They were also regularly the target of legislation — as early as the seventh century a law was framed to make those who entertained travellers responsible for any misdemeanours they committed. These measures led to labourers roaming around the country looking for areas where the wages were high and where the labour laws were not too strictly enforced. Some also took to begging under the pretence of being ill or crippled. In 1. 34. 9, the Ordinance of Labourers prohibited private individuals from giving relief to able- bodied beggars. Labourers wishing to move out of their own county . Every beggar suitable to work shall resort to the Hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and there remain upon the pain aforesaid. An Act of 1. 56. 4 aimed to suppress the . Those falling within the scope of this Act included. Egyptians or gypsies. Over the next two centuries, this list was amended periodically to include any class of person now considered undesirable such as . The Act also authorized the arrest of rogues, vagrants, sturdy beggars, or idle or disorderly persons, and their committal to a workhouses or House of Correction (an early form of prison), or transportation for seven years to English plantations. The contractor would receive an agreed amount for each vagrant he maintained (for a maximum of say three days) and for each that was conveyed to the county borders. However, the pass system was widely abused and was in fact increasing vagrancy rather than reducing it. By 1. 82. 1, a Parliamentary Select Committee estimated that around 6. The Committee concluded that the pass system . In addition, every person . Exceptions could made for discharged prisoners to beg their way home, and for soldiers, sailors, marines and their wives to beg. Natives of Scotland, Ireland and the Channel Islands were also allowed to pass without punishment as these places had no formal system of settlement to which such persons could be legally removed. As a result, habitual vagrants could simply declare themselves to be from Dublin or Glasgow or Jersey and thus remain on the road. The settlement laws, too, still operated so that a union was obliged to offer relief only to those holding legal settlement within its boundaries. However, tramps continued to claim relief at union workhouses which, it turned out, were usually located within a day's walk of one another. The Royal National Theatre (generally known as the National Theatre) in London is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts. The "houseless poor" — variously known as vagrants, tramps, rogues, vagabonds, and travellers, have always lived on. Several instances of tramps dying from exposure or starvation after being turned away from the workhouse door resulted in the Poor Law Commissioners having to compromise. In 1. 83. 7, a new regulation was introduced which required food and a night's shelter to be given to any destitute person in case of . At first, this was often provided in existing infectious wards which were often separated from the main workhouse and recognised that tramps often carried contagious diseases such as measles. Gradually, however, purpose- built blocks were added, usually of a single storey and located near the workhouse entrance. They were designed to provide the most basic level of accommodation, inferior to that in the main workhouse. One observer in 1. In general they have brick floors and guardroom beds, with loose straw and rugs for the males and iron bedsteads with straw ties for the females. They are generally badly ventilated and unprovided with any means of producing warmth. All holes for ventilation in reach of the occupants are sure to be stuffed with rags and straws; so that the effluvia of these places is at best most disgustingly offensive. Another term that became popular for the tramps' block was . A spike had only a certain number of beds and late- comers might find themselves turned away. Sometimes the duties could be combined with that of the workhouse porter, with his wife supervising the female casuals. In 1993, with a group of stylist friends, Lidewij Edelkoort created Heartwear, a non-profit association that helps to sustain handcraft knowledge and thus. Submitted answers acres electoral shed contribution interim portion accusations homer firefighters taste trapped diet. Manage your page to keep your users updated View some of our premium pages: google.com. Upgrade to a Premium Page. This sad page details a few programmes that at the present time seem to be entirely missing or unavailable. To Main Dinosaur TV Menu. Find the latest Northern Irish and international news including GAA, opinion, business, family notices and more from the leading Belfast-based daily newspaper. Some spikes were in the charge of a . It was common practice for vagrants to hide such possessions in a nearby hedge before entering the spike. According to George Orwell's account of a visit to a spike (possibly the one at Godstone) reveals that it was an unspoken rule that searches never went below the knee so that illicit goods could be hidden in the boots or stuffed into the bottoms of trouser legs. Entrants then had to strip and bathe in water that may already been used by a number of others. They were then issued with a blanket and a workhouse nightshirt to wear while their own clothes being fumigated, dried, and stored. Each was then given a supper, typically 8 ounces of bread and a