condition of complete helplessness; knowing not which way to move or
what steps to take; in a very short time they are to be found
soliciting alms in the streets. It is a very serious matter when such
persons are reduced to these straits. With the advent of better times
it is often very difficult to enrol them once again in the ranks of
industry. Bad habits have been acquired, self-respect has broken down,
the mind has become accustomed to a lower plane of existence; the
danger has arisen that persons who were to begin with only beggars by
accident may end by becoming beggars from choice. This is what
actually does happen in some instances, and especially where the level
of life and comfort has at all times been low. The transition from the
one state to the other is not a very pronounced one, and the step into
the position of a habitual beggar is not hard to take after a certain
number of lessons in the mendicant's art have once been learnt. In one
sense it is the pressure of want which has made these people beggars,
in another sense it is their own apathy and feebleness of resource.

It is not easy to estimate the number of persons who become habitual
mendicants in consequence of slackness of work and the temporary loss
of employment. As a matter of fact the whole body of statistical
information bearing upon vagrancy is rather unreliable in character,
and it is difficult to see how it can be anything else. In almost all
cases of begging the initiative is taken by the police; it very seldom
happens that a private citizen gives a beggar in charge. The regular
and systematic enforcement of the Vagrancy Acts by the public
authorities is impeded by a variety of causes, each of which makes it
difficult to grasp accurately the proportions of the begging
population. In the first place no two policemen enforce the law with
the same stringency; one is inclined to be lax and lenient, while
another will not allow a single case to escape. In some districts