New Britain herald., 1930-09-16
MENDICANTS FIND
 LONDON PARADISE
Lo0phole in Law Safeguards
 Be68arS on Streets

London, Sept. 16-The most pros porous business today in London hard hit in it's retail, wholesale and manufacturing enterprises-is '. the business of begging!
 London today in the white mans world is the true Capital of Beggars. No other can compare with it not Paris or Berlin or Rome or Madrid. The latter two cities used to be famous for their beggars. but Mussolini cleared them out of Rome and other Italian cities because they gave the country a bad name, and the late dictator of Spain, Rivera, did the same thing in Madrid.
 No Authority to Act
 But in London nobody has cleared them out, because nobody apparently has the right or au- one of the many paradoxes in this strange land.
 A peddler or a hawker, seeking to earn a legitimate and honest living by going from door to door with his wares, has to apply to the police department for a license. The police make in quiries into his character. He has to have his license with him all the time and has to show it to any policeman who may ask for it.
 But anybody who wants to can stand on the curb and offer matches or shoelaces without get ting anybody's permission. Any body who chooses can make the day or the early evening hideous by setting in motion an asthmatic old phonograph, or grinding faint tunes out of a tubercular barrel organ, or shrilling on a penny tin fife, or getting up a so-called brass band or scraping on a hoarse fiddle, or bowling to the moon what are supposed to be songs.
 At one time in the East End of London there were men who had regular business of organizing so-called brass bands and furnish ing the musical iustrumen The players were in many cases men who had lost leg or an arm, so that they seemed to be bands made up of wounded soldiers. The bandsmen shared the profits of their takings with the organizers.
 There are also still in London a number of men, who for a fairly good sized daily rental fee, supply barrel organs to men and women who want to make the rounds of residential quarters and grind out old chestnuts.
 The London police were never given the authority to deal with beggary. The only people they can touch are those who stick their hands out and ask for money without camouflage. But the so- called match peddler, who stands on the street. and the so-called plete immunity and there are over 10000 of them.
 Lots of Relief Available
 Out-of-work workmen can largely be taken care of by out door relief of the parishes and by the dole. Out veteran sol diers are largely looked after by the British Legion. Blind people are looked after by two or three large societies which have shops where they train the blind to do useful work. But there are lots Of ex-workmen and ex-soldiers and blind people who prefer to beg because it is easier and pays better.
 Not long ago it was shown in court that a man who stood on the street with a placard stating he was an eX-soldier and had a wife and three children and could get no work, made over fifteen dollars week by having matches for sale. That is better than the cole and more than he could make as wages in a good many factories or shops.
 The agent of one of the organ izations for the blind kindly ap- preached a poor old blind woman standing as a began in the rain and told her how his organization could help her. Her reply was:
 Run about your business. me lad. I am my own blind organ iZation. I looks after meself and it pays better.'
 If Parliament passed a ten-line act compelling all persons, who desired to offer articles for sale on the streets or to sing or play musical instruments on the streets with the object of collecting pen nies from the charitable, to se- cure a license from the police the whole matter could be adequately dealt with. But so far Parla- ment has stubbornly refused to give the police this power and they are helpless.
 Running the Gauntlet
 The result is that often John Citizen, coming home from his daily toll, in walking from the underground station to his home a block away, runs a regular gaunt- let, as thus:
 man offering him matches; woman offering him rusty shoe faces; boozy-looking individual rlaying God Save the King" on a tin whistle; a woman with a beery hoarse voice murdering some sen timentai song, and finally, two eX- soldiers, one grinding a barrel organ and the other with extended cap.