In fact, I am not able to think very ill even of impostors. It is a
great pity for them, and even a great shame, to go about deceiving
people of means; but I do not believe they are so numerous as people
of means imagine. As a rule, I do not suppose they succeed for long,
and their lives must be full of cares and anxieties, which of course
one must not sympathize with, but which are real enough, nevertheless.
People of means would do well to consider this, and at least not plume
themselves very much upon not being cheated. If they have means, it is
perhaps part of the curse of money, or of that unfriendliness to riches
which our religion is full of, that money should be got from them by
unworthy persons. They have their little romantic superstitions, too.
One of these is the belief that beggars are generally persons who will
not work, and that they are often persons of secret wealth, which
they constantly increase by preying upon the public. I take leave to
doubt this altogether. Beggary appears to me in its conditions almost
harder than any other trade; and from what I have seen of the amount
it earns, the return it makes is smaller than any other. I should not
myself feel safe in refusing anything to a beggar upon the theory of
a fortune sewn into a mattress, to be discovered after the beggar has
died intestate. I know that a great many good people pin their faith to
such mattresses; but I should be greatly surprised if one such could
be discovered in the whole city of New York. On the other hand, I feel
pretty sure that there are hundreds and even thousands of people who
are insufficiently fed and clad in New York; and if here and there one
of these has the courage of his misery, and asks alms, one must not be
too cocksure it is a sin to give to him.
Of course one must not pauperize him: that ought by all means to be
avoided; I am always agreeing to that. But if he is already pauperized;
if we know by statistics and personal knowledge that there are hundreds
and even thousands of people who cannot get work, and that they must
suffer if they do not beg, let us not be too hard upon them. Let us
refuse them kindly, and try not to see them; for if we see their
misery, and do not give, that demoralizes us. Come, I say; have not
we some rights, too? No man strikes another man a blow without
becoming in sort and measure a devil; and to see what looks like want,
and to deny its prayer, has an effect upon the heart which is not
less depraving. Perhaps it would be a fair division of the work if
we let the deserving rich give only to the deserving poor, and kept
the undeserving poor for ourselves, who, if we are not rich, are not
deserving, either.