BEGGING-LETTERS.
IT has been the lot of the present writer to read a great many begging-letters, and to know something of the circumstances and state of mind of their painstaking and imaginative authors. These letter-writers are of very varied degrees of talent, and attain to very varied measures of success. Some live comfortably by their trade, some un- comfortably, and some are obliged to eke out their living by a little honest work. Of course we do not count every man who ever wrote a begging-letter a begging-letter writer, any more than every man who ever published an article is a journalist ; but in both cases the turning of writing into money has a dangerous fascination, and it is impossible to say to what small beginnings may lead. It is not easy to classify the members of the begging profession,—it is one in which individual taste and idiosyncrasy count for so much. Roughly speaking, they may perhaps be placed under two heads,—those who trust for their success to the wiles of a literary imagination, and those who are aware that they have no such gifts to trust to. The former invent a story with a hero or heroine, more or less intricacy of detail, and occasionally an attempt at character- sketching. The latter draw out a list of misfortunes, and implore without more ado the universal panacea of money. To the first class belong, of course, the more interesting and gifted of the writers. Among them we find the man who begs for himself and the man who would not beg but for his children, the cheerful writer who could certainly make a fortune if he only had five pounds and the lugubrious man who hints at suicide if he does not get one. The imagination of women writers does not run to fortunes, but tends usually in the direction of medicine or social position. Very different proofs of a former superiority are invoked; frequently an intricate demonstration of connection with distinguished persons, especially those known to occupy a position superior to that of their relations. Illness, however, has a still greater attraction, and the reader sometimes wonders the writers are not afraid of inducing the symptoms they describe so glibly. A few days ago the present writer read several dozens of letters written by a young girl who was, in sober fact, living a fairly comfortable life with her brother and his family, and enjoying robust health. According to her letters she lived alone in lodgings, too ill to do regular work and suffering great priva- tions. Sometimes her inventive pen ran to nothing worse than toothache and consequent visits to the dentist to have her teeth drawn; at other times she did not spare her•corre- spondents details of symptoms indicative of the last stages of consumption. One picture of her visit to the dentist is per- haps a little overdrawn; she writes that she has taken gas, and though the anaesthetist praised her for the way she bore the pain, the action of the anaesthetic made her unable to work for many days, as " her brain felt so turney of a morning." No doubt it would have been more realistic to have kept the • gas and the pain for separate occasions; but, as so often happens with writers of romance, her actual experience proved too narrow to keep a check upon her ample imagination. This same writer describes an imaginary landlady who is not at all badly conceived. She is an entirely human landlady, who is always kind when her lodger is most ill, lighting " a bit of fire" for her on her return from hospital, but inclined to be " nasty " as soon as the patient is better and the rent not paid. Sometimes the landlady's own affairs—a death in her family or a country visit—make an early payment of rent desirable. Rank sentimentality characterises many of the letters. The heroine is tired of life, " tired of being a worry to every one," tired of living without her mother, who is dead, and whose tomb she adorns with flowers when she has pence to buy them. In an ordinary way she appears to live upon air, and frequently has bad " nothing since Tuesday except a penny lent her for a stamp."
The clannishness of Scotchmen is frequently traded upon by beggars from north of the Tweed, who assume such names as Campbell and Mackenzie before appealing to the feelings of more fortunate namesakes. Foreign beggars begging among rich Jews have even been known to have visiting-cards printed to shed an air of likelihood over a tale of relationship. It is curious to watch the gradual deterioration of conscience which seems almost invariably to follow the making of money without work. We knew of a woman who, years ago, was deserted by her hushand and left to support several children. She was a good needle. woman, and also she had, unfortunately, the pen of a ready writer. She sent bundles of needlework to various ladies whose names were known to her, together with a letter in which she described her struggles to feed and clothe her children, alluded delicately to "a sad crisis" in which her husband "lost heart and left her," asked that "3s. 6d. or less" might be paid to her for the articles' sent, but enclosed two stamps for their return should they 'not be required. Sometimes she wrote of the difficulty of sparing the 2d., sometimes she frankly remarked that she enclosed the money to impress herself and her goods upon the memory of her correspondent. Like so many others of her kind, this woman had seen better days, and had been engaged in some sort of trade. At the time of " the crisis " she was ill, and, writing of it, she declares : " My servants rose up against me to wrest the remains of my business from me,—and me in bed." She trusts, however, in Providence to raise her from her bed of sickness, which, she adds, " to a certain extent He has done." Her trade grew so fast that she was able to employ poor ladies to do her needlework, and even to buy some ready finished at shops. Her story of distress ceased to be true, but she continued nevertheless to tell it. Her children, whom her industry enabled her to educate at boarding-schools, returned to help her with (what her neighbours called) her " business letters." In short, the careless kindness of the public turned an honest woman into a thorough-going impostor.
