The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-11
THRIFTY YANKEE BEGGAR
AMERICAN WHO MAKES LON
DON PUBLIC PAY HIM AN INCOME.
Nothing Original in His but
Merely n New Application
Of an Old SYSTEM.

New York Evening Post.
There is a Yankee beggar in London
who. in the last few years, has enjoyed
an i~ncome-derived wholly from his call
ing-which many of his more prosperous
countrymen might look upon without con-
tempt. This man, in his quest Of aims,
has been in so many countries, and has
begged beneath so many suns, that he
might readily be styled ar International
beggar. But among his British colaborers,
at least. he is a%rrogantly proud of his ma
tionality and boasts that to it is due all
his present prosperity. He is still a young
man in years-not more than thirty-two
or four at the most-and apparently as
strong and sound physically as a man who
had been brought up on a farm He came
to London direct from New York; before
that he had worked the Continent, and
had been, according to his own concisely
told sketch of his career, as far east as
st. Petersburg and as far north as Stock
holm.
That he is in the English capital now is
que, he says, primarily 10 his belief-con-
ceived while ne was in this city-that Lon
con offered a splendid field to a man Of his
talents. and because he found, upon arriv-
ing there, that he was not mistaken. His
victims. or, as the beggar more generously
calls them, his customers" are confined
to his own countrymen; and his method of
doing them. while simple and generally
free from any subsequent embarrassment
to himself, shows that he has shrewdly es-
timated a national weakness and has TAX
en advantage of it. Upon the arrival CT
each steamer train from Liverpool or
Southampton he goes to Trafalgar Square
or those streets and avenues ramifying
from 1t which are most ~freQuented by
Americans. Before the newly-arrived
Yankee has had time TO conquer that first
sense Of loneliness which London always
inspires in her guests. or has outgrown
his first contempt for the unassuming Eng
lish sixpence, he has been approached
by his fellow-countryman and artistically
relieved OF a part OF his capital.
TIME-WORN PLEA.
There is nothing new or original in the
fellows plea-it is the same old '.pitiful
story with Il fresh setting. He has just
that morning come down from Leeds, or
Bradford, or some of The other middle
counties manufacturing towns, he tells his
victims, and is trying 10 work his way back
TO New York and his wife and little ones.
he had been lured across the ocean, he
goes on, by the promise OF q position as
foreman in a new factory, in course of con-
struction In the town he had just left. and
he had come with the idea of making a
home later for mis- wife and little ones, only
TO fad upon his arrival that the new COM
fany had failed. Aud there he was. desti-
tute ana. alone, a stranger in a strange
land. not knowing what To do or wnither
In turn, ignorant even of the way CT ask
ing aid-this last, ne admits mode silly. Is
his piece de -esistance-and now all he asks
in lie wcrld is none enough To- get out
OF that miserable poverty-stricken country
and back 10 where lie can fiEd honest en-
ployTnent.
The story-trite and threadtare as IL Is
lis almost bound 10 prove enectiye. In
the first chapter Il appeals TO the victims
own sense OF loneliness and IN its climax
TO his patriotism. IL costs him generally
anywhere from a sixpcnce 10 a half-scv-
erefRu-
Not long ago this beggar 30 far forgot
his cunning - 70 approach the same Amer