THE VAGRANCY PROBLEM
THE CASE FOR MEASURES OF RESTRAINT
FOR
TRAMPS, LOAFERS, AND
UNEMPLOYABLES:
With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and
Labour Houses.
BY
WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON
Author of "The Evolution of Modern Germany,"
"German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle,"
"Prince Bismarck and State Socialism,"
"The German Workman," etc., etc.
London:
P. S. KING & SON,
ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER.
1910
"In all ways it needs, especially in these times, to be proclaimed
aloud that for the idle man there is no place in this England of ours.
He that will not work, and save according to his means, let him go
elsewhither; let him know that for _him_ the law has made no soft
provision, but a hard and stern one; that by the law of nature, which
the law of England would vainly contend against in the long run, _he_
is doomed either to quit these habits, or miserably be extruded from
this earth, which is made on principles different from these. He that
will not work according to his faculty, let him perish according to his
necessity; there is no law juster than that....
"Let paralysis retire into secret places and dormitories proper for it;
the public highways ought not to be occupied by people demonstrating
that motion is impossible. Paralytic;--and also, thank Heaven, entirely
false! Listen to a thinker of another sort: 'All evil, and this evil
too, is a nightmare, the instant you begin to _stir_ under it, the
_evil_ is, properly speaking, gone.'"--_Thomas Carlyle_, "Chartism."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PROBLEM STATED 1
II. THE URBAN LOAFER 47
III. DETENTION COLONIES AND LABOUR HOUSES 62
IV. THE BELGIAN BEGGARS' DEPOTS 104
V. THE GERMAN LABOUR HOUSES 133
VI. THE GERMAN TRAMP PRISONS 147
VII. THE BERLIN MUNICIPAL LABOUR HOUSE 166
VIII. TREATMENT OF VAGRANCY IN SWITZERLAND 179
IX. LABOUR HOUSES UNDER THE POOR LAW 193
X. LABOUR DEPOTS AND HOSTELS 212
XI. RECOMMENDATIONS OF RECENT COMMISSIONS 229
XII. APPENDIX I.--THE CHILDREN ACT, 1908,
AND VAGRANTS 250
APPENDIX II.--SPECIMEN WAY TICKETS 253
APPENDIX III.--BELGIAN LAW OF NOVEMBER
27, 1891, FOR THE REPRESSION OF
VAGRANCY AND BEGGARY 257
APPENDIX IV.--REGULATIONS OF THE BERLIN
(RUMMELSBURG) LABOUR HOUSE 263
INTRODUCTION.
There is growing evidence that English public opinion is not only
moving but maturing on the question of vagrancy and loafing, and its
rational treatment. Foreign critics have maintained that we are slow in
this country to listen to new ideas, and still slower to appropriate
them, partly, it has been inferred, from aversion to innovation of
every kind, partly from aversion to intellectual effort. If a national
proneness to cautiousness is hereby meant, it is neither possible to
deny the accusation nor altogether needful to resent it. Yet while
this cautiousness protects us against the evil results of precipitancy
and gives balance to our public life, a rough sort of organic unity
to our corporate institutions and a certain degree of continuity to
our political and social policies, it has also disadvantages, and one
of the chief of these is that it has a tendency to perpetuate hoary
anomalies and to maintain in galvanic and artificial life theories of
public action which are hopelessly ineffectual and effete, if we would
but honestly admit it.
The principles which underlie our treatment of the social parasite
afford an illustration of our national conservatism. Alone of Western
nations we still treat lightly and almost frivolously this excrescence
of civilisation. Other countries have their tramps and loafers, but
they regard and treat them as a public nuisance, and as such deny to
them legal recognition; only here are they deliberately tolerated and
to some extent fostered. Happily we are now moving in the matter,
and moving rather rapidly. A few years ago it was still accepted as
an axiom by all but a handful of sociologists--men for the most part
regarded as amiable faddists, whose eccentric notions it was, indeed,
quite fashionable to listen to with a certain indulgent charity, but
unwise to receive seriously--that there was really only one way of
dealing with the tramp, and that was the way of the Poor Law. That
this was also the rational way was proved by the fact that it had been
inherited from our forefathers, and who were we that we should impugn
the wisdom of the past? And yet nothing is more remarkable in its way
than the strong public sentiment hostile to inherited precept and usage
which has of late arisen on this subject.
It is the object of this book to strengthen this healthy sentiment,
and if possible to direct it into practical channels. The leading
contention here advanced is that society is justified, in its own
interest, in legislating the loafer out of existence, if legislation
can be shown to be equal to the task.
Further justification this book will hardly be held to require at its
writer's hands, but a few words as to its genesis may not be out of
place. It is now some twenty years since I first directed attention to
the Continental method of treating vagrants and loafers in Detention
Colonies and Labour Houses. Repeated visits to institutions of this
kind, both in Germany and Switzerland, together with active work as a
Poor Law Guardian, only served to deepen my conviction that prolonged
disciplinary treatment is the true remedy for the social parasite whose
besetting vice is idleness.
At the Bradford Meeting of the British Association in September, 1900,
I read (before the Economic Section) a paper in which I developed, in
such detail as seemed suitable to the occasion, practical proposals
based, with necessary modifications, upon the result of a study of
Continental methods. This paper was published immediately afterwards
in abbreviated form in the _Fortnightly Review_, and was followed
a little later by a second article in the same place, in which the
proposals advanced were further elaborated. These proposals attracted
great attention at the time; in particular they were discussed by many
of the leading London and provincial journals, and it was encouraging
and significant that while the novelty of the ideas put forward was
admitted, they were all but unanimously endorsed by the Press and
by Poor Law authorities. It is desirable to say that the first three
chapters of the present book are based on, and to a large extent
embody, these writings of ten years ago, though much illustrative
evidence of a later date has been added; the remainder of the volume,
with the exception of one chapter, although dealing with phases of the
subject which I have frequently expounded before, is published for the
first time.
Nevertheless, two of the pleas originally put forward have now
disappeared from my argument, inasmuch as the measures to which they
related have, in the meantime, been realised--one, the establishment of
public labour registries, the other, the prohibition of child vagrancy,
which has been dealt with in that humane law the Children Act of 1908.
As a result of the more serious attention given to the vagrancy
question at that time, the President of the Local Government Board
in 1904 appointed a Departmental Committee of Inquiry, before which
I was invited to give evidence. The reader who takes up this book is
strongly urged to study the Report of the Departmental Committee as
well; it is a most able exposition of the vagrancy problem by serious
investigators who were less concerned to emphasise their individual
predilections than to help on the settlement of the question by uniting
on broad principles of procedure. As the thorough-going recommendations
of the Committee differ but slightly from the proposals which I
advocated before them and here repeat, the value of the present volume
will consist chiefly in the description which it contains of a series
of disciplinary institutions in which other countries are actually
carrying out the methods whose feasibility we are still discussing.
Pressure is happily come from other directions, and particularly
from the new school of Poor Law reformers. The publication of the
Reports of the Poor Law Commission begins a new era in the history of
public relief. The realisation of a constructive policy so large and
fundamental as that which the Commissioners have put forward will
probably prove to be the work of many years; yet whether our advance
on the lines suggested be fast or slow, it must be obvious to everyone
that the question of Poor Law reform is now a living one, and cannot
again fall into the background.
As regards the aspect of Poor Law administration with which this volume
is concerned, all those who have laboured as path-makers in this
undeveloped province of social experiment must derive satisfaction from
the fact that the Commission, simply endorsing the recommendations of
the Vagrancy Committee, regard the disciplinary treatment of loafers of
all kinds as an essential part of any reorganisation of the Poor Law.
For if the deserving poor, the genuine unemployed, and the hopeless
unemployables are to be treated more systematically and more humanely
in the future than they have been in the past, it will be impossible to
withhold from the loafers the special attention which they need.
Although the subject of vagrancy is necessarily approached in these
pages from the standpoint of repression, I should feel that my advocacy
had failed of its purpose if a change of the law simply stamped out
the tramp without making ample provision for the _bona-fide_ work
seeker. I urge the abolition of the casual wards, not merely because
they encourage vagrancy, but also because they are altogether unsuited
to the decent workers who are on the road owing to misfortune, and
not to fault. While accepting the Vagrancy Committee's conclusion
that the retention of the casual wards may be necessary by way of
transition, I look to the time when there will be provided for such
men in sufficiency, and as part of a national system, hostels or
houses of call offering on the easiest possible terms accommodation
superior to that of the shelter, the doss-house, or even the so-called
model lodging-house. This is done on a large scale in Germany and
Switzerland, and it is little creditable to us as an industrial nation
that we are so behindhand in a matter of such great social importance.
