William Harbutt Dawson

“ The English loafer yields his children to workhouse care with but the gentlest pretence of unwillingness, and betakes himself to liberty, lightened of a disagreeable burden, and reflecting that of all strange devices for relieving him and his kind of parental responsibility and of encouraging the multiplication of paupers, the Poor Law is the strangest. ”

“ The very fact that the Colonies would have to be worked with an inefficient class of labour, and the inevitably high costs of administration and oversight, make it impossible to regard them as profit-earning institutions. Nevertheless, if a Colony were well organised, well managed, and not too tightly restricted in the character of its industries and the extent of its market, the costs of maintenance should not be heavy. ”

“ It is the serious side of life, rather than its levities and insouciance, which they need specially to know. Why should the tramp have all the ease and the honest worker all the hardships of life? It sounds like the refinement of cruelty, but in this land of Gargantuan smokers not only is the consoling companionship of tobacco forbidden to the mass of prisoners, but even the cigar makers themselves fall under the general ban, and may not test the result of their own deft handiwork. ”

“ It is the obligation to work which these men, and tens of thousands like them, need to come under. Dislike of regular labour makes them tramps, tramping makes them criminals—the two conditions are inseparably connected as cause and effect, for their kinship lies in the very constitution and instincts of human nature, and the police laws which ignore it are engaged in an encounter from which they must of necessity emerge foiled and beaten. They may hide the tramp for a time from view, but they will not cure him ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here also is seen the utility of the Labour Colony—and to Westphalia, be it noted, belongs the honour of having founded the original Colony, of which the thirty-three others scattered over Germany are copies—which frequently serves as a temporary refuge for men who, having passed through the mill of adversity and humiliation, and been given a glimpse of better things, have no desire to drift into the old demoralising ways. ”

“ For several generations we have done little but pet and coddle the loafer; we have treated his constitutional laziness not as the personal vice and social crime which it is, but as a venial weakness to be excused and indulged, while the man himself we have surrounded with a nimbus of maudlin sentimentality. ”

“ The elaborate and expensive machinery of a prison, whose object is to punish and at the same time to improve by a continuous discipline and applied labour, cannot fulfil its object in the case of this hopeless body of men who are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and who, from long habit and custom, are hardened against such deterrent influences as a short detention in prison may afford. ”

“ The natural atmosphere of a Detention Colony is that of the outside labour market, to which, by right, the detained workers belong, and the existence of a money nexus between the man and his work will be a set-off against the chafing thought of bondage, a constant reminder that the man, in doing well for the colony, is also doing something good for himself, and an incentive to those habits of honesty and application which will alone enable him to regain, and permanently retain, control over his own life. ”

“ Whatever the theory of the law may be, we practically leave it to the option of the parents to evade responsibility or not as they will. All they have to do is to make themselves scarce, and the Poor Law officials and the police may find them or they may not. I know of one Union in whose workhouse there are, at the moment of writing, six children of one father, and he an able-bodied man, who has fled from the district once, and only refrains from doing so again because he knows that he is under strict police supervision. ”

“ Doubtless there are thousands of genuine out-of-works in London, but these are not the people whom the foreigner sees.
"The foreigner naturally asks: How do these people live? And the answer makes him acquainted with an English institution which is probably unique of its kind in the whole world—which is certainly unknown to the German: it is the 'workhouse.' The name recalls our own house of correction, but the 'workhouse' is in fact the opposite of that. As a rule, it is a fine building—in Lambeth we might almost call it a palace—to which every man who is out of work has access. ”

“ To quote the words of the Director of the institution, as spoken to myself: "The people come here, as a rule, miserable and unhealthy, low and wretched, worn out by careless living and bad food, but they soon become new creatures." ”

“ No one who has been inside a Tramp Prison can fail to detect the beneficial influence of rigid discipline upon the physique and bearing of these tramps and loafers of yesterday and the day before. It was hard to believe that the gangs of smart-looking men, who briskly deployed in the quadrangle in their clattering wooden shoes, were members of the same slouching brotherhood whose favourite haunt is the King's highway. ”

