The last statement I took was that of a boy of thirteen. I can hardly say that he was clothed at all. He had no shirt, and no waistcoat; all his neck and a great part of his chest being bare. A ragged cloth jacket hung about him, and was tied, so as to keep it together, with bits of tape. What he had wrapped round for trousers did not cover one of his legs, while one of his thighs was bare. He wore two old shoes; one tied to his foot with an old ribbon, the other a woman’s old boot. He had an old cloth cap. His features were distorted somewhat, through being swollen with the cold. “I was born,” he said, “at a place called Hadley, in Kent. My father died when I was three days old, I’ve heard my mother say. He was married to her, I believe, but I don’t know what he was. She had only me. My mother went about begging, sometimes taking me with her; at other times she left me at the lodging-house in Hadley. She went in the country, round about Tunbridge and there, begging. Sometimes she had a day’s work. We had plenty to eat then, but I haven’t had much lately. My mother died at Hadley a year ago. I didn’t know how she was buried. She was ill a long time, and I was out begging; for she sent me out to beg for myself a good while before that, and when I got back to the lodging-house they told me she was dead. I had sixpence in my pocket, but I couldn’t help crying to think I’d lost my mother. I cry about it still. I didn’t wait to see her buried, but I started on my own account. I met two navvies in Bromley, and they paid my first night’s lodging; and there was a man passing, going to London with potatoes, and the navvies gave the man a pot of beer to take me up to London in the van, and they went that way with me. I came to London to beg, thinking I could get more there than anywhere else, hearing that London was such a good place. I begged; but sometimes wouldn’t get a farthing in a day; often walking about the streets all night. I have been begging about all the time till now. I am very weak—starving to death. I never stole anything: I always kept my hands to myself. A boy wanted me to go with him to pick a gentleman’s pocket. We was mates for two days, and then he asked me to go picking pockets; but I wouldn’t. I know it’s wrong, though I can neither read nor write. The boy asked me to do it to get into prison, as that would be better than the streets. He picked pockets to get into prison. He was starving about the streets like me. I never slept in a bed since I’ve been in London: I am sure I haven’t: I generally slept under the dry arches in West-street, where they’re building houses—I mean the arches for the cellars. I begged chiefly from the Jews about Petticoat-lane, for they all give away bread that their children leave—pieces of crust, and such-like. I would do anything to be out of this misery.”
Increase and Decrease of Number of Applicants to Casual Wards of London Workhouses.
The vagrant applying for shelter is admitted at all times of the day and night. He applies at the gate, he has his name entered in the vagrant book, and he is then supplied with six ounces of bread and one ounce of cheese. As the admission generally takes place in the evening, no work is required of them until the following morning. At one time every vagrant was searched and bathed, but in the cold season of the year the bathing is discontinued; neither are they searched unless there are grounds for suspecting that they have property secreted upon them. The males are conducted to the ward allotted to them, and the females to their ward. These wards consist each of a large chamber, in which are arranged two large guard-beds, or inclined boards, similar to those used in soldiers’ guard-rooms; between these there is a passage from one end of the chamber to the other. The boards are strewn with straw, so that, on entering the place in the daytime, it has the appearance of a well-kept stable. All persons are supplied with two, and in the cold season with three, rugs to cover them. These rugs are daily placed in a fumigating oven, so as to decompose all infectious matter. Formerly beds were supplied in place of the straw, but the habitual vagrants used to amuse themselves with cutting up the mattresses, and strewing the flock all over the place; the blankets and rugs they tore into shreds, and wound them round their legs, under their trousers. The windows of the casual ward are protected on the inside with a strong guard, similar to those seen in the neighbourhood of racket-grounds. No lights are allowed in the casual ward, so that they are expected to retire to rest immediately on their entrance, and this they invariably are glad to do. In the morning they are let out at eight in the winter, and seven in the summer. And then another six ounces of bread and one ounce of cheese is given to them, and they are discharged. In return for this, three hours’ labour at the hand corn-mill was formerly exacted; but now the numbers are so few, and the out-door paupers so numerous, and so different from the class of vagrants, that the latter are allowed to go on their road immediately the doors of the casual ward are opened. The labour formerly exacted was not in any way remunerative. In the three hours that they were at work, it is supposed that the value of each man’s labour could not be expressed in any coin of the realm. The work was demanded as a test of destitution and industry, and not as a matter of compensation. If the vagrants were very young, they were put to oakum-picking instead of the hand-mill. The women were very rarely employed at any time, because there was no suitable place in the union for them to pick oakum, and the master was unwilling to allow them, on account of their bad and immoral characters, as well as their filthy habits, to communicate with the other inmates. The female vagrants generally consist of prostitutes of the lowest and most miserable kind. They are mostly young girls, who have sunk into a state of dirt, disease, and almost nudity. There are few of them above twenty years of age, and they appear to have commenced their career of vice frequently as early as ten or twelve years old. They mostly are found in the company of mere boys.
