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THE VAGRANCY PROBLEM

THE CASE FOR MEASURES OF RESTRAINT
FOR
TRAMPS, LOAFERS, AND
UNEMPLOYABLES:

With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and
Labour Houses.

BY

WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON

Author of "The Evolution of Modern Germany,"
"German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle,"
"Prince Bismarck and State Socialism,"
"The German Workman," etc., etc.

London:
P. S. KING & SON,
ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER.
1910

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"In all ways it needs, especially in these times, to be proclaimedaloud that for the idle man there is no place in this England of ours.He that will not work, and save according to his means, let him goelsewhither; let him know that for him the law has made no softprovision, but a hard and stern one; that by the law of nature, whichthe law of England would vainly contend against in the long run, heis doomed either to quit these habits, or miserably be extruded fromthis earth, which is made on principles different from these. He thatwill not work according to his faculty, let him perish according to hisnecessity; there is no law juster than that....

"Let paralysis retire into secret places and dormitories proper for it;the public highways ought not to be occupied by people demonstratingthat motion is impossible. Paralytic;—and also, thank Heaven, entirelyfalse! Listen to a thinker of another sort: 'All evil, and this eviltoo, is a nightmare, the instant you begin to stir under it, theevil is, properly speaking, gone.'"—Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism."

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CONTENTS