Beggars may be divided into two species; the bold beggar and the sneaking beggar. The latter is self-defined; being no other than those who abjectly implore your pity, and receive rebukes with meekness. Some among them, however, attempt larceny, and if discovered turn rusty upon your hands: of these we will speak hereafter.

The bold beggar is he who, with vociferations of his hard case, intimidates the chicken-hearted, the women and children; men of stronger mould also are sometimes choused out of their pence, and so far as the intimidation goes (with either the one or the other), it is no less a robbery than if a pistol was placed at your head, or a dagger at your throat. Half a dozen sailor-dressed men, for instance, will accost you in Blackfriars road, or Goswell Street, or Tottenham Court Road, or any other outlet, with "God bless your honour! My noble Captain, drop a halfpenny in the hat for poor Jack; not a copper in the locker." On the ground is his hat, into which if you fail to drop a few pence, like Gil Blas in his history, you perceive what is most probably to be your fate, with this difference, that that adventurer saw the end of a musket, you stand in awe of a stumped arm. Those fellows sing frightfully, and caper round you, ex-limbed, with as much nimbleness as monkeys, showing by their leaps the agility of squirrels or kangaroos, and leaving you in doubt to which order they belong. I am firmly of opinion they are robbers, and nothing else; as much so as he, who upon the highway, tells you in good plain English "stop! and deliver." What signifies the word or the gesticulations, so that the effect be the same on mind, heart, and purse?

Another set of the bold ones, are those who knock at your doors, asking for charity, in loud or very deep tones, in such a manner as to impress you with the idea of preferring an immediate donation of a few pence, to the fears of a protracted interview, with such a character as that before you. Should you refuse his request, he scarcely deigns to make room for you to shut the door; retiring the last leg most unwillingly, in the strong hope that you may touch it, so as to enable him to cry out, or to swear damnably, or perhaps to knock again at the door, to demand satisfaction! Such as these, as well as the sailor-looking men, first described, when you pass on without relieving them, follow you a few yards with imprecations on your proud aspect, call you the most opprobrious name at the termination of each sentence, and wish they had you in the bilboes,<26> on half allowance of water, &c. &c.

N. B. Upon first catching the eye of one of these, put on a scowl, by drawing the eyebrows close together; one shake of the head and "No, not a stiver," finishes the business. If he press the matter farther, and you vociferate "no" and "never;" or some word inapplicable, in a strict sense, to the terms of the demand, it will bother his whack, and compel him to silence, from your "superior knowledge of stuff and nonsense," For example, he asks "your charity for God's sake," at each repetition you answer "can't, indeed!" "Never!" "No; I didn't." "Not in all my life!" "Could not think of it!" This mode is not taunting the distresses of ethers: it is nothing more or less, than queering the attempt of a bold beggar to impose upon your softness. The really distressed, claim a different sort of treatment, from this sort of queering, as it is called.

The sneaking beggar, who is not really and unintentionally in distress, annoys you in the streets, more particularly when you are in company of females, whose feelings he endeavours to interest in his favour. His whine will follow you half a mile, though his person is in the rear: latterly, however, the nimbler of foot, supplied with religious books, forces his wares upon your attention, which is first arrested on the olfactory nerve, and claiming, by a greasy effluvia, your subscription towards a replenishment of the nauseous offertory. Under other circumstances, they will creep into the premises of persons who carelessly leave open their fore-doors, to pilfer whatever they can lay hands on. Gentlemens' kitchens, back doors, shops and warehouses they enter softly with imploring air: if discovered, they beg; if not, they steal. A gentleman, of some spirit in the city, relates, that he was in the habit daily of reading the newspaper seated in the dado of his shop, while his people were getting ready to attend to their duty: he almost invariably found some of this species of rogues enter in the way we have described. He adds, that one day transacting business with a silk mercer, his neighbour, his face being towards the door, though at the whole distance of the warehouse, he saw enter one of those religious tract venders, who imagining he was unseen, shut up his book-shop and set off with a piece of silk: when overtaken and examined, he maintained stoutly that he was employed to carry it; but upon being asked by whom? he lifted up his eyes towards the ceiling, and made no further defence. He left his cause to "God and his country," and got off, as is too often done, by the connivance of his prosecutor, who made a wilful mistake in the indictment.

All descriptions of beggars sally out of town in the fine summer weather, some few take to harvesting, others to pilfering, and all beg their way back to town at the end of the season, in order to resume their old avocations and their former habits. Out of town, some will ask for alms at the front door while another gets over the walls behind.

One remark is worthy a place here; and that is, the great number of beggars who are actually receiving parish relief, at the moment they are asking for eleemosynary help. Not the insufficient help which consists of a few shillings per week, to pay the rent of a wretched room, in which to rest their emaciated limbs, but meat, drink, washing, lodging, and clothes, sufficient for their subsistence. Impatience under restraint, however, and the love of a wandering life, propel many of them to seek, beyond the walls of a workhouse, the precarious alms of the generous and the undiscriminating part of the community. A few of them obtain leave to go out, in order, as is said, to visit their friends; but the greater number are sent out by the master of the house (who is the contractor for their keep) that he may save their rations for the day! This is most glaring, when he gives them threepence in money, never more than fourpence each, with an assurance that the walk will do them good. They are expected to bring back broken victuals, or something else, for a regale at night.

Great annoyance is experienced, by many respectable people being applied to by beggars with letters and petitions, which they buy ready drawn up, and are couched in the most abject terms; stating their sufferings, and exaggerating their privations. They see your name upon the door, and address a letter to you; if they find out any of your acquaintance, they hesitate not to name them, or put down their signatures to a dirty list of subscriptions. They are mostly impostors, and deep ones, who adopt this scheme: they must be resisted tooth and nail; for if you relieve one you will have a shoal of his or her cronies upon the same errand, at due intervals. Pathetic addresses in the newspapers,—unless well-authenticated, are to be suspected. Some fellows, habited as clergyman, have been convicted of impositions with begging petitions.

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