"Well, o' course our first business is to wear bad togs. F'r instance, ef I's beggin' fer shoes I wants to put on a pair thet's all gone, else I can't get any more, 'n' the same when I's beggin' fer coats 'n' 'ats. It's no use tellin' people that you're beggin' fer somebody else. They won't believe it." Then I questioned him as to the sort of garments which were most profitable. "Breeches. We kin sell 'em every time. 'Ats does pretty well too, 'n' ef we get good shoes we kin do a rattlin' business. One o' my pals made seven bob fer a week jes out o' shoes. Wimmenses' togs hain't up ter the men's; an' yet we does fairly well wid 'em too. In 'ats, f'r instance, we does fairly good, 'cause the gals knows where we lives, 'n' they comes right 'ere instid o' goin' ter the dealers. Petticoats is next best when we gets good ones, but we don't very often, 'cause these Whitechapel donners [girls] wants picter-like ones, 'n' we don't always get 'em. I wish we could jes stick ter beggin' fer men's togs, 'cause they 's the best. Jes gimme 'nough breeches, 'n' I won't complain." In American cities also, men's clothing is the most profitable for beggars of this sort; very few tramps ask for "wimmenses' togs." In Germany, however, all sorts of old clothes are looked for, and the city tramps are great competitors of the Jews in this business. An old German Jew once said to me: "I wish these Kunden [tramps] were all dead. They spoil our business right along, because they get their stuff for nothing, and then undersell us. That isn't right, and I know it isn't." In Frankfort-on-the-Main I once knew a Swiss beggar who collected eighteen pairs of shoes in one week, not counting other things that he asked for also. And he claimed that, after trying various kinds of begging, he had found the most money in the shoe business. Of course, all this depends on a beggar's ability to make people believe that he is really deserving, for clothes-beggars, like a number of other specialists, must have some natural adaptation for their chosen calling.