STREET BEGGARS' EARNINGS

Marlborough Express, Volume LIIII, Issue 83, 9 April 1920, Page 6

STREET BEGGARS' EARNINGS

£100,000 IN LONDON ]JVERY YEAR,

At the end of tlie Napoleonic wars 100 years ago the nuisances of street begging in London became so great that . tho establishment of _ some •organisation to cope with it was mailed K>r. The London Mendicity Society, which was then foa-med, dealt successfully tvibli the trouble at tjie time and lias kept abreast of it sine©. Its workers anticipate a revival of tho nuisance, pointing out that th.3 introduction of conscription took into the Army a considerable number of men who ]ivs, as a rule, by imposing upon the public. In London alone well over £100,000 is given away haphazard every year to beggars in the streetsi. and the society states that the average beggar probably earns more than the average working man. There is hardly a beggar whose record is not tabulated ait the society's offices, where, in addition to "nearly 90,000 such life histories, many curious and plausible notices, which" may have been tho means' of helping impostors to accumulate email fortunes, are also carefully preserved. In soino cases as many as 30 convictions are known to hay© been recorded against this class of offender. Begging letters have been stimulated 'by the war, which lias provided an opportunity for people to seek help on the ground' that they have been thrown into dfficulty by it, andl the society has been busy distinguishing between the genuine and fraudulent applications. It possesses ' a quarter of a 'million records, of beg- ; ging letter writers. *