Let me first endeavour to arrive at some estimate as to the number and cost of the vagrant population.
There were, according to the returns of the Poor-law Commissioners, 13,547 vagrants relieved in and out of the workhouses of England and Wales, on the 1st of July, 1848. In addition to these, the Occupation Abstract informs us that, on the night of the 6th of June, 1841, when the last census was taken, 20,348 individuals were living in barns and tents. But in order to arrive at a correct estimate of the total number of vagrants throughout the country, we must add to the above numbers the inmates of the trampers’ houses. Now, according to the Report of the Constabulary Commissioners, there were in 1839 a nightly average of very nearly 5000 vagrants infesting some 700 mendicants’ lodging-houses in London and six other of the principal towns of England and Wales. (See “London Labour,” Vol. I. p. 408.) Further, it will be seen by the calculations given at the same, that there are in the 3823 postal towns throughout the country (averaging two trampers’ houses to each town, and ten trampers nightly to each house), 76,400 other vagrants distributed throughout England and Wales.
Hence the calculation as to the total number of vagrants would stand thus:—
| In the workhouses | 13,547 |
| In barns and tents (according to census) | 20,348 |
| In the mendicants’ houses of London, and six other principal towns of England and Wales, according to Constabulary Commissioners’ Report | 4,813 |
| Ditto in 3820 other postal towns, averaging each two mendicants’ houses, and ten lodgers to each house | 76,400 |
| 115,108 | |
| Deduct five per cent for characters really destitute and deserving | 5,755 |
| Total number of habitual vagrants in England and Wales | 109,353 |
The cost of relieving these vagrants may be computed as follows:—On the night of the 1st of July, 1848, there were 13,547 vagrants relieved throughout England and Wales; but I am informed by the best authorities on the subject, that one-third of this number only can be fairly estimated as receiving relief every night throughout the year at the different unions. Now, the third of 13,547 is 4515, and this, multiplied by 365, gives 1,647,975 as the total number of cases of vagrancy relieved throughout England and Wales during the year 1848. The cost of each of these is estimated at twopence per head per night for food, and this makes the sum expended in their relief amount to 13,733l. 7s. 8d.
In addition to this, we must estimate the sum given in charity to the mendicants, or carried off surreptitiously by the petty thieves frequenting the tramping-houses. The sums thus abstracted from the public may be said to amount at the lowest to 6d. per day for each of the trampers not applying for relief at the workhouses. In the Constabulary Report, p. 11, the earnings of the petty thieves are estimated at 10s. per week, and those of the beggars at 3s. 6d. per day (p. 24). Hence we have the following account of the total cost of the vagrants of England and Wales:—
| Sum given in relief to the vagrants at the workhouses | £13,733 | 7 | 8 |
| Sum abstracted by them, either by begging or pilfering on the road | 138,888 | 11 | 8 |
| £152,621 | 19 | 4 | |
| As five per cent must be taken off this for the truly deserving | 7,631 | 1 | 8 |
| The total cost will be | £144,990 | 17 | 8 |
By this it appears that the total number of professional vagrants dispersed throughout England and Wales amounts to 47,669. These live at the expense of the industrious classes, and cost the country no less than 144,990l. 17s. 8d. per annum. And if the 13,000 and odd vagrants relieved in the workhouses constitute merely the twentieth dispersed throughout the country, we have in round numbers nearly 3,000,000l. for the cost of the whole.
There are, then, no less than 100,000 individuals of the lowest, the filthiest, and most demoralised classes, continually wandering through the country; in other words, there is a stream of vice and disease—a tide of iniquity and fever, continually flowing from town to town, from one end of the land to the other.
“One of the worst concomitants of vagrant mendicancy,” says the Poor-law Report, “is the fever of a dangerous typhoid character, which has universally marked the path of the mendicants. There is scarcely a workhouse in which this pestilence does not prevail in a greater or less degree, and numerous union officers have fallen victims to it.” Those who are acquainted with the exceeding filth of the persons frequenting the casual wards, will not wonder at the fever which follows in the wake of the vagrants. “Many have the itch. I have seen,” says Mr. Boase, “a party of twenty almost all scratching themselves at once, before settling into their rest in the straw. Lice exist in great numbers upon them.”