Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1874 — A Professional Beggar. [ARTICLE]

A Professional Beggar.

Professional beggars are rare in this city, but now and then the police pick up one who has managed to save consideraJale money by this mode of getting a livelihood. Yesterday morning some officers arrested an oldT woman named Mary Wooley as a professional beggar, and placed her in station No. 3. She is well known in this community, and has been plying her trade for a number of years past. She is a lean, cadaverouslooking woman, seventy-seven years of age, and speaks very broken English. She has been accustomed to walk in a bent, half-crippled manner, pretending to support herself by a heavy stick or crutch. A search of her person showed a necessity for such action on her part. Dangling under her clothes, and fastened around her hips very tightly, was found a bag full of nickles and silver com of different denominations, probably amounting to a couple of hundred dollars, and around the uppor portion of her body were found several similar bags of smaller size containing gold and silver coin. The weight of the one large bag was exactly twenty-four and one-half pounds, and, with the smaller bags, the amount of coin she carried weighed about thirty pounds. This heavy weight was sufficient to give her the appearance of an infirm, crippled old woman, and made it an absolute necessity for her to use a heavy stick or crutch, sometimes both, which she frequently did, in order to support herself in walking. There is an avaricious twinkle in her eyes, which exhibited itself when the money was taken away from her, on her arrest, in an intense unwillingness to part with her treasure. In her hand she carried another bag, which contained a half-loaf of bread, a watermelon, some cold sweet and Irish potatoes, cold meat, and a dish or two. Such food has probably constituted her meals day after day, costing her nothing, while she still gathers in money from charita-bly-disposed people deceived by her pitiful appearance. While in the cell yesterday afternoon she cried loudly for food, as she had not eaten anything the entire morning. When asked if she wanted some of her money taken out and food purchased with it; she vehemently answered no, and earnestly begged the station-keeper not to touch it. The bag which contained the food was opened, and the bread and watermelon given her, which she devoured almost in the twinkling of an eye, showing that she had nearly starved herself. This woman has been brought before court once before, when she was taken away by her daughters, one of whom lives in this city and one in New Albany—both of them unmarried. She herself lives somewhere on Chestnut, near Nineteenth. ,When previously brought before the city court it was proved that she owned a farm in Indiana, and it is said she likewise owns two houses in the city .—Louisville CourierJournal.