g them, and the source of
that information is in many instances the vagrant, who has been
knocking at the door for alms a short time before.

One of the principal reasons which makes beggary such a profitable
occupation, and renders it so hard to repress, is the persistent
belief among great numbers of people that beggars are working men in
distress. That, of course, is the beggar's tale, but it is a baseless
fabrication. It is no more the practice of working-men to go about
begging than it is the practice of the middle-class, but until this
elementary fact can be laid hold of by the public all statutory
enactments for the suppression of mendicity will be but partial in
their operation. Speaking from considerable personal experience, as
well as from statistical facts, one is able to affirm that the great
mass of the working population of these islands have nothing whatever
in common with the indolent vagrant; and it is a libel on the
working-classes to assume that a man is a workman to-day and a beggar
to-morrow. As a matter of fact, beggars are recruited from all ranks
of the community, when they are not actually born to the trade. Of
course, the greatest number is drawn from the working population; it
is they who form the immense bulk of the nation, and it is only
reasonable to suppose that they will contribute to the begging
fraternity in proportion to their numbers. But, just as the proportion
of thieves drawn from the working-classes is not greater than the
proportion drawn from the well-to-do classes, so is it likewise with
beggars. The other classes, in proportion to their numbers, contribute
just about as many beggars to the community as the working population,
and such beggars are generally the most hardened and villainous
specimens of their tribe. With the beggar sprung from the working
population one is sometimes able to do something, but a beggar who has
descended from the higher walks of life is one of the most hopeless,
as well as one of the most corrupt creatures it is possible to
conceive. If the public would only allow themselves to realise that
these are the facts respecting vagrancy, and if they would exercise
their knowledge in consistently refusing help to professional
wanderers, the plague of beggars would soon disappear, to the immense
relief and benefit of everybody, not excluding the beggars themselves.

A persistent refusal to assist beggars, while perfectly justifiable in
these islands, is a