Preindustrial beggars were masters of manipulating appearance

Evidence

Its most skilled players were to be found among the various beggars of the preindustrial city. Masters of the appearential order, these ingenious individuals “practiced to deceive” in any way that seemed likely to increase their take. And the ways that seemed most likely primarily involved some manipulation of identity. Many of the beggars of the preindustrial city were, of course, exactly what they appeared. But the “others” were something else again. There were those, for example, who stood around crying a good deal, pretending to be “helpless orphans.” There were those who “passed themselves off as merchants ruined by war, by fire or by having been robbed on the highway.” — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 950

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Concrete evidence of the appearential-order mechanism Lofland theorizes elsewhere — historical exemplar of the identification-by-appearance problem.

Related

• Preindustrial beggars manipulated appearances to increase alms (similarity 0.90)
• Preindustrial European beggars faked orphanhood and ruined-merchant identities for alms (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Seventeenth-century French beggars shed crippled disguises at night #exemplifies (0.85) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 953
• Preindustrial urbanites signaled their identity through visible costuming #expands (0.70) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 236