“ There remain the bona-fide seekers of work. For them no adequate provision exists, and the neglect to make it is a crying wrong. The present indiscriminate treatment of all wayfarers works unjustly in every way. It is unfair to the dissolute idler, whom it confirms in his sloth; it is monstrously unfair to the unwilling idler, whom it penalises for his misfortune. When society has done its duty to the tramp, it will not hesitate to recognise its responsibilities towards the genuine unemployed. ”

“ To ignore them because they are a small minority in society is just as rational as it would be to ignore gangrene because its effects are local only, or a plague because its victims are as yet few in number. Each of these loafers creates imitators. On the highways he is a walking advertisement of the advantages of idleness; in the model lodging-house, the night shelter, the wayside inn, he acts the part of recruiting sergeant for the great army of sloth and vice. ”

“ The casual ward invites vagrants and creates them. Moreover, it is entirely incompatible with the laws which already exist for the nominal repression of vagrancy. It is illegal to beg, it is illegal to wander about without means of subsistence, but there is no habitual vagrant living who is not guilty of this compound fracture of the law, and few who have not been punished for it. Nevertheless, we wink at these misdemeanours, and in housing some 10,000 vagrants every night in the casual wards, we offer direct encouragement to known law-breakers to persist in illegality. ”

“ His existence is a positive injury to the State in every way; he robs the State not only of the industry which he owes to it, but he consumes the produce of other people's labour and renders it nugatory, by abstracting from the wealth of society without adding to it; his example scandalises honest workers, for while we preach industry and thrift to the labouring classes, we assiduously foster a huge loafing class, which preaches more eloquently on a very different text, viz., that it pays best to do nothing and sponge on the community ”

“ In addition to thus preserving a national asset of no inconsiderable value, the technical skill of the partly-efficient, the colony system subjects the whole vagrant class to the steadying influence of regular life and regular work for long periods of time. Even where this is insufficient to re-establish the man in independent life, the evidence of the Belgian colonies is emphatic that it is sufficient to make his life both profitable to the community and not unpleasant to himself. ”

“ Among all the unfortunate there are none whose destitution is more unquestionable, and whose hard lot presents stronger claims to sympathy, than the widow and orphan, deprived, at a distance from home, of their natural supporter, and the honest artisan or labourer who is seeking the employment of which accidental circumstances have suddenly deprived him. ”

“ It must be granted, of course, that every highway wanderer is not a loafer, and that the workhouse casual ward itself offers a rude hospitality to many a decent wayfarer who is deserving of a better fate, though a good deal of misapprehension exists on this subject. There is no means of learning the percentage of bona-fide work-seekers amongst that section of the vagrant population which fights shy of poor relief, but when one enters the casual ward it is possible at once to divide the sheep from the goats. ”

“ They include, not only a large number of the infirm and incapable, but particularly all the good-for-nothings and depraved people who become a burden on public charity, whose conduct is a cause of annoyance, and who cannot be improved except by systematic discipline, by work, wholesome food and regular life." In fact, one great object was to clear the streets of Berne of the lazy and immoral of both sexes—people who could not, in a democratic country, be arbitrarily packed off to a prison, yet who were rightly regarded as social pests. ”

“ As I shall show, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland have all found it advantageous to establish Labour Houses, true to their name, for the special treatment of social parasites of this kind, and while imitation in details may be neither possible nor desirable, their experience throws valuable light upon both sides of the problem—on the one hand, the case of those hardened offenders upon whom indulgence is thrown away and, on the other hand, the case of the budding loafers who have not irrevocably chosen between the life of diligence and that of sloth. ”

“ They are not always, by any means, the most corrupt, and often when I learn, from a police report, that a fugitive is following regular work, I ask the Minister (of Justice) to suspend the order for his recapture.
"From the standpoint of the general security of the establishment, the facility of escape constitutes a valuable safety valve, which it is expedient to recognise. In truth, the latent energies which impel a man, at all costs, to seek emancipation from the bondage which he has to endure in the Beggars' Depot are exhausted by flight. ”

“ No doubt some of the able-bodied paupers know nothing of farm work, and if they can be enticed to labour colonies, which would teach them, agriculture may gain, but there is a large demand for absolutely unskilled men which they refuse to supply. For example, last summer, a tradesman in a small town in Somerset asked the master of the workhouse to send him half-a-dozen labourers, to whom he would give permanent employment for 18s. ”

