The Dialect of the English Gypsies. By B. C. Smart,
M.D., and H. T. Crofton. (Asher.)—This is a greatly enlarged reissue of a paper which was read by Dr. Smart about fourteen years ago before the Ethnological Section of the British Association, then sitting at Manchester. The labours of the intervening period have resulted in large additions to the original. Another worker has given his help, and the result is a new and valuable book. For the purpose of practical acquaintance with the language of the English gypsies, it is in fact all that could be desired. It, contains the grammar and a vocabulary, both drawn from the newest Sources, mainly, it would appear, from the lips of one Sylvester Boswell, one of the very few remnants of an older generation who can speak the fast degenerating tongue in its purity. A novel feature in the work is a number of "Genuine Romany Compositions," which not only have a lin- guistic interest, but also are curious as giving us a notion of how the gypsies feel about themselves and the "Gentiles " among whom they live.
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