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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1191, 2 February 1864, Page 3

Gipsies.—ln ' Colburn's New Monthly 'we light on some information about the mysterious race of gipsies, now dying out in England, but so numerous in many parts of the continent. If the gipsy is at liberty to choose his food, he eats very fat meat. Dainties for him are hedgehogs, squirrels, foxes, chickens, goslings, and ducklings. He always has fish-hooks and line about him to capture poultry, and now and then he throws it out to linen hung up to dry. The hedgehog is captured with dogs trained for the purpose, abundantly filled with garlic and onions, and roasted on a spit over a bright fire, or else boiled with vinegar and onions. The fox on the other hand, must lie for several days in running water before It can be baked in a hole heated with hot ashes and covered with leaves and earth. Dandelion is employed as salad, and prepared with vinegar, milk, and coarsely shredded onions. Spirits are indispensable with gipsies of every age and both sexes, and even children are habituated to them at the earliest age. The most immoderate daily con- j sumption of spirits does not appear to do the gipsy any harm, and merely intoxicates him temporarily. He smokes, snuffs, chews, and eats tobacco. A gipsy will eat with great pleasure the entire contents of a snuffbox as well as a goat can. These people have but few illnesses, as they are hardened from their earliest youth, by wind and storm, frost and heat, hunger and thirst. They regularly die a natural death of gradual decay, unless they lose their life through some accidents. In all European countries the gipsy displays the same moral character, the same habits, and the same vices. Although absent and inattentive, the gipsy is clever and cunning, endowed with rare' powers of observation and good sense, if he have no school training. He is a spy by birth, and has frequently been employed for that purpose. Although swayed by fear and cowardice, he easily becomes impudent and coarse; but then directly afterwards courteous, obliging, and even cringing. He is naturally very covetous, extravagant, and luxurious, but at the sume time capable of the greatest privations when circumstances demand it. He is so kind to his children as to display weakness. He is ignorant of any sense of honor. Hatred of work and laziness, | frivolity and mendacity are, with cruelty to animals, his usual faults; gratitude and devotion to benefactors bis most striking virtues. Literaky Gossip.—Still London looks desolate enough, and it will be the end of the month before there will be any visible signs of returning animation. All the artists of note arc still awav, save Mr. Frith, whose Court commission of the riage pictures has kept him hard at work in his painting-room during the entire recess; Mr. Mi 11ms and Mr. Leech liad an early turn in Perthshire; Mr. Oeswiek has been sketching in Yorkshire, and Mr. Ansdell in Scotland; Mr. Linton, the excellent engraver and wood draughtsman, has been touring through the Lake District, and the result of Ins labors will shortly be published by Messrs. Smith and Elder in a splendid book, the letter-press of which will be from the pen of Mrs. Linton, one of the cleverest of our female writers, best known under lier maiden name, Miss Lynn; Mr. Dickens has been away in France and Ilemish land, Mr. Sala in Venice, Mr. Shirley Brooks touring in Scotland, Mr. Mark Lemon giving readings of his dramatic story, "Hearts are Trumps, in several provincial towns; Mr. Ilepworth Dixon has gone to Palestine; Mr. Blanchard Jerrold is m Paris, writing a series of articles on the Parisian population, principally the ouvrier class, for the ' Athenociim , and the' Morning Post;' and a well-known Saturday Heviewer, who lias some property in Connemarra; has gone to see if he can collect a little rent theree lie is full of pluck, has been through the wildest parts in Algeria, and is a celebrated member of tht Alpine Club; but he looks upon this as the mos. daring adventure in which he has ever been engaged —Edmond Yates in the Northern Whig.