"For instance, supposing a man says, 'I am going from Gloucester to Cardiff,' he would have, perhaps, 'Westbury' marked on his ticket to go to; and suppose he turned up at Stroud, which is directly in the opposite direction, we would say:--'That is not where you are going to; this is a bad ticket; you must have a new ticket, and you will be detained two nights.'
"We give everybody a ticket. That is different to what they have done in Worcestershire and other places, where they do not give a ticket. They tried to discriminate between ... the _bona-fide_ working men and those who were not _bona-fide_. We never attempt to make any distinction, because we say giving this ticket is taking away the excuse for begging; therefore, we say every man ought to have a ticket in his pocket."
The system in force in Wiltshire was described to the same Committee by Mr. A. C. Mitchell, Chairman of the Poor Law Vagrancy Committee of that county:--
"The system was shortly this--that on a tramp applying at the first union he arrived at in the county for relief, he was given a way-ticket on which was entered his description, his final destination, and the places where he would call. Arrangements were made at convenient places where a police constable was stationed, where the tramp could get bread between workhouses which necessitated a fair day's march. This ticket, as long as he proceeded in the direction to the final destination to which he declared himself to be proceeding, entitled him to eight ounces of bread (in Gloucestershire it was a larger amount at first, now it is eight ounces), between the hours of twelve and two at the given stations. As long as he kept on his way to his final destination that held good between union and union.
"The man is passed on from point to point, as long as he keeps on the route originally described, and he obtains his meals of bread at a given point in the middle of each day, between the hours of twelve and two.
"If that man varies his route, according to the recommendations of our committee--of course we cannot be responsible for the actions of boards of guardians--he would then be in the same position as the man who arrived without a ticket at all, and would be liable to full detention under the Casual Poor Act, 1882.