I now come to the characteristics of vagrant life, as seen in the
casual wards of the metropolitan unions. The subject is one of the
most important with which I have yet had to deal, and the facts I have
collected are sufficiently startling to give the public an idea of the
great social bearings of the question; for the young vagrant is the
budding criminal.
Previously to entering upon my inquiry into this subject, I consulted
with a gentleman who had long paid considerable attention to the
question, and who was, moreover, in a position peculiarly fitted for
gaining the greatest experience, and arriving at the correctest notions
upon the matter. I consulted, I say, with the gentleman referred to, as
to the Poor-law officers, from whom I should be likely to obtain the
best information; and I was referred by him to Mr. Knapp, the master of
the Wandsworth and Clapham Union, as one of the most intelligent and
best-informed upon the subject of vagrancy. I found that gentleman all
that he had been represented to me as being, and obtained from him the
following statement, which, as an analysis of the vagrant character,
and a description of the habits and propensities of the young vagabond,
has, perhaps, never been surpassed.
He had filled the office of master of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union
for three years, and immediately before that he was the relieving
officer for the same union for upwards of two years. He was guardian of
Clapham parish for four years previously to his being elected relieving
officer. He was a member of the first board of guardians that was
formed under the new Poor-law Act, and he has long given much attention
to the habits of the vagrants that have come under his notice or care.
He told me that he considered a casual ward necessary in every union,
because there is always a migratory population, consisting of labourers
seeking employment in other localities, and destitute women travelling
to their husbands or friends. He thinks a casual ward is necessary for
the shelter and relief of such parties, since the law will not permit
them to beg. These, however, are by far the smaller proportion of those
who demand admittance into the casual ward. Formerly, they were not
five per cent of the total number of casuals. The remainder consisted
of youths, prostitutes, Irish families, and a few professional
beggars. The youths formed more than one-half of the entire number,
and their ages were from twelve to twenty. The largest number were
seventeen years old--indeed, he adds, just that age when youth becomes
disengaged from parental control. These lads had generally run away,
either from their parents or masters, and many had been reared to a
life of vagrancy. They were mostly shrewd and acute youths; some had
been very well educated. Ignorance, to use the gentleman’s own words,
is certainly not the prevailing characteristic of the class; indeed,
with a few exceptions, he would say it is the reverse. These lads are
mostly distinguished by their aversion to continuous labour of any
kind. He never knew them to work--they are, indeed, essentially the
idle and the vagabond. Their great inclination is to be on the move,
and wandering from place to place; and they appear, he says, to receive
a great deal of pleasure from the assembly and conversation of the
casual ward. They are physically stout, healthy lads, and certainly
not emaciated or sickly. They belong especially to the able-bodied
class, being, as he says, full of health and mischief. When in London,
they live in the day-time by holding horses, and carrying parcels from
the steam-piers and railway termini. Some loiter about the markets in
the hope of a job, and others may be seen in the streets picking up
bones and rags, or along the water-side searching for pieces of old
metal, or anything that may be sold at the marine-store shops. They
have nearly all been in prison more than once, and several a greater
number of times than they are years old. They are the most dishonest
of all thieves, having not the least respect for the property of even
the members of their own class. He tells me he has frequently known
them to rob one another. They are very stubborn and self-willed.
They have often broken every window in the oakum-room, rather than
do the required work. They are a most difficult class to govern, and
are especially restive under the least restraint; they can ill brook
control, and they find great delight in thwarting the authorities of
the workhouse. They are particularly fond of amusements of all kinds.
My informant has often heard them discuss the merits of the different
actors at the minor theatres and saloons. Sometimes they will elect a
chairman, and get up a regular debate, and make speeches from one end
of the ward to the other. Many of them will make very clever comic
orations; others delight in singing comic songs, especially those upon
the workhouse and gaols. He never knew them love reading. They mostly
pass under fictitious names. Some will give the name of “John Russell,”
or “Robert Peel,” or “Richard Cobden.” They often come down to the
casual wards in large bodies of twenty or thirty, with sticks hidden
down the legs of their trousers, and with these they rob and beat those
who do not belong to their own gang. The gang will often consist of
a hundred lads, all under twenty, one-fourth of whom regularly come
together in a body; and in the casual ward they generally arrange
where to meet again on the following night. In the winter of 1846, the
guardians of Wandsworth and Clapham, sympathising with their ragged
and wretched appearance, and desirous of affording them the means of
obtaining an honest livelihood, gave my informant instructions to offer
an asylum to any who might choose to remain in the workhouse. Under
this arrangement, about fifty were admitted. The majority were under
seventeen years of age. Some of them remained a few days--others a few
weeks--none stopped longer than three months; and the generality of
them decamped over the wall, taking with them the clothes of the union.
