BEGGARS IN SYDNEY

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1930, Page 9

BEGGARS IN SYDNEY

HEW TRICKS AND OLD.

“FOURPENCE FOR A DRINK.” The growth of begging in Sydney’s Streets has been a feature of the city’s Jife during recent months. Many of those who have swelled the ranks are obviously victims of the financial crisis, honest, unfortunate beings, reluctantly driven to the quick charity of the passerby as a last resource, says the Sydney Morning Herald. Some are opportunists, no better than the, Liverpool beggar, who, as reported recently, wrote to the coroner before he committed suicide, declaring: “Beggifig as a profession cannot be beaten.” it is not difficult to find representatives of both types in Sydney. Just before six o’clock the other night, an old man stopped a young man in a busy city street, and with exaggerated courtesy, sad: “Young man, could you oblige me with the loan of a £1 note until next Friday?” The young man laughed. The old man laughed too. He was sturdy and brighteyed. His bowler hat was brushed, ms clothes were old, but . neat, He WuS alert and clean, and twinkling, and h.s beard was newly trimmed. . The old man made some mote jokes, equally good. Then he said: “Young man, I have no sick wife and no hungry children I owe no back rent, and tha bailies cannot seize my furniture, because I’m home when I’m wearing my hat. But can you give me fourpehce for a drink?” , ‘ Five copper# changed hands. Ah. Now you have spoiled it,” the old man said. “With fourpence I would have been content. Having fivepence I cannot be happy until I have made it sixpence for a longer drink.” He twinkled, bowed and disappeared. He probably harvests many fourpenccs. This man’s brethren swarm the city s streets. (“The all-sweeping besom or societarian ■ reformation” that Lamb lamented in hs complaint of the decay of beo-ra.rs in the metropolis} lies unmended in a corner. With delicate hand and heavy, old trick and new, the mendicant fraternity practises the Midas “touch.” . .. Always there have been beggars the city knew, inevitable, as much of Sydney as Central Staton and the Quay--“the salutary checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citiThere was the blind man who sat in tlie sun and held matches ill his hand, and who muttered angrily -when a box was torn from his reluctant fingers m exchange for a rattling coin, lheii Hmro was the man, neck twisted as though he had painted “Wait here for trams for centuries, who sang horribly into the footsteps with his mouth two inches from an awning posts Each of them nad a special claim, each a special phtce in the city. The populace took a pro* prietary interest in them. ■ They were institutions. ’ ’ Now a new army is augmenting the ranks. The newcomers are furtive, quick people, darting and dotted in tile jostHim crowds. It is a terrible aim}, a> leaderless, lost legion.-' Aloof from ea<m other, they march gutter, ' pavement, road, by-way, nowhere but seeking, insistent, remorseless. Few (of them have the imagination, the psychology of the old man who wanted fourpence. Most of their tales are as old as begging tram fare to a job, sick wife,- last square meal a week ago, war injury. Some are t e; many false. . Lurking in an alley-way, a man push, s his stunted cliild forward to offer onion pickles, home-made toffee. Has the ireiitleman ? a colli ? . - sick mother - . y please sir!” Thin faces daft from.door-wnys-rties, handkerchiefs, • face cream, shoe laces, posies, fish that waggle fins; unshaven chin's, unwashed-necks; colia.less, shirtless, sockle’ss; tense .faces; “Buv, buy, buy, give, give, give ; fie.ee Whispers, the failure, the- dart back .to cover, the next prospect;: - me. y au, sir ,vety cheap, sir”; eager thrusting, tenacious hnplorng. • Some Offer nothing, some sing,-make pretence at playing r viol j“'V anything. Some just; stand and look with hunger in theit eyes. When tl e sun dips the still lower orders rake, the Garbage tins-diooking, Stirring; “nothin’ £re, Jack”; banging of lids, tile prowl beyond the lights. By the time. the theatre crowds are home they have all gone—somewhere.