The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-18
QUEER CHARACTERS ARE IN BEGGARDOM Some MendicantS Have Money
 in the Bank DTHERS OWN PROPERTY Cruel "Jockers" Who Abuse Their "Punks," High Heels" "Wheez-
 CTS" and Johnny Vegas" to
 Be Found in Numbers.
OTHERS OWN PROPERTY

From the New York World
 There are hundreds of able-bodied men and women in New York wno make h comfortable living by begging. Some lof them own real estate and have bank hccounts Another class are migratory Dever on the go. They have their resorts here and in every other big town from l8Iaine to California, where they are known and welcomed in their periodical pounds.
 They go armed with revolvers of Barge calibre, and combine robbery with 'the more gentle art of asking aims Many of the bank and postoffice rob aberies in country towns are their work, and when they are cornered they shoot ito kill
 They are seldom captured unless taken In the act, for they have, no identity and no permanent abiding place. few hours ride on the trucks of freight train or blind baggage car places them beyond the danger zone, ready for some new adventure. About 40 per cent of the beggars are said to be exeonviets.
 James Forbes chief of the mendicancy department of the Charity Organization Society, has for the past three years been making a systematic and determined eff fort to stamp out beggary in the streets of New York. He has seven men in plain clothes detailed by the police department so aid him. In the three years they have arrested nearly 5000 beggers, and more than go per cent. of them have been con- victed and sent to the workhouse.
 At his office in the United Charities building Chief Forbes has photographs, Bertillon measurements a\d pedigrees of = is in communication with the police and charity organizations of other cities, and this, with the information he receives from beggar stool pigeons" enables him to keep track of the movements of the more prominent members or the frater- nity, and often to anticipate their arrival here from out-of-town points, He has published a confidential bulletin containing descriptions of several hundred beggars, with photographs of many of them, and this has been sent out broadcast to chiefs of police.
 "Wheezers" Out of Business.
 Have you noticed that the shrivelled- up little old women who used to grind husky-voeed. tuneless music boxes all over New York have disappeared? In beggar parlance they were known as ''wheezers." On the coldest winter days one of these creatures would sit hud- dled up in an old shawl over her music box, a shabby hood pulled well down over her eyes waiting for the coins to be dropped into her tin cup.
 Chief Forbes put the wheezers out of Business He found that man who seemed to be old crones were in reality young women disguised. who had husbands and children in comfortable homeJ, and pre- ferred organ grinding and charity to work, and wages. There were half a dozen old German women among the wheezers who owned their own homes in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn One of these had s2,100 In the Dank. An- other had a bank account of $1,OS0 and s70 in small silver and pennies was found concealed about her clothes at the time of her arrest. Through deceit and mistaken pity these wheezers had been permitted to ply their vocation in New York for years. In his museum Chief Forbes has several of the voiceless old hand organs and a large collection of rusty tin cups.
 A 'throw-out" is the name applied to the beggar who crimps up his hand and forearm to simulate paralysis. A flop per- is the cripple pretended cripple who plants himself on the front steps of dwelling house to attract sympathy and pennies. Some of the fioppers are minus limb or two. Other beggars who