The honorable city council has been informed often and emphatically, fully and credibly that some beggars and beggaresses live a life without fear of God, even lives that are unseemly and unbecoming. Also that there are some who come here to Nuremberg for alms, demanding and taking them, even though they are not needy. And because alms, when they are given, are a particularly praiseworthy, meritorious, virtuous and. good work, and because those that take alms without need or falsely are thereby burdened by a heavy and manifest wrong, the above-named our councilors, to the praise of God but also from necessity, undertake to prevent such dishonesty and danger from swindling whereby poor, distressed persons are deprived from their support by alms. To this end they desire to establish and earnestly command that the following ordinance, avoidance...