The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-10-31
The Beggars of Italy.

| NbS'aS Va aeoiys
Each Italian city has its characteristic
type of beggars, though none is without
specimens of all-as they are wander
ing race, and move TO where charities
are most abundant. Rome, however, is
the capital of beggardom. In Venice
they ply their art in gondolas. In Flo
renee they dress in filthy rags, whine
piteously, expose infants, and train
bright-eyed young girls to waylay
strangers, demanding aims with a peril
naoity proof against all repulse, though
liable to the penalties of the law; in fact,
throughout Tuscany they are the dirtiest
and most beggarly set of beggars Italy
can show. AT the entrance of Vassieux's
reading-room, a white-haired old man,
bent with age, his clothes hanging to-
gether by scanty stitches, is to be seen
sitting in one position, and always in
the same spot; for years he has been
thus he never speaks, but, as the visi-
tors pass, meekly bows his head-silent
if he receives copper, and equally ST.
lent if disappointed. His dumb appeal
is not without its fruits. A more ex-
pressive image of venerable patience,
poverty, and humility the imagination
never conceived and yet, 1 presume, the
old dodge, like Beppo, the legless, ro-
guish king of beggars at Rome, is rich,
and able to dover his daughters, if he
have any.
In Naples they beg from the fun of it
bright-eyed, merry boys, full of life and
activity, or lazoroni, up to thousand
tricks to excite compassion and gain the
trifling sum that will feed them for a
week, while, for bed, stone steps or a
basket are sufficiently comfortable. But
at Naples they are nearly all ready to
do any thing but actual labor to unloose
your purse-strings; they will lie, cheat,
or steal as temptation offers, and, if it
please you, Dance sing, engulf macaroni,
and play the jacknapes after the drollest
fashion possible. There is fun and mis-
chief in their begging which half-dis-
guises its viciousness.
Beggary in Italy is elevated to the
rank Of an occupation. Men and women
are borne and die beggars, as their pa
rents before them. This class appears
the more numerous, because they have
the art of multiplying themselves, as it
were, interminably. They are the car
rion crows of benevolence. They strip
it to its very bones, and scent their game
afar off. There is no end to their dis
guises and ailments. Proteus-ike, they
change their rags and diseases to suit
every phase of charity. With an ubiqui-
ty that savors of marvelousness they are
here, there, and everywhere at the same
instant; now lame, then dropsical all at
the once minus an eye, arm, or leg, COW
cred with sores rheumatic, crimped by
age or famished by hunger; surrounded
by nursing, starving children /; assuming
every shape of disease or deformity, with
crutches and ali the outward appeals to
sympathy, they excite terror and disgust
as often as charity. There is no disguis-
ing their barefaced imposition. If their
imperfections are real, the eighteen hos
pitfalls of Rome are ample for their relief.
But they are like Bedouins in their hab-
its, and prefer the plunder of the public
to the legitimate relief of their wants.
They are to be seen chiefly on the steps
of the churches, when not begging,
swearing, card-playing, or sleeping from
morning to night /; aohore they then re-
tire to- no decent mortal may know.
In contrast with these are the genteel
beggars; counts and countesses veiled
ladies in black, who haunt theatres
others in gayer costumes, who track you
to your homes all begging under some
pretext or other, and grateful for half
dollar, when, from their appearance, you
feel ashamed to offer the man an eagle.
have had well-dressed gentleman ap-
proach me in the street, bow with great
courtesy, apologize for 4nterrupting me,
and then go on to inform me that he
was of the higher classes, but had lost
his money, and would be thankful for
mezzo-JaiOccO," ha!t-cent! Ladies, too, so
grateful as to kiss your hands for half
dime The degradation in such cases is
too deep for the poverty to be wholly
genuine.