The Man with the Twisted Lip is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a man who earns a substantial salary begging on the streets of Victorian London.
The national press has recently reported an increase in the number of rough sleepers in Britain, and yet at the same time it appears that at least some of them are professional beggars - people who are not in fact homeless, but who can earn more money sitting on a cold pavement than they can from working in a nice warm office.
One national newspaper has reported the case of a man who pretended to be homeless, and earned around £12 per hour - nearly double the national minimum wage.
When I visit one of Britain's larger provincial cities before 7am on a cold morning, and see people in sleeping bags, then I really don't think that those people are pretending to be homeless. If they could all earn £12 per hour, then they would make £84 in a seven-hour day. I have just searched online for hotels in that city which charge less than half that much money for a single room, and soon gave up counting.
Nevertheless I don't doubt that not all beggars are geniune. I never give money to beggars, and for many years now I have followed a policy of either giving food rather than money to beggars or of giving money to charities which help the homeless.
As for a certain magazine commonly sold by homeless people, I haven't bought a copy in many years. I used to read it, but there was too much in it that I disliked.
Related previous posts include:
A rent arrears crisis in London
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