These two classes, that of the "poor, impotent, sick, and diseased," _i.e._ the incapable, and of the "lusty," form the foundation of our Poor-law system.[8]
It is thus seen that changes in the social organisation left behind another stratum to be provided for by legislation. So long as the half-feudal, half-ecclesiastical framework of society existed, there was nutriment for the individual who was left stranded. He was shepherded in some way or other either by church or lord. But when social change left him unshepherded the charge fell on _the nation as an organised unit_. The Poor Law began. The necessity for it arose at once when "all parts of England and Wales be presently with rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars exceedingly pestered, by means whereof daily happened in the same realm horrible murders, thefts, and other great outrages."
Since, therefore, a transition period leaves behind such a layer of social _débris_, it is only to be expected that we should find the third great change that has passed over society, which is still recent, namely, the change to the industrial epoch, to be productive of another layer of social _débris_ or dust.
II. VAGRANCY FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
If society was profoundly affected by the change from agriculture to sheep farming that took place in the Elizabethan period, and other social changes that followed, how much more must we expect to find the effects of such a tremendous change as the Industrial revolution! John A. Hobson points out (in "Problems of Poverty," p. 24) that "the period from 1790 to 1840 was the most miserable epoch in the history of the English working classes." It is doubtful indeed whether we have really recovered from the "sickness" of that period. The rise in wages has largely been swallowed up by the enormous rise in rent, estimated by Sir Robert Giffen at 150 per cent. in fifty years, which in city life is felt most oppressively. "Classes" have, it is true, risen out of the "masses," including the upper working class, but the poverty of large populations is still extreme. It is a matter of grave moment for civilized society that in London, for example, according to Charles Booth's investigations, it can still be said that out of a population of 891,539, 111,000 might be swept out of existence and "no class nor any industry would suffer in the least." For the origin of such a mass of hopeless poverty, we must look to the miseries of the early factory times, and the oppressive pressure of capital on labour, only slowly being counteracted by legislation.