This thread begs the question about the Scot who had just won the lottery.

When asked what he intended to do about all the begging letters, his reply was,

....."Keep sending them of course"

I know about the Beggar makers in India and Egypt, There is a novel by Makfouz Mahguib regarding just this in Egypt.
M

Obviously no pun intended.............

NOVEL ???

we are talking about REAL LIFE here
one country has a Space Programme and operates a nuclear submarine (OK second hand from Russia) but still does nothing about the abuse parents force on their children based on their ability to gain money by begging


next time I want to know about Spain I will have to read a novel on the subject, preferably written by a Brit.

A novel ? A story book ? Domino is a real man and does not read that sort of stuff.

Yes Domino is right in that some countries have not made as much progress from the days of colonialism as we would have expected.
Why have they not irradicated the evils in their society, the practices that we find so distatefull.
It is not as if when these countries were part of the British empire none of this happened.

that's simple - because it is their country and they can do what they want in it
but they seem to be able to tell the UK how they should be doing things as well, even though we find it distasteful.

and considering they are supposedly part of the Commonwealth - to maintain their grants and charity donations - it would be expected they would be a little bit more worried about their image.
but couldn't give a shit about what other people say

Yup, a Novel based on reality in Egypt, in the 1950s I believe. He also won a Nobel prize for literature for his accurate descriptions of life in Egypt and Egyptian society in general.
As for the Nuns etc in Spain, it was quite well documented, a little bit of googling perhaps. Remember that there are ongoing procedings against a lot of nuns and complicit doctors in regard to basically stealing babies from unmarried mothers for rewarded adoption by wealthy families

This thread reminds me of a story I saw on BBC about 10 years ago about beggars in San Francisco. They interviewed several "professional" beggars, one of which was an aspiring actor who played the "role" of a beggar at fisherman's wharf. He was proud to show the beeb how he made as much as $2000 per day using various begging techniques and even had a full set costumes and makeup in his "salon" in his luxury waterfront apartment.

Obviously there's some money to be made, but it seems pretty cheeky when others actually need it.