1 76 Life of Count Rumford. 



relief; and this wretched tolerance seemed to double the 

 number of these vagabonds, while it raised beggary into 

 a profession. Even herdsmen and shepherds, tending 

 their flocks by the wayside, were in the habit of levying 

 contributions on passers-by, and their opportunity to 

 do this was had in view in fixing the rate of their wages 

 from their employers. Farm children, too young to 

 labor, were improved as mendicants, and a traveller 

 seemed to have his road lined with outstretched hands. 



The beggars formed a caste in the cities, with pro- 

 fessional rules, assigning to them beats and districts, 

 which were disposed of by regulations in case of the 

 death, promotion, or removal of the proprietors. 

 Sometimes a fight decided the contested right to a 

 district. Even matrimonial alliances between the men- 

 dicants, and the entail of the privileges of the profes- 

 sion on the children born of these bargains, were a 

 recognized usage. Thompson observed that the pro- 

 fession of a beggar was a training for thievery, and that 

 there was really no difference between the ways used for 

 extorting gifts and the being subjected to actual plun- 

 dering. He tells us that after the measures which are 

 to be described as instituted by him had taken effect, 

 out of the population of Munich, then about sixty 

 thousand, as many as two thousand six hundred beg- 

 gars were seized in a single week. 



These measures were deliberate, wise, thorough, and 

 effective. They were admirably planned and carried 

 into the most minute details. Four regiments of cav- 

 alry were cantoned in Bavaria and the adjoining prov- 

 inces, so that even every village had a patrol party of 

 three, four, or five mounted soldiers daily coursing 

 from one station to another. They were forbidden to 



