Passaic City record., 1892-06-04
BEGGARS MADE TO ORDER.
A REGULAR TRADE IN THE PRO
DUCTIoN OF CRIPPLES.


Any one who wishes con-
frmation of this maxim has only to see
the sight which have just seen at the
stGingerbread Fair" writes Paris
correspondent of the New York Journal.
This fair is species of survival of the
Middle Ages. It is annually held on the
great Place de Trone, and the peasantry
comes from dozens of miles around to at
tend it.
Imagine country cattle show multi
piled by about five hundred, and you
have some idea of the "Gingerbread
Fair" Long lines of booths filled with
every conceivable kind of rustic snow,
with acrobats, jugglers, tire-eatcrs,
tumblers, circus riders and historical
actors, display their gaudy signs and
tempt the gaping peasant to enter. And
everywhere there are mountains of
gingerbread, made into quaint grotesque
figures of men and women, or elephants,
or camels, or windmills, or fishes, or
dragonsl
There is something Chinese in the
oddity and childish in the simplicity of
this fair, to which tens of thousands of
fashionable Parisians pay one visit at
least before it closes.
Not many people are admitted to see
the curious spectacle which saw in
booth at the back of the fair yesterday.
It was q colony of professional beggars,
of the peculiar variety known as the
wooden bowl men. "Sawed Is" would
be the American vernacular for them.
Aud the name certainly strikes one as
appropriate, when he sees the curious,
whimsically deformed creatures hopping
about under his very feet, looking up in
his face, and in whining voice demand
ing aims.
These beggars have either lost their
lower limbs entirely, or they are withered
or paralyzed, so that each man, and wo-
man, too. present the singular spectacle
of the half of body seated in large
wooden bowl, to which it is strapped.
The cripple then propels himself or her
self by using the hand as feet, and max
ing the bowl clump, clump, clump along
over the pavements. 1t is almost i'm
possible to refuse charity to one of these
humble creatures when you find him
blocking the way at the entrarse of
booth.
I found so many of these personages
at the tair that was astonished. / con-
cluded that they must know each other,
and have some general place of rendez-
vous. So looked them up.
l found, as suspected, that there was
a great gathering of these cripples to
s.workn the fair. They were under the
care of one man, who gave them regular
weekly wages, and very good ones. too.
and who was coming fortune ou. of
what they brought in. About forty of
them in good days work, would tG:n
in nearly thousand francs $4,000, which
allowed more profit apparently than any
establishment on the ground was max
ing.
/ ventured to express that opinion to
the man who had charge of the 'ssawed-
OFFS" and who, ssfor a consideration,
had introduced me to some of the more
renowned of the beggars.
"Thc investment is heavier than you
suppose" this man said, "for before
good beggar of this kind is ready for the
market he represents quite large sum
in cash. There were plenty of these
peculiar cripples in the Middle Ages,
when the maxim. of artificial limbs was
almost unkno- m, and they used to get
shout very quickly in their wooden
bowls.
ssIn modern days these cripples are
not numerous enough for business, SO
there is company .shich produces them
by artificial means. Most of these poor
creatures whom you see hopping about
in their bowls come from Spain, and the
greater part from the villages near
Tolosa, not very far from the French
frontier.
1.-THE agent goes around amcng the
Door families in search of children with
some slight defect in the lower limbs.
He finds good many in the course OF
year among the peasantry, and he per-
suades the parents to let the child be
leased for term of years. This is gen.
orally accompanied with the condition
that the child shall be transformed into
a wooden bowl cripple, but sometimes
the parents are deceived.
ssIf the child has withered limbs they
they are amputated, and in six months
the child Is q first-class sawed-of. pro-
vided with terrible story of a "fright
full accident" and he works the large
cities for years with great success.
IF the limbs are simply deformed,
the 'beggar- Makers as they are called,
operate on the child by COMPRISING the