The confinement, restraint, and order of the workhouse were especially
irksome to them. This is the character of the true vagrant, for whom
my informant considers no provision whatsoever should be made at the
unions, believing as he does that most of them have settlements in or
around London. The casual wards, he tells me, he knows to have been a
great encouragement to the increase of these characters. Several of the
lads that have come under his care had sought shelter and concealment
in the casual wards, after having absconded from their parents. In one
instance, the father and mother of a lad had unavailingly sought their
son in every direction: he discovered that the youth had ran away,
and he sent him home in the custody of one of the inmates; but when
the boy got to within two or three doors of his father’s residence,
he turned round and scampered off. The mother afterwards came to the
union in a state of frantic grief, and said that he had disappeared two
years before. My informant believes that the boy has never been heard
of by his parents since. Others he has restored to their parents, and
some of the young vagrants who have died in the union have, on their
death-beds, disclosed the names and particulars of their families, who
have been always of a highly respectable character. To these he has
sent, and on their visits to their children scenes of indescribable
grief and anguish have taken place. He tells me he is convinced that
it is the low lodging-houses and the casual wards of the unions that
offer a ready means for youths absconding from their homes, immediately
on the least disagreement or restraint. In most of the cases that he
has investigated, he has found that the boys have left home after
some rebuke or quarrel with their parents. On restoring one boy to
his father, the latter said that, though the lad was not ten years
old, he had been in almost every workhouse in London; and the father
bitterly complained of the casual wards for offering shelter to a youth
of such tender years. But my informant is convinced that, even if the
casual wards throughout the country were entirely closed--the low
lodging-houses being allowed to remain in their present condition--the
evil would not be remedied, if at all abated. A boy after running away
from home, generally seeks shelter in one of the cheap lodging-houses,
and there he makes acquaintance with the most depraved of both sexes.
The boys at the house become his regular companions, and he is soon a
confirmed vagrant and thief like the rest. The youths of the vagrant
class are particularly distinguished for their libidinous propensities.
They frequently come to the gate with a young prostitute, and with her
they go off in the morning. With this girl, they will tramp through
the whole of the country. They are not remarkable for a love of
drink,--indeed, my informant never saw a regular vagrant in a state
of intoxication, nor has he known them to exhibit any craving for
liquor. He has had many drunkards under his charge, but the vagrant
is totally distinct, having propensities not less vicious, but of a
very different kind. He considers the young tramps to be generally
a class of lads possessing the keenest intellect, and of a highly
enterprising character. They seem to have no sense of danger, and to
be especially delighted with such acts as involve any peril. They
are likewise characterised by their exceeding love of mischief. The
property destroyed in the union of which my informant is the master has
been of considerable value, consisting of windows broken, sash-frames
demolished, beds and bedding torn to pieces, and rags burnt. They will
frequently come down in large gangs, on purpose to destroy the property
in the union. They generally are of a most restless and volatile
disposition. They have great quickness of perception, but little power
of continuous attention or perseverance. They have a keen sense of the
ridiculous, and are not devoid of deep feeling. He has often known
them to be dissolved to tears on his remonstrating with them on the
course they were following--and then they promise amendment; but in a
few days, and sometimes hours, they would forget all, and return to
their old habits. In the summer they make regular tours through the
country, visiting all places that they have not seen, so that there is
scarcely one that is not acquainted with every part within 100 miles
of London, and many with all England. They are perfectly organised,
so that any regulation affecting their comforts or interests becomes
known among the whole body in a remarkably short space of time. As
an instance, he informs me that on putting out a notice that no
able-bodied man or youth would be received in the casual ward after
a certain day, there was not a single application made by any such
party, the regular vagrants having doubtless informed each other that
it was useless seeking admission at this union. In the winter the
young vagrants come to London, and find shelter in the asylums for the
houseless poor. At this season of the year, the number of vagrants in
the casual wards would generally be diminished one-half. The juvenile
vagrants constitute one of the main sources from which the criminals of
the country are continually recruited and augmented. Being repeatedly
committed to prison for disorderly conduct and misdemeanour, the gaol
soon loses all terrors for them; and, indeed, they will frequently
destroy their own clothes, or the property of the union, in order to
be sent there. Hence they soon become practised and dexterous thieves,
and my informant has detected several burglaries by the property found
upon them. The number of this class is stated, in the Poor-law Report
on Vagrancy, to have been, in 1848, no less than 16,086, and they form
one of the most restless, discontented, vicious, and dangerous elements
of society. At the period of any social commotion, they are sure to be
drawn towards the scene of excitement in a vast concourse. During the
Chartist agitation, in the June quarter of the year 1848, the number of
male casuals admitted into the Wandsworth and Clapham Union rose from
2501 to 3968, while the females (their companions) increased from 579
to 1388.
