"GOT A PENNY MISTER?"

There is a new scourge along the side-walks of Mount Auburn Street which has become more annoying than that caused by the generality of beggars which one finds everywhere. This latest attack upon the long-suffering undergraduate indulgence comes from a more juvenile and a more persistent source, from the little boys indeed who beg for "just a penny, mister," or the price of an antiquated Collier's Magazine.

But for all its apparent triviality, the moral argument against it is extremely important, whereas hand-organs and old begging women are the ephemeral and trifling evils of every society. The wiser men pass these young beggars scornfully by, push them meaningly out of the way; or stop sometimes to tell them just what little gamins they are to beg in the street. But there are many who are thoughtless enough to encourage their efforts with an extra coin, for back they come in every growing numbers to plead for what they have no right to expect. Not only is this becoming an extreme annoyance to the residents of Mount Auburn Street, but, far more important, it is laying the foundations of shiftlessness in the minds of the boys themselves. It will cease only when the men who have helped to perpetuate it realize that they are contributing not to charity but to youthful degradation.