I have said that there is but little semblance of extreme pauperism—the actual putting out the hand for the coppers with which to buy bread and cast off clothes. But this retirement of the pauper from public gaze is a new thing. What has he been doing? Until very lately, to every German square mile, which is four times the English mile, there were ten beggars, who averaged a mark, or twenty-five cents, a day, by the desperate plying of their craft. Now, the German empire covers just space enough to make the voluntary gifts to beggars amount to 36,500,000 marks, or $9,125,000. This state of things existed in much grosser forms when the gifts were simply enormous, until very recently, and since the beginning of the efforts to solve the question of beggary.
But the one great thing that has come to light, and which is now presented to the German people with tremendous force, is this: the cause of the pauperism is intemperance. This revelation has been slow in coming, but it has come at last, and the statistics show that where there is most beer there is most beggary. Hence the efforts made to do away with public pauperism touch upon the still broader and deeper one of intemperance.
The desperation of the beggar is well known. Here in Germany they have a proverb:
Es ist und bleibt die alte Geschicht; Wer betteln kann verhungert nicht.
Which, rendered strictly, runs about thus:
The old story—we have it still; The beggar’s sure to have his fill.
But the efforts now made, by the banding into one great organization all associations for caring for the poor, are directed toward the actual disarming of the beggar by giving him work, and making him work, no matter how he comes by his beggary. The government comes in to aid the voluntary efforts, and enacts laws against the asking for alms, and any one offending is in danger of the work colony. The general public are not only cautioned against giving to a pauper, but are informed that it is an actual damage to the State and to the recipient. The government, of course, has nothing to say about the great cause of vagabondism—namely, intemperance. But no one now denies it. It is a confirmed thing, in every rank, that it is beer which makes the 100,000 beggars of the German empire. Various measures have been resorted to in order to cure intemperance. The one adopted in a Hessian town deserves the credit of originality. The name of any person found under the influence of liquor was posted on a public bulletin, so that every passer by, and even the school children, could read it. The effect has been marvelous. Previously, public drunkenness was common there, and even people otherwise respectable were found reeling along the streets. But so great has been the change that public intemperance has been driven from the place.