In barns and tents (according to
census) 20,348
In the mendicants’ houses of London, }
and six other principal }
towns of England and Wales, } 4,813
according to Constabulary }
Commissioners’ Report }
Ditto in 3820 other postal towns, }
averaging each two mendicants’ } 76,400
houses, and ten lodgers to each }
house }
-------
115,108
Deduct five per cent for characters }
really destitute and deserving } 5,755
-------
Total number of habitual vagrants }
in England and Wales } 109,353
The cost of relieving these vagrants may be computed as follows:--On
the night of the 1st of July, 1848, there were 13,547 vagrants
relieved throughout England and Wales; but I am informed by the best
authorities on the subject, that one-third of this number only can be
fairly estimated as receiving relief every night throughout the year
at the different unions. Now, the third of 13,547 is 4515, and this,
multiplied by 365, gives 1,647,975 as the total number of cases of
vagrancy relieved throughout England and Wales during the year 1848.
The cost of each of these is estimated at twopence per head per night
for food, and this makes the sum expended in their relief amount to
13,733_l._ 7_s._ 8_d._
In addition to this, we must estimate the sum given in charity to
the mendicants, or carried off surreptitiously by the petty thieves
frequenting the tramping-houses. The sums thus abstracted from the
public may be said to amount at the lowest to 6_d._ per day for each
of the trampers not applying for relief at the workhouses. In the
Constabulary Report, p. 11, the earnings of the petty thieves are
estimated at 10_s._ per week, and those of the beggars at 3_s._ 6_d._
per day (p. 24). Hence we have the following account of the total cost
of the vagrants of England and Wales:--
Sum given in relief to the }
vagrants at the workhouses } £13,733 7 8
Sum abstracted by them, }
either by begging or } 138,888 11 8
pilfering on the road }
--------------
£152,621 19 4
As five per cent must be }
taken off this for the truly } 7,631 1 8
deserving }
--------------
The total cost will be £144,990 17 8
By this it appears that the total number of professional vagrants
dispersed throughout England and Wales amounts to 47,669. These live at
the expense of the industrious classes, and cost the country no less
than 144,990_l._ 17_s._ 8_d._ per annum. And if the 13,000 and odd
vagrants relieved in the workhouses constitute merely the twentieth
dispersed throughout the country, we have in round numbers nearly
3,000,000_l._ for the cost of the whole.
There are, then, no less than 100,000 individuals of the lowest, the
filthiest, and most demoralised classes, continually wandering through
the country; in other words, there is a stream of vice and disease--a
tide of iniquity and fever, continually flowing from town to town, from
one end of the land to the other.
“One of the worst concomitants of vagrant mendicancy,” says the
Poor-law Report, “is the fever of a dangerous typhoid character,
which has universally marked the path of the mendicants. There is
scarcely a workhouse in which this pestilence does not prevail in
a greater or less degree, and numerous union officers have fallen
victims to it.” Those who are acquainted with the exceeding filth of
the persons frequenting the casual wards, will not wonder at the fever
which follows in the wake of the vagrants. “Many have the itch. I
have seen,” says Mr. Boase, “a party of twenty almost all scratching
themselves at once, before settling into their rest in the straw. Lice
exist in great numbers upon them.”
That vagrancy is the nursery of crime, and that the habitual tramps
are first the beggars, then the thieves, and, finally, the convicts
of the country, the evidence of all parties goes to prove. There is,
however, a curious corroboration of the fact to be found, by referring
to the period of life at which both crime and vagrancy seem to be in
their youth. The ages of the vagrants frequenting the asylums for the
houseless poor, are chiefly between fifteen and twenty-five years old;
and the tables of the ages of the criminals, given in the Government
Returns, show that the majority of persons convicted of crime are
equally young.
The total number of vagrants in the metropolis may be calculated as
follows:--There were 310,058 vagrants relieved at the metropolitan
unions during the year 1848. (I take the metropolitan returns of 1848,
because those for England and Wales published as yet only extend to
that year.) As the vagrants never remain two days in the same place,
we must divide this number by 365, in order to ascertain the number
of vagrants resident at one and the same time in London. This gives
us 849 for the average number relieved each night in the whole of the
metropolitan unions. To this we must add the 2431 tramps residing in
the 221 metropolitan mendicants’ lodging-houses (averaging 11 inmates
each); and the sum of these must be further increased by the 750
individuals relieved nightly at the asylums for the houseless poor
(including that of Market-street, Edgeware-road), for the majority of
these seldom or never make their appearance in the casual wards of the
metropolis, but are attracted to London solely by the opening of the
asylums. Hence the account will stand as follows:--
Average number of vagrants relieved }
night in the metropolitan unions } 849
Average number of vagrants resident in }
the mendicants’ lodging-houses in } 2431
London }
Average number of individuals relieved }
at the metropolitan asylums for the } 750
houseless poor }
----
4030
Now, as 5 per cent of this amount is said to consist of characters
really destitute and deserving, we arrive at the conclusion that there
are 3829 vagrants in London, living either by mendicancy or theft.
The cost of the vagrants in London in the year 1848 may be estimated as
follows:--
£ _s._ _d._
310,058 vagrants relieved at }
the metropolitan unions, at } 2,584 13 0
the cost of 2_d._ per head }
67,500 nights’ lodgings afforded }
to the houseless poor at the }
metropolitan asylums, including } 3,134 1 4-1/2
the West-end Asylum, }
Market-street, Edgeware road }
2,431 inmates of the mendicants’ }
lodging-houses in London, } 44,365 15 0
gaining upon an average 1_s._ }
per day, or altogether per year }
-------------------
£59,084 9 4-1/2
Deduct 5 per cent for the cost }
of the relief of the truly } 2,504 4 5
deserving }
-------------------
The total will then be £47,580 4 11-1/2
It appears, then, that there are 3829 habitual vagrants in the
metropolis, and the cost for their support annually amounts to
47,580_l._ 4_s._ 11-1/2_d._
The number of metropolitan beggars is considerably increased on the
eve of any threatened disturbances, or any large open-air meeting in
London. For several days previous to the Chartist display in 1848,
there was an influx of 100 tramps over and above the ordinary quantity,
each day, at one union alone in the suburbs of London; and the master
assured me that on the night of the meeting on Kennington Common, he
overheard the inmates of the casual ward boasting how they had assisted
in pillaging the pawnbroker’s house that had been broken into that
afternoon.
Well might the master of the Wandsworth and Clapham Union say,
therefore, that the vagrants form one of the most restless,
discontented, vicious, and dangerous elements of society. Of these
we have seen that there are about 100,000 dispersed throughout the
country, 4000 of whom, in round numbers, are generally located in
London. These constitute, in the words of the same gentleman, the main
source from which the criminals are continually recruited and augmented.