The new system of labour registries, by increasing the mobility of
labour, will probably help to bring home to the public mind the need
for these way-farers' hostels. With co-operation on the part of public
authorities, labour organisations, and private philanthropy the cost
should not prove deterrent, while the advantage would be incalculable.
_January 1, 1910_
W. H. D.
THE
VAGRANCY PROBLEM.
CHAPTER I.
THE PROBLEM STATED.
There are two large sections of sociologists who to-day strongly
advocate, the one a radical reform of the Poor Law, the other the
reform of the Prison system. The modern Poor Law reformer would
administer public assistance with greater discrimination, showing more
consideration in the treatment of the unfortunate poor, more rigour in
the treatment of those whose destitution is deliberate and preventable,
more care for the children, with a view to helping them past the
dangers of demoralisation and lifelong intermittent pauperisation. On
the other hand, the prison reformer desires to see the punitive and
retaliatory aspect of imprisonment made subsidiary to the reformative,
or at least he would give to the latter greater prominence than it
receives at present.
Now that concerted endeavours are being made to place both Poor Law
and Prison in the crucible, with a view to recasting them in new and
improved forms, the time would appear to be specially appropriate
for filling up an important gap in our penal system dating from the
reorganisation of the Poor Law in 1834.
The reform which is urged in these pages appears to me to be the
missing link in that long and unique chain of laws and orders and
regulations which has in course of time been constructed for the
purpose of casting round the residual elements of society influences at
once repressive and benevolent, at once deterrent and remedial. While
some of these elements have received attention enough--not always wise,
perhaps, and often defeating its object--one element has never yet
been treated rationally and systematically. I refer to the large and
ever-growing class of idlers, who differ from the genuine unemployed in
that they will neither seek work nor accept it when offered: the drones
of the social hive, the habitual loafers.
We may distinguish in this parasitic class several clearly-defined
types.
(1) There is first the type with which we are most familiar--the nomad
of the highway, who is always in motion yet never gets to his journey's
end, the unmitigated vagabond, who lives by begging and blackmailing
and pillaging.
(2) There is also the settled, resident loafer--an urban type in the
main, though the country village knows him likewise--who haunts the
streets year in year out from morning till evening, living no one knows
how, and whose only purpose in life might seem to be to offer disproof
in his own obtrusive person of that saying of Adam Smith: "As it is
ridiculous not to dress, so it is in some measure not to be employed,
like other persons."
(3) There is also the intermittent loafer, three-quarters idler,
one-quarter worker of a sort, and altogether good-for-nothing, who
is almost invariably an inebriate and often has taken upon himself
domestic responsibilities which he saddles upon the shoulders of a
too-willing community--a character who mostly comes before public
notice in connection with Poor Law prosecutions for arrears of
maintenance.
(4) Not to exhaust the classification, there is a pitiable type for
which we must go to an almost hopeless class of the other sex, a type
which the Poor Law system knows likewise in connection with default
in parental obligations which, but for our exaggerated notions of
the limits of personal liberty, our laws would see to it were never
incurred. For the virtual encouragement which the Poor Law offers to
promiscuous, illegitimate, and irresponsible maternity amongst the
lowest class of society should shock the sense and excite the alarm of
all who are concerned for the moral and mental health of the race.
The idlers of the first two classes keep themselves most persistently
before the public gaze, but in any legislative treatment of their
shortcomings it is desirable that the other types should not be
overlooked, and in these pages the problem of the loafer is viewed as a
whole.
What society must do in its own interest, and in the interest of the
idlers themselves, is to stamp out, as far as well-devised laws can do
it--and we need not be too soft-hearted--the social parasite of every
kind. His existence is a positive injury to the State in every way; he
robs the State not only of the industry which he owes to it, but he
consumes the produce of other people's labour and renders it nugatory,
by abstracting from the wealth of society without adding to it; his
example scandalises honest workers, for while we preach industry and
thrift to the labouring classes, we assiduously foster a huge loafing
class, which preaches more eloquently on a very different text, viz.,
that it pays best to do nothing and sponge on the community; he is a
standing menace to public order and safety; and for society to tolerate
him is not merely to condone, injury done to itself, but absolutely to
place a premium upon social treason of a particularly insidious and
vicious kind.
It is only by the veriest abuse of the modern theory of personal
liberty that the Legislature, which is not slow to restrict the free
action of its citizens in so many ways, has hitherto thrown a paternal
and protecting arm over the loafer and the wastrel. For several
generations we have done little but pet and coddle the loafer; we have
treated his constitutional laziness not as the personal vice and social
crime which it is, but as a venial weakness to be excused and indulged,
while the man himself we have surrounded with a nimbus of maudlin
sentimentality.
Think what we do for the professional idlers. Take the urban type.
While honest men are working we give him the free run of our
thoroughfares, and set apart for him the best of our street corners.
Should he be a vagrant we make it possible for him to travel through
England from the Channel to the Tweed without doing one hour's serious
work save for the labour tasks which are imposed by some of the
workhouses at which he may call. In these institutions--erected at
intervals not too far distant to overtask his strength--food is placed
before him night and morning, with a bed thrown in; while outside he
can always rely upon the alms which he is able to draw from the pockets
of the unwisely charitable whom he deceives with his tales of misery,
or the unwillingly charitable whom he terrorises into compliance with
his demands.
This was not, of course, the old English tradition. The very earliest
of our Poor Laws drew a very clear distinction between the normal
poor--the "aged, poor, and impotent persons compelled to live by alms,"
as they are described in the Act of 1530--and the idle beggar and
vagabond. While provision was made for the due relief of the former,
penal measures were consistently directed against the latter.[1] And
when such methods of repression as the felon irons, the stocks, the
whip, serfage, and transportation no longer commended themselves to
the public conscience, there remained the method of summary despatch
home to the town or village of legal domicile in the custody of zealous
parish constables who relieved the monotony of their dignified calling
with many a pleasurable jaunt over country in those old leisurely
days. But the noteworthy thing about the old laws against vagrants
is that their uniform purpose--whatever their effect--was not the
mere restriction of this class within due numerical bounds, or the
regulation of its movements within decorous limits of liberty, but its
absolute extinction. In those brave days the idea of maintaining the
vagrant at the public expense, and of encouraging him in idleness and
vice, never occurred to the Legislature.
[Footnote 1: An Act of 1495 (11 Henry VII.) ordered local authorities
to search for all "vagaboundes, idell and suspecte persones lyvyng
suspeciously," to put them in the stocks for three days, giving
them bread and water only, and then to turn them out of the town or
township; failing their departure they were to be put in the stocks for
six days more, yet still they had to go.
An Act of 1530 (22 Henry VIII.), said in the preamble to be due to the
increase of vagrancy, and consequently of crime and disorder, enjoined
whipping as an alternative to the stocks, and extended the statute to
fortune tellers; a second offence by the latter was made punishable by
whipping on two successive days, three hours in the pillory, and the
loss of one ear.
An Act of 1535 (27 Henry VIII.) made further provision for the
able-bodied and infirm poor, but meted severer punishment to the
ruffler, sturdy vagabond, or valiant beggar, who on a second
apprehension might have the upper part of the right ear cut off, and on
conviction at Quarter Sessions of "wandering, loitering, and idleness,"
might be sentenced to death as felons.
The preamble of the Act of 1547 (1 Edward VI.) lamented that earlier
legislation on the subject of vagrancy "hath not had that successe
which hath byn wished, partelie by folishe pitie and mercie of them
which shoulde have seen the said godlie lawes executed, partelie by the
perverse nature and longe accustumed idlenes of the parsons given to
loytringe." Accordingly this Act provided that those who would not work
nor "offer themself to labour with anny that will take them according
to their facultie, and yf no man otherwise will take them doo not offer
themself to worke for meate and drynck," also those who ran away from
their employment, should be taken as vagabonds before two justices of
the peace, who might order them to be branded on the breast with a V
and "adjudge the said parsone living so idelye to such presentour to
be his slave" for two years. Should the slave run away during the two
years he was liable on recapture to be branded on cheek and forehead
with an S, and be adjudged a slave for ever, while to run away a second
time was felony punishable with death. If private persons failed to set
the law in motion the local justices were to do so.
In 1572 (14 Elizabeth) a law was passed enjoining that sturdy beggars
found begging should be "grevouslye whipped, and burnte through the
gristle of the right eare with a hot iron," unless some one would take
them into service for one year; a second offence was to be treated as a
felony unless some one would take them into service for two years; and
a third offence was made felony without benefit of clergy.
