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The Meteorological Station on the Säntis. (8,200 feet)

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Overland Monthly

VOL. XXX. (Second Series.)-July, 1897.- No. 175

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66

S CHILDREN we told fortunes on the buttons of our elders' coats thus: "Richman, Poorman, Beggarman, Thief, Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief." If we particularly disliked the victim it was arranged so the stop would come on Beggarman" or "Thief." I do not know who was the inventor of the formula. I wish I did, as the discovery would make both the unknown author's and my own reputation. Off-hand I will hazard it came from the Orient, for there I found that to be a beggar was as much a profession as to be a doctor. The Contributor was complaining of the very unprofessional conduct of a beggar on Battery street, who first asked for the price of a drink, pleading that he was the father of a family, and then cursed him long and deep because of a proffered soup ticket. The man was not a professional or he would not have so laid himself open to a change of "conduct unbecoming a gentleman and a beggar." A professional would have said, "I beg your pardon," passed over to the other side of the street, and told his story to the Poet, whose heart is always open but whose pocket is empty.

A beggar must be a reader of character. On Decoration Day I met one who had taken the thirty-third degree. The very tones of his voice made me falter and sent my hand pocketward. Before he had finished his conte I had made up my mind that not less than four bits would answer. There was something about him that suggested a noble in exile or a great soul beating itself to death against unresponsive rocks. "Can you blame me," he pleaded, "for begging for the bare necessities, when two million bushels of life-giving wheat from the golden fields of California were left to the mercy of the weevil in the elevators of Contra Costa, waiting while their millionaire owners cornered the market? What was destroyed would have saved the famine in India or fed the unemployed of the Pacific Coast. Where is the justice? But who am I that I should judge my neighbor?" "Amen!" said I. And I was glad that for once my fifty (Copyright, 1897, by OVERLAND MONTHLY PUBLISHING COMPANY) All rights reserved

Brown, Meese & Craddock, S. F.

cents was well invested. However, I do not believe in beggars, and I will wager that the Contributor was right in refusing to divide his slender salary with the blackguard who reviled him.

Off and on for a month I have noticed an able-bodied man of middle age issue from the historic precincts of the "What Cheer House." He would walk leisurely up Montgomery street to Market and turn up Market, continuing his stroll as far as the New City Hall, returning by way of Union square, where he would rest and nap in the sun. The regularity and method of these strolls, combined with the fact that he from time to time paused to speak a civil word to some well dressed pedestrian, excited my curiosity. A brief investigation developed the fact that the man was a beggar, and also that he was very successful. Twice I gave him a short bit. One day I met him in Union square. The fog was rolling in from Golden Gate, and only here and there a tramp, too drunk to notice the moisture of the seats, marred the landscape. My friend was leaning against a tree, deeply intent on some figures in a greasy note book. I stopped in front of him and he looked up, slipping the book into his pocket.

"How 's business?" I asked.

He commenced to whine.

"Never mind your regular story," I interrupted, "I know it. Answer my questions like a man and you may add a dollar to your bank account."

After a little preliminary skirmishing he waxed confidential and showed a pride in his profession and an unhallowed joy in his success that was gratifying.

"I make it a rule," in the firm clear tones of a stock-broker,

66

never to walk less

than one hundred blocks a day. It keeps up my muscle, aids digestion, and ensures a good appetite."

"And a thirst," I commented.

"And a thirst," he went on unabashed. "It is a very poor block that does not average two and one-half cents. Two blocks will more often net me ten cents."

He consulted the aforementioned book.

"Yes, the average of the past six months is five dollars a day, that is just five cents a block. I have been on this beat nearly a year now, and I have my regular customers. Excuse me a minute."

He passed through the fog to the other side of the street and touched his hat to an elderly acquaintance of mine, who was coming down the broad steps of the Pacific Union Club. In a moment ne had returned with a bright new quarter in his hand.

"I told him my wife was better today," he said, smiling pleasantly, "and that she prayed for him night and day. Well, so long, your dollar passes the limit today and business is over."

About a week after, he was in court charged with vagrancy. An officer had been watching as well as myself. With a great show of indignation my old friend arose and produced a bag containing four twenty dollar gold pieces and enough change to bring the total to eighty-seven dollars. He was discharged for want of enough direct evidence, but he had an enemy in the hard-hearted officer who made it his business to watch him. Within another week there was evidence enough to send him to the work-house.

The Reader. "Can you blame him. Five dollars a day is the wages of a first-class mechanic. Why should not begging become a profession when people are such easy game. The only thing to do is to call a policeman every time a fellow solicits alms, and yet if I

did such a thing I should be pointed out on the street as a warning to all tender-hearted children."

The Parson. "I believe that I have given alms where they were deserved, but I have never yet been quite sure."

The Artist. "For the sake of my profession I trust the Sanctum will not completely abolish beggars. Who else would supply color and life to Italy? What would Notre Dame or Saint Peter's be without them? Even the Pyramids and Pompey's Pillar would lose half their charm, stripped of their bands of backsheesh gatherers. Art must come to the rescue. The beggar is thrice welcome to all he gets from me."

The Reviewer. "Your cure, then, must be starvation."

The Parson. “I once got a rather curious confession from a professional beggar, which if true, and I believe it was, opened my eyes to the reckless ways in which American beggars are made. 'I had been keeping a sidewalk stand for years,' he said. 'I worked hard and earned from three to four dollars a week. On that I lived. One night when I started to go home by the Mission street-cars I found that my pocket had been picked. It was too far to walk, so I decided to try and borrow a nickel. The first man to whom I told my story gave me a quarter without hesitation. All the way home I thought over it. A quarter was as much as I made clear at my stand many a day. It all ended by my selling out and going to begging, always telling my first story. I have done pretty well since and like the business.'

The Reviewer. "Charge him to the Artist."

THE

HE Occasional Visitor. "In reading the resolutions passed by the Board of Councilmen of Canton, Mississippi, it struck me that bulls grew fat on the herbage of this

country as well as on Erin's soil.

1. Resolved, by this Council, that we build a new jail.

2.

Resolved, that the new jail be built out of the materials of the old jail.

3. Resolved, that the old jail be used until the new jail is finished."

The Poet. "Which is parallel to Doctor Johnson's famous dictum that every monumental inscription should be in Latin; for that, being a dead language, will always live."

THE

HERE must be some remedy for the beggar, some scheme whereby the professional "unemployed" can be turned into good citizens. Joaquin Miller tried it in his little ranch on the Heights, but failed. Municipalities have tried, and philanthropists since the time of Nero have undertaken the job, but only the cannibal has succeeded. The beggar owns the world: from the picturesque knaves of the Arabian Nights to our own Chinatown bummers, they fill a place in the great human comedy that force or education cannot usurp. They are more of a drain on a nation than banditti and a far greater menace, and yet every scheme for its regeneration falls powerless. After all they may be happy in their way, and life is fleeting.

was.

The old fellow that twice a year would slip into my neighbor's back yard and have a fainting fit from feigned starvation believed himself as great an actor as Booth — and he His contortions were awful and the smell of food caused him to lose consciousness. He fairly earned the nickels that were showered upon him from second story windows and no one ever complained to the police. I believe if every vagrant in the city were sent to the poor farm tomorrow, a new and as vigorous a crop would spring up in twenty-four hours.

The Parson. "I would that good things were as tenacious of life."

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