Of the other classes of persons admitted into the casual wards, the
Irish generally form a large proportion. At the time when juvenile
vagrancy prevailed to an alarming extent, the Irish hardly dared
to show themselves in the casual wards, for the lads would beat
them and plunder them of whatever they might have--either the
produce of their begging, or the ragged kit they carried with them.
Often my informant has had to quell violent disturbances in the
night among these characters. The Irish tramp generally makes his
appearance with a large family, and frequently with three or four
generations together--grandfather, grandmother, father, and mother,
and children--all coming at the same time. In the year ending June,
1848, the Irish vagrants increased to so great an extent that, of the
entire number of casuals relieved, more than one-third in the first
three quarters, and more than two-thirds in the last quarter, were
from the sister island. Of the Irish vagrants, the worst class--that
is the poorest and most abject--came over to this country by way of
Newport, in Wales. The expense of the passage to that port was only
2_s._ 6_d._; whereas the cost of the voyage to Liverpool and London
was considerably more, and consequently the class brought over by that
way were less destitute. The Irish vagrants were far more orderly than
the English. Out of the vast number received into the casual ward of
this union during the distress in Ireland, it is remarkable that not
one ever committed an act of insubordination. They were generally very
grateful for the relief afforded, and appeared to subsist entirely by
begging. Some of them were not particularly fond of work, but they were
invariably honest, says my informant--at least so far as his knowledge
went. They were exceedingly filthy in their habits, and many diseased.
These constitute the two large and principal classes of vagrants. The
remainder generally consist of persons temporarily destitute, whereas
the others are habitually so. The temporarily destitute are chiefly
railway and agricultural labourers, and a few mechanics travelling
in search of employment. These are easily distinguishable from the
regular vagrant; indeed, a glance is sufficient to the practised eye.
They are the better class of casuals, and those for whom the wards
are expressly designed, but they only form a very small proportion of
the vagrants applying for shelter. In the height of vagrancy, they
formed not one per cent of the entire number admitted. Indeed, such
was the state of the casual wards, that the destitute mechanics and
labourers preferred walking through the night to availing themselves of
the accommodation. Lately, the artisans and labourers have increased
greatly in proportion, owing to the system adopted for the exclusion
of the habitual vagrant, and the consequent decline of their number.
The working man travelling in search of employment is now generally
admitted into what are called the receiving wards of the workhouse,
instead of the tramp-room, and he is usually exceedingly grateful for
the accommodation. My informant tells me that persons of this class
seldom return to the workhouse after one night’s shelter, and this is
a conclusive proof that the regular working-man seldom passes into an
habitual beggar. They are an entirely distinct class, having different
habits, and, indeed, different features, and I am assured that they
are strictly honest. During the whole experience of my informant, he
never knew one who applied for a night’s shelter commit one act of
dishonesty, and he has seen them in the last stage of destitution.