An amending Act of 1597 omitted the provisions as to branding
and ear-marking, but branding with a R in the left shoulder was
reintroduced for incorrigible or dangerous rogues in 1603 (1 James
I.). (Branding continued to be legal until 1713.) The Act of 1597 also
enjoined banishment for dangerous rogues who refused to reform their
lives, and an Order in Council of 1603 particularised the countries
to which they should be sent--East and West Indies, France, Germany,
Spain, and the Netherlands. The same power to banish was reasserted
by a law of 1662, the destination being now "any of the English
plantations."
One of the most sensible of the earlier repressive laws was that of
1702-3 (2 & 3 Anne) for the increase of seamen and encouragement of
navigation, which empowered justices of the peace to send rogues and
vagabonds to "Her Majesty's Service at Sea."]
We have so whittled down the laws on vagrancy and idleness, however,
that there are now only two ways in which it is possible to convict
and punish the tramp and loafer as such. The law regards as "idle
and disorderly persons" such persons, being able wholly or in part
to maintain themselves or their families by work or other means, who
wilfully refuse or neglect so to do, by which refusal or neglect they
or their families whom they may be legally bound to maintain become
chargeable to the public funds; also any persons wandering abroad or
placing themselves in public places, highways, courts, or passages,
to beg or gather alms, or causing or procuring children so to do,
and the penalty in such cases is imprisonment with labour up to one
calendar month, though should a fine be imposed instead of imprisonment
hard labour must not be adjudged for default in payment. The law also
regards as "rogues and vagabonds" such persons wandering abroad and
lodging in any barn or outhouse, or in any deserted or unoccupied
building, or in the open air or under a tent or in any cart or waggon,
not having any visible means of subsistence, and not giving a good
account of themselves, and the penalty is imprisonment with labour
for a period not exceeding three calendar months, though on a second
conviction such offenders may be imprisoned with hard labour as long as
one year.
So runs the law, and in theory it does not seem ineffectual; in
practice it is wholly so. For the penalties visited on "rogues and
vagabonds" are virtually annulled by the care which the Poor Law has
taken to allow these offenders to evade apprehension. A vagrant may
be as "idle and disorderly" as he likes by day, so long as he pursues
his irregular life undetected but at night he has only to present
himself at the handiest workhouse, and he is forwith certified to be a
deserving citizen, and is lodged and fed at the public expense.
And even about the enforcement of the penal provisions against the
tramp, when his native wit and cunning fail him, and he is caught
in the meshes of the law, there is an unreality and a frivolity
which brings both the statute and its administration into disrepute.
Nine-tenths of the "idle and disorderly persons," of the "rogues and
vagabonds," who come before the justices of the peace are hardened
offenders, who know more about the county gaols of the country than
the most experienced of Prison Commissioners; yet the view which
most commonly prevails in the police courts is that so long as the
itinerant mendicant is sent on his way, and is thus got safely out of
the district, expedience if not justice is satisfied. To be fair to our
justices, it should be remembered that this blind-eyed administration
of the law is no modern innovation. It is really only a survival of
the ancient custom, already alluded to, of harrying vagabonds from
parish to parish--often after a rigorous application of the whip, but
in any case after a blood-curdling warning from the local justice,
duly followed by a special commination from the parish constable on
his own account--lest they should by any mischance fall upon poor
funds to which they had no domiciliary claim. The result, however, is
the same now as of old. The tramp takes his admonition, and, if need
be, his punishment, with stoical indifference, and continues a tramp.
The offence is condoned or corrected, as the case may be, but the
offender knows that he is free to commit it again--at his peril, of
course--directly the law has done with him, and that in the bathroom of
the casual ward he may each evening purge the day's offences, and so
begin anew on the morrow his career of licensed crime.
Who shall wonder, then, that our past indulgent treatment of the
vagrant has had the effect of perpetuating and multiplying this class?
The dictum of wise Sir Matthew Hale, uttered just two and a half
centuries ago, is as true to-day as ever: "A man that has been bred up
in the trade of begging will never, unless compelled, fall to industry."
As for the casual ward itself, it was to a large extent an accident
of legislation, and certainly it was not contemplated when the Poor
Law was reformed in 1834. The great constructive measure of that
year, introducing the existing type of workhouse, made no reference
to vagrants. The Act presupposed only the relief by the new Boards of
Guardians of the settled poor. "But," the Departmental Committee on
Vagrancy write, "when workhouses had been established vagrants applied
for admission to them, representing themselves to be in urgent need of
relief. The masters of workhouses had no means of investigating the
facts and had to deal with each case on their own responsibility. At
that time workhouse inmates who had no settlement were maintained at
the expense of the parish in which the workhouse happened to be; this
made the relief of the vagrant in the workhouse more difficult, and
workhouse masters were pressed by the Guardians to refuse such cases
altogether. In 1837 the Poor Law Commissioners, on being appealed to by
the Commissioners of Metropolitan Police with regard to the question,
expressed the opinion that it was the intention of the Act that all
cases of destitution should be relieved, irrespective of the fact that
the applicant might belong to a distant parish. They stated that it
was the duty of the relieving officer to relieve casually destitute
wayfarers and of the workhouse master to admit such cases to the
workhouse. These cases were distinguished from beggars by profession,
who were to be dealt with under the Vagrancy Act of 1824."[2] In 1838
the Commissioners issued instructions to the Boards of Guardians in
the Metropolis pointing out their duties in regard to the relief of
the casually destitute, and suggesting the adoption of arrangements
for securing the performance by them of task work, and the following
year a further Circular threatened with instant dismissal officers who
neglected to relieve cases of urgent casual destitution. In this way
the right of the vagrant to admittance became asserted: "as a class
vagrants came to be recognised by the Central Authority, who from this
time issued a series of circulars and orders dealing with them directly
or indirectly." As a natural result between 1834 and 1848 vagrancy
increased to an alarming extent in all parts of the country.
[Footnote 2: Report, Vol. I., p. 9.]
It is interesting to recall the fact that as late as 1840 the Poor Law
Commissioners, though the vagrancy evil was steadily growing, were
"convinced that vagrancy would cease to be a burden if the relief given
to vagrants were such as only the really destitute would accept."
Hence they recommended that the Central Board should be "empowered
and directed to frame and enforce regulations as to the relief to be
afforded to vagrants." An Act of 1842 empowered Boards of Guardians
to prescribe a task of work for persons relieved in the workhouse "in
return for the food and lodging afforded," though no one was to be
detained against his will for more than four hours after breakfast on
the morning following admission, which meant that the casual might
do little or much, according to his whim. The same year the Poor
Law Commissioners ordered the setting apart of separate wards for
casuals, prescribed special diet for them, and regulated the task-work
system. Meantime, the vagrant proved himself more and more the master
of the Board of Guardians; his claim to relief having been admitted,
he settled down to the view that the casual wards were convenient
houses of call, intended the better to facilitate his roaming life,
and this view was implicitly accepted by Poor Law authorities. More
than anything else, therefore, the casual ward is responsible for the
present perplexities of the vagrancy problem.
One of the first acts of the new Poor Law Board of 1848 was to inquire
into the extent of the casual pauper nuisance and the causes of the
abuse of casual relief; and overlooking the fact that the Boards of
Guardians had been forced to accept the vagrant against their will,
it blamed these bodies and told them that a remedy must be sought
"principally in their own vigilance and energy." Among the measures
recommended were (1) the refusal of relief to able-bodied men not
actually destitute; (2) the employment of police officers as assistant
relieving officers for vagrants, and (3) the adoption of a system of
passes and certificates (restricted as to time and route) to be issued
"by some proper authority" to persons actually in search of work. The
first two of these recommendations were widely acted upon, though lack
of uniformity in policy seriously hampered the efforts of those Boards
of Guardians which honestly tried to do their duty.
Of the later measures introduced in the vain hope of checking vagrancy
three are specially noteworthy:--
(1) A Poor Law Board Circular of 1868 and a General Order of 1871
recommending the introduction of the separate cell system.
(2) The Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act of 1871 empowering
Boards of Guardians to detain casual paupers for the following times:
If a pauper had not previously been admitted within one month, until
11.0 a.m. on the day following admission; if he had already been
admitted more than twice within a month, until 9.0 a.m. on the third
day after admission. The Casual Poor Act of 1882 extended the periods
of detention as follows: First admissions during the month, until
9.0 a.m. on the second day following admission; second and further
admissions during the month, until 9.0 a.m. on the fourth day.
(3) An Order of December 18, 1882, making admission to a casual ward
dependent upon the order of a relieving officer or an assistant
relieving officer, except in urgent cases. In effect it is well known
that nearly all cases are urgent.
