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Page 30
A persistent refusal to assist beggars, while perfectly justifiable in
these islands, is a method which can hardly be adopted in countries
where there is no efficient and comprehensive Poor Law. In such
countries, for instance, an Austria and Germany, where there is no
proper provision on the part of the State for the feeble, the
helpless, the aged, the maimed, begging, on the part of these
unfortunates, becomes, in many cases, an absolute necessity. Recent
statistics,[20] respecting the working of additions to the Austrian
vagrancy laws passed in 1885, would seem to show that numbers of the
genuine labouring population have been in the habit of resorting to
begging when going from place to place in search of employment. To
meet these cases the Austrian Government, in the year just mentioned,
secured the passing of a law for the establishment of what are called
Naturalverpflegstationen, or refuges for workmen on the tramp. These
shelters or refuges are strictly confined to the use of genuine
labourers; the poor of the surrounding neighbourhood are not allowed
to enter them; nor is any one afforded shelter who cannot show that he
has been at work within the previous three months, or who applies
twice for admission in the course of that time. A man must also
produce his papers and be willing to perform a certain amount of work;
in return for this he is allowed to remain at the shelter for eighteen
hours, but not more, and is informed on his departure where the next
station is situated. He is also told if there is any probability of
getting employment in the district and is given the names of employers
in want of men. These institutions are a combination, of the casual
ward and the labour bureau, differing, however, from the casual ward
in rejecting all mere wanderers and accepting genuine workmen alone.
[20] Cf. Conrad's _Handw�rterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_,
i. 928.
It in only in some parts of the Austrian Empire that this system has
as yet been put into operation, for the act is of a permissive
character and is mainly worked by the local authorities. In those
districts of lower Austria where it has been tried, it has so far
produced most satisfactory results; begging has decreased according to
the statistics for 1888, more than 60 per cent. in the course of three
years, while in other parts of Austria, where these institutions are
not yet adopted, it has only decreased 25 per cent. The system has as
yet been in operation for too short a period to enable an opinion to
be formed of its eventual success, but so far it promises well and is
an interesting experiment which deserves to be watched. In any case
the experience derived from the working of this law shows that in
Austria, at least, the workman in search of employment has up till
recently been too often confounded with the habitual beggar, a
confusion highly detrimental to the real interests of the State. One
of the main objects of every well ordered Poor Law system should be to
create as wide a gulf as possible between the begging class and the
working-class; it should do everything possible to prevent anything
like a solidarity of interests between these two sections of the
community; it should dissociate the worker from the vagrant in every
conceivable manner, so that the working population cannot possibly
fail to see that the State draws a sharp line of distinction between
them and the refuse of the land. It was a wise remark of Goethe's
that, if you want to improve men you must begin by assuming that they
are a little better than what they seem; and it is a principle which
is applicable to communities and classes as well as to individuals.
Before dismissing the question of the relations between vagrancy and
destitution there is one more point which still requires to be
considered. According to English law, prostitution is set down as a
form of vagrancy, and the number of persons convicted of this offence
is to be found included in the statistics of vagrancy. We shall,
therefore, consider prostitution in this connection as a form of
vagrancy, and proceed to examine the extent to which it is produced by
destitution. If this grave social disorder were entirely due to a want
of the elementary needs of life on the part of the unhappy creatures
who practice it, we should find an utter absence of it in America and
Australia. In these two important portions of the globe, woman's work
is at a premium; it is one of the easiest things imaginable for
females to get employment; no one willing to work need remain idle a
single day, and the bitter cry of householders, in those quarters of
the world, is that domestic servants are not to be had. But, in spite
of the favourable position in which women stand, as far as work is
concerned in America and Australia, what do we find? Do we find that
there is no such thing as a fallen class in Melbourne and New York? On
the contrary, it is often a subject of bitter complaint by American
and Australian citizens that their large towns are just as bad, as far
as sexual morality goes, as the cities of the old world. The higher
economic position of women does not seem to touch the evil either in
the Antipodes or beyond the Atlantic. It exists among communities
where destitution is an almost unmeaning word; it exists in lands
where no woman need be idle, and where she is highly paid for her
services. In the face of such facts it is impossible to believe that
destitution is the only motive which impels a certain class of women
to wander the streets.
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