“Doubtless, my friends, you are astonished to see me in this humiliating attitude, addressing you like a common beggar. But what else am I? What is the man who implores you to spare him from your plenty—ay, and your luxury—a _penny_ to save from starving those that are dearer to him than his HEART’S blood, but a beggar? But, my friends, a man may be a beggar, and still be not ashamed. _I_ am not ashamed. I might be, if it was for myself that I asked your charity; but I would not do so. I would die sooner than I would stoop to do it; but what is a HUSBAND to do, when he has a wife weak and ill from her confinement; who is dying by HINCHES for that nourishment that I have not to give her?” (Here a violent blowing of his nose on a clean cotton pocket-handkerchief.) “What, my dear friends, is a FATHER to do, when his little ones cry to him for BREAD? Should he feel ashamed to beg for them? Ask yourselves that question, you who have good warm fires and all that the heart can desire. I am _not_ ashamed. It is a desperate man’s last resource; and I ask you again, as my fellow-creatures, will you turn away from me and deny me the small assistance I beg of you?” Generally he is successful. Women—young mothers and old mothers alike—find it hard to resist the artless allusion to the wife, “weak and ill from her confinement,” and the amazingly well-acted sudden outburst of emotion that the actor is so anxious to conceal under cover of blowing his nose. To be sure he is not a prepossessing person, and his style of appeal is somewhat coarse and violent; but that stamps it, in the eyes of the unwary, as genuine. If he “knew the trade,” he would know that he should be meek and insinuating, not loud-mouthed and peremptory. In short, his behaviour is exactly that of a man—a hard-working fellow when he has it to do—driven to desperation, and with a determination to raise enough to buy a loaf somehow. It would be a monstrous thing to refuse such a poor fellow because of his blunt inapt way of asking; and so the halfpence come showering down. It is several months ago since I last saw this worthy; but I have no doubt that his wife has not yet recovered from her confinement, that his children are yet crying for bread, and that he is still not ashamed to solicit public charity to save them from starving.