If the Pope could make one half of his subjects hold out their hands, and the other half put a halfpenny into each extended palm, he would effect the salvation of an entire people.
Mendicity, which lay sovereigns regard as an ugly sore in the State, to be healed, is tended and watered as a fair flower by a clerical government.

Pray give something to yonder sham cripple; give to that cadger who pretends to have lost an arm; and be sure you don't forget that blind young man leaning on his father's arm! A medical man of my acquaintance offered yesterday to restore his sight, by operating for the cataract.

The father cried aloud with indignant horror at the proposal; the boy is a fortune to him.

Drop an alms for the son into the father's bowl; the Pope will let you into Paradise, of which he keeps the keys.
The Romans themselves are not duped by their beggars.

They are too sharp to be taken in by these swindlers in misery.