The word for today is…
cadge (verb) – To beg or get by begging.
Source : The Free Dictionary
Etymology : As long ago as the 1400s, peddlers traveled the British countryside, each with a packhorse or a horse and cart—first carrying produce from rural farms to town markets, then returning with small wares to sell to country folk. The Middle English name for such traders was cadgear; Scottish dialects rendered the term as cadger. Etymologists are pretty sure the verb cadge was created as a back-formation of cadger (which is to say, it was formed by removal of the “-er” suffix). At its most general, cadger meant “carrier,” and the verb cadge meant “to carry.” More specifically, the verb meant to go about as a cadger or peddler. By the 1800s, it was used when someone who posed as a peddler turned out to be more of a beggar, from which arose our present-day use.
On a personal level, I dislike intensely seeing people sitting on the street just waiting for gullible passers by to drop coins into their cup as they sit there chatting on their mobile phones, and smoking.
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