It’s just so unbearably judgmental and patronising to decide not to give to a beggar because he or she might belong to the alleged 80% who are trying to fund a drug habit, and because the charities advise us not to do so (On our unruly streets, rich and poor are not so far apart, 17 March). I cannot help feeling that anyone in a position of having to beg, for whatever reason, is in a truly shitty position, so much worse than mine. It’s not up to me to insist on how the begging person is going to use the money I’ve handed over. In the shopping bag I’m carrying back to my warm home there’s likely to be a bottle of wine and maybe some unhealthy snacks and no one’s judging me. Meanwhile, the drug-free 20% (or maybe the drug-using 80% too, depending on where you stand) might still appreciate being accorded some respect and dignity by their fellow citizens, as well as an acknowledgment of their right to handle their money in whichever way they want. Such a position can legitimately co-exist alongside the official charitable and other efforts to tackle these serious problems.
Peter Kaan
Exeter
• Ian Jack raises the age-old objection to giving money to beggars. To which the correct answer is “so what?” Samuel Johnson put it better though. When asked “what signifies, giving halfpence to beggars? They only lay it out in gin or tobacco”, he replied “and why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths.” I’m with Johnson.
Peter Haydon
London
• Ian Jack’s amusing remark that before the 1970s Britain’s drugs and beggars were “only in quantities small enough to look exotic” reminded me – somewhat tangentially – of a category of homelessness which now seems to have vanished entirely. I spend a lot of time in the countryside, often on foot, but cannot remember when I last encountered a real tramp; one of those much-bearded, many-coated gentlemen of the road who used to be as quintessentially part of the British landscape as oak trees and thatch. In fact I think the last one I saw was probably in a mirror.
Jeremy Muldowney
York
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