Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-05-08
ARTISTIC IMPOSTORS.
A HUNDRED THOUSAND BEGGARS IN
THE FRENCH CAPITAL.

Tszritory Of the Professional Mendicant-
The thousand and One Trials Of Street
Impostors-HideOus Sights and Pathetic
eecses-Rennemento Of Infamy.
What, indeed, can be done with thu
mendicants OF Paris. Arrest them. Wha.
then can be done with them, The depots
de mendicite are full, the hospitals are
full; the prisons are too small for the as
sassins and robbers.
1t must not be forgotten that among the
professional beggars there exists species
OF tacit conventions. They divide Par1s
between themselves-the ACCOMPLISHMENTS,
the quarters, and even the houses. At
certain yard or court, for example, there
will come every Monday q blind man,
every Tuesday a paralytic, every Thursday
c onelegged man. 1t is not chance that
regulates that This particular place be-
longs to them, and if an intruder is found
in possession the three "proprietors" join
forces and turn him away, with a warning
not to come back. Or, in some instances,
II he is humble and modest, they may au-
thorize him to CLEAN after they have gath
cred the harvest. A beggar's location is a
property-it is sole, it is transferred, it Is
loft as an inheritance to his children
do not know how many mendicants
there are in Paris. Statistics would give
you the exact figures 1t would even de-
compose the latter into the number OF
men, women, boys, and girls What can
say Is that at the lowest estimate there
are certainly arcasineurs Chouse beggars),
ramasliqueurs (court or yard beggars), and
beggars Of the street, or tendeurs de demi
aune, something like 100000.
PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS" OF THE STREET.
OF these there are more than one quar-
ter that are worthy Of sympathy-the
aged, the manned, the INDECENT; the others
are ARTISTS" l will not stop to relate all
the stories about the "false cripples," the
beggers that feign epilepsy by putting
piece of soap into their mouths, the false
one-armed" impostors who stretch their
arm down their body, hold the hand on the
hip, and leave the empty sleeve fiappins
the humbugs on crutches, who carry a IL |;
Is If it were paralyzed. There are hi; :
dred tricks There are substances, plants.
that have a blistering effect on the ski
and produce hideous sores-everythin
that can move the public these ra. -''
never fail to employ.
The arcasineur who forms the elite
mendacity in Paris resorts to the most IL
genious schemes. He does not weep for
sou. He must do better than that. He
demands-pardon he accepts-assistance
II he does you the honor to apply to you it
il because he esteems you. He does not
take everybody into his confidence in such
delicate matters. So if you give him only
LOO SOUS he puts On a wry face.
my dear friend" said one of them to
me, II have a splendid offer. A deputy
wants q man to run a newspaper. 1t is a
place worth 5000 or 5000 francs, in the
country-a fortune. But what am l to
dof must 60 down there to see him;
that takes money. With a louis 1 am
saved, but have no louis Oh, il some
friend would come to my aid"
Igtve him the louis; the next day met
the same fellow, who imperturbably accosts
me with: my dear fellow, missed the
train"
Those that the police are most occupied
with are the street beggars. Look at them
displaying their hideous wounds in the
full gaze Of everybody, UGH
And what is the saddest of all, see at the
corner of the square that woman with an
cir Of suffering, a face on which are writ
ten the traces Of want and despair. In
hsr arms is a baby, at the right lies little
girl, at the left is couched a little boy.
The whole form a group knowingly ar
ranged, and pathetically interesting.
Well, all that is sham The woman is q
fraud, the young ones on hand for the oc-
casion. Frightful, is it not9 Yet it is
true They hire these children, the
wretches. They hire them to make vaga-
bonds and thieves of them.
The child is trained to assume a sickly
and woe begone air, to weep, to beg. Who
has not been moved to pity at the sight Of
D little boy or girl of or 6, who was weep
ing bitterly because, as she said, she had
TO take home 20 sous as she had not been
able to make them" The child was ly-
ing: she was repeating her role. Her pro-
prietor was near by laughing in his sleeve
at the young ones falsehoods and well
simulated distress.
THE REFINEMENrs OF CRUELTY.
Il is children that most move us to pity.
They know it, the wretches, and abuse it.
Would you believe they torture them in
order to excite the sympathy of passers-
by, Recall the story of the little Mantle
IIollier, stolen from her mother. She fell
into the hands of one of these professional
beggars, who used her to good profit. She
put bandage over one of the child's eyes.
under the bandage the shell of a walnut,
in the shell a spider-a great black spider,
the constant crawling of which over the
child's eye wrung from her the most
agonizing shrieks, and frequently threw
her into commissions.
Every beggar does not have these refine
ments, but all Of them resort TO pinching
their children and pricking them with
pins to make them cry and attract atten-
ton What is to be done with all these
impostorss How can these infamies be
If you wish to see curious
sight go, for instance, to the gate that
leads to the St. Quen cemetery The
beggars calculate that the afflicted are the
most charitable. You will see a
singular scene there At the foot OF
q post which bears the inscription,
Begging forbidden in the city of Paris"
you will will see a group Of mendicants,
one pointing at you a stump eaten away
by loathsome disease, another exhibiting
q cancer. third invoking sympathy for a
doubtful blindness, the fourth thrusting
out two legs of wood Opposite are a
paralytic. a man with no feet, and hor-
ribly -deformed cripple. Further along are
epileptics, and persons affected with the
St. Vitus dance. The entire length Of the
avenue Is a series of maladies of all sorts,
enc more repu,sive than the other, verit-
able display Of the the human infirmities.
All this abhorrent throng groans, weeps,
cries out, lamepts, and when the evening
comes they 60 away arm in arm. the blind
dragging the paralytic. the epileptic
dragging the ST. Vitus dancers to drink at
at the wine shops Of the route de Revolts,
to count their receipts, that vary from to
10 francs. and to so when drunk to sleep
peu nell men and women at the Petit
Mazos or the FenYue en- culottes.
This is what the project Of police wishes
70 destroy-the beggars Of Partisan army
Of wickednass, q legion Of infamy that
hyss by imposing upon tho 2prest seut;-
mept OF the human heart, charity.
oHyribis and Original
Vinegar in Diarrh9a and Dysentery.
DR. Amos Sawyer has the following SEN
sible communication in The St Louis
Medical and Surgical Journal: About a
quarter of q century ago, when giving
some good advice for young practitioner
to follow. the late Dr. B. F. Edwards, Of
St Louis, No. whose action in the meas
urement of the action of remedies, truth
in the statement, and justice towards
members of the profession, made him