SUPPRESSION OF MENDICANCY 
 
 _____ _ : ..----- \ 
 
 METROPOLIS. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 JOHN FREDERICK STANFORD, Esq., M.A., F.R.S, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE ST. MA11Y-LE-BOXE VESTRY, OS SATURDAY, TIIE 
 9m OF OCTOBER, 18-17. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN PETHERAM, 94, HIGH IIOLBORN. 
 
 MDCCCXLVIIi 
 
To the Members of tbe Vestry of St. Marylcbone, in recognition of tbeir 
 courtesy and attention, during a long and certainly not very entertaining 
 Speech; and of tbe very handsome manner in which they expressed their 
 readiness to co-operate in effecting the object I would accomplish—viz., 
 “ the Suppression of Mendicancy in the Metropolis,” I beg, with every 
 feeling of respect, to dedicate these few pages. 
 
 October 12,1817. 
 
 
SPEECH, &c. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I tiiixk it unnecessary to offer any apology for bringing 
 this subject under the consideration of the Board; for I may, with¬ 
 out any exaggeration, assert that its importance to the community 
 can with difficulty he overrated. 
 
 It is likewise a subject of which you are the properly constituted 
 judges; since it deeply affects the interests of the industrious Poor 
 of your Parish, as indeed it does of every Parish in the Metropolis; 
 and, when considered generally, every Parish in the United King¬ 
 dom. It is, however, the partial and more limited consideration of 
 the subject to which I am about to direct your attention as affecting 
 the Metropolis alone; and I am induced to believe that its con¬ 
 sideration hero, may lead to beneficial results, by rousing the 
 attention of the other Parochial Authorities of the Metropolis, and 
 probably of the Government and Legislature, of whoso notice it is 
 far from being undeserving; and thus become the first step to check 
 and to diminish, if not wholly to remove, an evil which is rapidly 
 increasing, to the great corruption and demoralization of the poorer 
 classes in this great capital. 
 
 And, Sir, I should not be sorry that this Board took the initiative 
 in the matter; for none can charge you with a disposition to stay 
 the hand of charity, with being actuated by motives of a harsh 
 economy, or, indeed, with any feelings hostile to the Poor. 
 
 The admirable manner in which the Relief of the Poor in 
 this Parish is administered, both in the house and out of the house, 
 to upwards of 8,000 persons—erring, if at all, on the side of libera¬ 
 lity—as I, an impartial eye witness, can bear testimony to, your 
 anxiety to promote the welfare of the industrious Poor, by the erec- 
 
OX THE SUPPRESSION OF MENDICANCY 
 
 tion of Batlis and Wash Houses, and in effecting various sanitary 
 improvements in and about their dwellings, will effectually guard 
 you from such imputations. 
 
 But, Sir, there is too much practical knowledge among the mem¬ 
 bers of this Vestry, to permit of their confounding the well-disposed 
 and deserving Poor, with that degraded and despicable class of vici¬ 
 ous and abandoned wretches who prey upon the feelings of the 
 benevolent, and live upon the credulity of the charitably disposed. 
 
 I feel, therefore, confident that, while I am addressing men well 
 affected to the Poor, I am, at the same time, appealing to those 
 who will not be disposed to tolerate the maintenance of a system of 
 IMPOSTURE and deceit in the guise of poverty. 
 
 If therefore, Sir, on this occasion, I am led, by the deep impor¬ 
 tance of the subject submitted for your consideration, to address 
 you at greater length than I have ever yet ventured to do, I request 
 of you to bear in mind the magnitude of the evil, and the impossi¬ 
 bility of adequately representing it in a few words ; and I feel satis¬ 
 fied you will be induced to extend that courtesy and indulgence 
 which, I am happy to say, I have always experienced, hath in¬ 
 dividually and collectively , since I came among you. 
 
 In the first place then, Sir, let me describe, though briefly, the 
 class of persons I would root out, and the infamous trade I would 
 
 It is the numerous body of hardened and incorrigible street- 
 beggars, the army of trading, sturdy mendicants, male and female, 
 old and young, who infest the Metropolis and its environs, who 
 assume, and successfully assume, every possible guise of poverty, 
 misfortune, and disease, which craft and cunning can devise, and 
 practised deceit can counterfeit. 
 
 Among the most hardened and abandoned, I rank the counter¬ 
 feits of the severe afflictions of blindness, deafness, dumbness, loss 
 of limbs, lameness, and natural infirmities; of paralysis, epilepsy, 
 fits, jaundice, and consumption. When reading the reports gleaned 
 from the most unquestionable evidence of Clergymen, Lawyers, 
 
IN TII13 METROPOLIS. 
 
