THE ART OF BEGGING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 10 (Supplement)

THE ART OF BEGGING.

LETTER WRITERS' PLEAS.

A REGTOAH. TBAI>E.

OLD-TIME ROGUES.

An Aucklander who had something of a windiallrccently, arid whose good fortune received Eomc publicity, was amazed by. the flood-of begging letters which immediately swamped liis ordinary maiL Curious indeed were the reasons which some brought forward as'to why they should share in the scwiy-acquired wealth; others merely made their demands, without suggesting any justifiable cause for distribution.. They all met the same fate... The begging-letter, writer is a regular institution in older lands, and there are scores who have no other method of making a living. Bo persistent is the type that in London an organisation is in existence _ which specialises in making inquiries into the genuineness of the distress- of the writers of begging letters in order to- protect charitably disposed people from_ being victimised. Thi3 organisation ie the London Mendicity Society, of .which the Duke of Wellington is president. It was founded more thau a hundred years ago, to deal with the increase in the number of beggars in the streets of London after th'o close of the Napoleonic wars. Throughout the history of England the close of a war has been followed by a big increase in the number of beggars, most of whom claimed to have served their country in .the war. The London Mendicity Society investigates the claims of London's beggars, and-endeavours to secure work for those who are willing and able to work. But it has found throughout its long history of over 100 years, that the majority of street beggars and begging-letter writers are impostors. .It has stored away for reference the written history of thousands of beggars. It estimates that a total of over £100,000 is given to street beggars in-London in the course of a. year, and that most of this money is wasted. It investigates nearly 1000 begging letters each year, and finde that more than half of, them are written by people who do not deserve assistance. A very .successful type of beggar who nourished in London for a brief period ater.the war was. the man with a barrel organ who displayed a big placard stating that he was an ex-officer of v the army, unable to obtain work. The placard announced that he was ashamed to adopt such a means of trying to obtain a living, but, as hie wife and children were starving, he had to bury his pride. In order to convince the charitable, lie wore a black mask over his face, as if to hide his shame and prevent anyone identifying him. This form of appeal was so successful that the originators reaped a rich harvest; but when masked organ grinders became so numerous as to bo a nuisance, the police moved them on. . The Art of Begging. It seems strange that it is possible to make a living by writing begging letters, i.e., that the lecipients are foolish enough to send mor*y to the writers of whom they know nothing. But the professional writers of begging letters put some degree of intelligence into the business, and select suitable opportunities for appealing to those they wish to victimise. They study the death notice? in the newspapers, and particularly the obituary notices in the news columns. For instance, on the. death of a. general the widow is almost certain to ; rcceivo a piteous: appeal for assistance from one who claims to be also a widow, and to have lost her only son while serving under the aforesaid general. As the obituary notice is sure to give some details of the engagements in which the general fought, the begging-letter writer selects one of these engagements as the occasion on which she lost her only son., The methods of a woman named Haud Tarling, who was described by some of the London newspapers as the "Queen of Begging-letter Writers," were recently disclosed in a police court. She had been convicted ten times of writing begging letters, her husband had also been convicted, and her mother had also obtained her living by writing begging letters. She specialised in appeals to members of the peerage, and even sent some of her letters to royal personages. At public libraries ■ she consulted "-Dobrett's Peerage" and "Who's Who," and other reference books, and took from them thenarnes and addresses of people she intended to.appeal'to and details of their careers. In well-chosen language she told her talc of poverty and distress,) and endeavoured to establish some connection between: her intended victim and herself as a relative of somebody .who had. been associated in the past with the, recipient of.'her.lettcr. As a guarantee of the genuineness of- her distress, and the ■ urgent need of financial assistance, she ■ always" enclosed an order for. her ejectment from her rooms by a hard-, hearted landlady because of arrears of rent. ' These ejectment orders were fictitious, and were made out by herself. .";•<'• Elizabethan Beggars. But though beggars arc numerous enough in these days,, they are few in comparison with the numbers that infested, the highways of England in the; time of Queen Elizabeth. Miss Muriel St. Clare Byrne, in her book, "Elizabethan Life in Town and Country," published three years ago, states: —"Vagabondage had increased to such an alarming, extent that the regulation of it was one of the chief problems with which the Government was confronted. The wandering beggars numbered in their ranks all'kinds of men and women, from the real gipsies to the impotent poor, and the sturdy rascal- whosoaim in life was to avoid honest work. Discharged serving men, old soldiers, ruined smallholders, out-of-work agricultural labourers, masteriess men of all kinds, helped to make up the almost unbelievably numerous crew of rascals who swarmed over the whole countryside, practising the gentle art of living on nothing a year at the expense of the respectable members, of the community." • "The most fantastic and horrible of these creatures to be met ou the -high road'were the Palliards, the. Abraham Men, and the Counterfeit Cranks. '. The Palliard, who .was! also known in the canting tongue as a Clapperdudgeon, was the kind of-beggar who deliberately covered his limbs with loathsome running' sores to-rouse compassion a arid ■ elicit alntis. . To make'these raw and bleeding places they would tie arsenic.or ratsbane

