Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/218

202 holidays, and it is a sight to see the lazy fellows falling to the godsend, licking their fingers and smacking their lips at short intervals.

Hebrew mendicants are not a rare sight in our streets. They are generally females with a troop of children, their own or borrowed for the occasion. It is not an offensive sight, this group of quietly-clamorous "white" beggars. But it is not a credit to the rich and influential class to which the beggars belong. In this respect, as also in another wherein the insensibility of the elders is much more reprehensible, our Hebrew brethren might easily imitate the Parsis. A sort of arrangement was, I believe, attempted some years ago, but the people break loose from it. It also seems that they cannot do without begging and the other vice. In the former avocation, if not in the latter, they have Europeans and Parsis mostly for their patrons.

But let us return to the mendicant proper to India—the indigenous growth. He appears in various guises—the Táin, the Mowlá, the Fakir,