How is it that the public is so gullible ? We thin.: perhaps they are less credulous than may at first appear. Many people who receive these sort of appeals think there are nineteen chances in twenty against the bona- fides of the writer, but the one chance in his or her favour haunts them and presses on their consciences. Most of us, however reasonable we may be, are occasionally troubled by the question,—" Have I a right to be comfortable when so many other people are not ? " Logically, we are sure we have a right. The arguments of political economy and of common-sense convince our minds, but still the uncomfortable question crops up again, and seems as if it must be appeased by a sacrifice rather than satisfied by an answer. Any story of distress serves as a pretext to reawaken the mental irritation. It worries us ci propos of such-and-such a request, or such-and-such- a letter, and finally for the sake of our peace of mind we throw to the beggar what he asks of us rather than give further ear to doubtful disputations. As a matter of fact, the ques- tion is not one of conscience at all : it is simply the inevitable comment of a kind heart upon a social system which, while it may be the best possible, is by no means the best imaginable. What is a matter of conscience is whether or no we have a right to risk an injury to the community in order to ease an occasional torment of mind. The writing of begging appeals is very like gambling, and the gambler is not in more danger of becoming a thief than is the beggar of becoming a blackmailer. But the mental friction caused by the omnipresence of social questions is not the only reason which induces the public to waste upon rogues the money which might go to the alleviation of honest distress. Pure laziness and real want of time have something to do with the matter, and so has an old-fashioned but still widespread notion that the poor are a sort of living bank, into which the rich can put money with a view to finding it again some day standing to their spiritual credit. To assist in the deteriora- tion of the moral nature of our neighbour is certainly an odd method of saving our own, but it is a method which has been widely believed in and religiously practised all over the world. What, then, is the best solution of the begging-letter difficulty ? To put every one we receive straight into the fire ? If we do this we certainly run the chance of turning away from those whom it is in our power to help. Clearly we ought to find out whether we can be of real use to the man who demands our assistance—a question which depends largely on his willingness to allow us to interfere in his affairs—and by what means we should endeavour to help him. But to help a destitute man or woman to gain a more honest livelihood than can be obtained by the writing of begging-letters requires time, experience, and a knowledge of what we may call the charitable ropes. It may involve obtaining work, obtaining medical assistance, acquaintance with the rules and capacities of the various orphanages and asylums ; in fact, a far more arduous undertaking than most of us have time or inclination to set about. In such a dilemma it is surely wise for the amateur in charity to ask professional advice. Why not appeal to such a Society as that for the Organisation of Charity P The opinion of no society is infallible, but the counsel of many disinterested persons, possessed of large ex- perience, and coming to a conclusion in accordance with care- fully collected evidence, is surely better worth having than that of a hurried man dealing with a matter in the dark. In nine cases out of ten they may merely advise such a man to hold his hand, in the tenth they may suggest the expenditure of more money than compliance with the nine other cases would have amounted to, more perhaps than he may feel able to afford; but after all they have no power to make him give it; decision as to his own conduct rests where it rested before,—with himself. It is certainly no less praiseworthy to give, and no less excusable to refuse, with full knowledge of what we are doing than in wilful ignorance of the probable results of our action. The sentiment which induces a man to throw about money in order to obtain a sensation which he finds morally pleasant, or in order to improve his position in the next world—according to his personal philosophy—is not a sentiment worthy of respect It has nothing to do with the greatest of the Christian virtues, for it proves no warmth of human feeling, but belongs to a state of mind beet described by the old cynical adage, " as cold as charity."
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