Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1914 — A Growing Nuisance. [ARTICLE]

A Growing Nuisance.

Rensselaer must certainly be considered an easy mark by all the “panhandlers,” beggars and solicitors tor this and that in the country. Scarcely a day goes by but from one to a half-dozen such people make the rounds of the business houses for donations or appeals for money. Some few —a very few, no doubt —-are deserving, but the fa? greater number are fakes and take this means of securing easy money. Thursday morning, within two hours time, three people of this Jdnd including a woman garbed in the Salvation Army uniform—made the rounds of the business district. Two of the launch were men, one at least apparently able-bodied, but carrying typewritten affidavits that he was afflicted with a tubercular trouble, and they picked up many dimes and quarters here. This sort of thing has become a perfect nuisance, and if one Were to give to everyone who came along he would have nothing left for himself. A good policy to pursue, it would seem, is to turn ’em all down except in the apparently most deserving cases, and like as not then one will be buncoed more often than not.