BEGGING AS A PROFESSION.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20076, 4 November 1930, Page 12

BEGGING AS A PROFESSION.

_—» - REVELATIONS IN A LETTER.

. (FHOM OMR. ovx cokxesfondek?4" • LONDON, September 19. Gilbert Hanson, aged 36, a .married man, who committed suicide at Liverpool a few days ago, left a letter, read at the inquest, making remarkable revelations of the deceit and trickery practised by professional beggars. "I am a professional beggar, and have been one for the last ten years," mote Hanson. "I am/)a. well-known character at Garstoii, . Bpotle, and Ormskirk, and I have learnt more about beggars and begging in the last few years, from whatTThave actually seen 'and heard among' tJ»em, and also by my own experience,' shan J could write. I am fully convinced that begging as a profession: "cannot be beaten. Most .of them congregate in Islington. On© bigj untidy man has always a „few* "days* growth of beard and a" few safety pi tts about his person 'to keep his clothes together. This is just to create . sympathy among the public. This inan can-change a £i note any day .of . the week. He goes, about puolio-hpttses, and .also makes a 'pitch* in th« tnittor. : witlr a. few matches and a dirty cardboard tied to his Vjersey-.tfhich resds 'Broken Mons hero.' He would not T^orkuf he" had a job offered.' Vsv' • "Another beggar in the same clique has only one arm. - You- tfritl' see him with a -placard on his cstest, which says: £ N*> use in- both- arms*?, and he gets away with it all. right. I have beard him boast that 50s .was a poor Wage from 7 to 10 p.m.- in publichouses on Saturday nights alone. Another man owns---prop«rty near Warrington, and can afFpi'd ito go to Paris every year for his, holidays. "I have known, and do know, women who borrow children 3s to is a day to go- out singing. Ormskirk, Garston,- Boctle,, forth are a beggar's paradise, and it is about time the police took drastic measures to stop begging in its entirety, and I hope the public will cease to encourage beggars. The least successful is better off than the most successful working man." Detective-Sergeant Harford said that Hanson had been on the police records since 1913. He lost his leg when-he was a boy,- and-not during war service, and he was never in the Army or Navy. Since the war lie had toured the country, posing as a man who had lost his leg while serving in the Navy.