"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.]