 Medical Men, Police Commissioners, Relieving Officers, and Pri¬ 
 vate Gentlemen. I could imagine myself reading a chapter from 
 “Gil Bias,” or of Fielding’s humorous invention, rather than 
 grave realities. I find it stated, in the Minutes of Evidence, taken 
 before the Committee of the House of Commons, to enquire into 
 the state of Mendicity and Vagrancy in the Metropolis and its 
 neighbourhood (July 11, 1815, p. 104), that, in Goodman’s-yard, 
 there are six beggars who affect blindness; a man of the name of 
 Buller walks led by a dog, and hitting the curb-stone as he goes 
 with a stick, affecting blindness; but can see so well that in the 
 evenings he writes letters for his brother-beggars. 
 
 The beadle of St. George’s was about to take up an impostor, 
 with his leg in a wooden frame; but, on laying hold of him, he 
 threw away his wooden frame, and scampered off with a better pair 
 of legs than the beadle. He afterwards saw him with his arm 
 tied up in a sling, (p. 77.) 
 
 Samuel Roberts, watch-house keeper of St. Giles’s and St. 
 George’s, Bloomsbury, says (p. 132)—“ I have seen, at the end 
 of Compton-street, many beggars come out of the houses with a 
 leg or arm tied up, and so on. They have had four or five glasses 
 of gin before they started: they meet again in the evening, and 
 cook their provisions, sometimes a turkey with sausages round it, 
 which they call an alderman hang in chains '’ 
 
 One John Collins, in the neighbourhood of Lincoln’s-inn-fields, 
 known by the name of the soap-eater , is a great impostor and 
 throws himself into fits. 
 
 In the Twentj'-ninth Report of the Mendicity Society (the last, 
 at p. 36), is a statement of the deception practised by Sara Smith, 
 affecting to be deaf and dumb , presenting a card, with numerous 
 names of respectability, to vouch for the truth of her statement. 
 But when taken up by the officers of the Society, she gave ample 
 proof by a volley of abuse, which she poured on the officers, of 
 the falsehood of her pretended affliction. 
 
 Sir, it would be endless to enumerate the varied modes of simu¬ 
 lating disease, from the last stage of consumption, upon which the 
 
ON THE SUPPRESSION OP MENDICANCY 
 
 patient lives for years in affluence, to the accomplished performer 
 of convulsions and epileptic fits, j I have witnessed these cases 
 within my own experience. But to pass on to the description of 
 the larger class of beggars—starving beggars, who write on the 
 flag-stones “lam starring.;” partially naked beggars, shivering 
 with cold, man and wife and small-family-beggars, women with 
 twins, decayed tradesmen, with shabby genteel garb, weavers out 
 of work, ballad-singers, match and flower girls, and venders of 
 all kinds of valueless articles. It would be trespassing on your 
 time to attempt any detailed description of the artifices of this 
 numerous band, the majority of whom are women, who are declared 
 to be the greater impostors of the two, the most profligate, and the 
 most abandoned. Were it necessary I could furnish, from my own 
 experience, many examples of the ingenuity by which I have been 
 induced to furnish relief. 
 
 One case just occurs to my recollection, which happened about 
 two years since, and which is not unlike the tale in the “ Arabian 
 Nights.” An old man, I had for some time allowed a trifle a week 
 to, came to me in great anguish of mind, in consequence of the 
 death of his aged partner, requesting some little help to have her 
 obsequies more decently performed: he could not bear to think of 
 committing her remains to the parish coffin, which he described as 
 being so ill joined that you might put your two fingers in. Feeling 
 pleased with the good feeling evinced, I gave him something, and 
 he went on his way rejoicing. Some few weeks afterwards, a 
 female came for his weekly allowance, alleging his inability to come 
 himself, having by an accident hurt his back. My servant, suspect¬ 
 ing the truth of the old man’s story about his wife’s death, asked 
 this person “ How is the old man’s wife ?”—when she, not being in 
 the secret of the fraud, replied, “ Quite hearty, thank you.” 
 
