29 JUNE 1951, Page 18

The Gypsies List year a caravan of semi- g ypsies worked in

our near orchard. One of them had a sick baby, and for the first week or two we were busy' telephoning for doctors, making arrangements with the hospital, and then enquiring daily until the child died. The bereaved mothet brought my wife a vase; the kind one wins at fairs. But the night aftet the news came from the hospital, the gypsies raided my out-door oil-bin and took a couple of gallons of paraffin. They used it to .burn the pram, clothes and toys of the dead infant. I raised my hat to that ancient ceremony, and now record it for the anthropologists.