Considering now the extent of the vagrant population, using the
term in its wider signification, and not confining it to the casual
paupers[3] who are particularly enumerated in Poor Law statistics,
the admission must be made at the outset that the data available are
very inconclusive. It seems desirable first to call attention to the
limitations of strictly official information on the subject. Since 1848
a count of the vagrants relieved in casual wards has been made by order
of the Local Government Board on January 1 and July 1 in each year;
since 1890 there has also been a count of vagrants relieved on the
nights of January 1 and July 1; and since 1904 a count has been taken
each Friday night.
[Footnote 3: "Casual pauper" is defined in the Pauper Inmates Discharge
and Regulation Act of 1871 as "any destitute wayfarer or wanderer
applying for or receiving relief" in the casual wards.]
According to the Annual Report of the Local Government Board for 1908
the average number of casual paupers relieved in England and Wales on
each Friday night of that year was 11,491, comparing with an average of
10,401 for the year 1907; the maximum number was 13,798 on August 22
and the minimum 8,341 on July 4. The average relieved on Friday nights
in London alone during the year was 1,114. A further return of the
number of persons in England and Wales in receipt of relief on January
1, 1909, shows that the casual paupers numbered 15,852, 1,420 being
relieved in London unions and 14,432 in provincial unions. As to these
numbers, however, the Local Government Board state:--
"These are the total numbers of casual paupers entered in the returns
as relieved on January 1, 1909. The total number relieved on the night
of January 1, was 9,747. To what extent the former totals include
twice over persons who received relief in more than one union on the
same day is not ascertainable, and it is possible that the total of
the paupers relieved on the night of January 1, although omitting many
casual paupers who, after their discharge from the workhouse in the
morning, did not again have recourse to the Poor Law on the same day,
is the more reliable."[4]
That the vagrant population, even enumerated in this partial manner, is
increasing is shown by the following table, showing for a period of ten
years the number of casuals relieved during day and night on January
1:--
---------+--------------------------
| Casual Paupers Relieved.
+-------------+------------
Year. | At any time | On the
| during | night of
| January 1. | January 1.
---------+-------------+------------
1899 | 13,366 | 7,499
1900 | 9,841 | 5,579
1901 | 11,658 | 6,795
1902 | 13,178 | 7,840
1903 | 14,475 | 8,266
1904 | 15,634 | 8,519
1905 | 17,524 | 9,768
1906 | 16,823 | 9,708
1907 | 14,957 | 8,346
1908 | 17,083 | 10,436
---------+-------------+------------
It would appear from these figures that a certain relationship exists
between vagrancy and trade cycles. Of the years of maximum vagrancy,
1904, 1905, and 1908 were years of more or less acute unemployment,
while those of minimum vagrancy, 1900, 1901, and 1902, were years of
good or fairly good trade. That the fact of an inter-relationship
between vagrancy and the state of trade cannot be pressed unduly,
however, is proved by the comparatively narrow limits within which,
allowing for increase of population, the figures move. Certainly the
figures afford no _prima facie_ justification for supposing that trade
depression causes any considerable number of genuine workmen to join
the highway population.
[Footnote 4: "Annual Report" for 1908, p. 10.]
Poor Law statistics, however, fail entirely to do justice to the extent
of the vagrancy problem. They show the number of vagrants relieved at
one time and in one way only; but all vagrants do not receive public
help at the same time, and the total number on the road is far larger
than the number who call at the workhouses. As to this the testimony
of Poor Law Inspectors and all who have studied the vagrancy question
at close quarters is unanimous. "A very large number, probably the
majority, of vagrants seldom come to the vagrant wards," wrote Mr. J.
S. Davy, as Poor Law Inspector for Sussex, Kent, and part of Surrey.[5]
"It ought to be remembered," says another Inspector, "that the vagrants
admitted to the vagrant wards represent only a very small percentage of
the vagrants of the country."[6]
[Footnote 5: Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1902-3, p.
57.]
[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, Report of Mr. P. H. Bagenal, p. 147.]
The Departmental Committee on Vagrancy of 1904 endorse this view:--
"The returns of pauperism published annually by the Local Government
Board give figures relating to casual paupers, that is, vagrants
relieved in casual wards, but these represent only a small portion of
the total number of vagrants.... The vagrant is to be found in many
places--on the road, in casual wards, common lodging houses, public
or charitable shelters, and prisons, besides which he has many other
resorts, such as barns, brickworks, etc. Then, again, the number of
homeless wayfarers varies greatly from time to time, and at different
periods of the year, owing to conditions of trade, the state of the
weather, or the attraction of seasonal employments."[7]
[Footnote 7: Report of Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, Vol. I., p.
16.]
Although a simultaneous census of the entire vagrant population has
never been taken, certain data exist which furnish the basis for at
least an approximate estimate. Several of these will be mentioned.
(1) Up to 1868 yearly returns were collected by the Home Office from
the different police forces of England and Wales showing the number of
vagrants of all kinds known to them. The number on the latest date,
April 1, 1868, was 38,179, against 32,528 on April 1, 1867. The number
of persons relieved in the casual wards of the country on January
1, 1867, was 5,027, and on January 1, 1868, 6,129, showing that the
"casual paupers" at that date represented only about one-sixth of the
total vagrant class. If the same proportion to population still held
good to-day the number of vagrants of all kinds, based on the mean
of the known number of casual paupers on January 1 of the five years
1904-8, viz., 9,355, would be about 56,000.
(2) In the county of Gloucester a count has been made for many years on
a night of April of the numbers sleeping in casual wards and in common
lodging houses, and the results show that the lodging-houses contain
five times as many vagrants as the casual wards. Allowing for vagrants
who sleep out of doors, the ratio would not seriously differ from that
shown by the police enumeration already mentioned. Applying to the
whole country the number of vagrants per thousand of the population of
Gloucestershire, the nomad army would be shown to be 30,000. It should
be remembered, however, that Gloucestershire is a county of small
towns, and lies away from the great streams of population; hence it
should not feel the full effect of the vagrant movement.[8]
(3) An enumeration made on March 17, 1905, by the chief constable
of Northumberland, by means of police officers placed at the most
important points, of vagrants on the roads between the hours of 7.0
a.m. and 7 p.m. gave a total of 300 (exclusive of Newcastle and
Tynemouth), equal to about 1 per 1,000 of the population of the area
covered. On this basis he placed the number of vagrants in England
and Wales at 36,000. Here the omission of two important towns largely
invalidates computation; their inclusion would unquestionably give a
much higher ratio.
[Footnote 8: "In point of distribution through the country vagrancy
is found to cling to the Metropolis and its neighbourhood, and to the
manufacturing and coal and iron mining districts; it follows also the
track of the navvy when any new works of importance are in progress."
Report of Poor Law Commission, Vol. II., pp. 161, 162.]
(4) A careful census of vagrants, beggars, migratory poor, etc., is
taken by the police for each county, city, and burgh police district in
Scotland on two nights in the year, in June and December, showing the
number of these persons in (1) prisons or police cells, (2) homes and
refuges, hospitals and poorhouses, (3) common lodging-houses or other
houses, (4) public parks, gardens or streets, outhouses, sheds, barns,
or about pits, brick and other works. The two counts of 1908 gave the
following result:--
Men. Women. Children. Total.
June 21 6,815 1,843 1,541 10,199
December 27 6,129 1,391 986 8,506
This was equal to 2.1 and 1.8 per 1,000 of the population respectively,
and if these ratios were applied to England and Wales they would
represent aggregates of 76,000 and 63,000.
(5) An enumeration of homeless persons in the administrative County
of London, made by the London County Council on the night of January
15, 1909, showed a total of 2,088. On that night there were also
1,188 persons in the casual wards of London, and 21,864 in the common
lodging-houses and shelters, of whom 10 per cent. were supposed to
belong to the vagrant class. This would give a total of 5,462 vagrants
as follows:--homeless (sleeping out and walking the streets), 2,088;
in casual wards, 1,188; in common lodging-houses and shelters, 2,186;
total, 5,462. As the population of the administrative County of London
at the date named was estimated at 4,795,757, this total is equal to a
ratio of 1.14 per 1,000 of the population. The same ratio for England
and Wales would give a vagrant population of about 41,000.
