To distinguish between the genuine work-seeker and the fraud would be no difficult task. All that would be necessary would be to require the former to authenticate himself by a way-ticket or pass, attested either by the police, a trade union, a labour bureau, or a recent responsible employer.[52] On the strength of such a certificate, which a _bona-fide_ applicant should have a right to demand, unless good reasons existed to the contrary, he might well be allowed to proceed on his journey, and be admitted to such public hostels as happened to lie in his way. Vagabondage pure and simple would be a game no longer worth the candle. If the itinerant were an industrial malingerer, the fact would speedily come to light, and with no Poor Law to fall back upon, the sure prospect of detention in a Labour House would await him. The entire supplanting of the so-called "model" lodging-houses by travellers' hostels in public hands would be one of the greatest benefits that could be conferred upon the working classes. [Footnote 52: In my evidence before the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, I fully described the hostel and way ticket system which has for many years been in successful operation in Germany, and the same information was given by Mr. H. Preston Thomas regarding the more recent Swiss system. _See also_ Chap. X. (pp. 212-228), of the present Volume.] It is worthy of note that the use of way-tickets, minus the houses of call now proposed, is not unknown to English legislation on vagrancy. So long ago as 1824 an Act was passed empowering magistrates to grant certificates or passes to vagrants discharged from prison, to enable them to reach their places of settlement, and to obtain relief from parochial authorities on the way, though this pass system appears to have been carried out in four counties only, and to have soon fallen into disuse. Further, a Minute of the old Poor Law Board, dated August 4, 1848, in recommending differential treatment as between the work-seeking and the work-shy wayfarer, urged, in particular, that the former should be helped by a system of way-tickets, applicable to fixed routes and valid for a definite period.