On the part of the authorities it is sheer
robbery. They give the men far less for their labour than do the
capitalistic employers. The wage for the same amount of labour,
performed for a private employer, would buy them better beds, better
food, more good cheer, and, above all, greater freedom.
As I say, it is an extravagance for a man to patronise a casual ward. And
that they know it themselves is shown by the way these men shun it till
driven in by physical exhaustion. Then why do they do it? Not because
they are discouraged workers. The very opposite is true; they are
discouraged vagabonds. In the United States the tramp is almost
invariably a discouraged worker. He finds tramping a softer mode of life
than working. But this is not true in England. Here the powers that be
do their utmost to discourage the tramp and vagabond, and he is, in all
truth, a mightily discouraged creature. He knows that two shillings a
day, which is only fifty cents, will buy him three fair meals, a bed at
night, and leave him a couple of pennies for pocket money. He would
rather work for those two shillings than for the charity of the casual
ward; for he knows that he would not have to work so hard, and that he
would not be so abominably treated.
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