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.