 It is unnecessary, Sir, to illustrate further this catalogue of vice; 
 and, were I to touch upon the practices of the begging-letter impos¬ 
 tors, they would alone occupy hours to delineate. It is generally 
 admitted by all the best informed authorities, that both the classes 
 I have adverted to, are ninety-nine out of a hundred, downwright 
 impostors, who would not accept the relief awarded to the destitute 
 by law, and would not work, under any circumstances, if they could 
 get work to do. 
 
is- THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 7 
 
 This, Sir, then is the body of persons I declare war against—that 
 I hope you will lend me your aid to root out; and though, Sir, 
 many might be disposed at first to question the probability of the 
 numbers of Mendicants in London and its neighbo urhood, which 
 I compute, at this time, to reach to 50,000—as well as of the sum 
 I assign to the result of their gains—yet, if the sources whence 
 I have drawn my estimate be examined, the number, great as it un¬ 
 doubtedly is, will not be deemed far from approximating to the 
 truth, I may just mention some few facts in corroboration of my 
 statement. 
 
 In the 3 'ear 1802, Mr. Martin, who, under the sanction of the 
 Secretary of State, undertook an enquiry into the State of Mendi¬ 
 city in the Metropolis, estimated the number of beggars then, at 
 sixteen thousand ! 
 
 Mr. Mayne, one of the Police Commissioners, states the number 
 of persons carried before the Metropolitan Magistrates, in the year 
 1837, to be for begging, four thousand; and eighteen thousand as the 
 number of the annual commitments of persons for vagrancy. 
 
 The number of juvenile vagrants and beggars, under sixteen years 
 of age, taken up for petty larcenies and offences, is annually be¬ 
 tween three and four thousand. 
 
 The number of begging-letter cases stated, in the report of the 
 Mendicity Society, to have been investigated during the last three 
 years, is nearly seventeen thousand. 
 
 The numbers who flock to the nightly asylums or refuges for the 
 destitute, and who chiefly, if not entirely, consist of beggars and 
 vagrants, are from six to seven thousand, and these are only of the 
 most unsuccessful practitioners, not one tenth, perhaps, of their pro¬ 
 fession. 
 
 I will not weary you, Sir, with further proofs. I may, I think, 
 safely state the number of beggars in and about London, at the 
 present time, at 50,000, of which a large proportion are Irish ; and, 
 if we compute their earnings at one shilling per day, it would be 
 900,0007 a year; but it is shown, in numerous instances, to reach 
 
 Si 
 
OX TIIE SOTHIESSIOST OF MEEDICAJTCY 
 
 six cand seven shillings, and few, perhaps, gain less than two shillings 
 per day. Hence, my estimate of the sum of 1,200,000?., annually ex¬ 
 tracted from the pockets of the charitable, is under rather than over¬ 
 rated. That the trade of the mendicant is a lucrative one is 
 evidenced by the fact that foreigners enter the list as competitors 
 with the native beggar; and even Lascars prefer to endure the 
 severity of this climate, and to live by begging, than to return to 
 their own country and live by honest industry, 
 
 This, Sir, then is the army of impostors I denounce—these are 
 the practices I would put an end to—the trade I would destroy; 
 and on three grounds. 
 
 Firstly— Because it is opposed to all justice and natural law, that 
 any number of able-bodied persons should be permanently maintained in 
 idleness at the expense of the industrious portion of the community. 
 No one, Sir, will, I think, question this position. The Canon Law, 
 our own Statute Law, declare it. Even in China, it is a maxim 
 that, for every man and woman who are idle, two persons must 
 suffer cold and hunger. If I may venture to adduce the authority 
 of Scripture, we have the plain language of St. Paul—“ For even, 
 when we were with you, this we commanded, That if any would not 
 work, neither should he eat.” Labour is the law imposed upon 
 mankind, from which none can be exempted, except to the detri¬ 
 ment of the community. By industry alone this great empire has 
 reached its pre-eminent rank among the nations of the xoorld. If then, 
 Sir, it is unjust that any body of men should be idle consumers, 
 how much more flagrant an injustice is it to tolerate the idleness 
 of the most degraded, vicious, and abandoned race which language 
 can describe ? 
 
 Secondly—/ protest against this vile crew of impostors as divert' 
 ing the alms of the benevolent from the really deserving poor, from 
 the alleviation of real distress and misery. It is not, cannot 
 be doubted, that in a population of 16,000,000, where pne jn every 
 eleven souls is actually ascertained to be dependent on parish relief, 
 or where 1,400,000 poor are found, that there is any lack of 
 objects for commiseration. But, Sir, they are"not the person^ 
 found importuning alms in the public streets. 
 
