parallel, in another way perhaps, but equal in self-sacrifice and
devotion.

The gipsies in Hungary are supposed to number at least 150,000. The
Czigany, as they are called, made their appearance early in the
fifteenth century, having fled, it is believed, from the cruelty of the
Mongol rulers. They were allowed by King Sigismund to settle in Hungary,
and were called in law the "new peasants." Before the reforms of 1848
they were in a state of absolute serfdom, and could not legally take
service away from the place where they were born. The case of the gipsy
was the only instance in Hungary, even in the Hungary of the old
_régime_, of absolute serfdom; for oppressive as were the obligations of
the land-holding peasant to his lord, yet the relation between them was
never that of master and slave. As a matter of fact, if the Hungarian
peasant gave up his _session_--that is to say, the land he occupied in
hereditary use--he was free to go wheresoever he pleased, and was not
forced to serve any master. In practice the serf would not readily
relinquish the means of subsistence for himself and family, and
generally preferred the burden, odious though it was, of the _robot_, or
forced labour. This personal liberty, which the Hungarian peasant in the
worst of times has preserved, is deep-rooted in the growth of the
nation, and accounts for their characteristic love of freedom in the
present day. It was this that made the freedom-loving peasant detest the
military conscription imposed by the Austrians in 1849, an innovation
the more obnoxious because enforced with every species of official
brutality.

The poor Czigany had not been so fortunate as to preserve even the
Hungarian serf's modicum of liberty. Mr Paget mentions that forty years
ago he saw gipsies exposed for sale in the neighbouring province of