The Vagrancy Problem.: The Case for Measures of Restraint for Tramps, Loafers, and Unemployables: With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and Labour HousesDawson, William Harbutt
History
The Vagrancy Problem.: The Case for Measures of Restraint for Tramps, Loafers, and Unemployables: With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and Labour Houses
Dawson, William Harbutt
Poor laws; Poor laws -- Great Britain; Tramps; Unemployed
The dietary is largely vegetarian. Breakfast consists of coffee (always
with milk), bread, and potatoes (or porridge once or twice a week
instead of potatoes); dinner of soup and vegetables, with potatoes
or farinaceous pudding and bread, meat being given twice or thrice a
week; and supper of soup and bread, or coffee with bread or potatoes, a
piece of cheese or other extra being added on Sunday evening. Inmates
at work receive, in addition, both in the forenoon and the afternoon,
bread with coffee, but cider or wine may be given instead of coffee in
summer. On festivals a glass of wine is given at dinner.
No special uniform is used in the Poor-house. The inmates are attired
in ordinary dress, without any attempt at symmetry, though deserters,
when returned, are stamped on the coat as a warning.
The mental and recreative faculties of the inmates are not neglected,
for thanks to the kindness of private persons, books, magazines, and
newspapers are provided in considerable number.
It may be asked how order is maintained in a Colony so heterogeneous
as this. The answer is that though the Municipal Authorities possess
powers of punishment irrespective of the police, these powers have
seldom to be exercised. A strong administrator, humane, but firm, who
expects honest work from his people and therefore gets it, keeps the
wheels of this notable piece of disciplinary machinery in smooth and
regular rotation from year's end to year's end. Such of the inmates as
can be trusted are even allowed to spend half a day in town once a week
without any supervision whatever, and the privilege is seldom abused.
They know, in fact, that they are under restraint until they have given
proof of reformed habits, and that in the event of misconduct they will
draw upon themselves more stringent restrictions. I believe that their
amenability to discipline and obedience is but another proof that the
besetting sin of the loafer is less active criminal propensity--save
in so far as "oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds
done"--than a corrigible laziness and disorderliness of life. To quote
the words of the Director of the institution, as spoken to myself: "The
people come here, as a rule, miserable and unhealthy, low and wretched,
worn out by careless living and bad food, but they soon become new
creatures." They do not all turn out saints by any means, but the
percentage of wastrels won back to sobriety and industry is held far to
outweigh the moderate maintenance expenditure incurred on their behalf.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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