BEGGARS TERRORISE WOMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 35

BEGGARS TERRORISE WOMAN

A remarkable story was told in England recently by an elderly woman who declared that she had given away about,£looo to.gipsies and beggars who had terrorised her during the past two or three years.

She is Miss Eliza Jane Hayward, and her case was referred to at Poole Police Court when a woman of the Romany type was' fined £1 for begging, reports the "Daily Mail." •

Miss Hayward, who is nearly 80, is a little, gentle-voiced woman, and it is easy to credit her story that the beggars who have pestered her -will not take "No" as a refusal.

"They come every, day," she said, "sometimes five or six ' during the morning. :

"One morning one woman ■ came seven times. Some of them walk into the kitchen when I leave the door unlocked and I cannot get rid of them. The men raise their itoices to me.

"They tell me such pitiable tales that I cannot refuse them, but the police say I must not listen to them. I gave £12 to one woman and £5 to another. The other day a woman came for £35' because she said she could go into partnership in a board-ing-house and provide a home for her little girl.

"In bad weather the gipsies will come and tell me their caravan wants mending. After I had given one of them money she came back for more

because she wanted to make the caravan bigger so that her sister could live with* her.

"Another young woman came to me crying and told me her husband was cruel, and that she must have £7 to get a separation. I took her with me to.the bank and got her the money."

Miss Hayward added that since the police have been watching. the jjipsies she has kept no money "in the house, but now-they pester her to go to the bank with them, or suggest that they shall wait at the bank until she comes;

"When I .have given £5 to one woman," she proceeded, "she goes away and boasts to the others, who have had similar sums, that I have given her £10. Then the others come back and say I should have given them more.. ■

"I am getting low in; my account at -the bank, but I feel things will be better now the police ■ are helping me."

Miss Hayward has learned from the police that many of the : tales to which she has listened have been untrue and that the beggars have, been going about in motor-cars to the races and other events.

She said that her brother, who resides with her sometimes, tried to drive the gipsies away, but they then resorted to the ruse of watching for him to go out.