IS THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 It is admitted, on all hands, that the most deserving objects of 
 real and deep distress are the last to court attention to their wants. 
 They are not the clamorous nor obtrusive, hut struggle on in 
 silence in the dark and cheerless room of some wretched court or 
 alley. I may boldly, but faithfully, declare it as an axiom, that no 
 worthy people, however driven by the pressure of calamity and 
 want, are found resorting to street-begging. How much better, 
 then, for the humane, to make the Church their almoner. By no 
 method can the benevolent intentions of the charitable be more 
 certainly attained. Since no body of men is so well acquainted 
 with the deserving poor and their wants as the parochial clergy, 
 by making them their almoners, the double good is effected of ad¬ 
 ministering judicious relief, sound charity, and strengthening at the 
 same time the cause of religion. 
 
 f If, instead of daily disbursing their pence to beggars in the street, 
 which, even were it to real objects of charity could afford no per¬ 
 manent relief, the charitable would reflect what good might be 
 effected by the judicious application of these daily twopence accu¬ 
 mulated into goodly sums, as they, at the end of six months, and 
 the year, would be; that the tioo or three pounds might, and in re¬ 
 peated instances would, serve to rescue a whole family, of industri¬ 
 ous habits, from impending ruin and the degradation of the union; 
 if, Sir, I could only force such reflections upon their minds, how 
 beneficial would be the results! 
 
 Fearfully great as the number of poor already is in this country, I 
 dread, Sir, to contemplate the access of poverty which the financial 
 difficulties of the present period will engender, by the inevitable 
 stoppage of railway works, which have, by a most reckless disregard 
 of all political wisdom by the Legislature, been suffered, nay, en¬ 
 couraged, to proceed with the most unhealthy rapidity; absorbing 
 all disposable capital, giving a false stimulus to labour, whose ces¬ 
 sation must suddenly throw thousands of able-bodied men upon 
 parish relief. The number of men employed on railways is stated 
 by Mr. Weale to be 300,000. There is, then, every reason to hus¬ 
 band the resources of charity, which will be even yet more largely 
 drawn upon without the aid of the beggar and the vagabond. 
 
 Thirdly—Sir, I denounce the toleration of this horde of 
 
10 
 
 ON THE SUPPRESSION OP MENDICANCY 
 
 MENDICANTS AS A matter of Police. The step from mendicancy 
 to robbery and outrage, believe me, Sir, is but a brief one. They 
 are indeed indissolubly connected. Report after report on the 
 subject of crime and criminal law, which I have waded through, 
 teems noth proof of the near alliance between mendicancy and crime. 
 I am not wrong in branding the mendicants as either thieves or the 
 accomplices of thieves. Their sufferance is therefore maintaining 
 a nursery for rogues: it is an unfailing reservoir to feed the various 
 channels of crime: the streets are the “ rogues’ sanctuary.” You 
 thus augment the expense for Police, for Criminal Prosecution, and 
 all the machinery of the administration of Criminal Law. 
 
 You prefer punishment, to prevention, convicts, to working poor, 
 an expensive, demoralizing scheme of retribution, to a simple 
 and effective hindrance of the offence; and, Sir, if I were to 
 touch upon the contaminating influence which such a mass of 
 abandoned wretches must, and inevitably do, exert over the minds 
 and habits of the industriously disposed with whom they mix, I 
 should, indeed, fatigue your patience: but it is too obvious to 
 require exposition. The poorer, the humbler classes, wanting the 
 benefit of intercourse with their more fortunate fellow men, the 
 wealthy and the educated—having no bright example to imitate, 
 are, as it were, delivered over to the baneful impressions which 
 the picture but too powerfully presents of trafficking imposture 
 thriving, where honest industry fails almost to live. 
 
 If your patience, Sir, is not exhausted, and you will bear with 
 my prolixity, I should be glad to point out what I consider are the 
 palpable causes of Mendicancy, and the remedies for its abolition. 
 Unquestionably the primary and sustaining cause of Mendicancy is 
 the ill-judged benevolence of the charitably-disposed. If none gave 
 alms in the streets, no beggars could exist, or would be found. 
 This indiscriminate distribution of pence is, then, the fruitful 
 source of Mendicancy; and the non-enforcement of the law against 
 beggars and vagrants which, by the supineness and want of 
 vigilance of the authorities, is suffered to sleep. I have been 
 given to understand that the late Government, through the Home 
 Secretary, instructed the Magistrates to be lenient to beggars—in 
 other words, to dismiss charges of Mendicancy, unless of flagrant 
 character. The wisdom of this course I am at a loss to discover. 
 
