Simple subsistence diet, supplemented by canteen.
Estimated cost, 1s. 6d. per week per head (section 315).
Industrial and agricultural.
[APPENDIX IV.]
WOMEN.
Extract from Report of Vagrancy Committee, pp. 111-112.
403. At present separate accommodation, under the charge of female officers, is provided for women in the casual wards. The rules as to their detention are the same as in the case of men, and their diet is also the same, though less in quantity. The task of work which is prescribed for them by the regulations is picking oakum (half the quantity given to the men) or domestic work, such as washing, scrubbing, cleaning, or needlework. Oakum picking as a task of work for females, however, has been discouraged for some time by the Local Government Board, but it is still in force in many unions.
The number of female vagrants is comparatively small. Out of 9,768 vagrants relieved in casual wards in England and Wales on the night of 1st January, 1905, only 887, or 9 per cent., were women. On the 1st July, 1905, there were 813 female casual paupers out of a total of 8,556.