Pretend to be Deaf, Dumb and Blind, Playing on
Sympathy--How Philanthropy is Humbugged--Begging for Money
to Reach Home--An Army of Frauds and Vagabonds--Mastering
the Deaf Mute Language for Swindling Purposes--The Public
Should be Careful in Disbursing Alms.
Speech is so common, eyesight so precious, that he who would appeal
for charity needs no better warrant than that he is dumb or blind.
In an age when words are multiplied and golden silence is seldom
found, the very fact that lips can give no utterance is so unusual
that their mute assertion of misfortune is seldom questioned. There
is nothing so pitiful in all the world as an asylum for the blind.
There is nothing which so draws one to share the burdens of another
as the appeal of him in whom the wells of speech are all dried up.
We sympathize with illness, we grieve at the misfortune which visits
our friends, we mourn with them when bereavement comes, but all these
things are in the course of nature. They are sad, but they may be
expected. But then a figure in health rises and asks for charity in
the hushed language of the mute, philanthropy halts and humanity gives
alms. But if the dumb can evoke assistance, assuring of sincerity and
disarming doubt, how hushed is the questioning when the blind apply!
How much stronger than speech or silence are the sightless eyes that
stare unblinking at a darkened world! How sad is the fate of that man
who was buried by demons when God cried out, "Let there be light"!
But not every man is mute who stretches out his hand in silence.
Laziness is such an awfully demoralizing vice that some who choose
to beg a living and decline work are even base enough to feign a
misfortune they ought to fear. Fellows who find the winter pinching
and the ranks of vagabonds full to repletion arm themselves with a
slate and pencil and haunt the public with appeals for help on the
untrue claim that they are dumb. One of the most persistent beggars
of this kind makes the rounds of residence districts with a printed
card on which is stated the bearer's desire to reach his home in some
distant city--the destination varies from time to time--together with
a long-primer endorsement by a group of names which no one knows. The
fraud always asks for some slight money offering--nothing can be too
small--with which to assist him in the purchase of a ticket.
Usually his paper shows that he needs but a very little more, and
he asks one, by a series of pantomimic signs, to enroll his name,
together with the sum advanced, in regular order on a blank list
which he tenders with his touching appeal. He is so well drilled as
never to be surprised into speech, and looks with such straight,
honest eyes into the faces of the women, who form much the larger
number of his victims, that they cannot question him and usually give
up a dime or a quarter without a struggle. The beggar can readily
collect a good day's wages in this manner, and it is a matter of
surprise if he does not receive an invitation to partake of food three
or four times a day. He never lets his list get full. However small a
margin he may lack of having raised the sum needed to buy his ticket
to his home, he never gets quite enough, for nothing is easier than to
stop in some secluded spot and erase the names of his latest donors,
thus proving to those on whom he shall presently call that their help
is not only needed, but will so nearly end the necessity for continued
appeals. This class of beggar never looks like a dissipated man, is
always polite, and bears refusal in so noble a way that nine times
out of ten the flinty-hearted women who refused him at the back door
hurry through to the front and give the more generously that they have
harbored suspicion.
Another set of leeches have mastered the deaf mute language, and
always ask with a pleading, painful face which meets you as your eyes
lift from his written questions, if anyone in the house can talk with
him. He supplements the penciled question and the eloquent glance of
eyes trained by long use in the art with a few rapid passes of his
hands, a few dexterous wavings of the fingers, in a language you have
heard of and read about, but cannot understand. If the unexpected
happens and a person be present who can converse with him, your beggar
is sure of some entertainment, and the usual scene of one you know to
be honest talking to one who may be equally so, and certainly seems
needy, will almost infallibly wring from you the coveted assistance.
It is like two minstrels at a Saxon court. You know your own has
seen the holy land, though you have not, and as he tells you, this
thread-bare guest talks familiarly and correctly of distant realms.
That is all any one can know to a certainty, but you give him the
benefit of the chance that he may be honest, and help him with such
loose change as comes to hand. Time and again the pretended mutes have
been detected in their imposture by men who pitied a misfortune and
gave money at their homes in the morning to see it spent for drink by
an arguing, contentious fellow in the evening.
Some beggars even assume the appearance of blindness, and haunt the
homes of comfortable people, led by a little girl and asking alms
in the name of an affliction that is always eloquent of need. He
will sometimes carry a small basket full of pencils, or other little
trinkets, and glazes over his evident beggary with the appearance of
sales. But he does not hesitate, once the money is in his hands, to
ask his patron to give back the pencils, as he cannot afford to buy
any more. These people can sometimes see as well as the child that
seems to lead them, and yet their eyes, when they choose to assume
their professional attitude, seem covered with a film through which no
light can penetrate.
The public should be chary in bestowing charity, and especially to
able-bodied men who appear blind, deaf and dumb, or are still claiming
to be victims of some recent disaster. Most any one who has charity to
bestow can easily think of some deserving and honest unfortunate in
their own neighborhood.