law has become too weak to force him to liquidate a debt by money
or by service.

Such was Gypsy law in England, and there is every probability that
it is much the same in all parts of the world where the Gypsy race
is to be found. About the peculiar practices of the Gypsies I need
not say much here; the reader will find in the account of the
Spanish Gypsies much that will afford him an idea of Gypsy arts in
England. I have already alluded to CHIVING DRAV, or poisoning,
which is still much practised by the English Gypsies, though it has
almost entirely ceased in Spain; then there is CHIVING LUVVU ADREY
PUVO, or putting money within the earth, a trick by which the
females deceive the gorgios, and which will be more particularly
described in the affairs of Spain: the men are adepts at cheating
the gorgios by means of NOK-ENGROES and POGGADO-BAVENGROES
(glandered and broken-winded horses). But, leaving the subject of
their tricks and Rommany arts, by no means an agreeable one, I will
take the present opportunity of saying a few words about a practice
of theirs, highly characteristic of a wandering people, and which
is only extant amongst those of the race who still continue to
wander much; for example, the Russian Gypsies and those of the
Hungarian family, who stroll through Italy on plundering
expeditions: I allude to the PATTERAN or TRAIL.

It is very possible that the reader during his country walks or
rides has observed, on coming to four cross-roads, two or three
handfuls of grass lying at a small distance from each other down
one of these roads; perhaps he may have supposed that this grass
was recently plucked from the roadside by frolicsome children, and
flung upon the ground in sport, and this may possibly have been the