Supper: Bread, 8 oz.; margarine, ¾ oz.; potatoes (cooked), 6 oz. Salt, 1 oz. per five men daily.
This would provide 2,500 calories with 63 grammes of proteid.
[26] The superiority of the prison dietary is freely acknowledged in the Report (see sections 203-206).
[27] See sections 197-201, Vagrancy Report. "Many tramps openly declare that they prefer prison to the casual wards."... "Vagrants assigned as a reason for refusing to work that they wished to lay up for a fortnight during the winter in gaol." Window-breaking and tearing-up clothes are freely resorted to in order to get into prison. On the 28th of February, 1905, 3,736 male prisoners out of 12,369 were reported by the prison governors as persons with no fixed abode, and with no regular means of subsistence (section 59). In London, in 1904, 1,167 casuals shirked work or tore their clothes (section 107).
[28] See Vagrancy Report (section 41) with regard to the enforcement of the four nights in London. In 1904, 16,060 cases were detained four nights. A list has been made of 950 habitual tramps who live in London tramp wards (section 110). A similar list might be made of tramps who circle round in the towns in the Manchester district. In 1904, in London, 21,367 people were refused admission to tramp wards (Vagrancy Report, section 104).
[29] The opinion of the Committee is very unfavourable as to shelters (see sections 338-359). It does not, however, appear to be sufficiently recognised that these shelters have arisen as a direct result of the repressive policy of the tramp ward and the insufficient national provision for destitution. The dregs of our social system must congregate somewhere; they will naturally gravitate where conditions are most favourable, and where existence can be maintained. It is impossible to sustain existence on a tramp-ward dietary, and regulations will not allow the homeless wanderer to settle there. Consequently he goes elsewhere. Until a more effective national provision is made, the shelter is at any rate a provision for the most destitute. Free shelters, however, especially if in an insanitary condition, may constitute a danger, being out of relation to the true national policy of dealing with destitution. The care of this lowest class is better understood abroad. If the State accepts the care of the destitute, some provision must be made for those "past work." The Report is written as if the state of these men was due to the "demoralising effect of the shelters." Mr. Crooks, however, says: "The poor chaps have become degenerate; they cannot work; they have got quite past work; they can hardly beg; they go in and have a meal, good sound food, stop all night, and come out in the morning. What do they do in the morning? All life is objectless; they have nothing to do; they have simply to loaf away another day without any object in life at all."
In his evidence he attributes this to "general break-up," due to the absence of proper food and shelter. He shows that people of this character "loafing and lurching with eyes like the eyes of a dead fish," were "improved out of all knowledge" at the Laindon farm colony.
A few nights' "sleeping out" may reduce a man to a most miserable condition. It is a wonder that many survive. The writer has been receiving for years women reduced to the extremest destitution and incapable of work without rest and food. The majority have passed on to employment, but in the state received it would have been impossible for them to obtain it.
[30] Repeatedly asserted by tramp ward inmates.