text: This is hard to say even now.  I was travelling in China about 10 years ago.  I was in a city near the border where there were a lot of tourists and hence a lot of beggars on the street.\n\nThe beggars were mostly children - perhaps 8 to 12 years old.  What made it worse was that they had babies with them - babies that they left lying on the sidewalk until they saw you coming, then picked them up and ran after you asking for money.\n\nI never heard one of the babies cry and I still wonder how many of them were already dead and where their supply of them came from.  There would be 2 to 4 children (with their babies) on each street I walked.  I only went out the once; I couldn't take it any more.