The above descriptions apply rather to the state of the vagrants some two or three years back, than to things as they exist at present. In the year 1837, a correspondence took place between the Commissioners of Police and the Commissioners of the Poor-law, in which the latter declare that “if a person state that he has no food, and that he is destitute, or otherwise express or signify that he is in danger of perishing unless relief be given to him, then any officer charged with the administration of relief is bound, unless he have presented to him some reasonable evidence to rebut such statement, to give relief to such destitute person in the mode prescribed by law.” The Poor-law Commissioners further declare in the same document, that they will feel it their duty to make the officers responsible in their situations for any serious neglect to give prompt and adequate relief in any case of real destitution and emergency. The consequence of this declaration was, that Poor-law officers appeared to feel themselves bound to admit all vagrants upon their mere statement of destitution, whereas before that time parties were admitted into the casual wards either by tickets from the ratepayers, or else according to the discretion of the master. Whether or not the masters imagined that they were compelled to admit every applicant from that period my informant cannot say, but it is certain that after the date of that letter vagrancy began to increase throughout the country; at first gradually, but after a few years with a most enormous rapidity; so that in 1848, it appeared from the Poor-law Report on Vagrancy (presented to both Houses of Parliament in that year) that the number of vagrants had increased to upwards of 16,000. The rate of increase for the three years previous to that period is exhibited in the following table:—
I.—Summary of the Number of Vagrants in Unions and Places under Local Acts, in England and Wales, at different periods, as appears from the Returns which follow:—
| Average number relieved in one night in 603 Unions, &c., in the week ending 20th December, 1845 | 1,791 |
| Average number relieved in one night in 603 Unions, &c., in the week ending 19th December, 1846 | 2,224 |
| Average number relieved in one night in 596 Unions, &c., in the week ending 18th December, 1847 | 4,508 |
| Total number relieved, whether in or out of the workhouse in 626 Unions, &c., on the 25th March, 1848 | 16,086 |
Matters had reached this crisis, when the late Mr. C. Buller, President of the Poor-law Board, issued, in August 1848, a minute, in which—after stating that the Board had received representations from every part of England and Wales respecting the continual and rapid increase of vagrancy—he gives the following instructions to the officers employed in the administration of the Poor-law:—
“With respect to the applicants that will thus come before him, the relieving officer will have to exercise his judgment as to the truth of their assertions of destitution, and to ascertain by searching them whether they possess any means of supplying their own necessities. He will not be likely to err in judging from their appearance whether they are suffering from want of food. He will take care that women and children, the old and infirm, and those who, without absolutely serious disease, present an enfeebled or sickly appearance, are supplied with necessary food and shelter. As a general rule, he would be right in refusing relief to able-bodied and healthy men; though in inclement weather he might afford them shelter, if really destitute of the means of procuring it for themselves. His duties would necessarily make him acquainted with the persons of the habitual vagrants; and to these it would be his duty to refuse relief, except in case of evident and urgent necessity.
“It was found necessary by the late Poor-law Commissioners at one time to remind the various unions and their officers of the responsibility which would be incurred by refusing relief where it was required. The present state of things renders it necessary that this Board should now impress on them the grievous mischiefs that must arise, and the responsibilities that may be incurred, by a too ready distribution of relief to tramps and vagrants not entitled to it. Boards of guardians and their officers may, in their attempts to restore a more wise and just system, be subjected to some obloquy from prejudices that confound poverty with profligacy. They will, however, be supported by the consciousness of discharging their duty to those whose funds they have to administer, as well as to the deserving poor, and of resisting the extension of a most pernicious and formidable abuse. They may confidently reckon on the support of public opinion, which the present state of things has aroused and enlightened; and those who are responsible to the Poor-law Board may feel assured that, while no instance of neglect or hardship to the poor will be tolerated, they may look to the Board for a candid construction of their acts and motives, and for a hearty and steadfast support of those who shall exert themselves to guard from the grasp of imposture that fund which should be sacred to the necessities of the poor.”