(6) Dr. J. R. Kaye, Medical Officer of Health for the West Riding
of Yorkshire, in a report upon the influence of vagrancy in the
dissemination of disease, published in 1904, estimated the roving
population at 36,000. He has, at my request, explained the basis of his
calculation as follows:--
"The estimate of 36,000 refers to England and Wales, and it includes
the inmates of casual wards and nomads of the same class who inhabit
alternately the casual wards and the common lodging houses according
to the state of their pockets. The county police here (West Riding),
make an annual census of tramps, and the figure comes out at about
1,000 persons, of whom about 200 are in the casual wards on any given
night. Now the Local Government Board reports give the casual-ward
population of England and Wales at about 10,000, so that if the same
proportions hold good there should be about 50,000 wanderers. Or, on
the other hand, if you take our ascertained 1,000 in the county area
in relation to our population of 1,249,685, and apply the ratio to the
population of England and Wales, we get a figure of 26,000. My figure
of 36,000 comes about mid-way between the two estimates given above."
(7) A final estimate which may be quoted is that made at the request
of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy on the night of July 7,
1905, by the various police forces in England and Wales of persons
without a settled home or visible means of subsistence: (_a_) in common
lodging-houses; and (_b_) elsewhere than in common lodging-houses or
casual wards. The result was as follows:--
(_a_) In common lodging-houses 47,588
(_b_) Elsewhere than in common lodging-houses
or casual wards 14,624
______
62,212
These totals were made up of:--
(_a_) (_b_)
Men 41,439 10,750
Women 4,869 2,436
Children 1,280 1,438
______ ______
47,588 14,624
In the opinion of the Vagrancy Committee, a considerable deduction must
be made from the number returned for common lodging-houses, though, on
the other hand, it appears from some of the returns that many vagrants,
who would otherwise have been in tramp wards or common lodging-houses,
were at the time engaged in temporary work such as fruit-picking and
harvesting, and so were not included in the count. Further, an addition
of about 10,000 is necessary to include the vagrants in casual wards.
The Committee came to the conclusion that the census could not be
accepted as "a trustworthy guide to the actual number of vagrants," and
their Report contains the following guarded verdict:--
"The number of persons with no settled home and no visible means of
subsistence probably reaches, at times of trade depression, as high a
total as 70,000 or 80,000, while in times of industrial activity (as
in 1900) it might not exceed 30,000 or 40,000. Between these limits
the number varies, affected by the conditions of trade, weather,
and economic causes. In our Inquiry we are more concerned with the
habitual vagrant, that is, the class whom trade conditions do not
affect. Of this class there is always an irreducible minimum, though
successive depressions of trade may increasingly swell the numbers. No
definite figures as to this permanent class can be obtained, but we
are inclined to think that the total number would not exceed 20,000 to
30,000."[9]
[Footnote 9: Report of Vagrancy Committee, Vol. I., p. 22.]
It may be added that the estimates of the vagrant population made by
witnesses who gave evidence before this Committee ranged from 25,000 to
70,000.
The mean of all the seven estimates put forward above, as
approximations only, is about 50,000, which is probably below rather
than above the actual number in normal times. The estimates differ so
widely, however, as to shake one's faith in the possibility of arriving
at a safe figure except by a special census on even more comprehensive
lines than those which underlay the Home Office enumerations up to 1868.
But even when the casual wards, model lodging-houses, shelters, and
other resorts of the roaming poor have been enumerated, the full extent
of the vagrant population is not told.
According to a statement made by the Prison Commissioners to the
Vagrancy Committee, 3,736 out of 12,369 convicted male prisoners on
February 28, 1905, were, in the opinion of the prison governors,
"persons with no fixed place of abode and no regular means of
subsistence"; and of 2,595 convicted female prisoners, 372 answered the
same description. In other words, one-fourth of the prison population
belonged at that date to the vagrant and loafing class.
The prosecutions in England and Wales for vagrancy offences in the
narrower sense--begging, sleeping out, misbehaviour by paupers, and
theft or destruction of workhouse clothes--fluctuated as follows during
the ten years 1898-1907:--
---------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | Theft or
Year. | Begging. | Sleeping-out. | Misdemeanour | Destruction
| | | by Paupers. | of Workhouse
| | | | Clothes.
------|----------|---------------|--------------|--------------
1898 | 15,474 | 9,582 | 3,769 | 589
1899 | 12,659 | 8,515 | 3,632 | 615
1900 | 11,339 | 7,452 | 3,717 | 457
1901 | 14,492 | 9,101 | 5,118 | 576
1902 | 16,184 | 9,598 | 5,959 | 726
1903 | 19,283 | 10,349 | 6,496 | 841
1904 | 23,036 | 11,785 | 7,436 | 937
1905 | 26,386 | 12,636 | 6,314 | 1,005
1906 | 25,083 | 11,540 | 5,176 | 1,016
1907 | 23,023 | 11,164 | 4,633 | 852
---------------------------------------------------------------
At whatever figure we place the vagrant population, there is little
doubt that the number tends to increase. The Vagrancy Committee frankly
accept this view.
"The army of vagrants has increased in number of late years," they
state, "and there is reason to fear that it will continue to increase
if things are left as they are. It is mainly composed of those who
deliberately avoid any work, and depend for their existence on
almsgiving and the casual wards; and for their benefit the industrious
portion of the community is heavily taxed. We are convinced that the
present system of treating casual paupers neither deters the vagrant
nor affords any means of reclaiming him, and we are unanimously of
opinion that a thorough reform is necessary."[10]
[Footnote 10: Report of Vagrancy Committee, Vol. I., p. 1.]
As to the class of men who frequent the casual wards the great mass,
both in town and country, are unquestionably unskilled labourers,
though nearly all trades contribute a share, larger or smaller, to
the sum total of vagrancy. A classification of the men relieved in
the casual wards of Hitchin and Brixworth during twelve months ending
September, 1906, showed the following result:--[11]
--------------------------+----------+-----------
Occupations. | Hitchin. | Brixworth.
--------------------------+----------+-----------
Labourers | 3,830 | 222
Painters | 226 | 14
Grooms | 157 | 12
Bricklayers | 144 | 12
Shoemakers | 133 | 13
Fitters }| | 9
Rivetters }| 123 | --
Boilermakers }| | --
Tailors | 108 | 5
Carpenters and joiners | 106 | 9
Printers and compositors | 74 | --
Stokers, firemen, etc. | 70 | 3
Seamen | 60 | 4
Moudlers and drillers | 58 | --
Gardeners | 37 | --
Clerks | 36 | --
Engineers | 34 | --
Bakers | 33 | --
Harnessmakers and saddlers| 31 | --
Porters | 27 | --
Blacksmiths, etc. | 25 | --
Sawyers | 25 | --
Plasterers | 24 | --
Masons | 22 | --
Silversmiths | -- | 3
Other trades | 446 | 16
+----------+-----------
Total | 5,829 | 322
--------------------------+----------+-----------
[Footnote 11: Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1906-7, pp.
292, 293.]
The following classification of the casuals admitted into the wards of
a rural union, unnamed, is published by the Poor Law Commission:--[12]
-----------------------------------------------
Occupations. | 1905. | 1906. | 1907.
--------------------|--------|--------|--------
Navvies | 552 | 772 | 613
General labourers | 404 | 485 | 489
Carters | 62 | 56 | 61
Carpenters | 42 | 6 | 37
Masons | 38 | 42 | 48
Grooms | 37 | 40 | 60
Seamen | 34 | 28 | 48
Fitters | 24 | -- | 20
Shoemakers | 23 | 24 | 36
Firemen | 15 | 21 | 31
Tailors | 13 | 16 | 11
Gardeners | 12 | 12 | 8
Miners | 12 | -- | --
Bakers | 4 | 13 | 13
Clerks | 11 | 8 | 38
Ironmoulders | 11 | 5 | 16
Blacksmiths | 9 | -- | 13
Other occupations | 142 | 57 | 69
Professional tramps | 70 | 25 | 66
|--------|--------|--------
Total | 1,512 | 1,610 | 1,673
-----------------------------------------------
[Footnote 12: Report, Vol. III., p. 507.]
Of 450 men admitted into the casual wards of the Skipton-in-Craven
workhouse during the period September 1 to November 12, 1904, 50 were
aged and infirm, while 250 described themselves as general labourers,
and 150 as tradesmen.
The classification of the latter was as follows:--
Tailors 30
Joiners 15
Mechanics 12
Bricklayers 12
Painters 12
Masons 12
Spinners 12
Weavers 12
Butchers 9
Colliers 8
Printers 8
Shoemakers 8
It must be granted, of course, that every highway wanderer is
not a loafer, and that the workhouse casual ward itself offers a
rude hospitality to many a decent wayfarer who is deserving of a
better fate, though a good deal of misapprehension exists on this
subject. There is no means of learning the percentage of _bona-fide_
work-seekers amongst that section of the vagrant population which
fights shy of poor relief, but when one enters the casual ward it is
possible at once to divide the sheep from the goats. Those who theorise
upon the basis of intuition, and much more those who confuse the voting
of other people's money with Christian charity, are apt to conclude
that, as a matter of course, the casuals "in a lump" are not "bad,"
but only unfortunate, and deserve all such relief as is afforded them.
