Beggars

by W. H. Davies

Then there is the fallacy that he is spending money on drink, because he is seen going in or out of a public-house. People do not know that he enters as a beggar, not as a customer, and that he often gets tipsy because beer is often easier to beg than bread or pennies. I have seen hundreds of beggars drunk who had not spent one penny on drink. On a Saturday night, almost every man in a common lodging-house is drunk, and often against his wish. All beggars know that they can do almost as well on a Saturday night by telling their tales in public-houses, as they can by calling at private houses all through the week; and in doing so they get drunk on free drinks, without having spent one of the many pennies they have received from customers.

Another fallacy is that beggars are the authors of so many deeds of barn-burning, theft, and assaults on women who could not recognize their assailants in the dark. It is quite a common thing to hear tramps in a common lodging-house say, "Tramps, of course, will be blamed for this," when one of them reads aloud of an undiscovered crime. Sometimes the real culprits are at last found, and though they are not strange tramps, but people of the locality, yet no one thinks of apologizing for the unjust suspicion on tramps.

They do not often burn hayricks for spite, as is commonly supposed. They may accidentally burn one through smoking. It should be understood that they are very careful not to do so, or they would have to walk until they were miles away, and would rob themselves of a comfortable night's rest. No, farmers have jealous neighbours and discontented labourers, who are worse enemies than strange tramps. Idle threats, due to irritation, are generally the extent of their crime. Is it likely that a beggar who has been refused food at a house will hide somewhere and nurse vengeance for hours, so that he may break into it or set fire to it at night? He is hungry, and he must travel on in search of food, and he will at last meet with success; and there is not a man in the world more innocent of acts of crime than he is then, when his empty body is satisfied. He forgets all past unkindness, and the household that he has threatened to murder has passed out of his recollection for ever.

People should know that tramps talk aloud to themselves, owing to being so much alone. Therefore, when a woman refuses a tramp on the score of a husband doing little work, and the said tramp goes away muttering, she must not at once come to the conclusion, as she always does, that he is cursing her; for it is more than likely that he is cursing some cause he imagines has placed her in such a helpless position.

There is one thing against a beggar that has been witnessed so often that it would be folly to dispute the truth of it, which is that he throws food away. Although he cannot be altogether justified, yet an explanation of the real facts may go far to make people sympathize with his dilemmas.

People seldom take into consideration that he needs a bed, and they would often rather give him two-penny-worth of food than a halfpenny in money. Now a beggar knows that if he asks at a house point-blank for money, nothing will he get; or, occasionally a woman will say, "I will give you something to eat." For that reason he always asks for food, and then gets an odd penny here and there—which he would not get if he asked for money. But it is often necessary to beg so much food in getting a few coppers for his lodging and a little tea and tobacco, that he soon gets encumbered with more food than he can hide or eat. In this case he cannot continue begging—which he must, or go into the workhouse—so he throws the food away and continues to beg more of it, in the hope of getting money for his bed. But very few beggars ever threw food away without feeling regret that they had to do so. It is for this reason that so many beggars carry a few cheap trifles, such as pins, needles, laces, or some self-made novelty. With these things they are sure of getting money for their lodging, and, while doing so, beg food from those that will not buy.

I hope by these explanations to have made a beggar worthy of kinder consideration, and proved his to be a character to be loved and respected. Henceforth let no lady be afraid to walk a lonely road without a dog, for her presence is dreaded by a tramp, however beautiful she may be. The tramp has not Tommy Atkins's eye for female beauty.

Let no total abstainer, who has given a beggar a penny, and sees him enter a public-house, think that the penny goes for beer, for a beggar is more likely to go in to beg instead of buy.

Think not because you have read of one case where a beggar was arrested and found to have considerable money sewn in his clothes, that every beggar you meet has saved money.

Think not because a beggar was seen in the morning to pass a barn that was burned to the ground that same night, that he was the guilty one. A burning barn would not feed his body, and he would not remain there long enough to warm his feet and dry his socks.