Occasionally they have sold the shirt and waistcoat off their backs
before they applied for admittance into the workhouse, while some of
them have been so weak from long starvation, that they could scarcely
reach the gate. Such persons are always allowed to remain several days
to recruit their strength. It is for such as these that my informant
considers the casual wards indispensable to every well-conducted
union--whereas it is his opinion that the habitual vagrant, as
contradistinguished from the casual vagrant or wayfaring poor, should
be placed under the management of the police, at the charge of the
union.
Let me, however, first run over, as briefly as possible, the several
classes of vagrants falling under the notice of the parish authorities.
The different kinds of vagrants or tramps to be found in the casual
wards of the unions throughout the country, may be described as
follows:--“The more important class, from its increasing numbers,”
says Mr. Boase, in the Poor-law Report upon Vagrancy, “is that of the
regular young English vagabond, generally the native of a large town.
He is either a runaway apprentice, or he has been driven from home
by the cruelty of his parents, or allowed by them to go wild in the
streets: in some cases he is an orphan, and has lost his father and
mother in early life. Having no ties to bind him, he travels about the
country, being sure of a meal, and a roof to shelter him at night. The
youths of this class are principally of from fifteen to twenty-five
years of age. They often travel in parties of two or three--frequently
in large bodies, with young women, as abandoned as themselves, in
company.”
Approaching these in character are the young countrymen who have
absconded--perhaps for some petty poaching offence--and to whom the
facility for leading an idle vagabond life has proved too great a
temptation.
The next class of vagrants is the sturdy English mendicant. He, though
not a constant occupant of the tramp-ward in the workhouse, frequently
makes his appearance there to partake of the shelter, when he has spent
his last shilling in dissipation.
Besides these, there are a few calling themselves agricultural
labourers, who are really such, and who are to be readily
distinguished. There are also a few mechanics--chiefly tailors,
shoemakers, and masons, who are occasionally destitute. The amount of
those really destitute, however, is very small in proportion to the
numbers relieved.
Of the age and sex of tramps, the general proportion seems to be
four-fifths male and one-fifth female.
Of the female English tramps, little can be said, but that they are
in great part prostitutes of the lowest class. The proportion of
really destitute women in the tramp-wards (generally widows with young
children) is greater than that of men--probably from the ability to
brave the cold night wind being less in the female, and the love of the
children getting the shelter, above dread of vile association. Girls of
thirteen or fourteen years old, who run away from masters or factory
employment, often find shelter in the tramp-ward.
The Irish, who, till very recently, formed the majority of the
applicants for casual relief, remain to be described. These can
scarcely be classified in any other way than as those who come to
England to labour, and those who come to beg. The former class,
however, yield readily to their disposition to idleness--the
difficulties of providing supper, breakfast, and lodging for themselves
being removed by the workhouse. This class are physically superior
to the mass of Irish vagrants. It appears that for very many years
considerable numbers of these have annually come to England in
the spring to work at hay-harvest, remaining for corn-harvest and
hop-picking, and then have carried home their earnings in the autumn,
seldom resorting to begging. Since the failure of the potato crop
greater numbers have come to England, and the tramp-ward has been their
principal refuge, and an inducement to many to remain in the country. A
great many harvest men land at Newport and the Welsh ports; but by far
the greater proportion of the Irish in Wales are, or were, women with
small children, old men apparently feeble, pregnant women, and boys
about ten years old. They are brought over by coal-vessels as a return
cargo (living ballast) at very low fares, (2_s._ 6_d._ is the highest
sum), huddled together like pigs, and communicating disease and vermin
on their passage.
Harriet Huxtable, the manager of the tramp-house at Newport,
says:--“There is hardly an Irish family that came over and applied to
me, but we have found a member or two of it ill, some in a shocking
filthy state. They don’t live long, diseased as they are. They are
very remarkable; they will eat salt by basins’ full, and drink a great
quantity of water after. I have frequently known those who could
not have been hungry, eat cabbage-leaves and other refuse from the
ash-heap. I really believe they would eat almost anything.”
“A remarkable fact is, that all the Irish whom I met on my route
between Wales and London,” says Mr. Boase, “said they came from Cork
county. Mr. John, the relieving officer at Cardiff, on his examination,
says, ‘that not 1 out of every 100 of the Irish come from any other
county than Cork.’”
