A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be found in a custom which was described to me by a Rom in the following words:—­

“When a mush mullers, an’ the juvas adree his ker can’t kair habben because they feel so naflo ’bout the rom being gone, or the chavi or juvalo mush, or whoever it may be, then their friends for trin divvuses kairs their habben an’ bitchers it a lende.  An’ that’s tacho Rommanis, an’ they wouldn’t be dessen Rommany chuls that wouldn’t kair dovo for mushis in sig an’ tukli.”

“When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare food (literally, make food) as they feel so badly because the man is gone (or the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends for three days prepare their food and send it to them.  And that is real Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany fellows who would not do that for people in sorrow and distress.”

Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised by a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy term for it.  In England it is to kair habben, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin.  Dict.) “karwa khana is the food that is sent for three days from relations to a family in which one of the members has died.”  The Hindu karwana, to make or to cause to do, and kara, to do, are the origin of the English Gipsy kair (to make or cook), while from khana, or ’hana, to eat, comes haw and habben, or food.

The reader who is familiar with the religious observances of India is probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held by many sects.  In Germany, as Mr Liebich declares, drinking-cups are kept by the Gipsies with superstitious regard, the utmost care being taken that they never fall to the ground.  “Should this happen, the cup is never used again.  By touching the ground it becomes sacred, and should no more be used.  When a Gipsy cares for nothing else, he keeps his drinking-cup under every circumstance.”  I have not been able to ascertain whether this species of regard for the cup ever existed in England, but I know of many who could not be induced to drink from a white cup or bowl, the reason alleged being the very frivolous and insufficient one, that it reminded them of a blood-basin.  It is almost needless to say that this could never have been the origin of the antipathy.  No such consideration deters English peasants from using white crockery drinking-vessels.

In Germany, among the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, or if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again.  I found on inquiry that the same custom still prevails among the old Gipsy families in England, and that if the object be a crockery plate or cup, it is at once broken.  For this reason, even more than for convenience, real Gipsies are accustomed to hang