“ There is first the type with which we are most familiar—the nomad of the highway, who is always in motion yet never gets to his journey's end, the unmitigated vagabond, who lives by begging and blackmailing and pillaging. ”

“ When a person under the age of sixteen is convicted of having wilfully committed an offence punishable with a police penalty, the court, even in the case of a second offence, shall not sentence him to imprisonment or a fine, but shall record the offence and reprimand the child, or, if the nature and gravity of the offence or the circumstances of the case require it, shall place the child at the disposal of the Government until he comes of age. ”

“ Before leaving the question of repressive measures, it can hardly be superfluous to say that much could be done at once to discourage vagrancy and loafing if greater discrimination in almsgiving were shown. It sounds paradoxical, but it is true, that many of the people who, by their thoughtless doles, make loafers, are among the warmest friends of institutions called into existence for the one purpose of unmaking them. Nothing in the world is easier than to get rid of an importunate beggar by the gift of a coin ”

“ The answer is that though the Municipal Authorities possess powers of punishment irrespective of the police, these powers have seldom to be exercised. A strong administrator, humane, but firm, who expects honest work from his people and therefore gets it, keeps the wheels of this notable piece of disciplinary machinery in smooth and regular [Pg 210] rotation from year's end to year's end. Such of the inmates as can be trusted are even allowed to spend half a day in town once a week without any supervision whatever, and the privilege is seldom abused. ”

“ It would be judicious, as well as equitable, to pay the detained worker wages, or a bonus on output, by way of encouraging him to diligence and exertion, and of providing him with decent clothing, tools, and a small sum of money wherewith to begin life again on regaining his liberty. Even the most conscientious of free workmen is spurred by the thought of the wages which will reward his efforts, and there is nothing ignoble in such a stimulus. ”

“ The inmates shall live together in peace and quiet, none interrupting another in his work, but rather by industry, order, and decent moral behaviour encouraging each other to reformation of life and setting each other a good example. Conversation upon past misdemeanours may under no circumstances take place; nor may one inmate reproach another with any crime which he may have committed, or with his past course of life, abuse or threaten him, or in any way physically misuse him. No inmate may avenge himself for a wrong done to him by another inmate. ”

“ Thus, a workless artisan or labourer, desirous of going in search of employment, can at once obtain a way-ticket on proof given of his bona fides, and so equipped he is able to walk any necessary distance without cost to himself. An official of the local Hostel—for most towns of importance possess at least one—helps him to draw up his plan of route, which is so arranged that after five or six hours of moderate walking each day, he may land at the door of a hospitable Shelter, where food, lodging, and due care for his moral welfare await him. ”

“ It may be asked, however, what is the practical effect of Labour House discipline on the after life of those who have experienced it? That a large proportion are won to a regular life of industry cannot, unfortunately, be said, nor would it be expected. In proof of this self-evident admission stands the patent fact that many of the inmates are recidivists who have been in and out of the Labour House time after time. ”

“ The question of allowing the products of Detention Colonies to compete with the products of free labour would inevitably arise, and not improbably the bare possibility of such competition occurring would be used as an argument against the establishment of these Colonies. It is obvious, however, that if the object of Detention Colonies is to assist their inmates to go back into the world able to earn an honest livelihood by industry, there must be some slight sacrifice of private interest to public advantage. ”

“ For we have got so far as to recognise that the liberty of vagrant parents to drag their offspring round the country is a vicious liberty, and should not be tolerated, though we are not agreed on preventive measures. The Poor Law Acts of 1889 and 1899 empower Boards of Guardians, under certain specified circumstances, to assume and exercise parental rights over the children of pauper parents, and the Children Act, 1908, prohibits child vagrancy under penalty, and makes provision for placing in public or other suitable custody the children of persons who are unfit to discharge parental duty. ”

“ Only by setting before ourselves sane and moderate views shall we be working to serious purpose; to act otherwise will be to waste effort and court certain disappointment. It is hardly too much to say that it will be safer to aim too low than too high in undertaking the difficult task of socialising and moralising the loafer. ”