“I always find the quickest way of getting rid of a tramp is to threaten him with the police, and I am quite sure if every householder would make a rule never to relieve tramps with money, and only those who are crippled, with food, the number would soon be decreased. If people have any old clothes or spare coppers to give away, I am sure they will soon find in their own town or village many cases more worthy of their charity than the highway tramp. I do not recommend anybody to find a tramp even temporary employment, unless they can stand over him and then see the man safe off the premises, and even then he may come again at night as a burglar; but I am sure work could be found at 1s. 6d. or 2s. a day by our corporations or on the highways, where, under proper supervision, these idle vagabonds would be made to earn an honest living. You will find that nine out of ten tramps have been in prison and have no character, and although they may say they ‘want work,’ they really do not mean it. Not long ago I caught a great rough fellow trying to get the dinner from a little girl who was taking it to her father at his work. ‘Poor man! he must have been very hungry,’ I fancy I hear the benevolent old lady saying. Of course, during the last year we have had many men ‘on the road’ who are really in search of work, but I always tell them that there is as much work in one place as another, and unless they really have a situation in view they should not go tramping from town to town. Many of them have no characters to produce, and I expect when they find ‘tramping’ is such a pleasant and easy mode of living they will join the ranks and become roadsters also.”