ABSTRACT
ONE of the most difficult and unsatisfactory phases of Poor Law administration is the treatment of vagrants. The necessity for special regulations with regard to this class of poor arises out of the law of settlement. The maxim, No settlement, no relief, was so far characteristic of the theory, if not of the equity, of the English Poor Law that the phrase owes its origin to a distinguished English judge.1 The unworkable nature of
a strictly construed law of settlement has been shown by the resort to certificates and the system of nonresident relief. The case of the vagrant, however, is that of the poor man who has, for the time being at all events, not even a residential title to relief, whose needs, moreover, are so small and temporary, and so urgent, that it is not possible, even if this could be discovered, to refer the applicant to his place of settlement. He must either be relieved at the cost of the place where he finds himself destitute, or denied relief altogether. Under certain conditions we have seen that the unsettled but resident labourer, being thus deprived of benefit under the Act of Elizabeth, frequently rose to be independent of the POOl' Law altogether. The denial of relief was a blessing to him in disguise. The vagrant, on the other hand, seems in a sense to have fallen below the Poor Law level, and a special public provision suitable, as it was thought, to his character and habits, has been made for him.