It would be futile to deny to the most habitual of vagrants the power
to impress even the case-hardened listener by fiction which is a good
deal stranger than truth, by doubtful emotions and still more doubtful
morals. Let appeal be made, however, to the trained observation of the
Poor Law clerk and the weather-beaten soul of the workhouse master,
and a different story will be learned. Some years ago I questioned all
the Poor Law authorities of Yorkshire on the subject; half the answers
placed the number of the genuine work-seekers at 5 per cent. of the
whole, though in special cases a much higher percentage was allowed.
The Vagrancy Committee, on the evidence placed before them, estimated
the proportion of genuine work-seekers at 3 per cent. of all casual
paupers.
These figures are in keeping with all we know of the experience of
the Poor Law Inspectors who report from year to year to the Local
Government Board upon the vagrancy question. To quote one opinion only
by way of illustration:--
"The more I see of the vagrant class the more strongly I am impressed
with the conviction that the number of those really in search of work
is relatively very small. Over and over again I have gone into the
casual wards and have, in answer to my question, been told by the
vagrants that they were all seeking work but could not find any; but
when I have pointed out that farmers were everywhere advertising for
hands, they had nothing to say, except, perhaps, that farm labour
did not suit them. In the agricultural districts it may be said,
generally, that enough labourers can rarely be obtained, and the local
newspapers are scarcely ever without advertisements for them. No doubt
some of the able-bodied paupers know nothing of farm work, and if they
can be enticed to labour colonies, which would teach them, agriculture
may gain, but there is a large demand for absolutely unskilled men
which they refuse to supply. For example, last summer, a tradesman in
a small town in Somerset asked the master of the workhouse to send him
half-a-dozen labourers, to whom he would give permanent employment
for 18s. a week. Six of the occupants of the casual wards professed
themselves as eager to accept this offer, but, on leaving the
workhouse in the morning, all but one slipped away. That one remained,
and has been earning his 18s. a week ever since, but the other five
have presumably found begging more profitable."[13]
[Footnote 13: Annual Report of the Local Government Board for 1902-3;
report of Mr. H. Preston Thomas upon the counties of Cornwall, Devon,
&c., pp. 164, 165.]
The Local Government Board, as we have seen, have endeavoured to check
vagrancy by urging Boards of Guardians to adopt the cell system, and
to impose upon the casuals systematic labour tasks proportioned to the
frequency of their visits. Yet though the cell system has been pressed
upon workhouse authorities since 1868, so far only two-thirds of them
have adopted it. As to the labour task, the Local Government Board
advise that vagrants should, as a rule, be detained for two nights and
required to perform a full day's work, but that the period of detention
should be extended to four nights in the case of those who seek
admission twice within the same month.
There is no general practice to this effect, however, for every union
follows its own devices for making the life of the tramp hard or easy
as the case may be, and in the absence of a uniform policy, few unions
take the question of vagrant regulations seriously. The average Board
of Guardians attacks all its problems on the line of least resistance,
and the line of least resistance in dealing with the tramp is to follow
the advice of the incomparable constable Dogberry, and get him out of
sight as soon as possible, thanking God that it is rid of a knave.
The reports of Poor Law Inspectors have for years abounded with
complaints of absence of uniformity in the treatment of vagrants and of
the evil results of the existing state of anarchy. To quote several of
recent date:--
"While many unions have adopted the Local Government Board's
suggestions, others have ignored them. It is useless for one union to
take steps for driving casuals away from their workhouses simply to
plant them on others."[14]
"There is a want of uniformity as regards detention and the task of
work in the various casual wards, and it is worthy of notice that at
Loughborough, where the guardians, after a short trial of two nights'
detention, decided to revert to a one night's detention only, the
number of vagrants has increased from 10,751 in 1906 to 12,058 in
1907."[15]
"There is a great want of uniformity in the treatment of vagrants
as regards accommodation, detention, diet and tasks of work, and
guardians are naturally averse to taking any action involving expense
pending legislation on the subject."[16]
"Some mitigation of the evils of vagrancy might be possible if
guardians fully exercised the powers possessed by them. No uniform
practice prevails. The system of a two nights' detention, with the
imposition of an adequate task, is uncommon in this district. Some
kind of task is prescribed in the majority of vagrant wards, but
for the most part vagrants are released the following morning after
admission. Here and there the regulations are enforced with beneficial
results. Guardians are, perhaps, apathetic or disinclined to detain
more often, because they are not enabled to deal effectively with this
class owing to insufficient accommodation. A system of two nights'
detention, combined with proper discretion and supervision on the part
of the workhouse master, has generally been followed by a diminution
in the number of vagrants, but an absence of any such similar practice
in neighbouring unions largely defeats these good results. Vagrants
simply avoid these wards, and pass on to those where the restrictions
are less severe."[17]
[Footnote 14: Mr. G. A. F. Hervey, writing of Norfolk and Suffolk.
Report for 1902-3, p. 67.]
[Footnote 15: Mr, G. Walsh, reporting on Leicestershire, Lincolnshire,
etc. Report for 1907, p. 332.]
[Footnote 16: Mr. R. J. Dansey, writing of the Midland Counties. Report
for 1908, p. 71.]
[Footnote 17: Mr. G. Walsh, writing of the counties of Leicester,
Lincoln, Nottingham, etc. Report for 1908, pp. 77, 78.]
As the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy say:--
"It is much easier for a workhouse master, or the superintendent
of the casual ward, to allow vagrants to discharge themselves on
the morning after admission without labour, than to detain them,
and insist upon their doing the regulation task of work, and the
discretion which is left to the officers with respect to the discharge
of certain classes of vagrants results in a complete variety of
practice."[18]
[Footnote 18: Report, Vol. I., pp. 32, 33.]
Again:--
"Where a union carries out the regulations as to detention and task
of work there is always a reduction in the number of admissions to
their casual wards, but the evidence before us shows that severity
of discipline in one union may merely cause the vagrants to frequent
other unions."[19]
[Footnote 19: _Ibid._, Vol. I., p. 28.]
In London, according to the evidence given before that Committee:--
"Some guardians do not detain, some give one task, some another, and
some practically none at all.... Some Boards of Guardians say the
casuals are working-men honestly looking for work, and there is no
doubt they are, but they know where they are going to get it. When
they leave, they know to what casual ward they are going, and whether
they are going to break stones or pick oakum. The consequence is, that
the London vagrants flock to Poplar, Thavies Inn, and the other wards
where detention and work are not enforced, or where only a light task
is given."[20]
[Footnote 20: Report, Vol. I., p. 30.]
All experience shows that the frequency with which vagrants visit given
parts of the country is in exact proportion to the comfort or otherwise
of the casual wards, and a change either way means a difference in the
number of loafers entertained. "If a tramp likes the ward he is there
again within the month, and perhaps in a fortnight," was the verdict of
a witness before the Poor Law Commission.
"The slightest relaxation with reference to the quantity or quality of
food given in workhouses leads immediately to an increase of vagrants,"
writes a Poor Law Inspector.[21]
[Footnote 21: Mr. J. S. Davy. Report of the Local Government Board for
1902-3, p. 57.]
Another Inspector, explaining decreases in the numbers of vagrants in
some of his districts, says:--
"A small cause will apparently divert the vagrant stream from its
usual course. Where a change of master has taken place, or where gruel
has been substituted for bread and water, or _vice versa_, there has
frequently occurred, very rapidly, a large increase or decrease in the
numbers applying for admission to the casual wards where these changes
have taken place."[22]
[Footnote 22: Mr. J. W. Thompson. Report for 1908, p. 43.]
An illustration of tramp susceptibility to the attractions of
the dietary is related by the Poor Law Inspector for Cumberland,
Lancashire, and Westmorland, as follows:--
"In 1908 ... the guardians of the Leigh Union decided in the autumn
to make an improvement in the dietary at their casual wards, a
proceeding in which they did not invite the co-operation of other
Boards of Guardians. The result was an influx of vagrants into the
union, which swamped the accommodation, and rendered administration
impossible. The admission to the Leigh casual wards for the first six
months of the year had shown an increase of 33 per cent., as compared
with 1907; in the second half of the year, the comparative increase
was 164 per cent. The comparative increase for the latter half year in
Lancashire as a whole was under 30 per cent., and none of the unions
adjoining Leigh showed an increase greater than 60 per cent."[23]
[Footnote 23: Mr. A. B. Lowry, Local Government Board Report for 1908,
p. 82.]
