Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 October 24

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October 24

What happens to child beggars after they grow older?

What do their masters do with them after they leave childhood and become adults especially the ones that are completely blind, deformed with sulphuric acid and knives, or missing a limb or two? Not saying they had much of a childhood to begin with since this type of economic activity typically began when they were toddlers but they stop making as much money as they get older since I am sure that people with coins to spare are much more sympathetic to begging children than adult beggars. StellarHalo (talk) 07:01, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• I would assume that many (most?) don’t make it to adulthood. Blueboar (talk) 11:37, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• If they're still poor, they presumably go on to become beggars. Is this a trick question? Matt Deres (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  These children are slaves though. They are begging on the streets not because they choose to do this but only because their owners force them to after having bought/kidnapped and maimed them. My question is what happens to these children once they outlive their usefulness? StellarHalo (talk) 20:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  They become politicians. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  The theme of child beggars who go on to great success is a recurring theme in literature. Kim by Rudyard Kipling is one example. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein is another example. Cullen328 (talk) 01:30, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• Interesting enough, an oft repeated claim [1] [2] [3] [4] is "And when trafficked children get too old to beg effectively, they often graduate into forced prostitution, the black-market organ trade, or other gruesome fates." The wording of the last one varies a bit e.g. other underground activities or even in become suicide bombers in the Pakistani source. Note that the Slate source may be the originator of this specific claim, it seems to be the oldest, but also it's the only one which gives a source for it which is this document 2008 [5]/[6] and I'm not convinced the supporting document really support the claim. While I didn't read it entirety, from what I can tell while it talks about forced begging and trafficking for forced begging, along with trafficking for other purposes including forced prostitution although nothing about the black-market organ trade AFAICT; it doesn't seem to particularly talk about trafficked children being moved into other activities when they get too old. (There is mention of how one victim was sold at a discount because he was getting too old, but this story ends with the victim being arrested for overstaying their visa.) So while I don't doubt all of those happen I also suspect some of them are simply abandoned as they get too old and their captor no longer feels they can use them nor can they find someone to sell them to. As mentioned by others, some may die before then but also some may fall out of their captors control before then including those ones fortunate enough to be rescued, but also for other reasons e.g. in some cases where they are arrested, those who are deported etc. Also it's not clear to me if the OP understands that not all children beggars are under someone else's control. As the mentioned by the 2008 document, street children obviously beg as well even when not under the control of some other party. These street children are vulnerable to being captured and forced into activities including continued begging, but it does not mean it always happens and there's also likely to be varying levels of control and exploitation even when there are other people involved. (See e.g. [7] [8].) In some cases it may also be at a family level and again, there will be varying levels of exploitation and coercion and different things may happen as the child gets too old. Nil Einne (talk) 12:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Has Caesar seen a Unicorn?

I have been reading the comic Asterix and the Griffin. One of his aides talk about Griffin, and Julius Caesar is interested, but also sceptical. He says "On your say-so, I stated in my 'Gallic Wars' that there were unicorns in Germania, which earned me quite a lot of comment in forums". This is, of course, a fictionalized version of Julius Caesar, and the comic is all about satire and counterfactual history, but an editor's note next to the Unicorn comment says "True". Is it true? Did the real Caesar mention unicorns in the Commentarii de Bello Gallico? The article does not say so, but it would be a useless trivia that may not be noteworthy for mention in it anyway. Cambalachero (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• 6.26
• Hyde, Walter Woodburn (1918). "The Curious Animals of the Hercynian Forest". The Classical Journal. 13 (4): 231–45.
• Aili, Hans. "Caesar's elks: interpolation, myth, or fact?" (PDF). Eranos. 105: 4–17. (on authorship question)
• Allen-Hornblower, Emily (December 2014). "Beasts and Barbarians in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum 6.21-8". The Classical Quarterly. 64 (2): 682–693. (WP:Library, see fn# 41)
• Wiener, Leo (1917). Contributions toward a history of Arabico-Gothic culture. pp. 58–9, 240–3.

Based on above i don't think it is useless trivia at all, and some content in De Bello Gallico and Hercynian Forest would be valuable. Aili and Allen-Hornblower seem to have decided that the passages were in fact due to Caesar, but don't know that should be definitive, or if the bos cervi figura reindeer was influenced by the unicorn tradition. So that's a lot of reading that does not really answer your question. fiveby(zero) 13:11, 25 October 2022 (UTC)