In the township of Warrington, the number of tramps relieved between
the 25th of March, 1847, and the 25th of March, 1848, was:--
Irish 12,038
English 4,701
Scotch 427
Natives of other places 156
------
Making a total of 17,322
Of the original occupations or trades of the vagrants applying
for relief at the different unions throughout the country, there
are no returns. As, however, a considerable portion of these were
attracted to London on the opening of the Metropolitan Asylums for the
Houseless Poor, we may, by consulting the Society’s yearly Reports,
where an account of the callings of those receiving shelter in such
establishments is always given, be enabled to arrive at some rough
estimate as to the state of destitution and vagrancy existing among the
several classes of labourers and artisans for several years.
The following table, being an average drawn from the returns for
seventeen years of the occupation of the persons admitted into the
Asylums for the Houseless Poor, which I have been at considerable
trouble in forming, exhibits the only available information upon this
subject, synoptically arranged:--
Factory employment 1 in every 3
Hawkers 4
Labourers (agricultural) 12
Seamen 12
Charwomen and washerwomen 13
Labourers (general) 17
Waddingmakers 35
Smiths and ironfounders 36
Weavers 38
Brickmakers 39
Ropemakers 41
Braziers 55
Papermakers and stainers 58
Skindressers 58
Basketmakers 62
Bricklayers, plasterers, and slaters 62
Gardeners 67
Filecutters 70
Sawyers 73
Turners 74
Wireworkers 75
Cutlers 77
Harnessmakers and saddlers 80
Stonemasons 88
Dyers 94
Chimneysweeps 97
Errand boys 99
Porters 99
Painters, plumbers, and glaziers 119
Cabinetmakers and upholsterers 128
Shoemakers 130
Compositors and printers 142
Brushmakers 145
Carpenters, joiners, and wheelwrights 150
Bakers 167
Brassfounders 177
Tailors 177
Combmakers 178
Coopers 178
Surveyors 198
Fellmongers 203
Glasscutters 229
Bedsteadmakers 235
Average for all London 219
Butchers 248
Bookbinders 255
Mendicants 256
Engineers 265
Miners 267
Lacemakers 273
Poulterers 273
Furriers 274
Straw-bonnetmakers 277
Trimming and buttonmakers 277
Ostlers and grooms 286
Drovers 297
Hairdressers 329
Pipemakers 340
Clerks and shopmen 346
Hatters 350
Tinmen 354
Tallowchandlers 364
Servants 377
Corkcutters 380
Jewellers and watchmakers 411
Umbrella-makers 415
Sailmakers 455
Carvers and gilders 500
Gunsmiths 554
Trunkmakers 569
Chairmakers 586
Fishmongers 643
Tanners 643
Musicians 730
Leatherdressers and curriers 802
Coachmakers 989
Engravers 1,133
Shipwrights 1,358
Artists 1,374
Drapers 2,047
Milliners and dressmakers 10,390
Of the disease and fever which mark the course of the vagrants
wheresoever they go, I have before spoken. The “tramp-fever,” as the
most dangerous infection of the casual wards is significantly termed,
is of a typhoid character, and seems to be communicated particularly
to those who wash the clothes of the parties suffering from it. This
was likewise one of the characteristics of cholera. That the habitual
vagrants should be the means of spreading a pestilence over the country
in their wanderings will not be wondered at, when we find it stated in
the Poor-law Report on Vagrancy, that “in very few workhouses do means
exist of drying the clothes of these paupers when they come in wet, and
it often happens that a considerable number are, of necessity, placed
together wet, filthy, infested with vermin, and diseased, in a small,
unventilated space.” “The majority of tramps, again,” we are told,
“have a great aversion to being washed and cleaned. A regular tramper
cannot bear it; but a distressed man would be thankful for it.”
The cost incurred for the cure of the vagrant sick in 1848, was
considerably more than the expense of the food dispensed to them. Out
of 13,406 vagrants relieved at the Wandsworth and Clapham Union in
1848, there were 332 diseased, or ill with the fever.
