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The women are as fond of dress as the men, and equally ridiculous in their choice of it; they are often seen in a dress cap, while their rotten linen jacket scarcely serves to cover their nakedness. In Spain, they plaster their temples with great patches of black silk; and hang all sorts of trumpery in their ears, besides a number of baubles about the neck.

The Gipseys were at very little trouble respecting the dress of their children; these ran about naked, in the true Calmuc style, till ten years of age, when the boys got breeches, and the girls aprons. But this nuisance is at an end in the Imperial dominions, both in Germany and Hungary, where an order to suppress it was issued out by the emperor Joseph.

Before we dismiss the subject of dress, we may mention a laudable custom established among the Gipseys, in order to save their clothes when they have quarreled, and mean to fight. Before they proceed to action, a truce takes place for a minute or two, to give the combatants time to strip to their shirts, that their apparel may not suffer in the fray: then the storm breaks loose, and each lays on the other as hard as he can. The custom has this use in it, that whenever any body appears in a ragged coat, he may affirm, on his honour, that it was not rendered so in a Gipsey brawl.