Begging seems almost the only regular industry of Toledo.
Besides the serious professionals, who are real artists in studied
misery and ingenious deformity, all the children in town occasionally
leave their marbles and their leap-frog to turn an honest penny by
amateur mendicancy.
A chorus of piteous whines went up. But La Senora was firm. She checked
the ready hands of the juveniles. "Children should not be encouraged to
pursue this wretched life. We should give only to blind men, because
here is a great and evident affliction; and to old women, because they
look so lonely about the boots." The exposition was so subtle and
logical that it admitted no reply. The old women and the blind men
shuffled away with their pennies, and we began to chaff the sturdy and
rosy children.
A Spanish beggar can bear anything but banter. He is a keen
physiognomist, and selects his victims with unerring acumen. If you
storm or scowl at him, he knows he is making you uncomfortable, and
hangs on like a burr. But if you laugh at him, with good humor, he is
disarmed. A friend of mine reduced to confusion one of the most
unabashed mendicants in Castile by replying to his whining petition,
politely and with a beaming smile, "No, thank you. I never eat them."
The beggar is far from considering his employment a degrading one. It is
recognized by the Church, and the obligation of this form of charity
especially inculcated.
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