was received, others also have been sent from two ladies in the neighbourhood, which give the Southampton committee great pleasure. The following are

extracts.

"I have seen Mr.

and have had a pleasing interview with Miss- - relating to the poor wanderers you wrote to me about. I have had the man and woman at my house. After having heard H- read, I told her that the leprosy she had been reading of represented the evil of our sinful heart; that we were born with it; that it prevailed in every part of the soul; and that we had lived always under its influence.' She exclaimed, 'Dear me! I never heard the like of that before! Now it seems good for me to know this." She wept much. When I told her of the love of Christ, she appeared struck with her own extreme ingratitude. Her expressions were so simple and full of pathos, that my heart was quite overcome. She ran out of the room for her husband, and on her return said, 'Ah! do talk to my poor husband, just what you said to me.' I found him not so interesting, but desirous of leaving his wandering life for ever, and getting employment, if possible. They have made some flower-baskets for me; and hoping they may obtain orders for more, I have recommended them to my friends. I have heard of another family, consisting of fourteen souls, who encamp on Bedminster Down, and there, by God's help, I intend to send a minister of Jesus, to try what can be done for them.

There is also another family expected, who have a house of their own at Bedminster, and who winter there. Should the Lord bless our humble endeavours, we must have a regular committee, and set about our work in a workmanlike manner; nothing short of a colony will satisfy me. I intend to introduce this interesting subject to a party this evening, and hope the Lord will open the hearts of his people to do good to those poor benighted wanderers."

In addition to these communications, which are so encouraging, the author has to notice visits of some of the students of the Baptist Academy of Bristol, and those of another person, whose heart ever feels for Gipsies. The Baptist friends to whom he alludes saw a large number, whom they went to, and were gladly received. They sat down with them in their tents, and partook of some of their Christmas plumpudding, which they said was very good. Having gained their confidence by kindness and familiarity, they read and expounded the Scriptures, and accompanied their instructions by prayer.

The same Gipsies had heard, although so far from Southampton, of the attempts of the friends of Gipsies in that town to rescue them from wandering vice and misery.

During a visit the author made to Bristol, he was happy to find some evidences of attention to this persecuted class of our fellow-creatures. One lady has in her family a female Gipsy, as a servant, of whose

good conduct she speaks in unqualified terms. She also employs constantly a Gipsy man in her garden. We may hope soon to hear that a committee is formed in that city, for the amelioration and education of this forlorn people in its own neighbourhood.

To these pleasing accounts may be added a most interesting one of a Gipsy family at Cambridge. A professor in that University, to whom they are well known, speaks in the highest terms of them as Christians; and a parochial clergyman, of the same place, bears testimony to their good order, and their genuine Christianity. He that converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

CHAP. VIII.

Letters received from a Scotch Clergyman, relating to a Gipsy Colony in the South of Scotland.

THE author has also just received from a clergyman in the South of Scotland a most interesting account of a colony of Gipsies in that country, where, he is happy to observe, they do not seem so much hunted as in England. And as the severity of their winters drives them into houses for three months, during that season there is offered a fair opportunity to both ministers and kindly-disposed Christians to do them good. The letters alluded to are most gladly inserted, with the view to encourage the Christian denominations of England to imitate the benevolence zeal, and industry of their much-respected brethren the Scotch.

"Kirk Yetholm, a small village in the county of Roxburghshire, upon the borders of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, has been long known, and somewhat celebrated, as the favourite residence or head-quarters of the largest colony in Scotland of that singular and interesting race of people the Gipsies, whose origin is involved in so much obscurity and doubt. It is not, perhaps, correct to say that the

'muggers' or 'tinkers' of Kirk Yetholm are the pure, unmingled Gipsy race, whose forefathers, upwards of four centuries ago, emigrated to Europe from the East. As in England, so also in Scotland, from their intermixture with the natives of the country, and with other wanderers like themselves, they are now less distinguishable as a peculiar race. Still, however, their language, their erratic and pilfering propensities, and, in general, their dark or dusky complexion, black piercing eyes, and Hindoo features, sufficiently betray the original of this despised and long-neglected race. At what period they first settled in Kirk Yetholm I have not been able to ascertain. The family of Fa or Fall (a name renowned in Gipsy story) seems to have been the first, which probably was about the beginning of the last century. Whether or not they have any intercourse with the Gipsies in other parts of the country I am unable to say; I have at least no evidence that they have. That they have a peculiar language, is a subject on which I have no doubt; though they themselves deny the fact, and seem astonished at the question. I do not mean to say that it is a regularly formed and complete language, but they are able to converse with each other in words unknown to others, and accompany many of these words with the specimens furnished by Hoyland from Grellman. I find that the slang or language used by the Kirk Yetholm Gipsies is very much the same with the language spoken by the English and Turkish Gipsies, a fact which identifies the colony re