Читать книгу Glimpses into the Abyss - Mary Higgs - Страница 14

Table of Contents

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 Lancashire 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 destitute 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 21½ ounces of proteid as against 31½ 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 substitute. (See note 16.) The bread is often coarse, 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:—