We have seen that the policy of the Report and Act of 1834, with regard to vagrants, was to ignore them as a class, to relieve them only in the workhouse, and to deal with them exactly as with other workhouse inmates. What the Central Authority seems to have contemplated was that the strict application of the "workhouse test" would not only prevent vagrants coming on the rates at all, but that it could be used to prevent almsgiving. It was apparently with this view that the Central Authority, in 1837, sanctioned a code of regulations for the admission to the workhouse of the "casual poor," meaning "wayfarers" or homeless "persons in a state of destitution ... who ... belonged to distant parishes." [121] These regulations included admission by tickets distributed by any rate-payer, and the performance of a task of work before the grant of a meal. [122] In diet, discipline, and other treatment, they were to be dealt with "as the other paupers in the workhouse." [123] In other unions the regulations included the establishment of a separate vagrant ward, which was equally sanctioned by the Central Authority. A similar plan was strongly pressed on the local authorities of the Metropolis in 1838 and 1839. [124] Such vagrants must, however, if destitute, not be refused relief. [125] The Central Authority hoped that "if these arrangements be adopted ... casual almsgiving in the streets, by which vagrancy and imposture are encouraged, will be materially checked." [126]
The first sign of discontent with this policy that we find is in 1841, when the Central Authority is asked by the local authorities of Lambeth and Colchester "whether the workhouse is to be a lodging house and to be inundated with these trampers" who habitually "make the union house a lodging house," greatly to the annoyance of the establishment. The Central Authority admits that its policy of a mere application of the "workhouse test" to vagrants has proved unsatisfactory, and declares the only effectual remedy to be a separate semi-penal establishment. [127] In the absence of adequate statutory powers, the Central Authority pours out, between 1841 and 1844, a stream of regulations and suggestions to local authorities, based on the idea of making the night's stay of the vagrant more unpleasant to him. There was to be everywhere a separate vagrant ward; without a fire; smoking and card playing were to be strictly prohibited; they were to be bathed; their bedding was to be inferior to that of other inmates, and so on. Above all, they were to be prosecuted under the Vagrant Act on the slightest provocation. [128]
Yet the Central Authority was not yet convinced of the need for a vagrant ward in every union. When the Bradford Board of Guardians pointed out in 1844 that the average number of their vagrants was only twelve a week, the Central Authority at once acquiesced in the abandonment of the proposed vagrant ward, and said that arrangements should be made to set the vagrants a task of work in the workhouse itself. [129]
In 1842 and 1844, as we have seen, slightly increased powers over vagrants were obtained (including, but only by implication, statutory authority for the four hours' detention in the morning), together with powers to establish district asylums for the houseless poor in certain large towns.
The Central Authority "framed a scheme for division of the whole of the Metropolitan district" into areas corresponding "to the great lines of roads along which mendicants and vagrants" entered London, [130] which were to have separate establishments for vagrants, and so entirely relieve the Metropolitan workhouses of their care. [131] What Orders were issued to this effect is not clear. Meanwhile the House of Commons appointed a Select Committee to consider the whole conduct of the Central Authority; and no further action was taken. Orders were issued to the boards of management of the newly created vagrant districts, telling them that they need not meet. [132] How far these vagrancy districts ever came into existence we have not yet discovered. One of them, the North Eastern Metropolitan District, had got so far as to enter into a contract for the purchase of a site and to borrow £3500 to pay for it. "Owing to various causes, the chief of which was a want of co-operation on the part of several of the boards of guardians, that scheme, after an inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons, was abandoned." [133] Beyond this somewhat obscure episode, all that happened was that when the General Consolidated Order of 1847 systematically codified the regulations affecting workhouses, it included, scattered among its various sections, a few provisions relating to the treatment of the "casual poor wayfarers," such as the requirement of a separate ward, and the express regulation of their diet and employment. [134]
We have shown, in the preceding analysis of the Report and Act of 1834, that neither the "principles of 1834" nor the enactment of Parliament had prescribed the policy to be pursued with regard to women; except that it was implied or assumed that wives were to follow their husbands exactly as if they were infants. With regard to the widow, the deserted wife, the wife of the absentee soldier or sailor, the wife of a husband resident in another parish or another country—above all, with regard to the independent able-bodied woman—the Central Authority had either to let the existing practice of outdoor relief continue, or to discover a policy for itself.
With regard to the able-bodied independent woman, we have shown that the Central Authority developed, between 1834 and 1847, two distinct policies which became applicable to two different geographical areas. In the thirty-two unions in which the Outdoor Labour Test Order was alone in force, the discretion of the local authorities to give outdoor relief to able-bodied independent women was left unfettered by any rule, instruction or advice of the Central Authority. [135]