Glimpses into the Abyss Part 2

_Task._

In 16. Oak.u.m picking, Remainder. Sawing wood, 4 lbs. unbeaten, 8 lbs. beaten stone breaking, or working oak.u.m. on the land.

_Dietary:_ 8 oz. of bread and water ... Breakfast.

8 oz. bread, 1-1/2 oz. cheese ... Dinner.

8 oz. bread and water ... Supper.

In a very few gruel.

_Smallburgh._--Task, 12 cwt. granite. September, 1903, none; September, 1904, 9. _This task is considered remedial, as by it the number of vagrants was reduced from 173 (January to November, 1903) to 52 (1904)._

_Cosford._--50 per cent. increase.

_Henstead_, after introducing oak.u.m picking, found "a remarkable falling off." Year ending Lady Day, 1897, 2,337; Year ending Lady Day, 1904, 62.

_Docking Union._--Decrease. Task, pumping the well and working on the land.

_Freebridge Lynn._--September, 1904, only 4 men. Task, oak.u.m picking. In 1893 the number of vagrants relieved was above 900, but "the tramp of late has given the place a wide berth." Only 24 have been admitted.

"Probably the road-army came by another route than Docking and Gayton to the 7-cwt. stone-breaking at Lynn, fighting shy of oak.u.m-picking and well-pumping." _But they come, and the decrease in these two unions has resulted in an increase at Downham, Wisbech, and Lynn._

At _Thetford_ "the cells and stone-breaking have prevented any material increase in the number of vagrants."

At _Halsted_, in spite of oak.u.m-picking, there have been 41 vagrants, compared with 9 in September, 1903.

At _Chelmsford_ there were 205, September, 1904, as against 126, September, 1905.

At _Walsingham_ a slight decrease, owing to oak.u.m picking being enforced.

So great is the pressure, however, that even oak.u.m-picking or stone-breaking and corn-grinding have not prevented a large increase in Maldon, Ipswich, Saffron Walden, Norwich, Dunmow, Swaffham, and Wisbech.

_Downham_ increased from 64, September, 1903, to 167, September, 1904.

No task is imposed save gardening.

V. FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS (PERSONAL).

Investigations from the official point of view are interesting and instructive, and, if conducted in a scientific spirit, would eventually be of great value in solving social problems. But in the present confused state of things there is also special value in the observations of witnesses who, by descending into the abyss, explore its conditions, and form an independent judgment. So far as my personal observation goes, everyone who has done this expresses surprise at the result, namely, that the impression that the vast majority of so-called "vagrants" are "loafers," vanishes, and the inmates of the casual ward are mostly found to be seekers for work. Little short of a revolution may be made in preconceived opinion by actual experience.

We all know that a rise in pauperism has taken place. In the year ending Lady Day, 1904, 587,131 was expended in poor relief in excess of the corresponding period 1903; 869,128 received relief, as against 847,480 in 1903, on January 1st. But these increases in _actual_ pauperism represent enormous increases in _potential_ pauperism. The hold of a family or of an individual on sustenance gradually loosens, and the least competent or more unfortunate are shaken off and drop into the abyss. At a meeting of the City Council of Manchester in the winter of 1904 it was deliberately stated that "between 40,000 and 50,000 people were on the verge of starvation." An investigation undertaken by the Rev. A. H. Gray in an area between All Saints' and the Medlock, in Ancoats by the University Settlement, and in Hulme by the Lancas.h.i.+re College Settlement, revealed in 3,000 houses about 900 people without employment, "of whom 442 were heads of families." In addition, numbers were only partially employed. One man "trudged once every week to a smaller town 18 miles off where one or two days' work have been procurable."

It will be seen, therefore, that changes in _averages_ of unemployment must result in increase of vagrancy. The average of unemployed returned by trade unions in January for 10 years (1894-1903) was 4.7 per cent.; in January, 1903, it was 5.1 per cent., and in January, 1904, 6.6 per cent. (See p. 76.) Of course, unskilled and unorganised industries are still more affected.

Mr. Ensor, who tramped for a week, 150 miles, in the northern counties, and whose experiences were given in the _Independent Review_, relates that "where to obtain work" is a "burning question" among the inmates of the vagrant ward. It can hardly be imagined how soon a dest.i.tute man is forced of necessity to wander; in the absence of money, being even too poor to buy a newspaper, he is dependent on vague information received "on the road," and naturally is driven to seek food and shelter wherever it is to be had. A slightly more humane treatment in any part of the country may lead to an influx of these unfortunates.[24] Thus the comparative comfort of Welsh workhouses led in the winter of 1904-5 to an "incursion of tramps." Even the prisons were filled by tramps who rebelled against regulations. "Two or three times a week batches of tramps have to be removed from the prisons of Carnarvon and Ruthin to Shrewsbury and Knutsford, and even to gaols in English towns." With regard to this result of the present vagrancy regulations, there is much to be said. A working man cannot sustain himself in a condition fit for work on the tramp ward dietary.[25] I have personal experience of the exhaustion consequent upon it. Unless supplemented by begging, a man must inevitably lose strength if he tramps from ward to ward. Mr. Ensor himself saw a young man throw up work and triumphantly march to prison from sheer hunger. Tramp ward regulation rations (including gruel) contain only 21-1/2 ounces of proteid as against 31-1/2 ounces _in the lowest prison fare_. But this does not represent the real state of the case. In many workhouses there is only dry bread with a small portion of cheese, the gruel being omitted without subst.i.tute. (See note 16.) The bread is often coa.r.s.e, dry and crusty, leavings from the workhouse, and most unappetising. Then dry bread _alone_ can scarcely be eaten, and even water is not always to be obtained to wash it down. (Pp. 112, 124, 152.) The following are reports given by tramps themselves as to food to the writer.

