The worst class of people which I have met with, since I left Tripoli, are some of these Arabs, who are the most dogged brazen-faced beggars and spongers, banditti in the open day.
"Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846"
James Richardson
In some countries their acquaintance with them is confined to a few spongers, borrowers, and dependents; of a better class of Christian they know nothing.
"The Jewish State"
Theodor Herzl Commentator: Louis Lipsky Alex Bein
But his sort of men have got something that can't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty or the degradation of being spongers and beggars."
"The Deluge"
David Graham Phillips