The number of vagrants relieved throughout England and Wales in the
same year was 1,647,975; and supposing that the sickness among these
prevailed to the same extent as it did among the casuals at Wandsworth
(according to the Vagrancy Report, it appears to have been much more
severe in many places), there would have been as many as 40,812 sick
in the several unions throughout the country in 1848. The cost of
relieving the 332 sick at Wandsworth was 300_l._; at the same rate, the
expense of the 40,812 sick throughout the country unions would amount
to 36,878_l._ According to the above proportion, the number of sick
relieved in the metropolitan unions would have been 7678, and the cost
for their relief would amount to 6931_l._
Of the tide of crime which, like that of pestilence, accompanies the
stream of vagrants, there are equally strong and conclusive proofs.
“The most prominent body of delinquents in the rural districts,” says
the Report of the Constabulary Commissioners, “are vagrants, and
these vagrants appear to consist of two classes: first, the habitual
depredators, housebreakers, horse-stealers, and common thieves;
secondly, of vagrants, properly so called, who seek alms as mendicants.
Besides those classes who travel from fair to fair, and from town to
town, in quest of dishonest gains, there are numerous classes who make
incursions from the provincial towns upon the adjacent rural districts.”
“The classes of depredators who perambulate the country (says the
same Report) are the vagrants, properly so called. Upwards of 18,000
commitments per annum of persons for the offence of vagrancy, mark the
extent of the body from which they are taken.
“It will be seen that vagrancy, or the habit of wandering abroad,
under colour either of distress, or of some ostensible, though illegal
occupation, having claims on the sympathies of the uninformed,
constitutes one great source of delinquency, and especially of juvenile
delinquency. The returns show that the vagrant classes pervade
every part of the country, rendering property insecure, propagating
pernicious habits, and afflicting the minds of the sensitive with false
pictures of suffering, and levying upon them an offensive impost for
the relief of that destitution for which a heavy tax is legally levied
in the shape of poor’s rates.
“Mr. Thomas Harril, a sergeant of the Bristol police, was asked--‘What
proportion of the vagrants do you think are thieves, that make it a
point to take anything for which they find a convenient opportunity?’
‘We have found it so invariably.’ ‘Have you ever seen the children
who go about as vagrants turn afterwards from vagrancy to common
thieving,--thieving wholly or chiefly?’ ‘We have found it several
times.’ ‘Therefore the suppression of vagrancy or mendicity would be to
that extent the suppression of juvenile delinquency?’ ‘Yes, of course.’
“Mr. J. Perry, another witness, states:--‘I believe vagrancy to be the
first step towards the committal of felony, and I am supported in that
belief by the number of juvenile vagrants who are brought before the
magistrates as thieves.’
“An officer, appointed specially to take measures against vagrancy in
Manchester, was asked,--‘Does your experience enable you to state that
the large proportion of vagrants are thieves too, whenever they come
in the way of thieving?’ ‘Yes, and I should call the larger proportion
there thieves.’ ‘Then, from what you have observed of them, would
you say that the suppression of vagrancy would go a great way to the
suppression of a great quantity of depredation?’ ‘I am sure of it.’”
The same valuable Report furnishes us with a table of the numbers and
character of the known depredators and suspected persons frequenting
five of the principal towns; from which it appears that in these towns
alone there are 28,706 persons of known bad character. According to
the average proportion of these to the population, there will be in
the other large towns nearly 32,000 persons of a similar character,
and upwards of 69,000 of such persons dispersed throughout the rest of
the country. Adding these together, we shall have as many as 130,000
persons of known bad character living in England and Wales, without the
walls of the prisons. To form an accurate notion of the total number
of the criminal population, we must add to the above amount the number
of persons resident within the walls of the prisons. These, according
to the last census, are 19,888, which, added to the 130,000 above
enumerated, gives within a fraction of 150,000 individuals for the
entire criminal population of the country.
In order to arrive at an estimate of the number of known depredators,
or suspected persons, continually tramping through the country, we must
deduct from the number of persons of bad character without the walls
of the prisons, such as are not of migratory habits; and it will be
seen on reference to the table above given, that a large proportion of
the classes there specified have usually some fixed residence (those
with an asterisk set before them may be said to be non-migratory).
