Memphis Daily Appeal
Tennessee
May 12, 1861
We particularly commend the following item to the attention of those who
encourage impostors by giving money to beggars in the streets. Yesterday officer Van Campen having some suspicions that all was not right in the case of Angelo Batti, a cripple who has been engaged in soliciting “charity” from a credulous public, last evening took him into custody. At the stationhouse the keeper, Mr. Olin, on searching him found on him a hundred and fourteen dollars and fifteen cents in gold and silver, certificates of deposit on a bank in New Orleans of three hundred dollars, and an individual note for ten dollars. He was fined twenty-five of his ill-gotten dollars, which he paid and left to seek in a more genial clime more dupes to administer to his avarice.