AN AMATEUR BEGGAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11346, 14 April 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN AMATEUR BEGGAR.

BUT NOT AN ABSENT-MINDED ONE. Mr. CM. McGoveux has been carrying out a novel experiment. In,order to study at first hand the life and .•mo.tonis of beggars in the public streets he became one himself. He disguised himself so successfully that not even his personal acquaintances could recognise him, and went out on a begging expedition for food and money in all parts of New York. He lived with beggars, slept, in their lodging-houses, ate at ' their restaurants, and spent his. leisure hours as they did. Being a beggar is very remunerative ho discovered. There is no other trade in which a beginner can make anything like as much money as the apprentice beggar, On an average he made £2 a day, and the day never lasted more than eight hours all told.

A BEGGING TOl'K. I started out with a definite plan of operation, he says. 1 had made out a list of what I knew were the seven typical districts of New York, and intended to spend a whole day begging in each of them, both from house to house and from pedestrians. As I remained in my lodging-house on Sunday it was eight days before 1 had finished' my tour of begging. In all that time not once was my story of need questioned. Everyone I accosted treated me as though they believed me to be really deserving. Some people glanced at my hand and shuddered when they saw the supposedly painful burns. A number of the people I accosted, and who gave me money, were my personal acquaintances, who did not know anything about my having become a beggar, and none of them saw through my disguise.

THB MOST GENEROUS. The total amount I received in my first seven days of begging was £14. Not the least interesting feature of the results was tho comparison between the amounts I received in each of tho seven districts I had laid out for separate trials. 1 had expected that in tho first district, which contained the residences of only the wealthiest peoplu of New York, 1 would receive the most cask of all the three residential districts, and that in the second district, which is the middling ricii thoroughfare, I would receive many more times what I would get in the third district, which is one of the poorest districts in the outside the tenements. But my expectations were wrong in all three cases. It was from the poorest districts I received most, and from the richest the least. In the millionaire district I was referred many times to the "charity societies," and while the individual amounts which I did receive here were larger than the individual amounts in either of the two other districts, the number of people who gave me anything was much smaller in proportion to the whole number solicited than the number of people in the other districts.

WOMEN' TWICE AS CHARITABLE AS MEN'. I called at about the same number of houses in each of these three districts. I did not beg from pedestrians in any of them, and the cash results were in this proportion: From tho poorest, six in 12; from the middling rich, four in 12; and from the richest district, two in 12. As to the individuals who gave me money, tho women were about twice as charitable as the men—considering numbers only, for the men who gave money were nearly three times as liberal as the women. Older men and older women proved more generous than their juniors. Strangers in New York (or rather evident strangers) were about three times more generous than city people of the same age, sex, and probable financial condition. They rarely refused my requests, and some of them went so far as to assist me a second time.