As many as 10,000 individuals out of the 20,000 and odd above given
certainly do not belong to the tramping tribe; and we may safely say
that there must be as many as 35,000 more in the country, who, though
of known bad character, are not tramps like the rest. Hence, in order
to ascertain the number of depredators and suspected persons belonging
to the tramping or vagrant class, we must deduct 10,000 + 35,000 from
85,000, which gives us 40,000 for the number of known bad characters
continually traversing the country.
This sum, though arrived at in a very different manner from the
estimate given in my last letter, agrees very nearly with the amount
there stated. We may therefore, I think, without fear of erring greatly
upon the matter, assert that our criminal population, within and
without the walls of the prisons, consists of 150,000 individuals, of
whom nearly one-third belong to the vagrant class; while, of those
without the prison walls, upwards of one half are persons who are
continually tramping through the country.
The number of commitments for vagrancy throughout the country is
stated, in the Constabulary Report, at upwards of 18,000 per annum.
This amount, large as it is, will not surprise when we learn from Mr.
Pigott’s Report on Vagrancy to the Poor-law Commissioners, that “it is
becoming a system with the vagrants to pass away the cold months by
fortnightly halts in different gaols. As soon as their fourteen days
have expired they make their way to some other union-house, and commit
the same depredation there, in order to be sent to gaol again.”
“There are some characters,” say the officers of the Derby Union,
in the same Report, “who come on purpose to be committed, avowedly.
These have generally itch, venereal disease, and lice, all together.
Then there are some who tear their clothes for the purpose of being
committed.”
I shall now give as full an account as lies in my power of the
character and consequences of vagrancy. That it spreads a moral
pestilence through the country, as terrible and as devastating as
the physical pest which accompanies it wherever it is found, all the
evidence goes to prove. Nevertheless, the facts which I have still
to adduce in connexion with that class of vagrancy which does not
necessarily come under the notice of the parish authorities, are of so
overpowering a character, that I hope and trust they may be the means
of rousing every earnest man in the kingdom to a sense of the enormous
evils that are daily going on around him.
The number of vagrants taken into custody by the police, according to
the Metropolitan Criminal Returns for 1848, was 5598; they belonged to
the trades cited in the subjoined table, where I have calculated the
proportionate number of vagrants furnished by each of the occupations,
according to the total number of individuals belonging to the class.
Toolmakers 1 in every 33·9
Labourers 45·9
Weavers 75·6
Cutlers 82·1
French polishers 109·7
Glovers, &c. 112·8
Corkcutters 114·2
Brassfounders 119·1
Smiths 129·1
Bricklayers 143·4
Papermakers, stainers, &c. 188·1
Fishmongers 207·3
Curriers 211·6
Masons 231·4
Tinkers and tinmen 236·3
Sawyers 248·1
Carvers and gilders 250·3
Hatters and trimmers 250·4
Musicians 292·0
Turners, &c. 308·8
Shoemakers 310·5
Surveyors 326·5
Average for all London 334·7
Gardeners 341·8
Tobacconists 344·6
Painters 359·5
Bakers 364·4
Tailors 373·2
Milliners 451·7
Clerks 453·7
Printers 461·6
Sweeps 516·5
Opticians 536·0
Saddlers 542·7
Coach and cabmen 542·8
Glassmakers, &c. 580·5
Butchers 608·0
Laundresses 623·8
Coachmakers 709·3
Grocers 712·2
General and marine storedealers 721·2
Jewellers 922·7
Artificial flowermakers 1025·0
Brushmakers 1077·5
Ironmongers 1177·0
Watchmakers 1430·0
Engineers 1433·3
Dyers 1930·0
Servants 2444·9
Drapers 2456·5
Bookbinders 2749·5
The causes and encouragements of vagrancy are two-fold,--_direct_
and _indirect_. The roving disposition to which, as I have shown,
vagrancy is _directly_ ascribable, proceeds (as I have said) partly
from a certain physical conformation or temperament, but mainly from a
non-inculcation of industrial habits and moral purposes in youth. The
causes from which the vagabondism of the young _indirectly_ proceeds
are:--
1. The neglect or tyranny of parents or masters. (This appears to be a
most prolific source.)