The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-22 00:00:00

•

f7ieve that in England there• are. at this molten
not less than 150,000 persons living in a state
of practical vagrancy, " looking in one form or
other to alms for support." 11e shows from 'various
examples, both of the actual gains of individuals, a.li•
certained by inquiry and wat,:hing them, and of their
expenses, that a beggar family nets from:3s. tO•Isl dd.
per day: But, taking the average to be 54 a year,
and taking six individuals to constitute a begging
family, making the number of begging families to he
25,000, the vagrants levy a tot sum of 1,375,0001. a
year,.at least, on the public. That is taxation -not
only without law for its warrant, but taxation in
spite of the law, which the law has strictly forbidden,
and has done probably all in its power to suppress.
This evil has forced itself on the notice of the Poor-
' law Commissioners, and they have caused a pamphlet,
which describes the sort of vagrants most generally
known, and cautions people against alms-giving, to be
extensive'y circulated in the agricultural districts, but
.the evil is increasing.
" Undoubtedly (says the Reviewer) it is a vast evil that
in a moral, Christian, and enlightened community there
'should be thousands who prefer, from generation to ge-
neration, mendicity to labour,and crime to honesty. But
this is an evil which belongs to all states, and which. we
cannot see any possible means of extinguishingt The
evil which is now greatly afflicting the English counties,
and especially the agricultural districts, is the increase
not so much of hereditary and permanent beggars, es of
persons who are really destitute, and who, in default of
sufficient food, firing, and clothing, come to the resolu-
tion to "travel," and earn their bread by walking from
morn to night over amazing distances, and begging by
the way."

In spite of the Vagrant Act, therefore, vagrney is
carried on to a vast extent, and is rapidly and fearfully
increasing. Why it increases, and how the law coins
to be set aside, the Reviewer thus explains

" And what is the reason that the Vagrant Act is in
the agricultural villages, and increasingly in towns and
village dimtricts, a dead letter ? how is, it that the
English farmers offer yet more frequently than ever
their barns and their stables to the mendiCant poor,
supplying them with clean straw or hay ? How is it
that when the Vagrant Act declares that'all who
wander abroad and beg, or gather alms, or cause their
children to do so, are to be deemed idle and 'disorderly.
persons, and may be arrested, brought before a Magis-
trate, and convicted, that in the agricultural districts
such an expedient is hardly ever resorted to ? How is
it that when the Vagrant Act declares that every
person who wanders abroad .and trades without a
license is an idle and disorderly person, yet in
the agricultural districts he is never treated as such ?
How is it that gipsies, though rogues and vagabonds,
under the same Act, as well as fortune-tellers, and per-
sons living its barns, carts, and unoccupied buildings,
without giving any good account of themselves, are 'riot
yet arrested ? The reason is obvious. There is such a
mass of real misery and destitution in the agricultural dis-
tricts that neither the nobility, clergy, gentry, nor Ma-
gistrates will enforce the Vagrant Act against occasional
and non-hereditary mendicants." " The Magistrates of
England have been blamed for not exercising greater
severity towards all vagrants. But if all the idle and
disorderly persons spoken of by the Vagrant Act were
Conducted at this moment before the English Justices of
the Peace, they would soon be unable to provide prisons
and asylums for even a tithe of the number."

