Some people, for example, pointed out that because there was no longer anyone worse off to feel superior to, previously undealt-with feelings of worthlessness, heretofore tidily packed away in the subconscious when the upswing in the national fortunes began, were wont to resurface. Many parents, meanwhile, bemoaned the lack of opportunities for wagging a finger at a beggar family in order to warn their own children that the life of a beggar girl or boy was all they might expect if they were not to behave at all times according to the rules set down for them in the various institutions that these parents had decided to entrust with the upbringing of their offspring for the next 20 odd years.
Some of those interviewed who were voluntary workers admitted to being lonely, a brave admission it should be noted, and that, as so much of their life had been centred on the homeless, in terms of talking to those less fortunate souls and encouraging them to persist despite their lot, they found themselves, in the absence of their good cause, with far more time on their hands than they might wish for in which to reflect on their own lives, and this with no great satisfaction.
Then there were those who, to a significant degree, were perfectly entitled to regard themselves as pillars of their community, and who had, heretofore, refused point blank to give money to beggars, that decision based on a cast-iron conviction of how the human animal operates in extremis: that such money would end up in the hands of a grasping parent, to be used for purposes for which it was never intended by the giver - chiefly, the purchase of alcohol. And then, overnight, there were no begging faces to stare down; there were no pale-faced children to lecture on how, though such an individual had the financial capability to assist, he or she refused for the very best of reasons to place even so much as a penny in this or that girl's shivering hand.
Strangely, it was these people who seemed most affected by the absence of the beggars. It was as if some rock-solid belief which they had long entertained about human nature had, overnight, dissolved. Some of these even went so far as to express a desire for the return of the beggars in order that some retribution, a small donation, say, might be made, which might just bring a trickle-down benefit to the child should a drunken father, for example, return home in high spirits rather than the more likely murderous mood: crumbs, as it were, from the poor man's table.
Lastly there were the political parties to consider, for the disappearance of the beggars had, ultimately, induced in their ranks that state of collective agitation more closely associated with the imminence of a leadership battle. Sociologists were quick to provide an explanation. Not only had the beggars, they proposed, provided a convenient scapegoat when times were tough for whichever party was in power - an option no longer of course available; but also, a climate of uncertainty unacceptable to both government and opposition followed on from the realisation that, if the beggars were no longer there to be easily dismissed as the bottom rung of the social ladder, then what unsuspecting minority group might be drafted in to take their place? Tellingly, and in line with this contention, rumblings of discontent, effected by the media and members of the public alike, were aimed in turn at non-nationals, at the disabled, and at the Travellers of course, who could always be relied upon to help out in such circumstances. The debate intensified when learned articles were penned suggesting that, if things continued in such a way, with the most despised minority group of the day withdrawing in turn from the public arena after too much vilification, it might not be long before even the wealthy and influential themselves would come to be regarded as the most contemptible.
Perhaps that was the turning point; perhaps, at that stage, those who controlled the mass-media decided that a change of strategy was urgently called for. "Should Beggars Be Choosers?" the quality papers inquired; and, what exactly was the "Beggars Belief"? Had society, the tabloids wondered, previously only been "Paupering Over The Cracks"? And so it was that the Fourth Estate were united in their policy of urging the beggars, for the greater good, to return to the streets. The political establishment too rowed in, promising more lenient legislation in the years to come, with substantial budget-increases for essential services.
For some weeks, nothing happened. The beggars, previously unlooked-for, now could not be found. Whatever boltholes they were hiding in, whatever boarded-up houses, undrained cellars, stale attics, condemned ruins, these were places that polite society knew nothing about, having chosen not to. Even when a beggar was chanced upon, and a measure of pressure applied (for it was suggested that physical violence was used on more than one occasion by members of the public or the police), nothing was revealed. Or if revealed, was found to lead nowhere.
Then, in a celebrated editorial, our leading newspaper of record declared that, in such unusual circumstances, with the homeless and vagrant setting the agenda, a ptochocracy, or rule by beggars, could not be regarded as entirely out of the question. Soon the word was on everybody's lips, enunciated of course with varying degrees of success. It was heard in government buildings, on chat shows and news bulletins, in workplaces and public bars, and even managed to insinuate itself into the occasional weather forecast. A future ruled by beggars was not an impossibility. And that was the moment the beggars chose to return.
In the smallest hours of the coldest morning of that winter, they returned. Women slid their sore bodies down picture windows to rest once more against each dripping store facade; men in the remains of blankets reclaimed each windswept footbridge; and hollow children occupied once again each freezing doorway. It was the return of a tattered army, in the dead heart of winter, and no one witnessed their re-emergence, as if they had just, somehow, all as one, materialised. The beggars were back . . . but not for any obvious reason.
Later investigations would reveal that no matter where it was they were holed up, individually or in groups of whatever size, it was, even if only marginally, a warmer and dryer bivouac than that provided by exposure to conditions on the streets. And food could always be scavenged invisibly by these most adept at spiriting themselves away. There were even hints from those vagrants who agreed to be interviewed that supplies had already been stockpiled in preparation for their strike. No, it seems that whatever shelter they had found was a better place than the place the public wanted them to be. And there, indefinitely, they might have remained.
But then came that word: the prospect of ptochocracy. And the beggars returned. For it had never been their intention, it was never their ambition, and in this they were adamant, to rule over any other human being. No, they were not born to be rulers, the organisers maintained, nor, likewise, to be ruled. And who were, after all, these mysterious ringleaders? Not one of the beggars could properly say. It seemed that they were all, in fact, leaders, at one time or another; and all leaders at the same time too, somehow.
That was a bumper Christmas for beggars. So many people were so delighted, for reasons already itemised, to see them return to their respective pitches, that great generosity was displayed. Of course, once public opinion hardened, early in the New Year, it was assumed that the conditions the beggars had endured whilst away from what was seen as their rightful place in society must have been so appalling as to have driven them back to the relative comfort of the streets, where an overhanging canopy might be expected to deflect the more severe of the weather conditions. And so with almost no fuss did the situation revert to the normal state of affairs which pertains between those who beg and those who don't.
Even so, rumours were to abound that small cells of renegade beggars persisted in living away from conventional society, bedding down in abandoned blockhouses, wintering in disused power-station outbuildings. And that these renegades could be seen scattering from the approach of land-clearing machinery when the great Wharf Reconstruction Programme began. It was even reported that about the body of a number of the usual quota of beggars found frozen to death by the sub-zero savagery of winter, clutched for example in a gangrene-blackened hand, was found a scrap of paper making reference to some mysterious kingdom of beggars, and that such a kingdom of beggars was at hand. But perhaps these were only myths that beggar and non-beggar alike needed for different reasons to believe.
Paul Lenehan 2000