New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-11-20
DRIVING BEGGARS AWAY.
Rogues' Gallery of Their Faces and
Records a Great did to Police.

Winter drives the beggars to town, and in
former years it has sent the majority of Amer
lean beggars to this city. Hither they have
come from the countryside, where they have
been dining in farmyards and sleeping in barns
from the summer resorts, where they have
managed to pick up many stray coin from in
dulsent pleasure seekers.
Yet this year the army Of mendicants who
usually would have marched to New-York and
taken up post at the street corners have made
se,eral other cities their chief points of attack
York they regard as too dangerous. In
this city the beggar has discovered that no
sooner does he squat down on the sidewalk and
stretch out his hand to the crowd than police
officer armed with a distinctive badge sWoops
down upon him and runs him off to the station
house. So active has been the crusade against
beggary in the last year that 1,39i beggars
were arrested IN the streets of this city, and
almost all were sentenced severely by the pre-
siding magistrates. Accordingly. mendlcaits
are leaving New-York, and with sadness 100
for no other community is so cruel and yet so
hountful as Gotham. and they are taking up
their abodes in such communities as fIl'4duel-
Ihia Boston and Chicago
Tie "Rogues' Gallery of Beggars," which was
established by James Forbes, of the Charity
organization Society, and made an integral
mart of the Police Department about year
ago by General Francis V. Greene, who was
then Police Commissioner, has been the chlet
means OF driving the mendlcants out MT
Forbes has personal charge of the gallery, and
he has not only procured portraits OF ia pro-
fessjonal beggars, but criminal records OF 5,3i4
Each photograph gives the key to the record or
the man. which Is all down in black and white,
telling of all his aliases and the various ways
by which he preys the creduhty and mis-
taken benevolence of the public. Seven police
men are especially detailed to help Mr.. Forbes
I'm ferreting out fake beggars, who. Mr..
Forbes saws constitute 81 per cent of all those
who in public or private ask aims from New
Workers.
In European cities active warfare against
street mendicants has almost invariably driven
.he beegars to other forms of impoSture and
sometimes to thefts. threatening letters and
murders AS general thing, however. the
beegar is a coward. and he will not use violence
II he can obtain money by deceit. crusade
against begging, therefore. tends especially to
make beggars more cunning in their methods
anc often In times of such oppression they
manifest an ingenuity which might net them
legitimate fortunes if turned to honorable call
ings.
In Paris recently. at time when the police
were making special efforts to drive out begSars,
numerous cases were brought to light of the
cunning to which many of them resorted. VI.
Dumany a workingman who had been elected
TO the Chamber of Deputies. unearthed one such
case He was sitting at home one evening when
woman knocked, and in answer to an in
curry replied that she was faint from lack
of food and wished his help. The Deputy took