Wichita eagle., 1888-08-19

Paris-Peculiar characteristics of tks
Bessars' Special ouarter-In Bygon'
Times-Heavy Penalties.
To take census of beggars-an opera
ton which. more probably for the fiftiett
than for the first time. has just been per
formed by the Paris prefecture of police
must in many respects be regarded as 8
task about as thankless, if not as useless
as that Of weaving a rope of sand. Tt
ascertain the aggregate Of professional
| mendicancy in a great metropolis like
Paris IS by no means trustworthy critic
rion of the amount of poverty existing.
As in London, the vast majority of the
beggars in Lutetia are the professional
ones-that is to say, rank impostors-and
their numbers will probably show ten.
dency to increase rather than to diminish
with tho improvement in trade and the
augmentation of at1uence among the
classes who are begged from but do not
beg.
Our Paris correspondent tells US, in
deed, that the "gueux, or habitual beg
CARS, are at present in an exceptionally
thriving condition, and are making money
more easily in consequence Of the more
largely developed liberality of the aims
giving public. 1t is even stated that
these professional paupers have two di-
rectories Of their own. in w ich the names
and addresses of Good Samaritans with
plenty of money are duly entered, to-
gether with a description of the strata
gems which experience has shown to be
most etficacious in extracting cash from
the unwary. The first directory is called
the Guide of the Grand Jeu," or big
Came" and costs no less than six francs.
There is smaller Guide of the Petit
Jeu." which only costs half the money,
and gives the addresses of more middle
class philanthropists. These red boks for
rogues contain full instructions to tho
"gueuX" as to what shall be their de-
meanor in the presence of people who are
likely to unlOose their purse strings when
q pitiful tale is told
Whatever may be the statistical worth
of the census Of vagrancy just compiled,
there can be little doubt that the returns
obtained by the patient enumeratOrs OF
the prefecture OF police have considerable
social value, inasmuch as they denote
changes in national manners and prove
that, although the Partisan beggars arc
numerically still formidable folk. they
have almost ceased to be picturesque.
The "Cour DIES Miracles" which Victor
Hugo has immOrtalized in "Notre Dame
de Paris" still nominally exists in q
peaceable passage near the Rue Monitor
gueil but it is a vastly different place
from the filthy area, surrounded by tum-
bic down tenements, which throughout
the Middle Ages was at once the st. Giles
and the Alsatia of the French capital.
The beggars' special quarter enjoyed the
privilege of sanctuary, and was ruled
over by an elective king, who was as
sisted by council including sundry
dukes Of Egypt" and mobiles Of the en-
pire of Galiee-all beggars.
One Of the peculiar characteristics Of
the place was its utter silence and aban-
donment in the day time: not even the
lame, the halt or the blind fingered in its
precincts. They were all abroad cadging.
The paralytics, beds and all, had been re-
moved and laid down ct the street cor
hers, there to excite the pity of the
passers by. The dogs, of course, were
men about the streets; the very babies
had been taken out begging. But at
night this mute dnd deserted Cour des
DtCSLuIt d ocuSIllld, q SSSt AIN al VA
noise, drunkenness and protligacy; and it
was seldom that the carousals of the
''francsmitous, or beggars, and the
''refodes," or tramps, terminated without
bloodshed.
The beggars of bvgone times in France
may not have had their directories, which.
even had they possessed them, would
have been 9uestionably beneficial, mas
much as the bulk of the vagabond com
uunity were unable to read or write
Nevertheless. it is worthy of remark that,
SO long ago as 1861, when kind OF pauper
census was taken. by order of Henry u,
the impostors thorein un1nasked answered
almost exactly to the character OF the
professional ulendicants who In modern
times have infested, and who continue to
infest society. not only in Paris but in
London. Shivering beggars and epleptic
far as epilepsy can De -simu-
lated by chewing soap-variets who pre-
tended to be dppsical or who exhibited
sores, bogus crippIes and spurious lunch
backs-in feet, nearly all the unworthy
Of aims whose malpractices ars
exposed In the periodical reports Of our
society-may be found n the
roll Of rapscallion drawn up In Paris more
than three hundred years ago
1t may be said that ever since the de-
struct.on Of the Cour des Miracles there
has been one protracted end almost in
cessant militant effort Of successive gov
ernments in France to redress, if not 10
punish. professional mendicity. Over
and over again the blind, the cripples and
the sufferers from incurable ailments.
have been forbidden. under heavy penal
ties. to beg in the public thoronFhfa-es,
and the police have often msde raids upon
the begEars en- nasse. and, without sub
jecting them to any form OF trial, have
consigned them TO criminal prisons or de-
not : i nn6nro Telec.ranh