LOW LIFE IN BUDAPEST

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 781, 30 September 1929, Page 11

LOW LIFE IN BUDAPEST

4,000 DESTITUTE TRICKS TO GET MONEY Details, not without humour, of the iLOllfcj-lUaniliS' UiCKS OL LllC lllllcUJlLcuus of Budapest s iiiust haa are given oy tne ‘'resu mnap," says me miaapest correspondent of the London ’Observer.” The quarter, inappropriateiy named Angyalfold (“Angel Field”), harbour 4.U00 destitute persons, who receive a Government grant of 70,000 pengo a month. Fifty per cent- of the number are illiterate, but education will shortly be made compulsory among them, and schools organised for the purpose. Although the greater part, of the population of Angyalfold are professional beggars, members of better classes are to be found among them, such as lawyers ejected from the occupied territories, bankrupt merchants, and even a count. Free dinners, consisting of soup, vegetables, and bread, are provided for those without means, but others who are able to pay may receive dinner every day for a week for the sum of one pengo, 60 fillers. A man who came to the free kitchen declaring that he had not eaten for days was discovered to be owing 140 pengo to the grocer, who said that he was a good customer, and paid promptly. The source of his income was a set of caves which he had dug in the earth with his son, and which he let out as lodgings. Others owning small shanties built against a wall, with a piece of sacking over the opening, hire thepi to seven or eight persons for the sum of two pengo. 50 fillers a week. Another man who took his free dinner away from the kitchen each day was discovered to be rearing pigs on the food. The professional beggars, who appor tion the various “beats” in the city among themselves, often clear a considerable sum by selling the “goodwill’ of a beat in a profitable district. A favourite industry, by which many parents subsist, is that of sending a small child into the city to pick up the flowers discarded by the flowerseller in the evening, and offer them to passers-by. The few fillers which i nobody refuses a crying child mount !up so rapidly that a few days ago a policeman found a five-year-old beggar at 2 a.m. with 21 pengo in his ragged pocket.

Another favourite occupation is shoe polishing, which is pursued with such, zest that pedestrians in the streets near the quarter who pause for a moment get their shoes rubbed for them, willy-nilly, by a whining wretch with a bundle of rags, who usually succeeds in soiling light summer footgear. Visitors inspecting the quarter are permitted to photograph an inhabitant for 20 fillers, but as much as one pengo is sometimes asked as an advance fee for telling the way.