San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-08-06
THE BEGGARS OF PARIS.
A LIVELY DESCRIPTION OF THEIR
tAUNTS AND HABITS.
Taking a Census of the Mendicants of
Paris-Peculiar characteristics of the
Beggars' Special ouarter-In Bygone
Times-Heavy Penalties.

Times-Heavy Penalties.
To take census of beggars-an opera
ton which. more probably for the fiftieth
than for the first time, has just been per-
formed by the Paris prefecture of police
must in many respects be regarded as
task about as thankless, if not as useless,
as that of weaving a rope of sand. To
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 the improvement in trade and the
augmentation of affiuence 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. It is even stated that
these professional paupers have two di'
rcCUOTieS OF UDelr own, III WHICH, llit udultS
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 etiicacious in extracting cash from
the unwary The first directory is called
the Guide of the Grand Jeu, or Big
Game" and costs no less than six francs.
There is a smaller Guide of the Petit
p,,-h; oh owl, ho1 1,a
and gives the addresses of more middle
rogues contain full instructions to the
"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 are
numerically still a formidable folk, they
have almost ceased to be picturesque.
The "Cour deS Miracles" which Victor
Hugo has immOrtalzed in "NOtre Dame
de Paris" still nominally exists in a
peaceahle passage near the Rue Monitor
gueil; but it is 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 a council including sundry
"dul:es Of Egypt" and mobiles of the en-
pire of GAiilee-all beggarS.
One of the peculiar characteristics Of
the place was its utter silence and aban-
donmeut 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 aid laid down at the street cor
ners. there to excite the pity of the
pasSerS Ey The dogs, Of course, were
engaged on business leading the blind
men about the streets; the very babies
had been taken out begging. But at
night this mute and deserted Cour deS
Miracles became a Gehenna, q carnival of
noise drunkenness and prodigacy; and it
was seldom that the carousals of the
'francsmtous, or beggars, and the
"refOdcs, or tramps. terminated without
blOOdshcd
The beggars of bygone times in France
may not have had their directories, which
even had they possessed them, would
have been GUestionably beneficial, mas
much as the bulk of the vagabond COM
munitv 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 Ii,
the lmpostOrS therein unmas.ied answered
almost exactly to the character of the
professional mendicants who in modern
times have infested, and who continue to
infest society. not only in Paris but in
London Shivering beggars and epileptic
beggars-so far as epilepsy can be simu-
lated by chewing sOap-varletS who pre-
tended to be dropsical or who exhibited
sores. bogus cripples and spurious bunch
backs-in fact, nearly all the unworthy
recipients of aims whose malpractices are
exposed in the periodical reports of our
Mendicity society-may be found In the
roll of rapscallion drawn up in Paris more
than three hundred years ago.
1t may be said that ever since the de.
struction of the Cour des Miracles there
has been one protracted and almost in
cessant militant effort of successive gov
ernments in France to redress, if not to
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 thoroughfares;
and the police have often made raids upon
the beggars en- masse, and, without sub
iecting them to any form of trial, have
consigned them to criminal prisons or de
pots.-London Telegraph.