The crimes of which these people were originally accused were
various, but the principal were theft, sorcery, and causing disease
among the cattle; and there is every reason for supposing that in
none of these points they were altogether guiltless.

With respect to sorcery, a thing in itself impossible, not only the
English Gypsies, but the whole race, have ever professed it;
therefore, whatever misery they may have suffered on that account,
they may be considered as having called it down upon their own
heads.

Dabbling in sorcery is in some degree the province of the female
Gypsy. She affects to tell the future, and to prepare philtres by
means of which love can be awakened in any individual towards any
particular object; and such is the credulity of the human race,
even in the most enlightened countries, that the profits arising
from these practices are great. The following is a case in point:
two females, neighbours and friends, were tried some years since,
in England, for the murder of their husbands. It appeared that
they were in love with the same individual, and had conjointly, at
various times, paid sums of money to a Gypsy woman to work charms
to captivate his affections. Whatever little effect the charms
might produce, they were successful in their principal object, for
the person in question carried on for some time a criminal
intercourse with both. The matter came to the knowledge of the
husbands, who, taking means to break off this connection, were
respectively poisoned by their wives. Till the moment of
conviction these wretched females betrayed neither emotion nor
fear, but then their consternation was indescribable; and they