Holland has also interesting colonies, "free" at Frederiksoord for the deserving unemployed (chiefly deficient mentally or physically) and "penal" also.[41]
Switzerland also has diminished mendicancy of late to an extraordinary extent by the following measures:--
(1) Providing special facilities for men travelling in genuine search for employment.
Forced labour institutions are the means employed. At the farm at Witzwyl with 150 inmates, two officers are in charge of each group of ten or twelve, and _work with them_. The men sleep and eat in cells and have a liberal diet, and a fair chance when discharged of commencing life afresh. At St. Johannsen the older and more hardened offenders are confined.[42]
In order to facilitate migration there is an Inter-Cantonal Union over fourteen of the twenty-two cantons. The Union issues a "Traveller's Relief Book," by means of which the workman may tramp all over the country and be fed and lodged. He has not to work his way, but beggars and drunkards and idlers fall into the hands of the police, for if work is refused when provided, the man proved "work-shy" is sent for from three months to two years to the "forced labour" institution. The loafer may be sent _either_ to prison, for from two to six months, or to the forced labour institution, for from six months to two years. Almost every canton has its forced labour institution. In Canton Schwyz persons giving alms are _fined_ up to ten francs![43]
A description could also be given of the Austrian Poor Law, which appears to be very similar to the Danish. It will thus be seen that there already exist in several Continental countries methods of dealing with vagrancy far superior to English methods. In fact our present chaos may be considered as the effect of gradually accumulating errors. Ten years before we formed the tramp ward the Germans began the Relief station. We can hardly overestimate the results that would have followed, in toning up our national life, from the substitution of real remedies for futile attempts at repression, adapted to a bygone age, but not to present conditions. It is time we retraced our steps, as all such evils are cumulative in their effects.[44]
It may first be stated that the stringent order of February 25th, 1896, asking guardians to enforce the Casual Poor Act of 1882, not only has not been universally obeyed, but also in some parts of England met with opposition. The Poor-law Conference of the Western Counties felt that while a stringent application of the Board's regulations would lessen the number of vagrants applying at casual wards, "what would have happened would be this, that those who would otherwise apply for legal shelter would be driven to join the majority of 'sturdy rogues' who now subsist in comfort by begging, who sleep in outhouses or pay for lodgings, and never enter a casual ward with its restrictions and taskwork." They considered that the only true way of dealing with the question is to provide simple but sufficient food and a night's lodging, demanding an equivalent of work for food, with no punitive detention, "which is simply another expression for imprisonment for twenty-four hours with hard labour." They recommend a mid-day dole to prevent begging.[45]