would have died the belief
in chiromancy, as is the case with respect to astrology, necromancy,
oneirocritica, and the other offspring of imbecile fancy.

We must not omit to mention the occupation of gold-washing, by which
thousands of Gypsies, of both sexes, in the Banat, Transylvania,
Wallachia, and Moldavia, procure a livelihood in summer; who, in winter,
make trays and troughs, which they sell in an honest way.

It is not permitted for every one, without exception, to be a
gold-washer; such only can follow the employment as have permission from
the office of Mons, where a College was established by the Empress
Theresa, in 1748. In the seventh article of instructions granted, the
Gypsies were allowed the privilege of washing for gold, for which each
person pays a tribute to Government.

The gol