Only those who have had practical experience of Poor Law work know
how fastidious the tramp is in the choice of his involuntary tasks.
In connection with the casual wards of a Board of Guardians of which
I was for many years a member the task imposed was breaking 13 cwts.
of stone. We added to this task the riddling and wheeling away of the
stone. The result was that many tramps would come to the door, read
the regulations, and walk off, while others, who entered and asked
what they would have to do, would at once leave with "No, thank you."
Several tramps resolutely argued the illegality of the extra task with
the master, and tried to evade it.
It may be said that the case advanced against the vagrant up to this
point rests upon negative grounds. Even were he an idler and a parasite
and nothing worse, however, he has no claim to be tolerated. Those who
tell us that vagabonds and loafers form, after all, an insignificant
proportion of the population, and that the Poor Law holds out severer
problems for our solution, forget or undervalue the fact that every one
of these people is a centre of moral contagion. To ignore them because
they are a small minority in society is just as rational as it would
be to ignore gangrene because its effects are local only, or a plague
because its victims are as yet few in number. Each of these loafers
creates imitators. On the highways he is a walking advertisement of the
advantages of idleness; in the model lodging-house, the night shelter,
the wayside inn, he acts the part of recruiting sergeant for the great
army of sloth and vice.
The vices of the vagrant, however, are by no means all of a negative
order. From the standpoint of public security and order it is
intolerable that the known criminals, which the majority of tramps
are, should be afforded every facility for following their irregular
calling. Incidents like the following, cited at random, are of weekly
and almost daily occurrence in all parts of the country, and bring
home better than argument the folly of our present method, or lack of
method, of treating the tramp and loafer:--
"An attack on a lady in a lonely country road, between the Potteries
and Leek, has been reported to the local police. The lady, who lives
near Dunwood Hall, had been visiting an invalid, and on her way home
was waylaid by a tramp, who attempted to rob her. A severe struggle
took place, during which the lady was viciously handled. In the end
the tramp was frightened by something and decamped."
"At the Mansion House, a plasterer was charged with vagrancy and
assault. On Tuesday night the prisoner knocked at the door of St. Mary
Aldermary Rectory, and applied for assistance. The rector's butler,
after consulting the rector, told him to go away, whereupon he struck
him in the mouth, cutting it, and loosening two of his teeth. The
rector went to his man's assistance, and the prisoner placed himself
in a menacing attitude and attempted to strike him, saying that he
would have his rights. The prisoner placed his shoulder against
the door and prevented it being shut. Ultimately he was given into
custody.... Sentenced to six weeks' hard labour."
The reports of Poor Law Inspectors frequently illustrate this aspect of
the vagrancy problem. To quote from one only:--
"Another aspect of vagrancy, peculiar to rural districts, is the
sense of insecurity which is created in the minds of people living in
remote localities. Sometimes methods of threats and intimidation are
resorted to enforce demands when it is safe to do so. Truculent and
insubordinate, as is proved by his frequent appearances before the
magistrates for refusing to perform his allotted task, he is a burden
to the community, and a nuisance alike to the police and to the Poor
Law authorities."[24]
[Footnote 24: Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1908; report
of Mr. G. Walsh for Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, etc., pp. 78, 79.]
The laxity with which the law against mendicancy is enforced is
notorious, and upon this question also the reports of Poor Law
Inspectors contain interesting reading. "It is impossible," wrote Mr.
J. S. Davy several years ago, "to deal adequately with the question
(of vagrancy) without having regard to the mode in which the police
carry out their obligations under the statute, and the action of
magistrates when vagrants are charged before them. There are obvious
difficulties in the way of the police laying too much stress either
on the apprehension of beggars or the prevention of sleeping out, and
these difficulties affect magistrates, who occasionally discourage the
police from proceeding against offenders under the Vagrancy Act."[25]
[Footnote 25: Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1902-3, p.
57.]
Another Poor Law Inspector wrote in 1906:--
"With regard to the punishment of vagrant offenders, it is very
unfortunate that there is so little uniformity in the sentences in
Leeds. While the stipendiary magistrate gives, as a rule, lenient
sentences, the West Riding magistrates deal more rigorously with those
who come before them. There seem to be no fixed principles governing
the cases."[26]
[Footnote 26: Mr. P. H. Bagenal in Annual Report of the Local
Government Board, 1906, p. 337.]
The following extract is taken from a Yorkshire newspaper of April,
1903:--
"Three labourers of no fixed abode (it is the police constable's
well-known euphemism for a vagrant), were charged at Skipton with
begging at Kelbrook. The prisoners fairly took the village by storm.
They were singing and shouting, and swore at women who would not
relieve them. One of them kicked a door, and their conduct generally
was altogether disgraceful. After they had collected 3-1/2d., they
went to the public-house and asked to be supplied with a quart of beer
for that amount. The girl who was in supplied them for the sake of
quietness, and after drinking the beer the men went out, collected the
same amount, came back, and demanded another quart for 3-1/2d. The men
were sent to gaol for fourteen days each."
Very outrageous, of course, yet very common, and also very natural. For
given the implicit licence to beg, why not give the tramp also the
licence to spend the proceeds of begging in his own way, and if he gets
drunk and is violent, is it not the fault of those who furnished the
money? But "fourteen days!" There is the true irony of the incident.
For the same men probably served fourteen days a month before, and
would serve fourteen days a month later, since the vagrant's time is
notoriously divided pretty equally between the gaol and the highway.
If, however, our penal laws are intended to be not merely punitive, but
also, and mainly, reformatory, a system which consists of sending men
into and out of prison at more or less regular intervals is obviously
futile and childish. It is the obligation to work which these men, and
tens of thousands like them, need to come under. Dislike of regular
labour makes them tramps, tramping makes them criminals--the two
conditions are inseparably connected as cause and effect, for their
kinship lies in the very constitution and instincts of human nature,
and the police laws which ignore it are engaged in an encounter from
which they must of necessity emerge foiled and beaten. They may hide
the tramp for a time from view, but they will not cure him; the very
iteration of the futile penalties which are imposed upon him only
confirms him in the conviction that vagrancy, mendicancy, rowdyism,
and blackmailing are venial offences, the commission of which society
almost takes for granted, since it has arranged that they may be
compounded for upon terms so easy as to amount to open incitement to
illegality.
"Evidence is available on all hands, both from magistrates and from
those connected with the administration of the Poor Law," the Vagrancy
Committee of the Lincolnshire Quarter Sessions of 1903 write, "that the
present short-term sentences, especially in view of the improved prison
dietary, are a treatment of no deterrent value.... If the present
methods are not deterrent, the evidence is also clear that neither are
they reformatory. If the man _bona-fide_ out of work and seeking work
be excluded, a very large proportion of those convicted for vagrancy
are found to be habituals. Many of these cases are either mentally or
physically below the normal standard, and it is obvious that such cases
cannot be successfully dealt with during the very short periods for
which they are brought under the prison influence."
The Committee cite one notorious case in which between December 8,
1881, and October 23, 1903, a period of under twenty-two years, a man
of thirty-seven years had been sentenced to imprisonment thirty-one
times in Lincolnshire, and after he had done all continued an
unprofitable servant. His sentences were as follows:--
Sentence of seven days 5 times.
" ten days 2 "
" fourteen days 9 "
" three months 12 "
" six months 1 "
" twelve months 2 "
An interesting feature of these sentences was the way in which shorter
and longer sentences alternated. In another case a man of thirty years
had been sentenced twenty-three times within five years, _viz._,
between July 14, 1898, and June 29, 1903, as follows:--
Sentence of seven days 6 times.
" ten days 3 "
" fourteen days 4 "
" one month 2 "
" six weeks 1 "
" three months 5 "
" six months 2 "
To quote the words of the Prison Commissioners:--
"The elaborate and expensive machinery of a prison, whose object is to
punish and at the same time to improve by a continuous discipline and
applied labour, cannot fulfil its object in the case of this hopeless
body of men who are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and who, from long
habit and custom, are hardened against such deterrent influences as a
short detention in prison may afford."[1]
Moreover, our medical authorities are at last on the track of the
tramp, and none too soon, for several recent epidemics have convinced
them that he is one of the most proficient disseminators of disease.
The following incidents, all relating to the last wide-spread epidemic
of small-pox, are typical of his services to society in this respect:--
[27]"A tramp who was making his way through the Lake District was
found lying by the roadside near Ullswater on Sunday evening in an
advanced state of smallpox. He was removed to a smallpox hospital, and
it was ascertained that he had been infected by another tramp, who is
now in the Penrith Hospital." (_March 5, 1903._)
[Footnote 27: Report for the year ended March, 1905.]
