As I say, it is an extravagance for a man to patronize a casual ward.And that they know it themselves is shown by the way these men shun it till driven in by physical exhaustion.Then why do they do it?
Not because they are discouraged workers.The very opposite is true;they are discouraged vagabonds.In the United States the tramp is almost invariably a discouraged worker.He finds tramping a softer mode of life than working.But this is not true in England.Here the powers that be do their utmost to discourage the tramp and vagabond, and he is, in all truth, a mightily discouraged creature.He knows that two shillings a day, which is only fifty cents, will buy him three fair meals, a bed at night, and leave him a couple of pennies for pocket money.He would rather work for those two shillings, than for the charity of the casual ward; for he knows that he would not have to work so hard and that he would not be so abominably treated.
He does not do so, however, because there are more men to do work than there is work for men to do.
When there are more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out process must obtain.In every branch of industry the less efficient are crowded out.Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they cannot go up, but must descend, and continue to descend, until they reach their proper level, a place in the industrial fabric where they are efficient.It follows, therefore, and it is inexorable, that the least efficient must descend to the very bottom, which is the shambles wherein they perish miserably.