Omaha daily bee., 1884-08-23
The Beggars' Club.

Aollt' '''SACbg'
The Beggars' club in the year 1890
used to meet at Welsh's Head, Dyot
street, st. CHESS, and also at Kent
street. The stewards of the club had
the right to call upon every member to
show his way of begging, so that by
comparing the different shams, all inter
ference with each others systems might
be avoided. The Oldest ''mumper" was
allowed the premode of exciting charity.
The first, with a ference, and each took
his turn according to seniority, and ex-
hibited his peculiar long beard down to
his girdle, stepped forward and began as
follows:
GOOD your worship, cast an eye of
pity upon a poor decayed tradesman who
has been the husband of three wives, the
father of thirty children, the master of
eighteen apprentices, and has kept six
journeymen at work for many years to-
gether; till at last, undone by long sick
ness and severe creditors, was kept a
prisoner at Ludgate for sixteen years,
and now in the winter of my age, forced
to beg my bread through downright pow
erty and incurable lameness."
Then followed a second whose legs
were covered with artificial ulcers, a
dirty handkerchief bound around his
head and his face covered with turmeric.
His story was "Good christian people,
show your tender hearted charity to a
these twenty years with the running
evil. Pray look upon my ~deplorable
condition; | have been touched by two
kings; have been in all the hospitals
about London, but turned out as incur
able; have been brought to want and
beggary by i'll surgeons and unkind re-
lalions and am now in q starving condi-
ton, unless the Lord opens the hearts Of
some good charitable christians to
a poor distressed creature under a load
of misery"
Then a third, dressed up like r "de-
cayed shop, keeper" with his arm bound
up in IN old silk sling, thus get forth his
hypocritical complaint i'll a soft wheed-
ling voice: pray, worthy sir, compass.
~sionate the sutferings of a poor decayed
citizen, who after many crosses in his
family, and losses by trade, has had his
house burnt down by the carelessness Of
a servant, and the use of his right arm
taken from him by the dead palsy, and is
now forced to ask the charity OF well
disposed persons, not only on behalf of
my poor self, but a distressed wife that
has lain sick and bedridden above three
years."
A fourth, with a wooden leg and but
one eye, having lost the one by wrestling
and the other by boxing, with a thrum
cap upon his head, a pair of mittens on
his hands, and a seaman's handkerchief
about his neck, made a blunt Grafton as
follows: "God bless you, noble captain;
remember a poor seaman, who has lost a
leg in the service and an eye in the battle.
Was | able to fight I'd scorn to beg. |
have been a whole man In my time; there
fore, pray, captain, bestow your charity
upon what the French have left of me-
Next came a fifth, who showed his
qualification in the art of begging by
screw ing up his limbs, dislocating his
joints, and crumbling up his whole
body as If he had been broken on the
wheel. He assumed a s%orrowful look
like a playhouse ghost, and broke out in
the words; so, pity a poor laborer,
who by falling off a scaffold from the
top of Pauls, had my bones broken, my
skull cracked, my limbs crippled, and in
one moments time was made this miser-
able spectacle, who is now forced to
crawl upon his clutches to beg your
charity"
After him came a clean old fellow, with
a copper c~ountenance, silver hairs, a
broadbrimmed hat, a clean band, but a
coat patched with as many different col
ors as are TO DO seen in a herald's mantle
He Otarted up, uncovered his gray head,
made a stumble bow, and began the fol-
lowing story: Pray, sir, youchsafe to
look upon a decayed gentleman, who was
once blest with a good estate, kept hos.