Physical and Mental Condition. Absolute Numbers. %
Physical condition weak 337 91
Incapable of military service from physical weakness 236 64
Mental anomalies 322 87
Epilepsy 43 11
Imbecility 86 23
Total number examined 369 100

Here it must be noted that in the years 1896–97 there were on the average only 9% of the conscripts of Silesia who were incapable of military service.

The other figures that are known agree with the ones I have just cited. Dr. Kurella found 20% to 30% of imbeciles or epileptics among the vagrants.[360] Dr. Mendel also found a great number of psychic abnormalities among the vagrants.[361]

All that I have just said demonstrates sufficiently, I believe, that the cause named above plays a considerable rôle in the etiology of mendicity and vagrancy. It is still necessary to give an answer to the question: do all the individuals who fall under the unfavorable conditions named under one and two, become vagrants or mendicants? It is evident that the answer must be negative. Three expedients offer themselves to one who has fallen into the blackest poverty; mendicity, theft, and suicide. It is partly chance (opportunity etc.), and partly the individual predisposition which fixes what anyone under the conditions named will become, whether a mendicant or a thief. Generally those who have still some intelligence [[557]]and energy become thieves, the rest vagrants.[362] The third expedient, suicide, also is frequently met with among the lower proletariat.[363] Those who have recourse to it are either those who have known better conditions and find that the miserable existence that mendicity procures is not worth the trouble of living, or those who have lost all energy. Sometimes persons commit suicide to escape the shame of begging or stealing. These have been called “the heroes of virtue”; but, considered from another point of view, they may also be called the “victims of vice”, the vice of others, of course. These have been born with a very strong moral disposition and have lived in an environment where this disposition has been developed. These cases prove the degree of intensity that the social sentiments can attain; they are stronger than the fundamental desire to live, although those whom these “heroes” are unwilling to injure, reject these sentiments, by abandoning their fellows who find themselves in want.

Third. A third category of mendicants and vagrants is made up of children and young people. Let us see what relation there is between this fact and the economic and social environment. All those who have taken up this subject are agreed that a great proportion of the children are systematically taught to beg by their parents. Whatever may be the cause for which the parents act thus, these children are entirely the victims of the detestable atmosphere in which they are forced to live. Brought up in a wholesome environment they would become neither mendicants nor vagrants.[364]

Another part of the vagrant body is made up of children who are either illegitimate or orphans, or deserted by their parents, or forced by bad treatment to run away from home. Tomel and Rollet mention the following typical case. A girl of 16 was charged with vagrancy, and made this heart-rending statement of her case before the tribunal: “I went on Friday to find the police commissioner of the ward; I told him that I had been without a lodging place for 15 days, and that I had not eaten for 48 hours. I was employed at the house of a wine merchant, who, when my mother died three years ago, took me as a servant (at 13 years of age) at two sous a day as wages. But my employer failed, his shop was closed, and I had to go out and wander in search of work without finding anything. My father, sentenced [[558]]to hard labor for life, died in New Caledonia. I have no longer any mother, and since I did not wish to imitate my grown-up sister, who leads a bad life, I preferred to get myself arrested.”[365]

It is difficult to tell how many of these children there are. The only figures that I know of are the following.

Italy, 1885–1889.[366]

Among the minors sent to a house of correction for vagrancy there were

Divisions. Absolute Numbers. %
Illegitimate children 91 8.0
Orphans 498 43.8
Children whose parents were in prison 25 2.2
Other children 524 46.0
Total 1,138 100.0