You know that much. Where do they get it from? Who has paid for their
dinner and their pot? Those fellows can only live in one of two ways--by
pillage or beggary. Their annual income by thieving comes out of the
public pocket, you will admit. They are not cheaply fed, so far as they
are fed by theft. But the rest of their living--all that they don't
steal--they must beg. Not with success from you, you think. Wise, as
benevolent, you never gave a penny in "indiscriminate charity." Well,
I congratulate you on the freedom of your conscience from that sin, mine
being bitterly burdened with the memory of many a sixpence given to
beggars of whom I knew nothing but that they had pale faces and thin
waists. But it is not that kind of street beggary that is the worst
beggars' trade. Home alms which it is their worst degradation to
receive. Those scamps know well enough that you and your wisdom are
worth nothing to them. They won't beg of you. They will beg of their
sisters, and mothers, and wives, and children, and of any one else who is
enough ashamed of being of the same blood with them to pay to keep them
out of sight.
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