oh an ankle or an arm. .When, it had produced its corrosive effect, they jvould then leave the sore exposed,- and surrouhdit with bloody and filthy rags) arid so take their, way from fair to fair arid market to market, sometimes obtaining as.mucli as five shillings a week in charity. (In Elizabethan times money had far greater purchasing power than it has to-day.) Sham 'old soldiers' used much the same methods' to produce 'wounds/ applying unslaked lime { eoan

and: iron rust,: which made the arm appear black, while the sore was 'raw and reddish, but whit© about,the edges like an old wound.' .." , " . '

"The .Counterfeit. Crank; was another rogue, who dressed himself in the filthiest rags imaginable, daubed -his face with blood, and pretended.to have,tho falling sickness, or some other dreadful affliction. One of the favourite tricks of his repertoire .was to fall grovelling in the dirt at the feet of a passer-by, counter'feiting froth at the mouth by judicious sucking of a piece of soap. .. ',

"The Abraham Man was per Daps tho most terrifying figure of the three, as he pretended to bo mad. Tom o' Bedlam and Poor Tom were other names for him; These impostors roamed the country half naked. 'Poor Tom's a-cold,' wails Edgar in Tying Lear/ when counterfeiting one, of these madmen. HVhb gives anything to Poor Tom ?"...' .' Bo Poor Tom some charity, whom tlie foul fiend vexes .... Tom's a-cold.' On his journeys between London and Stratford Shakespeare, inuet often enough have come across these 'Bedlam Beggars.'" . Decrease in Beggars. ■ Despite the measures taken to deal with "rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars," there was no great diminution in their numbers until the eighteenth century. "There can be little doubt that the industrial expansion of the eightesnth century absorbed much of that terrible residuum of beggars and vagrants who had been so great a problem in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries," writes Mrs. Dorothy George in ."London Life in the Eighteenth Century." She quotes Sir .Nathaniel Conant,a Bow Street magistrate of .33 years' standing, as stating.inlßls, "You walk through the streets without seeing beggars in crowds; you see only those that either with fear or trembling whis-. per to you as you pass of tbeir distresses, those with an absolutely impotent appearance about them." > '."•.-.,.' ' .

Mrs. Georgo atao quotes Francis Place, who wrote in 1825:— "Tliero is not now one beggar where there were ten or even twice ten. We are no. longer tormented by regular vagabonds, who make themselvcs-loathsomc objects in the streets. Those who were hot old enough some twelve years ago ;to have noticed the- beggars in the streets can scarcely believe it possible that they ehould have existed in such largo numbers, and can form no conception whatever of tho horribly disgusting etato in which they were. . The countenances of ■ many of them distorted from disease or. diseased on purpose to produce pity, the.sores pro-' duced in the same way ... . the horrible contortions and distortions with which bur streets abounded." ■ !