Note 7 — Chapter I

The Report points out that the term "vagrant" is elastic, including gipsies, hawkers, pedlars, and those employed in hop-picking or fruit-picking (section 78; see also sections 400, 401). It appears (section 402) that arrangements for these seasonal migrations are improving in the hop-picking and fruit-picking counties, owing to the action of local sanitary authorities and philanthropic societies. The "casual labourer," on the contrary, is a constant addition to the ranks of vagrancy (see section 81). "The vagrant of this class is usually a man who has been unable to keep his employment from idleness, want of skill, drinking habits, or general incapacity, or perhaps from physical disability. As time goes on, he succumbs to the influence of his demoralising mode of life, and falls into the ranks of the habitual vagrant." Lack of unskilled employment, which is mainly seasonal, is as large a cause.