I must say that his statement of his own case is usually incoherent.
The poor fellows have very little imagination or invention; they might
almost as well be realistic novelists. I find that those who strike me
for a night’s lodging, when they stop me in the street at night, come
as a rule from Pittsburg, and are ironworkers of some sort; the last
one said he was a puddler, “A skilled mechanic,” he explained--“what is
called a skilled mechanic”; and of course he was only watching for some
chance to get back to Pittsburg, though there was no chance of work,
from what he told me, after he got there. On the other hand, I find
that most of those who ask by day for money to get a dinner are from
Philadelphia, or the rural parts of eastern Pennsylvania, though within
six months I have extended hospitality (I think that is the right
phrase) to two architectural draftsmen from Boston. They were both
entirely decent-looking, sober-looking young men, who spoke like men of
education, and they each gratefully accepted a quarter from me. I do
not attempt to account for them, for they made no attempt to account
for themselves; and I think the effect was more artistic so.
I am rarely approached by any professed New-Yorker, which is perhaps
a proof of the superior industry or prosperity of our city; but now
and then a fellow-citizen who has fallen out asks me for money in the
street, and perhaps goes straight and spends it for drink. Drink,
however, is as necessary in some forms as food itself, and a rich,
generous port wine is often prescribed for invalids. These men, without
exception, look like invalids, and I dare say that they would prefer
to buy a rich, generous port wine if I gave them money enough. I
never do that, though I have a means of making my alms seem greater,
to myself at least, by practising a little cordiality with the poor
fellows. I do not give grudgingly or silently, but I say, if I give
at all, when they ask me, “Why, of course!” or “Yes, certainly”; and
sometimes I invite them to use their feeble powers of invention in my
behalf, and tell how they wish me to think they have come to the sad
pass of beggary. This seems to flatter them, and it makes me feel much
better, which is really my motive for doing it.
Now and then they will offer me some apology for begging, in a tone
that says, “I know how it is myself”; and once there was one who began
by saying, “I know it’s a shame for a strong man like me to be begging,
but--” They seldom have any devices for working me, beyond the simple
statement of their destitution; though there was a case in which I
helped a poor fellow raise a quarter upon a postal order, which he then
kept as a pledge of my good faith. Their main reliance seems to be
lead-pencils, which they have in all inferior variety. I find that they
will take it kindly if you do not want any change back when you have
given them a coin worth more than they asked for the pencil, and that
they will even let you off without taking the pencil after you have
bought it. In the end you have to use some means to save yourself from
the accumulation of pencils, unless you are willing to burn them for
kindling-wood; and I find the simplest way is not to take them after
you have paid for them. It is amusing how quickly you can establish a
comity with these pencil people; they will not only let you leave your
pencils with them, but they will sometimes excuse you from buying if
you remind them that you have bought of them lately. Then, if they do
not remember you, they at least smile politely and pretend to do so.