In Great Britain, there are like three cities where you can be on the dole without having a resident address, so you get really, really high concentrations of panhandlers in all of them, and one of the cities is Oxford. I got really used to completely ignoring panhandlers, and that was only reinforced when I saw one of them shopping at the Co-op, buying more expensive stuff than I was (this does not mean that I'm so naive that I don't think that happens everywhere; I know someone who used to see a panhandler on the corner his work was on who drove home every day in her late-model Mercedes) so I never, never give money to them (I've occasionally considered buying them lunch, if they have a sign indicating that that's what they intend to do with the money, which is most likely a lie).

And despite all that, Sunday was so nice that I gave money to two panhandlers without a qualm in the world.