ask alms

A bat-eared young man with the mournful features of a card player who has aces wired, Murray could not ask alms as a disabled vet, since he had not been in service.

From Time Magazine Archive

A mendicant, but not in rags like others of his kind, and with a dark and sinister countenance, narrowly observing every object around him, entered to ask alms.

From The Betrothed From the Italian of Alessandro Manzoni by Alessandro Manzoni

If any go to ask alms, it must be by appointment of the superiors.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XXX, 1640 by Antonio Alvarez de Abreu

You ask alms and do not even take your hat off.

From Toaster's Handbook Jokes, Stories, and Quotations by C. E. (Clara Elizabeth) Fanning

They would neither own property nor ask alms, but worked at various trades and were thus maintained, with voluntary offerings from the faithful.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55 1521-1569 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century by Emma Helen Blair