"The pauper in the workhouse intends to be there; he is either going to be there or in some other institution all the days of his life. My experience is, that the average have been in from ten to twelve years, and some of them nineteen years, and they are young men now. The workhouse is no deterrent to any man. It simply harbours them, and as long as the workhouses exist, these men will exist."
Similarly, the report of the Stepney Guardians for 1908 states:-
"There are too many opportunities in a general workhouse for the vicious of both sexes to meet. The dining hall and other parts of the workhouse common to all classes afford means of communication—generally of an evil character. It is no uncommon event for a man and woman to strike up an acquaintance in a workhouse, which ultimately results in increased burdens on the ratepayers. Messages are conveyed, billets doux, ill spelt but tender, are exchanged; an assignation is made, resulting in the amorous couple leaving the workhouse together when, dispensing with the blessing of the Church on their union, they tramp the countryside as man and wife during the summer months. At the approach of winter the man returns, with a sigh of relief, to his old bachelor quarters in the workhouse, where the gleeful account of his exploits is listened to with open-mouthed admiration by the youthful male pauper, and with envy by the hoary sinner. In this manner, a feeble-minded woman and a physically enfeebled man—both chronic paupers and chargeable to this union—begat five children, all of whom were born in the workhouse, and were reared at the expense of the ratepayers."
The same testimony comes from rural districts. "It is certain," Mr. B. Fleming, the Poor Law Inspector for Dorset, writes, "that the tendency has been to induce the loafer class to think that they would have provision made for them, and that therefore they need not trouble much about it for themselves."[34]
Writing of the "in-and-out" class of workhouse inmates, the Poor Law Commissioners say:—
"It is not too much to say that this class has been created by our administration of the Poor Law, while the law itself affords no means of checking it now that it has come into existence. These are the men and women who frequent the workhouse for short periods, often taking their families with them, and are constantly taking their discharge. They go out when they want more licence, and return when they need to recruit themselves after a debauch."[35]
Moreover, the married urban loafer, like the married vagrant, inflicts incalculable injury upon others. While it has been made a misdemeanour to drag children round the country, the pauper of the "in-and-out" type can still with impunity commit a crime no less outrageous upon the offspring for whose decent maintenance he is legally and morally responsible. For the children of such intermittent paupers are introduced to workhouse life and breathe the atmosphere of pauperisation from their earliest consciousness. When the father enters the house, the children go with him, and for them, as for him, life is an alternation of abject dependence and equally abject liberty.
"Through these children," says the Report of the Poor Law Commission truly, "the evil (of pauperisation) is being perpetuated to another generation, for they get no chance of education, while they become habituated to constant appeals to the Poor Law, and lack the advantages of either home or school life."[36]
As a Poor Law Guardian, I had to do, on one occasion, with an able-bodied pauper of this kind, who, on the ground of destitution, obtained admittance to the workhouse with his large family. Once in, he was so satisfied with his new surroundings and freedom from responsibility, that for many months it proved impossible to dislodge him. Under the master's eye he was willing to do the work required of him, but he had no wish to find employment outside, and did not leave the house until he was literally ejected.