At present, then, the misery of the people is so vast,
and the number of vagrants so great, that the law is
completely set aside. It is a dead letter, or worse,
for it inflicts numerous penalties without restraining
the evil. It had better be taken from the statute book,
and not left there the memorial of a power impotent
to cope with the evils it creates. The people would
hot then rely on the useless law for protection, and
seeing that it has deceived them by promising to put
An end to vagrancy, they would look this overwhelm-
ing evil in the face, and would most likely find
courage and skill to conquer it. Such a mass of
vagrants is now spread over the country, that they
make the once delightful and secure vales of England
neither safe nor pleasant to dwell in. Agricultural pro-
perty and sporadic dwellings, hedge rows, woods,
and barns, are difficult to guard. Every inch of
ground there is not, as in the streets of
the metropolis, constantly lighted and, watched by
some living eye; and the nobility, clergy, gentry,
magistrates, and farmers, live under no inconsiderable
awe of the mass of wretches they will not allcm; to
get an honest living. Fearing the vengeance of
the vagrants, they dare not carry the law into effect,
or treat them with harshness and cruelty.
Our Journal, yesterday and to-day, has supplied
some striking proofs of the increase of vagrancy-in
the metropolis. Yesterday it recorded the fact that
between forty and fifty able-bodied vagrants be-
sieged Islington workhouse, and compelled the autho-
rities to provide them with a night's lodging. It has
become, it seems, a common practice for vagrants to
collect in scores, or hundreds, and make an " hos-
telry" of the workhouse. The master of the St. George's
workhouse stated yesterday, at Union-hall, that
upwards of 200 persons applied for admission to sleep
there the preceding night, and one of them being
refused, because there was no room, he deliberately
broke the lamp over the gate, and so secured 'himself
a night's lodging. Yesterday, also, throe persons
were examined at Marlborough-street, charged with
sleeping in Hyde-park, and the constable said that
between fifty and one hundred young females
slept there of a night. Of the three persona
examined, one was a boy who came from a
place in Gloucestershire to seek for employment ; the
two others were young women, who bad neither
home nor friends. Such is the condition, we are
afraid, of many thousand young girls; and were Com-
missioners to inquire into their conduct and condition,
it would be found somewhat more terrible, disgusting,
and immoral than that of the collier girls whom
Lord ASHLEY apparently wishes to drive into desti-
tution and vagrancy.
In every part of our society, in the collieries, in
the metropolis, and in the agricultural districts, we
find evidence of the condition of the masses being
mast sad and most degraded ; and the increasing
plagues of mendicitv and pauperism, in spite both of
the benevolence and the severity of the legislator,
really should make him pause in his insensate career
of attempting to regulate the industry, the occupa-
tions, and th,. subsistence of the people.
Of the causes and cure of the increase of mendicity
and pauperism we cannot now say one word ; we
shall conclude by quoting a passage from the Review,
and by expressing a hope that we may be able at a
future day to return to the subect

"It is a deplorable fact that the English agricullural
poor, who have large families of very young children, live
much better as beggars than they do as labourers. Eight
or nine shillings per week will net support a man
with a wife and Live children." " No English agricultural
labourer migrates for the purpose of begging when they
receive Ms. per week wages. Very few migrate for
Ibegging from the agricultural districts when the wages
are 12 Gd. or even l2s. But when the English la-
bourer's wages decline from 12s. to 10s. Gd., and then
fall to 9s. or even to 75., the labourer has only three
courses to take—to starve on his wages, to enter the
union, or to beg. In five cases out of seven he prefers
mendicity. The great reason then why mendicity on
the part of English agricultural labourers is increasing
is, that wages are not high enough for the price of provi-
sions, or the price of
_provisions is not low though for
the wages of labour." " But besides the -agricultural
destitute labourers, who will not enter the unions, and
who, if they did, would render further buildings all ovcr
the land for their reception immediately necessary, the
Irish emigrants, and the English manufacturing poor hare
to be taken into the account. They hare been incorrectly toad
that the agricultural poor, and the agricultural districts,
' are not so badly off as the manufitcturing poor, and the
manufacturing districts, and so they migrate as beggars
from the north to the south. They migrated to the
north for work ; work has stopped, labour is not de-
manded, and now they return from the, north to the
south as beggars. The agricultural poor becoMe beggars,
because ou the wages they receive they cannot lire.
The manufacturing poor migrate as poor, because they
have no wages at all. Thus the tide of mendicity and
misery rolls on, and threatens a vast augmentation for
the future."
Thus we see that the. want of employment, low
greldtmic.
si,ntgo thethe
condition of the poor of Ireland ; and if we go
pNte-agopeles,oafn}d]ntghelanl(ip:htiptirdieere
at r nt he three million paupers there lie
fpor°(ort,e'cartien
on :as
p ese , t •will
matched by six million paupers in Angland.' •

We regret to state that the venerable Member for
Middlesex, Mr. Byng, was seized with suddefi illness
at the House of Commons, yesterday, about five
o'clock. He was supported out of the House by two
friends, and put into a cab to be conveyed
.to his house
in St. James s-square. On inquiry at his residence
we were glad to learn that he had recovered, and that
no apprehensions were entertained that the attack was
dar2gerous.
A ATIONAL ASSOCIATION.—It will be seen -from an
advertisement which has appeared in the Sint, that t!ile
hall in Holborn, eng-a. ged by this Ass'OCiation, will be
opened on Monday. nest. Mr. Leader,' Icleitibor 'for
. Westminster, will be in the chair. In the cOtir4e of' the
evening the. objects of the Association will beerplained
.
and the proceedings will be enlivened by music, both
vocal and instrumental. It may be necessary to state,
that these Reformers are opposed to all violent meastrro,
and utterly- repudiate " physical force" to obtain redress
of grievances. They 'are also opposed to Mr. Fearg,tts
O'Connor's party, and have been denominated bY-te.A
mote violent Reformers. Conservative Chartqrs:Arie'
1e ibi pg@Gte4 to be very uutkrrotip,