The vagrant is only one type of social parasite, however, and in some respects he is not the most obnoxious. When we leave the casual wards and enter the workhouses themselves, a further loafing element confronts us, adding to the difficulty of our problem. For though these institutions nominally exist for the reception of people who are not only destitute but are unable to prevent their destitution, we find that the able-bodied pauper is to a large extent in possession.
It is interesting to recall the fact that when workhouses were established, the tendency which the Poor Law authorities fought against was, that the aged and infirm of the labouring class regarded them as infirmaries for their permanent maintenance. A Report of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1840 protested against the idea that workhouses should be placed on the same footing as almshouses.
"If the condition of the inmates of a workhouse," they wrote, "were to be so regulated as to invite the aged and infirm of the labouring classes to take refuge in it, it would immediately be useless as a test between indigence and indolence or fraud—it would no longer operate as an inducement to the young and healthy to provide support for their later years, or as a stimulus to them, whilst they have the means, to support their aged parents and relatives. The frugality and forethought of a young labourer would be useless if he foresaw the certainty of a better asylum for his old age than he could possibly provide by his own exertions...."
Nowadays, the difficulty of Poor Law Guardians is to prevent, not the aged and infirm, but the middle-aged and able-bodied from making the workhouse their permanent home.
"Once admitted into the workhouse in England," says the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, "the pauper is usually left undisturbed, the Guardians seldom exercising their power of discharge." This generalisation is unjust, yet what is said certainly holds good of a large number of workhouses. While, however, Boards of Guardians are mainly to blame, the laws which they have to administer are also, in part, responsible. In the absence of institutions for the detention of loafers such as exist in Continental countries, these loafers are able to abuse the Poor Law at will, and snap their fingers at the police. Within the workhouse they are a cause of perpetual annoyance, and their presence and example are a fruitful source of demoralisation and disorder.
Speaking of this class of able-bodied paupers in relation to the Sheffield Union, Mr. P. H. Bagenal, Poor Law Inspector for the West Riding, reports:—
"The master states that this class gives infinite trouble. They have no fear of prison; in fact many of them prefer it, and state that the work is not so hard and the food better. Many of them have got good trades, such as fitters, plumbers, builders, iron workers, etc., and could earn from £3 to £4 a week if they chose. They prefer to go to the workhouse, where, however, they only work under compulsion, and give all the trouble they can to the officers."
Commenting upon the fact that of the persons relieved in England and Wales during the year ending September 30, 1907, 26,179 had been relieved five times or more, the Poor Law Commission state:
"The number of persons ascertained to have been relieved five times or oftener during the year shows the existence of a troublesome class who make a convenience of the workhouse, and whose improvidence is born of the knowledge that that institution is always at hand."[31]
The Poor Law Inspector for the Metropolis relates that, as a result of a call-over of the 900 inmates of a London workhouse in 1907, it was found that fifty able-bodied men and fifty-three able-bodied women were among them. The Committee reported:—