[72] Sections 178-182, Vagrancy Report.
[73] Section 300, Vagrancy Report.
[74] It is estimated that £100,000 is given away in London in a year to street beggars (section 386, Vagrancy Report).
[75] "We believe that the best and simplest method of securing the desired end (incentive to work) would be to allow the colonists to earn by industry and good conduct small sums of money, a portion of which would be retained till discharged and a portion handed over to them weekly to spend, if they like, at the canteen of the colony." Vagrancy Report, section 260.
[76] See enormous cost of casual wards, Vagrancy Report, Chap. IX. Paddington cost £195, Poplar £219, and Hackney £346 per head. The average cost in the country is £60 and in London £150 per head. See also "The Extravagance of the Poor Law," Contemporary Review, June, 1906.
[77] The proposed reforms go much further in the right direction. It is to be hoped they will not be minimised in passing into law.
[78] See sections 403-409, Vagrancy Report. The Committee regard the question of "female vagrants" as "comparatively unimportant." But it is not sufficiently considered that the disparity in numbers of men and women vagrants (887 females to 8,693 males on January 1st, 1905), and the smaller numbers of women found "sleeping out," are due to the existence of a possible method of livelihood for women by prostitution, absent in the case of men, but exceedingly harmful to the State. The temptation to prostitution through destitution should be as far as possible removed. (See [Chap. V.])
[79] See recommendations 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, [Appendix II].
[80] The one objection to the Report is the delay consequent on the necessity for legislation. It is a pity that there is not a recommendation to proceed at once by Local Government Board Order in the direction of the finding of the Committee. Legislation may be postponed till after the Poor Law Commission.
[81] The author has more fully developed the psychical principles involved in right classification of the undeveloped in an article published in the Contemporary Review, June, 1906.