1ST THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 11 
 
 I can, indeed, scarcely believe in the truth of my information: hut 
 certainly the Police Magistrates neither deal with severity or 
 uniformity in the cases which come before them, and do obviously 
 lean to what, in my opinion, is a mistaken feeling of humanity. 
 The law itself may not. be quite so stringent as it should be, and 
 by various artifices is evaded, such as by affecting to offer some 
 valueless article for sale; and the machinery for its effective ap¬ 
 plication is far from perfect. The Police are, by their dress, 
 recognized by the mendicant, and in their sight would not beg, if 
 the Police were instructed to forthwith take them up. They, 
 therefore, ply their calling in their absence, no difficult matter; 
 and, since they cannot interfere, unless eye witnesses of the fact, 
 or some person will give the beggar in charge, which no one likes 
 to do, both from the trouble and from the tear of being thought 
 harsh and unfeeling, Mendicancy goes on unchecked. Now, Sir, 
 as to the remedies I would offer. 
 
 The primary and sustaining cause of Mendicancy being, as 1 
 have already stated, the ill-judged and indiscriminate alms-giving of 
 the benevolent, it is obvious that if we could prevent alms-giving—■ 
 that, if no one gave, beggars could not subsist. If we could only 
 persuade the charitable to abstain from indulging in their perni¬ 
 cious bounty—could only impress them with the truthful advice 
 of Terence, “ Benefacta male collocata, malcfacta cxistima”—Men¬ 
 dicancy would shortly disappear. Colonel Rowan and Mr. Maync, 
 Commissioners of Police, in their evidence before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons, went so for as to suggest that it might be bene¬ 
 ficial to make it penal to give alms in the street, and stated, I think, 
 that it actually was an offence in the penal code of Prussia. I am not 
 disposed to adopt this advice, for I think it would be repugnant to 
 English feeling, and would wear the aspect of a harsh interference 
 on the part of the Legislature, and would, in the present state of 
 public opinion, be highly unpopular. But I would rather, Sir, first 
 put in force the existing law, which, if uniformly carried out, 
 would, with a vigilant and well instructed Police, very soon 
 dimmish the numbers of metropolitan beggars. 
 
 I think it would be very advisable also, as an auxiliary measure, 
 that the Parochial Authorities should, under the powers of their 
 
12 
 
 ON THE SUPPRESSION OF -MENDICANCY 
 
 several Local Acts, appoint a few paid Constables, active and 
 intelligent men, to act in concert with the Police. Such a power 
 is given to this Parish, Sir, by the 35th Geo. III. c. 75, which, 
 indeed, confers, not only the power of apprehending idle persons, 
 beggars, &e., but invests you with the power of detaining them for 
 fourteen days with hard labour, and, during that time, to have male 
 persons privately whipped. I am aware that the feeling of the 
 present age is strongly averse to flogging under any circumstances, 
 as destructive of self-respect, which it is so desirable to maintain; 
 and to this opinion I am inclined to give due weight. You may 
 not feel disposed to put in force this portion of the law; yet I feel 
 assured that it would, in some cases, especially of hardened juve¬ 
 nile delinquents (for the early ago at which they begin makes them 
 hardened while even young), be a salutary terror and check to the 
 confirmation of their habits of Mendicancy, more so than any other 
 punishment. 
 
 But further, Sir, as I have already noticed, the Lain is itself 
 imperfect. It is constantly evaded under the pretence of selling 
 some valueless articles. It has been decided also that a man 
 and his wife, women and children, walking in the middle of the 
 streets singing, though obviously to excite alms-giving, does not 
 come under the law. I am not prepared to say that such evasions 
 can be remedied: it is touching on a very delicate subject, and 
 requires great circumspection before advising any amendment of 
 laws which restrain the liberties of even the meanest and most 
 degraded in the land, lest they be perverted into an engine of 
 oppression. I prefer here again to rely, for the present at least, 
 on the existing law. 
 
 Is is an encouraging fact that no vigorous effort to suppress 
 Mendicancy has failed in its object. At one time Munich was 
 so infested with daring mendicants, who set the Police at defiance, 
 and extorted alms by their bold gestures and menaces, that it was 
 found necessary to call in the aid of the military to suppress them: 
 as many as 2,600 sturdy beggars were in one week dragooned 
 into an abandonment of their trade, and now, not a beggar 
 is to be seen. During a year that I resided at Vienna I do not 
 remember being once accosted by a beggar; nor do I remember 
 
IN THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 13 
 
 seeing any at Dresden, though the people are wretchedly poor. 
 Paris abounds with misery enough, hut its Police is too vigilant, 
 and its law too stringent, to admit of hordes of beggars plying their 
 vocation in its streets. 
 
