ted.

Nothing gives us more pleasure than the sight of a number of people who,
suffering from some one or other physical deprivation, are being taught
some handicraft by which they will be able to earn a modest living.

Probably nothing causes us greater sadness than the sight of deformed
and crippled men and women who are utterly unable to render any useful
service to the community, and who consequently have to depend upon
their wits for a miserable living. It is a very remarkable thing that an
accident which deprives a man of a leg, of an arm, or of eyesight,
not only deprives him of his living, but also frequently produces a
psychological change. And unless some counterbalancing conditions serve
to influence in an opposite direction he may become dangerous. It was
not without reason that our older novelists made dwarfs and hunchbacks
to be inhuman fiends. Neither was it without reason that Dickens, our
great student of human nature, made of Quilp a twisted dwarf, and Stagg
a blind man his most dangerous characters. Some years ago I was well
acquainted with a very decent man, a printer; he had lived for years
beyond reproach; he was both a good workman, husband and father. But
he lost his right arm, the result of an accident at his work, and his
character changed from that day. He became morose, violent and cruel,
and obsessed with altogether false ideas. He could not reason as other
men, and he became dangerous and explosive. Time after time I have seen
him committed to prison, until he became a hopeless prison habitue.
My experience has also shown me that physical deprivations are equally
likely to lead to sharpened wits and perverted moral sense as to
explosive and cruel violence. Probably this is natural, for nature
provides some compensation to those who suffer loss.

This is what makes the army of the physically handicapped so dangerous.
The disabled must needs live, and their perverted moral sense and
sharpened wits enable them to live at the expense of the public.

Very clever, indeed, many of these men are; they know how to provoke
pity, and they know how to tell a plausible tale. Many of them can get
money without even asking for it. They know full well the perils that
environ the man who begs. I am not ashamed to say that I have been
frequently duped by such fellows, and have learned by sad experience
that my wits cannot cope with theirs, and that my safety lies in
hasty retreat when they call upon me, f