Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 69

Table of Contents

Pretend to be Deaf, Dumb and Blind, Playing on Sympathy—How Philanthropy is Humbugged—Begging for Money to Reach Home—An Army of Frauds and Vagabonds—Mastering the Deaf Mute Language for Swindling Purposes—The Public Should be Careful in Disbursing Alms.

Speech is so common, eyesight so precious, that he who would appeal for charity needs no better warrant than that he is dumb or blind. In an age when words are multiplied and golden silence is seldom found, the very fact that lips can give no utterance is so unusual that their mute assertion of misfortune is seldom questioned. There is nothing so pitiful in all the world as an asylum for the blind. There is nothing which so draws one to share the burdens of another as the appeal of him in whom the wells of speech are all dried up. We sympathize with illness, we grieve at the misfortune which visits our friends, we mourn with them when bereavement comes, but all these things are in the course of nature. They are sad, but they may be expected. But then a figure in health rises and asks for charity in the hushed language of the mute, philanthropy halts and humanity gives alms. But if the dumb can evoke assistance, assuring of sincerity and disarming doubt, how hushed is the questioning when the blind apply! How much stronger than speech or silence are the sightless eyes that stare unblinking at a darkened world! How sad is the fate of that man who was buried by demons when God cried out, "Let there be light"!

But not every man is mute who stretches out his hand in silence. Laziness is such an awfully demoralizing vice that some who choose to beg a living and decline work are even base enough to feign a misfortune they ought to fear. Fellows who find the winter pinching and the ranks of vagabonds full to repletion arm themselves with a slate and pencil and haunt the public with appeals for help on the untrue claim that they are dumb. One of the most persistent beggars of this kind makes the rounds of residence districts with a printed card on which is stated the bearer's desire to reach his home in some distant city—the destination varies from time to time—together with a long-primer endorsement by a group of names which no one knows. The fraud always asks for some slight money offering—nothing can be too small—with which to assist him in the purchase of a ticket.

Usually his paper shows that he needs but a very little more, and he asks one, by a series of pantomimic signs, to enroll his name, together with the sum advanced, in regular order on a blank list which he tenders with his touching appeal. He is so well drilled as never to be surprised into speech, and looks with such straight, honest eyes into the faces of the women, who form much the larger number of his victims, that they cannot question him and usually give up a dime or a quarter without a struggle. The beggar can readily collect a good day's wages in this manner, and it is a matter of surprise if he does not receive an invitation to partake of food three or four times a day. He never lets his list get full. However small a margin he may lack of having raised the sum needed to buy his ticket to his home, he never gets quite enough, for nothing is easier than to stop in some secluded spot and erase the names of his latest donors, thus proving to those on whom he shall presently call that their help is not only needed, but will so nearly end the necessity for continued appeals. This class of beggar never looks like a dissipated man, is always polite, and bears refusal in so noble a way that nine times out of ten the flinty-hearted women who refused him at the back door hurry through to the front and give the more generously that they have harbored suspicion.

Another set of leeches have mastered the deaf mute language, and always ask with a pleading, painful face which meets you as your eyes lift from his written questions, if anyone in the house can talk with him. He supplements the penciled question and the eloquent glance of eyes trained by long use in the art with a few rapid passes of his hands, a few dexterous wavings of the fingers, in a language you have heard of and read about, but cannot understand. If the unexpected happens and a person be present who can converse with him, your beggar is sure of some entertainment, and the usual scene of one you know to be honest talking to one who may be equally so, and certainly seems needy, will almost infallibly wring from you the coveted assistance. It is like two minstrels at a Saxon court. You know your own has seen the holy land, though you have not, and as he tells you, this thread-bare guest talks familiarly and correctly of distant realms. That is all any one can know to a certainty, but you give him the benefit of the chance that he may be honest, and help him with such loose change as comes to hand. Time and again the pretended mutes have been detected in their imposture by men who pitied a misfortune and gave money at their homes in the morning to see it spent for drink by an arguing, contentious fellow in the evening.

Some beggars even assume the appearance of blindness, and haunt the homes of comfortable people, led by a little girl and asking alms in the name of an affliction that is always eloquent of need. He will sometimes carry a small basket full of pencils, or other little trinkets, and glazes over his evident beggary with the appearance of sales. But he does not hesitate, once the money is in his hands, to ask his patron to give back the pencils, as he cannot afford to buy any more. These people can sometimes see as well as the child that seems to lead them, and yet their eyes, when they choose to assume their professional attitude, seem covered with a film through which no light can penetrate.

The public should be chary in bestowing charity, and especially to able-bodied men who appear blind, deaf and dumb, or are still claiming to be victims of some recent disaster. Most any one who has charity to bestow can easily think of some deserving and honest unfortunate in their own neighborhood.