Everyone worked, everyone had something to do.

Even if one were to search with a lantern, not one idle man or one tramp could have been found.
"I understand," said Pinocchio at once wearily, "this is no place for me! I was not born for work." But in the meantime, he began to feel hungry, for it was twenty-four hours since he had eaten.
What was to be done?
There were only two means left to him in order to get a bite to eat.

He had either to work or to beg.
He was ashamed to beg, because his father had always preached to him that begging should be done only by the sick or the old.

He had said that the real poor in this world, deserving of our pity and help, were only those who, either through age or sickness, had lost the means of earning their bread with their own hands.

All others should work, and if they didn't, and went hungry, so much the worse for them.
Just then a man passed by, worn out and wet with perspiration, pulling, with difficulty, two heavy carts filled with coal.
Pinocchio looked at him and, judging him by his looks to be a kind man, said to him with eyes downcast in shame: "Will you be so good as to give me a penny, for I am faint with hunger ?" "Not only one penny," answered the Coal Man.