A man said he was too disturbed in mind to eat it, but if he could have done so "he could not have lived upon it." This man "had been in two situations over thirty years," and appeared clean and respectable. He said the majority of men in with him at Bury were also working men out of employment.

One man said he had been in a workhouse where the "skilly" was brought in a bucket, and the men had to dip it out as best they could in jampots.

In this investigation, conducted personally by the writer, there was a general consensus of opinion that prison was less hard.[26] (See also Chap. VIII.)

The actual difference in legal dietary is appended:--

_Prison Dietary--Lowest Scale._

Breakfast ... 8 oz. bread, 1 pint gruel.

Supper ... 8 oz. bread, 1 pint gruel.

Dinner ... 3 days, 8 oz. bread, 1 pint porridge.

2 days, 8 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes.

2 days, 8 oz. bread, 8 oz. suet pudding.

_Daily Average_, 28-1/2 oz. solid, with 2-1/4 pints gruel, 1/2 pint porridge.

_Prisoners' Task_, 5 or 10 cwt. stones, 2 lbs. oak.u.m.

_Legal Dietary for Casual Paupers._

Breakfast ... 6 oz. bread, 1 pint gruel.

Supper ... 6 oz. bread, 1 pint gruel.

Dinner ... 8 oz. bread, 1-1/2 oz. cheese.

_Daily Average_, 21-1/2 oz. solid, with 2 pints gruel.

_Casuals' Task_, 14 cwt. stones.

Evidence comes from all over the country of increase in prison statistics through crimes due to a desire to escape from tramp ward conditions and preference for prison fare.[27]

Such instances as this are continually occurring.

"What am I to do if I cannot get work?" asked John Rush, a tramp, when brought before the King's Lynn magistrates on a charge of refusing to break stones in the casual ward.

"You are to go to prison for twenty-one days," replied the magistrate.

Rush had been required to break 7 cwt. of stone. He asked to have it weighed, as he was of opinion that it was 12 cwt. His request was refused, and he declined to do the work.

A large number of tramps at Andover were sentenced to twenty-one days'

imprisonment for refusing to do their task.

"Seventeen vagrants were marched from the workhouse to the police-court at Canarvon (_North Wales Chronicle_, 25th February, 1905), handcuffed.

Seventeen out of twenty-three inmates refused to work. They alleged that they had been forced to sleep on a wet tiled floor and were 'almost peris.h.i.+ng.' They were sent to prison for a month with hard labour."

Such incidents come from all over the country and are backed up by prison statistics. Prosecutions for offences of this kind rose in 1901 to 5,118, and have risen further. In one prison, Devizes, they doubled the inmates.

It must be remembered that pressure on the tramp ward, as our country's provision for dest.i.tution, has been much lightened by the rise of many large shelters. These deal mostly, however, with the town unemployed. It has not been sufficiently considered that owing to the ma.s.sing of population in towns, the dest.i.tute unemployed are sure to appear in the tramp ward, but that our present system _forces_ them to migrate, at any rate in a small circle, as after claiming the tramp ward they cannot claim shelter again in the same place _for a month_, except under penalty of four nights' detention. All masters of workhouses witness how this tends to make a _forced migration in a limited circle_.[28]

Therefore to the town unemployed the shelter is a boon, as it enables him to remain in one place and look for work, and the testimony of all who are working shelters and labour bureaux is that numbers who avail themselves of them _do_ obtain employment. But if they belong to the "inefficient" cla.s.s this employment cannot be permanent.[29] So much is the tramp ward disliked, and so useless is it as a remedy for dest.i.tution, since at best it affords only a night's shelter with poor food and hard labour, that numbers prefer to "sleep out." The London County Council's census of the homeless poor, Friday, 29th January, 1904, revealed 1,463 men, 116 women, 46 boys, and 4 girls walking the streets, and 100 males and 68 females sleeping in doorways, etc., a total of 1,797 homeless poor in a small area in London (from Hyde Park in the west, to the east end of Whitechapel Road, from High Holborn, Old Street and Bethnal Green, in the north, to the Thames, in the south). In the winter 1903-4, no fewer than 300 people were known to be sleeping out every night in Manchester.

The fate of many unfortunates is a career of gradual physical and moral deterioration from which there is, humanly speaking, no escape.

A man may _begin_ a prison career accidentally. An incident related to me is as follows:--A man went to a place where there was a local merry-making, hoping to pick up a little. There was no room either in tramp ward or lodging-house; he slept out, unfortunately for him, on private grounds. For this he got three months' imprisonment. (See Chap.