Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/258

CHAPTER XIX.

experience in st. giles's.

Deep-snow—Beggar in Belgravia wanted work—He said he was a Watchmaker— Gave his address—It was false—Met him months after—The same story—The same untruth— Children hired for the purpose of Begging—Cellar in St Giles's—Inquired for a Poor Woman and Child—Landlady told me of a Man almost starring in her back kitchen—He turned out to be an accomplished Swindler—Pot-boys—Caught him at last—Took him to Bow Street

Soon after taking up my residence in London, I met with many applications from street-beggars, with various tales of distress. I could not imagine that all these were fictitious, and found great difficulty in selecting the few objects on whom I could bestow my very moderate means of charity. One severe winter I resolved on making my own personal observations on the most promising cases which presented themselves.

The first general principle at which I arrived was, that—

In whatever part of London I might be, if I asked for the residence of a mendicant, it was pretty sure to be in a quarter very remote from the one in which he asked relief.

The next was, that—

Those mendicants who professed to want work and not charity, always belonged to trades in which it was scarcely possible to give them employment without trusting them with valuable property.