Replying that this was not the class for whom the casual ward was intended, I received the following:--
"I should suggest, for the benefit of the man looking for work, that in all casual wards there should be cells set apart for him at a charge, say of threepence per night. He should be taken in as early as six o'clock and let go next morning at six o'clock; if there is any work going he would stand a chance of getting it: you would not be pauperising him--he would be no charge on the rates, and your pauper returns would be greatly reduced. Very likely the argument would be that the guardians would be interfering with private rights, _i.e._ lodging-houses. In answer to this, I have to say that in a great many towns there are no lodgings of any kind, and in others they are so bad that no decent man will sleep in them. I have paid for a bed in such places as Birkenhead, Chester, Wrexham, and others, and after seeing what they were like have left them, not caring to sleep there. Also the lodging-house keepers, if they found the new system reducing their takings, would waken up to the fact that decent beds may bring them their trade back.
"Many a man is spent up when he left a job to look for another, because if money is found on him in the workhouse he loses it. Give him the opportunity of paying and he will do so if he can get a _decent bed_.
"As regards those on the road who can work but will not, the authorities would not be interfering with the liberty of the subject in taking them off the road and making them work for their keep, and in doing so he need not be classed as a pauper.
"There are others who cannot work, old men and women and children; in all cases such as these I should have them sent to the place of birth, no matter how long they had left there they must go back. There would be a chance of reclaiming them when they knew they had to go back, and there would also be an inducement for their friends and relations to show what they are made of by helping to keep them. Of course there are numbers who do not know where they are born, also foreigners; these the Government should take in hand. It's the policy of the Government to let destitute foreigners land here, you must therefore make them responsible for them.