"At Northwich three more begging cases were dealt with. The chairman
said tramps were mainly responsible for the smallpox prevalent in the
district. Cheshire was infested, and if vagrancy could be put down
they intended to do it."
"Smallpox has broken out in a somewhat serious form at Barking, and
several families have been removed to the isolation hospital. The
outbreak is attributed to a tramp, who was found lying in the roadway
at Ripplesdale with a severe attack of the disease."--(_May 19, 1903._)
How disease is disseminated by tramps is graphically told in the
following newspaper paragraph relating to the epidemic above referred
to:--
"On December 20, 1902, a tramp named ---- entered Doncaster Workhouse.
He said he came from Worksop way; had been sleeping out; had not
had any food for three days; and complained of aches and pains all
over him. He was isolated as much as possible in an end ward of the
Workhouse Infirmary. On December 26, he was found to be suffering
from small-pox, and immediately removed to the Small-pox Hospital.
Four inmates who had been in contact with the case were isolated and
re-vaccinated, and a nurse, also re-vaccinated, was told off to attend
to them, and not allowed to go near the other inmates.
"On January 8, a second case of small-pox occurred in the workhouse.
This inmate, it appears, had sorted the clothing of the first case.
He complained of illness on January 4, and developed the disease
on January 8. The amount of trouble that was given in isolation,
re-vaccination, and disinfection must have been very considerable, and
must all be debited to the tramp who introduced the disease."
The report for 1903 of Dr. J. R. Kaye, the West Riding of Yorkshire
Medical Officer of Health, stated:--
"Yorkshire towns have had such a visitation of smallpox, that we read
with interest the part played by the tramp genus in spreading it. Last
year there were 144 cases of the disease in the West Riding. In nearly
every centre affected, the tramp was responsible for its introduction.
Thus we find at Keighley, where the greatest number of cases occurred,
the infection was brought by a man who had been 'on tramp' seeking
employment. The 15 cases at Barnsley were attributed to tramps of the
lodging-house class. A recent investigation has shown that out of 138
towns having cases of small-pox, in no less than 100 its introduction
was attributed to persons of the same class. At Sheffield, out of 28
importations, 21 were brought about by tramps, and at Huddersfield,
8 out of 13 invasions were traced to similar channels. It is
significant, that in districts away from the main roads trodden by
these nomads, small-pox was unknown. Clearly something will have to
be done with this highly objectionable person if we are not to have
small-pox always with us."
In a paper on "Tramps and the Part they Play in the Dissemination of
Smallpox," read in July of the same year at the Sanitary Institute's
meeting, Dr. Kaye said:--
"In the recent prevalence of small-pox, some 12,000 cases have
occurred in the provinces (since January, 1902), and experience all
over the country shows that the most subtle agency of distribution
is not to be found in the close commercial intercourse of our
communities, but in the wanderings of the relatively insignificant
number of people whom we designate tramps."
As a result of the discussion which followed, it was resolved to
request the Government to "take into consideration the necessity for
legislation to deal more effectually with those resorting to common
lodging-houses and workhouse tramp-wards, as a constant and dangerous
element in the propagation and dissemination of smallpox."
The following year Dr. H. E. Armstrong, Medical Officer of Health
for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, published an elaborate report on the same
epidemic, based upon inquiries addressed to the Medical Officers of
Health throughout the country. As a result of the epidemic, which began
in the latter part of 1901, and lasted the two following years, 25,341
cases occurred. As to their origin, Dr. Armstrong came to the following
conclusions:--
(1) Of the 126 districts from which returns were received, 111 had
been invaded by small-pox in the epidemic, and in 57 or 51 per cent.
of these, the disease was first introduced by vagrants. In 25 of these
latter districts spread of infection from vagrants occurred.
(2) Small-pox was introduced secondarily by vagrants into 58
districts, and, perhaps, into two other, at least 305 times. Such
secondary introductions of infection took place with the following
frequency:--
Number of Times Number
Infection was of
Introduced. Districts.
1 11 or 12
1 or 2 1
2 11 or 12
3 5
4 5
5 3
6 3
7 2
8 7
9 7
9 or 10 7
11 7
12 7
13 7
23 4
24 4
31 4
34 4
(3) It was found that the vagrants were housed in the workhouse in 41
districts, and in common lodging-houses in 58. The number of cases
of small-pox occurring in these lodging-houses was 'at least 606,'
and probably more, though 19 districts reported that the disease was
introduced into common lodging-houses (169 with 165 cases) otherwise
than by vagrants.
(4) In 35 districts there was reason to believe or suspect that
infection had been carried elsewhere by vagrants leaving those
districts--in most cases twice or more.
(5) Infection was first introduced by vagrants into 58 per cent. of
the 63 large towns to which the inquiries extended, and was carried
sooner or later into 72 per cent. of these towns, and on an average
about five times to each. The disease had been taken to 30 workhouses
and about 70 common lodging-houses, causing a large number of fresh
cases, but had been of comparatively slight prevalence in such houses
when not brought there by vagrants.[28]
[Footnote 28: Report on Small-pox in relation to Vagrancy in England
and Wales during the year 1903, by Dr. H. E. Armstrong, Newcastle.]
So, too, at the meeting of the Sanitary Institute, held on February 7,
1903, at Manchester, Dr. E. Sergeant, Medical Officer of Health to the
Lancashire County Council, reported that "The spread of smallpox was
owing most largely to the vagrant class," and he claimed that "these
parasites should not be allowed to go about the country spreading
disease, and it was very little to ask that they should be vaccinated,"
for it seems that under present legislation, while the parasite can
require you to support him, you cannot require him to protect himself,
much less you, against infectious disease!
Furthermore, guardians of the poor have become increasingly alive to
the fact that one of the most difficult tasks which they have hitherto
had to discharge, in the administration of the existing law, will
compel them before long to face this wider problem: I refer to the
question of child vagrancy. For oftentimes the tramp has both wife and
children, and unless a benevolent public interposes and relieves him of
their maintenance, they accompany him on his wanderings. Passing over
the humane aspect of the question, I would ask: What does this ghastly
parody of family life mean? It implies that where there is one vagrant
now there will in all human probability be two, three, four, a few
years hence. Calling attention to the fact that during the year 1908
3,899 children were admitted to vagrant wards, the Report of the Local
Government Board remarks:--
"Debarred from education and all that is essential to the formation of
settled habits, they are subjected to great hardships, and it would be
strange if, under such conditions, they did not become bound to the
road."[29]
[Footnote 29: Annual Report for 1908, p. 79.]
Our forefathers recognised three and a half centuries ago that vagrancy
was hereditary, for an Act of 3 & 4 Edward VI. (1550), reciting that
"many men and women going begging carried children about with them,
which, being once brought up in idleness, would hardly be brought
afterwards to any good kind of labour or service," gave _carte
blanche_ to any person willing to appropriate such children and bring
them up to honest labour till the age of eighteen years if boys, or
fifteen if girls. It may be said that this was legalised kidnapping,
and that our modern way of dealing with the children of tramps is
better. For we have got so far as to recognise that the liberty of
vagrant parents to drag their offspring round the country is a vicious
liberty, and should not be tolerated, though we are not agreed on
preventive measures. The Poor Law Acts of 1889 and 1899 empower Boards
of Guardians, under certain specified circumstances, to assume and
exercise parental rights over the children of pauper parents, and the
Children Act, 1908, prohibits child vagrancy under penalty, and makes
provision for placing in public or other suitable custody the children
of persons who are unfit to discharge parental duty.[30] These statutes
do not interfere with parents' liability to maintain their children,
though in other hands, yet the enforcement of that liability will
prove difficult, if not impossible, in the case of a vagrant. Unless
such a parent voluntarily abandoned a roaming life, the Poor Law and
police authorities would have to choose between the alternatives of
perpetually chevying him from pillar to post or letting him go scot
free. Obviously, legislation which leaves the question of parental
responsibility in so unsatisfactory a position cannot be the final word
on the child vagrancy problem.
[Footnote 30: The passages in which the question of child vagrancy was
dealt with ten years ago have been modified, owing to the passing of
the Children Act, 1908, yet important though the provisions of this
statute are, they are no final solution. Extracts from the Act are
given in Appendix I., pp. 251-253.]
Viewing the question of vagrancy from all sides, we shall be compelled
to endorse the verdict of the Lindsey Quarter Sessions Committee:--
"The cost to the community of this class is immense, for they produce
nothing, they necessitate large additions to our workhouses, involving
heavy cost to the rates, and they overcrowd our prisons. At the same
time they form a ready recruiting ground for the criminal classes,
they are a continual nuisance to rich and poor alike, and they leave
behind them families worse than themselves."