TRICKS OF THE BEGGAR

Dunstan Times, Issue 3355, 3 January 1927, Page 8

TRICKS OF THE BEGGAR

The recent case of an ex-soldier who displayed a piteous but false placard stating, that lie had been relused pension, clothes, and treatment, and was compelled* to beg for alms, makes one wonder bow many credulous and careless people are daily Hoaxed by appeals for help from clever street beggars. London oi late has been yielding a golden harvest to these fraudulent “sufferers.” : lln ■sc beggars, when arrested, ircqiiently have large sums of money on them, or they possess bank passbooks, showing hundreds of pounds standing to their credit. Hogging, as a profession, pays, butDie beggar must be. an artist ; dress, speech, and pose must all he studied, and the beggar must know whether •The palsied hand” or “the paralysed limb” will be the:, more effective disguise for him. He often sings hymns m quid suburban streets. T lie existence of a fake cripple factory was recently revealed by a'case at a j Now York police court. There injured hands and feet can be fixed up, ph. the tic wounds readily made with acids and mustard,, and they deformities arranged with .old boxes and cotton wool padding. Above all, the art ol wearing an agonised expression I lie kind of look that fits a broken leg -an lie taught, It is even pussink- io be converted into an armless or legless -hunchback at a moment's notice.

Another plan which rarely tails m London is to borrow babies in arms — a baby can be borrowcii for sixpence a day and to sing for alms. Older children are even worse victims, for few hearts can withstand the appeal of a child. They are made to\ tramp the streets in u half-starved condition and to beg aims. Child beggars are trained to be liars. They are occasionally seat from house to hose saying that they have lost two shillings or some similar amount belonging to mother, and ai e taught to feign fear of punishment. fieggars have been found with a hundred pockets in their clothing to stow av ay the coins given them by people who are much less wealthy than the beggars themselves. Within the last year two supposedly crippled beggars proved, on medical examination, to be able-bodied men, rich enough to possess their own motor-cars. Another man. claiming to he paralysed, went regularly to his begging pitch in a taxman with his invalid chair perched on top. Humor sometimes attaches to these sordid cases. A stalwart beggar of forty-eight once remarked to a defective when arrested.’ “I’ve no miivver or Carver to keep me now." Street beggars are not the only type. There is that vast army of hegging-Jel-(er writers, some of whom have- been known to hank as. much as LAO a week, collected from gullible"people, misled by whining tales of cdflsnmptive husbands or starving children. These beggarwork methodically Trom a kind of beg- 1 gar’s “Who’s Who," which somethin, consists of a thousand or more names of kindly people and the particular bait they are most likely to bite. One should never give money. The only safe way of discovering the genuine beggar is to have investigations made by the police into those eases which come to one’s notice. Tsnallv from (if) to 70 per cent, are worthless; H.C.

There is a type of tripper who would get bored anywhere, and Paris is one of the places to which these objectionable people (lock in hordes. “Vous et.es mi irog. et je snis do Jti race do les bulldogs,” was a remark actually made by a. Cockney tourist to a waiter in a Paris restaurant. Luckily the waiter did not understand a word, iSomnwh.at. more pleasing was the translation from iFrench to English achieved by an Irishman in Paris after bis umpteenth drink. “Pat.” his friend inquired, “what does ‘Vive la Era nee’ mean?'" “It’s French for ■.Rule, llritaimia!’ me blioy.” was the answer.