OCR Text |
Show Peking Child Beggars Bane of Foreigners Even Cairo and Naples cannot compare com-pare with Peking in the number and persistence of the professional beggars who swarm upon the streets and annoy an-noy strangers with their supplications. In Peking the casual tourist will do well to buy a "small dime" coppers before he goes out that means twenty-eight coppers and to distribute a copper here and a copper there. It purchases Immunity from annoyance. The .permanent resident obtains immunity im-munity only by being as "hard-hearted" as the Chinese themselves and never giving. If one lives In Peking for a time and maintains a 'ricksha boy and several servants, one's doorway will not be bothered, for the nuiglcal words "ta boo gay" "He nothing gives" spread rapidly. Recently the doorways of the foreign hotels were beselged fey. swarms of ragged little girls of eight or ten years, each carrying a tiny, walling, naked infant supposedly their starving little sisters. As a matter mat-ter of fact, these little begging girls are all hired, as are also the Infants, by fat, sleek men who control this beggar beg-gar ring aud prey upon ignorant foreigners. |