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
It is more to the purpose to know that, at the present time,
way-tickets in a modified form are in use in some of the southern
counties of England--Sussex, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Berkshire--and
in parts of Wales. The best known system is that of Berkshire, which
was adopted in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire in 1882, and is still in
efficient operation. Its object is to enable a work-seeker to move
through the county to his destination by the most direct route, and
without unnecessary delay, and by providing him with lodging, supper,
and breakfast at the casual ward, and with a mid-day meal on his going,
to remove all necessity for begging from the public. The system was
thus described to the Vagrancy Committee by Lieut. Col. J. Curtis
Hayward, Chairman of the Gloucestershire Poor Law Vagrancy Committee:--
"A vagrant on entering the county gets a ticket from the assistant
relieving officer who, in most cases, in our county is a police
officer. That ticket has marked upon it his final destination and his
description. With that he goes to the casual ward, where, of course,
he is dealt with in the ordinary way; he gets his food night and
morning and he has to do his task. When he leaves, the master puts on
the ticket the name of the union which he has to go to next day--it
must be on the road to his final destination--and also the name of
a bread station. We have got one in nearly every case half-way.
Sometimes he has to go a little out of his way to a bread station. It
is also a police station. If he arrives there between one and three,
he is given a ticket on a baker close by.
"If he arrives at the union entered upon the ticket that evening,
he has what we call a good ticket; if, on the other hand, he arrives
at some other union, or has no ticket at all, he is given a new one
and it is considered a bad ticket. Our committee recommend the boards
of guardians to detain, for one night only, all those who show they
are passing as quickly as they can to the destination which they say
they are going to; and to detain for two nights all those without
any tickets, or who show that they are not going straight to their
destination.
"For instance, supposing a man says, 'I am going from Gloucester to
Cardiff,' he would have, perhaps, 'Westbury' marked on his ticket to
go to; and suppose he turned up at Stroud, which is directly in the
opposite direction, we would say:--'That is not where you are going
to; this is a bad ticket; you must have a new ticket, and you will be
detained two nights.'
"We give everybody a ticket. That is different to what they have done
in Worcestershire and other places, where they do not give a ticket.
They tried to discriminate between ... the _bona-fide_ working men
and those who were not _bona-fide_. We never attempt to make any
distinction, because we say giving this ticket is taking away the
excuse for begging; therefore, we say every man ought to have a ticket
in his pocket."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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