 In conclusion, Sir, let me observe that the toleration of Men¬ 
 dicancy in this Metropolis and the large towns of England, in 
 addition to the numerous other evil consequences which I have 
 attempted to point out, brings the most undeserved disgrace upon 
 our national character. It leads to the formation of the most 
 erroneous impressions on the minds of foreigners visiting this 
 country respecting the humanity of the English’, they behold a 
 Capital unrivalled for its commercial activity, for its evidences of 
 wealth, and display of luxury ; but, on the other hand, they meet 
 with exhibitions of wretchedness and misery—of loathsome spec¬ 
 tacles of apparently helpless indigence and uncared-for suffering, to 
 an extent and in a degree which cannot fail to strike them with 
 horror and disgust, and frequently to diminish their respect for the 
 English character—beholding an amount of apparent misery not 
 to be met with in any Capital of Europe, nor, indeed, in all tho 
 Capitals of Europe together. So far from crediting that more than 
 five millions sterling are annually levied by law for the relief of the 
 poor of this country, in addition to probably two millions yearly 
 distributed by charitable institutions of every kind for the alle¬ 
 viation of sickness and disease, and of large sums distributed by 
 private benevolence—so far, Sir, from supposing this to be the 
 case, they ivould very naturally imagine that we abandon our un¬ 
 fortunate fellow countrymen to a precarious subsistence by begging 
 in the streets—that we are dead to all charitable emotions, and 
 careless of and indifferent to the miseries of the poor: and well 
 might they think so; for it ivould be difficult to persuade them that 
 the Government and Authorities would suffer the streets of the 
 Capital to be encumbered with thousands, aye, tens of thousands, 
 of men, women, and children, loud in their importunities, urgent in 
 their appeals, if the law of the laud made any adequate provision 
 for their relief; and that there existed no necessity for begging as 
 a means of existence. Much more, Sir, ivould they discredit tho 
 assertion that the crowds of mendicants who sivarnr in the Metro¬ 
 polis are nearly all undeserving, hardened vagrants—impostors of 
 the most accomplished school, whose distress is a well-acted coun- 
 
14 OS' THE SUPPRESSION OF MENDICANCY IN THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 terfeit, and that tills is known by the Government and the Police, 
 and yet suffered to he practised—I repeat, Sir, that no foreigner 
 would believe such an assertion, nor could we blame his incredulity. 
 Here Sir, then, is another ground, if one were wanting, for sup¬ 
 pressing this abominable trade—for removing this evil, which 
 brings discredit and reproach, most undeservedly, on the fair fame 
 of England^ as a wise and charitable nation. 
 
 Thanking you, Sir, and gentlemen, for the patient attention with 
 which you have so kindly listened to a speech which I regret has 
 been of such length, I now beg to move the resolution which has 
 been read to you by the Vestry-clerk, viz:— 
 
 “ Whereas Mendicity in the Metropolis has reached an alarming 
 height by reason of the non-enforcement and evasion of the laws 
 against vagrants and beggars: and whereas its professional Mendi¬ 
 cants maybe estimated at no less than 50,000, who are for the most 
 part thieves, or the accomplices of thieves: and whereas it is sup¬ 
 posed that the sum of 1,200,000/. a-year is in this way wrung from 
 the abused benevolence of the public to the maintenance in idleness 
 of a class of trading impostors, who do not contribute a farthing’s- 
 worth of labour to the common good: and whereas such sum of 
 1,200,000/. a-year is thus diverted from the proper objects of charity, 
 the industrious poor: and whereas Mendicancy is known to be a 
 fruitful source of all vice and crime, and in that way augments the 
 expenditure for Police and Criminal Prosecutions; it is proposed 
 that a deputation from this vestry be appointed to wait on her 
 Majesty’s Secretary for the Home Department, for the purpose of 
 soliciting him to give instructions to the Commissioners of Police 
 and Stipendiary Magistrates to enforce the Laws for the suppression 
 of Mendicancy in the Metropolis, and amend the same if necessary.” 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
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 THURINGIAN SAXONY. 
 
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 of higher claims. The letters from and descriptive of Thuringia in the second 
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