Fagin Up-to-Date

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 4, 26 March 1927, Page 17 (Supplement)

Fagin Up-to-Date

Begging was organised professionally loqg before trades unions were heard of, and its courses of study and its diplomas are at least as old as Fagin. It is therefore perhaps not suprising to hear that the other day in Paris the beggars held a meeting at the Bourse de Travail and decided to insist upon a higher tariff. In future they will accept nohing less than 25 centimes. They will get it too. There is a wellknown legless beggar called Lopez, who makes his hundred francs a day regularly by trundling himself on his little trolley along the Boulevard de Sebastopol, and is an owner of house property. Among what may be called secular beggars his prosperity is perhaps exceptional; but the religious kind, who are a very close corporation, with each his or her recognised pitch at a church door, make a very regular living, ending with quite a nice little lump sum when any one of them decides to sell the goodwill of the business. The course of instruction is partly theoretical. This is given in the cafe itself, and includes the humanities — that is, the moral art of being able to inspire pity—as well as science. Among the latter will be the prescriptions for obtaining without risk to ! health, a feverish eye, a yellow and ! starving complexion, or even, a film ■ over the sight. The manner of ob- i taining epilepsy by soap in the mouth. 1 although a little discredited by having [ been adopted by spiritualists, will also I be communicated if desired. A legless ' man, for example, is entitled to be I free from competition in- a certain j area, as well as to his particular pitch.