The result was the constant secretion of a criminal class on one hand, and the removal on the other to another sphere when they became ripe for the voyage—the removal being viewed as an encouragement to the commission of similar offences. We must make the painful acknowledgment that part of this dismal cycle cannot be materially altered. When a man is convicted of his first criminal act, we cannot know whether it is an isolated deed or whether it is the first-fruit of a lifetime. When he has gone from less to greater, and has proved himself indurated in crime, we are forced to protect society by removing him from it. . . . Nor does the proposal involve that extensive and minute system of police _espionage_ of which some people have been apprehensive. An honest man can always keep out of such questionable circumstances; and unless he places himself within them, he is as independent of the police as any unconvicted Englishman. When a man has been twice convicted, it is surely no great hardship to deprive him of the privilege of attempting and plotting crime with impunity.” III.—Professional Beggars. CHAPTER XII. THE BEGGAR OF OLDEN TIME. “_Only a Beggar_”—_The Fraternity_ 333 _Years ago_—_A Savage Law_—_Origin of the Poor-Laws_—_Irish Distinction in the Ranks of Beggary_—_King Charles’s Proclamation_—_Cumberland Discipline_. WERE it not that the reader’s sound and simple sense renders it quite unnecessary, it might be of importance to premise that to be “only a beggar” does not constitute a human being a curse against his species. There are those amongst the greatest and most famous who have been beggars, and many of the mightiest, groaning under the crushing burden of distracting power and unruly riches, have bemoaned their fate and envied the careless beggar whose dwindled strength was at least equal to carrying his slender wallet, whose heart was as light as his stomach, and whose wildest dreams of wealth never soared vastly above a cosy barn to sleep in, a warm old cast-off coat, and a sixpence. To be sure, in many instances these dissatisfied ones may not have given any steadfast consideration as regards such a decided change of state as might happen to suit them. It is related of a King of Scotland that, wearying of the cares of government, he slipped away from his palace and its cloying luxuries, to taste the delights that attach to the existence of ragged roving mendicants; but though his majesty affected to have enjoyed himself very much, and discoursed afterwards gravely of the great moral profit it brought him, it is not recorded that he persevered for any very long time in the pursuit of the newly-discovered blessing, or that he evinced any violent longing to return to it. Perhaps, having convinced himself of the advantages of poverty, he generously resolved to leave it to his subjects, contenting himself with such occasional glimpses of it as might be got by looking out o’ window.