3. Bad books, which act like the bad companions in depraving the taste,
and teaching the youth to consider that approvable which to all rightly
constituted minds is morally loathsome.
4. Bad amusements--as penny-theatres, where the scenes and characters
described in the bad books are represented in a still more attractive
form. Mr. Ainsworth’s “Rookwood,” with Dick Turpin “in his habit as he
lived in,” is now in the course of being performed nightly at one of
the East-end saloons.
5. Bad institutions--as, for instance, the different refuges scattered
throughout the country, and which, enabling persons to live without
labour, are the means of attracting large numbers of the most idle
and dissolute classes to the several cities where the charities are
dispensed. Captain Carroll, C.B., R.N., chief of police, speaking of
the Refuges for the Destitute in Bath, and of a kindred institution
which distributes bread and soup, says,--“I consider those institutions
an attraction to this city for vagrants.” At Liverpool, Mr. Henry
Simpson said of a Night Asylum, supported by voluntary contributions,
and established for several years in this town--“This charity was
used by quite a different class of persons from those for whom it was
designed. A vast number of abandoned characters, known thieves and
prostitutes, found nightly shelter there.” “The chief inducement to
vagrancy in the town,” says another Report, speaking of a certain
part of the North Riding of York, “is the relief given by mistaken
but benevolent individuals, more particularly by the poorer class.
Instances have occurred where the names of such benevolent persons have
been found in the possession of vagrants, obtained, no doubt, from
their fellow-travellers.”
6. Vagrancy is largely due to, and, indeed, chiefly maintained by the
low lodging-houses.