MENDICANCY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9538, 9 July 1909, Page 4

MENDICANCY.

In times like the present, when the intermittent cry of the unemployed is heard in the land, the recent cablegrain from London stating that the Mendicity Society have declared that .£IOO,OOO is given ' away annually to British street beggars can hardly fail to make dwellers in New Zealand recognise their better position. Since the formation of this society in 1818 no less than 25,000 vagrants have been convicted as imposters under the directions of those responsible for the management. During the sair.e period they have given relief

in 14,000 cases. Mr Booth, in his 'Darkest England/ says or.e in every twenty of the population liva on charity, and estimates that three million persons in England could not live on their own resources for a week, and included in this number are 100,000 homeless waits. In Scotland the extent of downright poverty is just as apparent, Edinburgh, with a population of rather more than a quarter of a million, had, when thete statistics were collected, 898 known beggars,of whom 589 were Scotch,2lo Irish,£B3 English, and 16 foreigners. Thera are in Great Britain a very large number of societies in active operation, not only for the relief of poverty but for the suppression of mendicancy. Ever since the 14th century laws have been on the Statute Book for the punishment of begging, but there is no penalty for giving to beggars, hence the annual expenditure of £IOO,OOO per year to street beggars, a class largely recruited, so experts like Mr Booth declare from the ranks of the lay, idle, drunken and vicious.