ABSTRACT
Around 1930 two per cent at most of the nation's casual ward inmates were children, and the LCC had only two children's beds designated among the 16,700 in its registered lodging houses. The practice of hiring out children to beggars still went on, however, up to the early 1930s at least, for their financial advantage to beggars outweighed the risk of NSPCC discovery. Though the sight of bemedalled beggars and buskers was common between the wars, their military pedigrees and destitution were not always genuine; war decorations were freely traded among the vagrant netherworld. Apart from the pseudo 'gentlemen', there were occasionally men of genuine education who had for various reasons sunk to a vagrant life. There was much concerned comment between the wars about the apparent increase in vagrancy among youths and young men.
