very much the same, and it may therefore be considered
as established that men are from three to four times
more addicted to vagrancy than women. If the charges
of prostitution were excluded (they amounted to 6,486
in 1888), it will be found that the proportion of
male vagrants to female is as eight to one. Looking
at this matter a priori, we should expect these
figures to be reversed. In the first place women
form a considerably larger proportion of the community
than men, and in the second place there are not nearly
so many openings for females in our present industrial
system. Forming a judgment upon these two sets
of facts alone, one would almost inevitably come to
the conclusion that women would be found in much larger
numbers among the vagrant class than men. There
are fewer careers open to them in the industrial world;
they are less fitted to move about from place to place
in search of work; the pay they receive in manufacturing
and other establishments is, as a rule, very poor;
but in spite of all these economic disadvantages only
one woman becomes a beggar to every four men, or,
if we exclude fallen women, to every eight men.
What does this condition of things serve to show?
It is an incontestable proof that at least three-fourths
or, perhaps, seven-eighths of the begging carried
on by men is without economic excuse. If women
who are so heavily handicapped in the race of life
can run it to such a large extent without resorting
to vagrancy, so can men. That men fall so far
behind women in this respect is to be attributed,
as we have seen, not to their want of power, but to
their want of will. They possess far more opportunities
of earning a livelihood than their sisters, but, notwithstanding
this advantage, they figure far more prominently in
the vagrant list. The only possible explanation
of this state of things is that vagrancy is, to a
very large extent, entirely unconnected with economic
conditions; the position of trade either for good
or evil is a very secondary factor in producing this
disease in the body politic; its extirpation would
not he effected by the advent of an economic millennium;
its roots are, as a rule, in the disposition of the
individual, and not to any serious degree in the industrial
constitution of society; hence, the only way to stamp
it out is by adopting vigorous and effective methods
of repression.
The British Isles are in a position to adopt these measures with boldness and confidence, for the Poor Law system provides for all genuine cases of destitution, and in striking at begging with a heavy hand, the authorities are at the same time doing much to suppress other kinds of crime. It has to be remembered that the vagrant is a dangerous person in more ways that one. The life he leads, his habit of going from house to house, affords him ample opportunities of noticing where a robbery may he successfully committed. If he does not make use of the opportunities himself, he is not at all unwilling to let others who will