pint of gruel (or . Ripon casuals' baths, 2. Separate wards were to be provided for men and for women and children, each having a yard with a bathroom and water- closet, and a work shed. It was also recommended that wards have raised sleeping platforms, divided down the middle by a gangway, and each side divided up by boards to give a sleeping space of at least two feet three inches. A narrow shelf along each side of the room provided a shelf at the head of each compartment where clothes could be placed. Bedding was to consist of coarse . A temporary casual ward, designed by Henry Saxon Snell and clearly based on these recommendations, was erected at St Marylebone workhouse in 1. Its walls were heavily decorated with religious texts no doubt designed to . They are washed with plenty of hot and cold water and soap, and receive six ounces of bread and a pint of gruel for supper; after which, their clothes being taken to be cleaned and fumigated, they are furnished with warm woollen I night- shirts and sent to bed. Prayers are read by Scripture- readers; strict order and silence are maintained all night in the dormitory; and the . The bed consists of a mattress stuffed with coir, a flock pillow, and a pair of rugs, At six o'clock in the morning in summer, and at seven in winter, they are aroused and ordered to work. The women are set to clean the wards, or to pick oakum; the men to break stones, but none are detained longer than four hours after their breakfast which is of the same kind and quantity as their supper. Their clothes, disinfected and freed of vermin, being restored to them in the morning, those who choose to mend their ragged garments are supplied with needles, thread, and patches of cloth for that purpose. If any are ill, the medical officer of the workhouse attends to them; if too ill to travel, they are admitted into the infirmary. At the end of this passage is a general waiting- room, with another for females only, next to which is the female bath- room. The bath- room is 1. There are two baths, made of Stourbridge clay, having a white glazed surface. The water is heated by a stove in the same room, under the management of the attendant, the cistern holding a hundred gallons of hot water for the two baths. Adjoining this bathroom is the female sleeping- ward, 5. Running along the whole length of the room is a ventilator 5ft. The sides of the ventilator open and close; the top, being glazed, affords light. On the floor immediately beneath is a cast- iron grating covering a brick air- channel which is supplied with fresh air from the outside by covered channels under the floors. It also contains the hot- water pipes for heating the apartment in cold weather. The room is well lighted at night by two pendent star- burners. Ranged down each side of the apartment are the sleeping- bunks for forty- four women and twenty children. These bunks are generally 6 ft. The boards forming the beds are so hung on pivots as to be capable of being turned up every day for the purpose of cleaning the floor beneath. The head of the bed under the pillow is slightly raised, and hinged separately, for the purpose of lifting and depositing the clothes of the sleeper; the clothes of each inmate being thus under her own protection. One feature in this ward is the Scripture texts, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, printed on the walls and ceiling, in red letters on a blue ground. If on examination it be found requisite, the clothes of the casual are, whether male or female, hung up in this heated chamber, and well fumigated with sulphur. These sheds are about 1. One common work task was oakum picking where a certain weight (usually one or two pounds) of old rope had to be unpicked into its constituent fibres — the resulting product could then be sold off (hence the expression . Note only was it hard work, but the amount broken (typically two hundredweight) was easily measured, and the resulting small stones could be sold off for road- making. However, even with an early start to the work, this meant that only half the day remained to tramp to another workhouse. The Casual Poor Act of 1. The casuals could then be released at 9 a. Return to the same spike was not allowed within 3. Nights at a spike might interspersed with sleeping rough or in farm outhouses, especially in the summer months. George Orwell's account of a Spike describes a desultory Sunday where the inmates were locked up for the day. The windows were so high up that one could not look outside, and the sole ornament was a set of Rules threatening dire penalties to any casual who misconducted himself. We packed the room so tight that one could not move an elbow without jostling somebody. Already, at eight o'clock in the morning, we were bored with our captivity. There was nothing to talk about except the petty gossip of the road, the good and bad spikes, the charitable and uncharitable counties, the iniquities of the police and the Salvation Army. Tramps hardly ever get away from these subjects; they talk, as it were, nothing but shop. They have nothing worthy to be called conversation, bemuse emptiness of belly leaves no speculation in their souls. The world is too much with them. Their next meal is never quite secure, and so they cannot think of anything except the next meal. Giles, Whitechapel, St. George's, Paddington, Marylebone, Mile End.
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