ABSTRACT
The mounting concern about the costs of 'Speenhamland' to support resident paupers, and the spiralling costs of passing vagrants, were not unconnected. A Bill introduced by James Scarlett MP in 1821 to 'peg' levels of poor law spending failed, for the poor law was too sensitive an issue. Shortly before, Sir George Chetwynd, the MP for Stafford, successfully moved for a Select Committee on the Vagrancy Law with special reference to the costs of passing. Pass-masters, who conveyed batches of vagrants in carts, turned a blind eye if they absconded en route, as this saved on the expenses they still claimed for. Magistrates there seem to have been intent on using the Gaol Act passes to facilitate the passage of vagrants as far away as possible from the beggar-ridden metropolis. The 1821 Committee's findings were followed by Chetwynd's consolidating Vagrancy Act of 1822. Scotland relied on some archaic laws, local borough statutes.
