“The charity of the metropolis is too indiscriminate, says a London coroner, and thus the deserving poor are unheeded, and drunken, reckless characters are well provided for, either by private munificence or work-house relief, which enables them to lead an idle merry life. The money they get is squandered in drink, and at night for a few pence they obtain a bed in a wretched stinking hovel, where all ages, all sexes, and all diseases are crowded together, forming so many plague factories and disease depots. So long as a vagrant can live without working, he will do so. So convinced am I of the consequence of the evil that I have ceased to be a vice-president to the Soup Kitchen. In fact, begging has become a regular trade. A few years ago, one of the fellows who followed that avocation was examined before a committee of the House of Commons, and stated that he had travelled over the kingdom for nine years as a beggar; that he was treated as a gentleman in prison, but most disgracefully in workhouses, especially in Lambeth, where he had to work before breakfast; that a slouched hat and smock-frock, with a bundle of herbs in his hand, formed the best garb for a London beggar; and that there were not ten out of one hundred vagrants worthy of relief. Such (continued the coroner) are the disclosures made by him regarding the begging trade. I am, however, happy that the press has taken up the subject, and trust that it will not cease its efforts until this monster evil is completely put down, and thus prevent charitable institutions being abused, and their funds wasted, upon lazy worthless characters. The jury expressed their fullest concurrence with the opinions and observations of the coroner.” The opinions of such witnesses more than corroborate our statements, and the force of these opinions will not, we trust, be unfelt by our readers. They may ask, what should be done when application is made to them for pecuniary relief? We would suggest-- 1. That no money be given to street beggars without inquiry into their cases and an unexpected visit to their abodes. 2. That persons who are acquainted with the tricks of the vagrant class, such as tradesmen, City Missionaries, Ragged School teachers, and others, be applied to on such occasions. 3. That societies whose business it is to afford systematic and well-timed relief in cases of distress, such as the Union Benevolent Society, be more liberally supported, and cases sent to them instead of being personally attended to. The adoption of these or similar rules would tend much to prevent imposture, to add scores of children to our Mission Schools, to increase our power of doing real good, and to rid us ere long of the nuisance and abominable annoyance in our streets of “confirmed vagrants and sturdy beggars.”