Memphis Daily Appeal
Tennessee
May 7, 1861
A system that has long been a curse to northern cities has lately been inaugurated here—we mean the practice of sending little girls out into the streets to beg. As soon as one of these young swindlers—for that is what they are in reality—sees two or three gentlemen conversing together in the streets, she thrusts herself in among them and by pertinacious importunity she interrupts them until she is paid to go away. Rarely, if ever, we have good reason to believe, are these girls—or rather those who compel them to pursue their vicious occupation—really objects of charity. The poor child who is sent out on this soul-destroying business is indeed an object of compassion; but to give her the money she solicits, is to pay those who ill use her to persist in their cruelty. Instead of giving money to these children, the children should be given into custody to the nearest policeman that inquiry may reveal the actual position of those to whom they belong. Yesterday a girl twelve years old, named Mary Anne Moray, was thus placed in custody. It proved that she had a father, who is a shoemaker. Her sister took her from the station house, putting down twenty-five dollars as security for her appearance for examination this morning. In taking the money from her purse she showed not less than fifty to sixty dollars. Do the credulous now see what need there was for the five and ten cent pieces they have kept from the really poor, to give to imposters?