[Footnote 5: Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1902-3, p. 57.]
[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, Report of Mr. P. H. Bagenal, p. 147.]
The Departmental Committee on Vagrancy of 1904 endorse this view:--
"The returns of pauperism published annually by the Local Government Board give figures relating to casual paupers, that is, vagrants relieved in casual wards, but these represent only a small portion of the total number of vagrants.... The vagrant is to be found in many places--on the road, in casual wards, common lodging houses, public or charitable shelters, and prisons, besides which he has many other resorts, such as barns, brickworks, etc. Then, again, the number of homeless wayfarers varies greatly from time to time, and at different periods of the year, owing to conditions of trade, the state of the weather, or the attraction of seasonal employments."[7]
[Footnote 7: Report of Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, Vol. I., p. 16.]
Although a simultaneous census of the entire vagrant population has never been taken, certain data exist which furnish the basis for at least an approximate estimate. Several of these will be mentioned.
(1) Up to 1868 yearly returns were collected by the Home Office from the different police forces of England and Wales showing the number of vagrants of all kinds known to them. The number on the latest date, April 1, 1868, was 38,179, against 32,528 on April 1, 1867. The number of persons relieved in the casual wards of the country on January 1, 1867, was 5,027, and on January 1, 1868, 6,129, showing that the "casual paupers" at that date represented only about one-sixth of the total vagrant class. If the same proportion to population still held good to-day the number of vagrants of all kinds, based on the mean of the known number of casual paupers on January 1 of the five years 1904-8, viz., 9,355, would be about 56,000.
(2) In the county of Gloucester a count has been made for many years on a night of April of the numbers sleeping in casual wards and in common lodging houses, and the results show that the lodging-houses contain five times as many vagrants as the casual wards. Allowing for vagrants who sleep out of doors, the ratio would not seriously differ from that shown by the police enumeration already mentioned. Applying to the whole country the number of vagrants per thousand of the population of Gloucestershire, the nomad army would be shown to be 30,000. It should be remembered, however, that Gloucestershire is a county of small towns, and lies away from the great streams of population; hence it should not feel the full effect of the vagrant movement.[8]