With regard to evidence as to actual tramp ward conditions, however, no clearer account can be given than the following. The writer is personally known to the author of this paper. He is extremely truthful, and where investigation has followed, his statements have been fully endorsed. They furnish most valuable evidence. He is himself a working man of superior education, driven by misfortune into restless habits and occasionally to the tramp ward. Let him speak for himself.
VI. TRAMP WARD. FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS.
Extracts from a Correspondence with a Working Man.
"I was an interested listener to your address on casual wards and common lodging-houses. Your experience coincides with mine, with the exception of the casual wards. Your description was much too favourable.
"I have been in several. This is an account of the last one I was in. After walking twenty miles with nothing to eat before I started or during the day, I was received, had a bath, and was put to bed. They gave me nothing to eat or drink; out next morning at six o'clock: for breakfast had a drink of water and a tinful of broken crusts, seven pieces in all, and I should say not more than six ounces. I suppose they had been left by the children or at the infirmaries. Same for dinner (six pieces), with a small piece of cheese; for supper, water and five crusts. On going out next morning, water and six crusts. I should put the value at one penny altogether, and that for cheese; the bread was simply waste.
"This is what I did for the value I received, Sweep, wash, and scrub out twelve or fourteen cells; ditto eighty-seven square yards of cement flooring; ditto a flight of stone steps (about fifty), four feet wide with three landings; ditto one bath-room and two lavatories; clean bath and closet pans; and polish sixty-seven sets of brasses. I started at seven o'clock and had done at 4.30, and was then locked up in the cell. I forgot to say that I had twopence when I went in, which the porter annexed, which, as he said, 'would help pay expenses.'
"I was free from vermin when I went in, but was not when I came out; and whatever the chairman may say about coming out of their place clean, I say it is impossible to do so.
"I may say that I get my living on public works, and this as you know may take you across the country."
Second Letter.
"The remarks made by your chairman on stone-breaking were very misleading. He said, 'The stones required to be broken by a man were ten hundredweight. Why, he knew a man who could easily break two and a half yards in a day, and in each yard was twenty-two hundredweight, so that his hearers could see that the casual's task was not hard.'
"He did not say that the stones his man broke were probably twice the size of those broken by the casual, and that he had no grid to put them through, which takes almost as long as the actual stone-breaking.
"With regard to entering the casual ward early, I myself when I am on the road always make a point of doing twenty miles a day. Is a man after doing twenty miles fit for work? Navvies and men working on public works like to get from one job to another without delay. Very often a man will start, we will say from Yorkshire to Devon: if he can pick up a day's work on the way he will do so; but his object is to get to Devon, and he is going to get there as soon as possible. He is pretty certain of work when he gets there because he is known either to the ganger or the agent, or some one in a position to start him, which is really the reason he goes such a distance. As a rule he sets himself twenty or twenty-five miles a day, and he does it unless it is very wet. He therefore wants a rest at the end of the journey, not work."
Replying that this was not the class for whom the casual ward was intended, I received the following:—
Third Letter.
"I should suggest, for the benefit of the man looking for work, that in all casual wards there should be cells set apart for him at a charge, say of threepence per night. He should be taken in as early as six o'clock and let go next morning at six o'clock; if there is any work going he would stand a chance of getting it: you would not be pauperising him—he would be no charge on the rates, and your pauper returns would be greatly reduced. Very likely the argument would be that the guardians would be interfering with private rights, i.e. lodging-houses. In answer to this, I have to say that in a great many towns there are no lodgings of any kind, and in others they are so bad that no decent man will sleep in them. I have paid for a bed in such places as Birkenhead, Chester, Wrexham, and others, and after seeing what they were like have left them, not caring to sleep there. Also the lodging-house keepers, if they found the new system reducing their takings, would waken up to the fact that decent beds may bring them their trade back.
"Many a man is spent up when he left a job to look for another, because if money is found on him in the workhouse he loses it. Give him the opportunity of paying and he will do so if he can get a decent bed.
"As regards those on the road who can work but will not, the authorities would not be interfering with the liberty of the subject in taking them off the road and making them work for their keep, and in doing so he need not be classed as a pauper.
"There are others who cannot work, old men and women and children; in all cases such as these I should have them sent to the place of birth, no matter how long they had left there they must go back. There would be a chance of reclaiming them when they knew they had to go back, and there would also be an inducement for their friends and relations to show what they are made of by helping to keep them. Of course there are numbers who do not know where they are born, also foreigners; these the Government should take in hand. It's the policy of the Government to let destitute foreigners land here, you must therefore make them responsible for them.
"These suggestions could be easily worked out to the satisfaction of the people at large; you would rescue a great number from self-imposed misery; you would be clearing the roads of a disgrace to the country; and I have not the slightest doubt that you would do away with a great deal of disease and crime. I have noticed on more than one occasion that when small-pox has broken out in a part of the country it has been reported that the cause has been traced to tramps.
"I remember going in at T ... when several of us were in the bath-room at one time, and of course one hot water for all. I noticed one man who had stripped was covered with sores, raw, festering sores. I did not object to his bathing, but of course refused to be bathed in the same water. After drawing the attention of the attendant to the man's state he was sent off without his bath; he was given the usual rugs, which of course were placed with the others next morning, and not stoved, because they have no stove there. This man had been going from place to place, and could not get to see a doctor, he told me himself, and I can well believe him. I have had occasion to ask for the doctor myself and have been refused.[30] Also on this night there were more tramps than they had room for, we had to sleep two in a cell, one on the board let down from the wall, and the other on the floor underneath. In the cell next me one of the men wanted to go to the w.c., but could get no answer to his repeated calls. Now under these circumstances if disease breaks out who is to blame?
"I think that if the rules laid down by the L.G.B. were strictly carried out things would be better, but there is too much left to the discretion of the guardians, which means the workhouse master and his subordinates, with the result that they do pretty much as they please.
"I think it is generally allowed by guardians that the most successful master is the one who can keep down the number of casuals. Why that is I do not know, because if a man is found sleeping out or begging he goes to prison. I have never been in a prison myself, but from what I hear I should say that he is better off than the man under the thumb of a workhouse master.[31]
"It ought to be generally known that it is only by starvation and heavy tasks that a master can keep down his pauper returns. In passing I should like to say that I have found it a pretty general thing for several men to go through one lot of water."