ABSTRACT
Tramp figures in the 1860s, as given in the Judicial Statistics, when set against contemporary Poor Law Board figures for casual ward usage, and this became enshrined as the conventional formula for gauging tramp levels into Edwardian times. Scotland was relatively more tramp-ridden than England. The relative lack of fluidity suggested that the tramp wards were populated by a hard core of habitual, regardless of trade conditions, according to the Metropolitan Poor Law Inspectors in 1916. The interpretation of this is that tramps were leaving winter quarters to go on the roads in the warmer weather, and migrant seasonal farm workers swelled the numbers in the late summer harvest months. The 'cuckoo tramps' who stayed in their local workhouse as winter resident paupers, and ventured forth each spring, were said by the Committee not to amount too many. The Committee acknowledged that local factors could alter the pattern.
