BEGGARS.
After living in New York for a few months, you cannot resist the
conclusion that it is a City of Beggars. You meet them at every step,
and they follow you into your residence and place of business. A few
you know to be genuine, and you give them gladly, but cannot resist the
conviction that the majority of those who accost you are simply
impostors, as, indeed, they are. Begging is not allowed on the street-
cars, in the stages, the ferry-boats, or at any place of amusement, but
there is no law against the practice of it on the streets. Broadway is
the favorite resort of this class, as it is the principal promenade of
the city people, and Fourteenth, and Twenty-third streets, and Fifth
Avenue are being made disagreeable in this way.
Besides these street beggars, there are numbers of genteel, and
doubtless well-meaning persons who make it their business to beg for
others. They intrude upon you at the most inconvenient times, and
venture into your private apartments with a freedom and assurance which
positively amaze you. Refuse them, and they are insulting.
Then there are those who approach you by means of letters. They send
you the most pitiful appeals for aid, and assure you that nothing but
the direst necessity induces them to send you such a letter, and that
they would not do so under any circumstances, were not they aware of
your well-known charitable disposition. Some persons of known wealth
receive as many as a dozen letters of this kind each day. They are, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, from impostors, and are properly
consigned to the waste-basket.
Housekeepers have frequent applications every day for food. These are
generally complied with, as, in all families of moderate size, there is
much that must either be given or thrown away. Children and old people
generally do this kind of begging. They come with long faces and
pitiful voices, and ask for food in the most doleful tones. Grant their
requests, and you will be amused at the cool manner in which they will
produce large baskets, filled with provisions, and deposit your gift
therein. Many Irish families find all their provisions in this way.
A lady desirous of helping a little child who was in the habit of
coming to her on such errands, once asked her what her mother's
occupation was?
"She keeps a boardin' house," was the innocent reply.
"A boarding house!" exclaimed the lady in surprise, "then why does she
send you out to beg?"
"Oh!" said the child naively, "she takes care of the house, and I do
the marketing. She doesn't call it begging."
The cool impudence of street beggars is often amusing. The writer was
sitting a short while since in the office of a friend, when a man
entered and began a most pitiful story. The gentleman gave him a penny
or two, then looking at him for the first time, said:
"How is this, my friend? This is the second time you have been here to-
day. I gave you something this morning."
The man had evidently blundered into the office this time, and he now
glanced at the gentleman and about the room, searchingly. He recognized
them, and bursting into a laugh at his mistake, left the room without
replying.
The majority of the beggars of the City, we are glad to say, are
foreigners and their children. An American mendicant is rarely seen.
Our people will suffer in silence rather than beg, but the foreigners
do not seem to be influenced by any such feelings. They are used to it,
no doubt, in their own country, and bring their pauper habits over here
with them. We make an exception in favor of the Germans. They are a
hard-working people and rarely beg.
The City makes a liberal provision for the poor, and the charitable
associations do much more, but still it is impossible to relieve all
the suffering. The reader will find in one of the engravings of this
work, an instance of the manner in which the poor are provided with
food at the Tombs.