Life on the Road
BY HUGH MARTIN.
VGROM men are multiplying; of that there can be no question. There are certainly more tramps on English and Welsh roads to-day than at any other time
in history. So true is this that the reform of casual wards initiated two years ago has been gravely impeded by the sheer size of the moving throng, even where the County Public Assistance Committees have shown abundant good will, which is by no means everywhere.
Casual wards, and even to some extent common lodging houses, seem indeed to be suffering from the common slum disease of overcrowding.
Yet it would be easy to draw wrong conclusions from this state of affairs. It might, for instance, be reasonably thought that an increase of our nomadic population was wholly the direct result of widespread unemployment, and that the new recruits to the army of the wayfarers were in most cases genuinely employable men who were tramping from town to town in search of work. That does not appear to be true. It is a curious fact that little direct connexion can be traced, at any rate in this country with its system of unemployment allowances, between the number of nomads and the state of the labour market, in the sense that if you were to go into the highways and hedges offering work you would be able to find a large supply of reasonably capable labourers, artisans, or clerks who would be likely to hold down their jobs for any length of time. You would probably be lucky if you picked up a tenth of your requirements after a week's search. In fact, the normal unemployed " worker " —as distinct from the navvy who makes a living on " public works "—knows very well that if he cannot find a job where he has mates and some sort of anchorage he is still less likely to do so in a strange land far from friends.
Why, then, does any man take to the road ? Who is he ? What is the reason for his multiplication ? How is he treated, and what does he do to keep body and soul together ?
A man takes to the road, as a rule, not because he is out of work, but because he has some mental or physical kink that makes him a failure in community existence. It may be accepted as a general principle that the majority of tramps began just as failures. Something like 5 per cent. of the casual wards' population would be classed as insane if they lived more settled, easily watched lives. A further 15 per cent. are " queer." A high proportion suffer from some physical defect, coupled with a dullness of intellect or an instability, which renders them quite unfit to hold their own in the ever-quickening race of industrial life. Then there are the drunkards, there are the criminals, there are the professional beggars and their. close relations, the " traders," or hawkers of collar studs, boot laces, lavender, &c., and there arc, of course, the- " griddlers," or street singers.
Three out of every four of the tramps you meet on the- road belong to one or other of these groups, or several.
in combination. The reason why there are more of them this year than there were last year or the year before is simply because life, in a general sense, is more harassing, and they were always on the verge of the abyss. They are the sick children of civilization. A little push and over they go. And once over it is hard indeed to climb' back.. They pass imperceptibly from the ranks of the amateur casual to those of the chronic casual, and on again into the ranks of the true nomad or vagrant, recognized by all as a man at war with the world.
As for the tramp's way of life, it has probably been a good deal eased during the past few years, although one doubts if the thorough-paced vagrant is thankful for the change. His god is freedom, often interpreted as freedOM to be foul, and that freedom is dwindling with every month which passes. New rules lay it down that the tramp, if for lack of funds he has to choose a ward instead of a common lOdging house, shall stay at his " spike " for two nights (unless he can produce an Employment Exchange card), must be provided with a bed and a bath, and must have one good meat meal on the interven- ing day, during which he has to do light work such as cleaning or wood-chopping. There is also supposed to be a day room, as well as a dormitory, but a good many institutions have not yet attained that standard, which would make them approximate to the better sort of com- mon lodging house, but without the inestimable blessing of freedom.
There is much difference of opinion about the number of men living on the road who can be said both to be genuinely seeking work and able to work, but it is prob- ably safe to put the figure at less than 10 per cent. of the total. What the figure would be if there were no " dole " Heaven only knows !
Much the most disturbing feature of the situation is the arrival of a new body of recruits, the boy tramps. The boy tramp, totally unknown before the War, is now an alarming phenomenon of the roadside and the casual ward. He hails generally from the " distressed areas," tramping south, say, from Durham, or east from Wales, with a defiant air, a crude egotism, a smattering of educa- tion, a sort of perverted idealism, that are most oddly reminiscent of the prevailing undergraduate atmosphere of our universities. As a rule, he has never done a stroke of work in his life, and is utterly undisciplined, . Often he says he has run away. from-home because (1) it was dull, (2) there was no Chance of a job, (8) it wasn't fair to take the bread out of Mother's mouth. There'are hundreds of these lads in the Midland counties, heading straight for utter physical and moral ruin. They have no conception of the horror of the abyss of trampdom, or, if they have, have shut their eyes; because-it seems to be no use stopping now.
One of the most promising efforts to deal with this urgent problem is. that of Gray House at Bicester, which has just been opened under the auspices of a Joint Vagrancy Board with finances adequate for a three- year experiment. Young tramps-in-embryo sent there from the wards are fed and clothed, set to productive work, and given just one more chance to get back into society— to escape while there is yet time from the ghastly future of a life lived on the road. Here, indeed, is something a thousand times worth doing. After a lad has been on the road for twelve months, getting the habit of vagrancy and in daily contact with the mental and physical filth of " creatures who once were men," only a miracle can bring him back. Miracles do happen, but we have no right to expect them. A place such as Gray House, if the experi- ment succeeds, will make them unnecessary,
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