"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:--