BEGGARS. 55 
Go where you will in this city, you are haunted by beggars. Beg- 
gary is a profession ; but it is not carried to quite the extent that it is in some 
of the Italian States, and especially the Sicilian dominions. 
The capital employed in this business is blindness, a sore leg, a de- 
crepit father or mother, or a helpless child ; in the latter case, a stout 
hearty boy usually strapi= the feeble one on his back, and runs after ev- 
ery passer beseeching succor. With such a stock in trade, and a good 
sunny corner, or wall of a church door, the petitioner is set up for life. 
Placed in so eligible a situation, their cry is incessant from morning 
to night: "Seilores amigos, por el amor de dios ;" "for the love of the 
blessed Virgin !" "by the precious blood of Christ !" "by the holy mys- 
tery of the Trinity !" repeated with many variations between their eter- 
nal scratchings, winking of lids over sightless balls, and the display 
of maimed limbs and every species of personal deformity. There is no 
" poor-house" in Mexico, to which such vagrant wretches are forced to go. 
One blind beggar, remarkably well dressed, and a person who has evi- 
dently enjoyed better fortunes, takes up his place on the seat around the 
chief fountain of the Alameda, every day at noon, and is attended ly a 
couple of servants ; his respectful demeanor is, doubtless, a valuable capital. 
Another beggar has a burlp porter to carry him seated in a chair on his 
back. 
Then there are silent beggars — "poveri vergognosi," — as you see in 
Italy ; men who make no oral demand for charity, but crook their bodies, 
and bow their concealed faces, in such a shape of interrogative supplica- 
tion, that the heart must be hard that could resist them. One of this spe- 
cies particularly arrested my notice. I never met him by daylight, and 
he may not have been what he appeared to be ; but often at midnight, 
when returning from the theatre, I have encountered him, cold and shiv- 
ering under the portales. He seemed to be at least 80 years of age ; was 
bent almost double, had a shocking bad cough, and squeaked out in the 
most piping treble you ever heard, that " he was just waiting for some (me 
to take him home." He had been waiting thus for many a- year ! 
They all have different voices according to the length of time they have 
been employed. There are your old sturdy beggars who bellow out their 
ritual ; then the modest novice ; then an old fellow who never utters a 
distinct word, but rolls on the ground and howls, as if with pain ; the while 
his eyes glance from right to left to see how it operates f Near my dwel- 
ling, at a church door, always sat a gray-headed blind man, who was as 
much a fixture as one of the pillars of the edifice. The oldest neighbors 
could not remember when he first came there. He usually arrived about 
noon, as soon as the shadow of the church fell over his wonted seat and 
afforded shade. He begged stoutly for an hour or so, when a daughter 
brought him an excellent warm dinner. This dispatched, he went. to work 
again with the " por el amor de dios," until he literally sang himself into 
a siesta. Yet the ruling passion never deserted him even in sleep. His 
