Preindustrial European beggars faked orphanhood and ruined-merchant identities for alms

Evidence

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