In the morning, while in the oakum shed,
discussions arose as to the best counties for
begging, and the merits of workhouses
generally. One man, whose appearance I shall
not soon forget, dressed in tattered garments,
with a jolly round face, was the great
umpire on everything.  He had lieen tramping
twenty years, he modestly said, and had just
come in from a journey by Oxford into South
Wales, and gave rapturous accounts of the
workhouses there, As he was ill clad, he wanted
to know what workhouse in London was good
for a tear-up? He said he knew them all; but
rules and regulations, perhaps, had altered since
last he visited them.

This question gave rise to a long argument,
some speakers expressing themselves in favour
of one, some of another workhouse. He said,
"I don't care so much about the month I'll
get, if they only give me tidy togs." One
man said he was going to Romford as soon
as he got out, and that as much skilly as you
liked was given you there. I consented to go
with him, as he wanted a companion, and we got
to Romford about five o'clock in the afternoon.
He was a quiet sort of man, and spoke very
little, and did not beg on the road. On the
left-hand side, going into the town, stands the
relieving officer's house, and a young man came
out and gave us two tickets, scratched with a pen.
We turned sharply round and up a narrow lane,
and at the top sat down for a few minutes. A
young woman came past, from work I should
think, and my companion asked her what she had
got in the basket she was carrying? She had some
bread and cheese, the remains of her dinner, and
gave us it willingly. The man at the gate would
not admit us until six o'clock, and we lay down
on the grass by the roadside, in company with
several more. A man named Scottie had a
dirty-looking woman with him, who was
evidently used to such society. Another man, named
Dick, of whom I shall have more to say, appeared
to be the general friend of these two. The man
who took our names at Romford workhouse was
an ignorant fellow, and a very slow writer, and
some of the casuals gave him extra trouble. I
thought I might as well try my hand, and gave
him Owen Evans as my name, taking care to
pronounce it " Howing Heavens." This
produced endless bother, and was only capped by
the name of the town I came from, which was
Llanfairfeckan. He gave this latter word up,
and put Barking instead. The casual ward
has no bunks, but has a raised board with
mattresses, blankets, and counterpanes, dirty
enough. It is a very small place, and might
hold seven or eight; but they managed to
cram double that number in it this night.
The man who takes care of this place is an old
pauper, who has been at sea all his life. He
had some soup and meat to sell at a penny a
plateful; but I must confess the humiliating
fact, that the whole of the occupants of the
ward could not produce that sum, and old
Daddy (they are all called Daddies) said, "Well,
I nivver seed anything like it! Why, last summer
there allers used to be a penny or two in
the place; but now! why, I can't get a farthing
to scratch my nose with." One gentleman said
that unfortunately he had left his money on the
pianer in the droring-room; another said that
he paid the whole of his money away for hincom-
tax; while Dick said that the last time he
in quod he gave his tin to the governor for the
Lancashire Distress Fund. All this "chaff"
produced much laughter; and everybody went
to sleep in the best humour. I should have
been a little easier if I had been less crowded.
In the morning you turn a crank from
seven to eight, and then have breakfast, which
is the thinnest of all thin skilly I ever saw.
Two pailfuls were brought up among about
fifteen or sixteen men, and all swallowed. One
man had six or seven pints of it, and I hope he
enjoyed it. I took a good share of it myself.
After breakfast we did another hour at the
crank, and were then free. I had previously
been talking with the Dick I have mentioned,
and he said he was going to Billericay that
night, and to Chelmsford after, with Scottie
and the woman, and as he appeared to
like me, I said I would go with them. The
man I had come with from London was
going to Edmonton, he said, and so I left him.
Scottie and the woman were going towards
Yarmouth, where he had some relations; but this
plan was frustrated, as will be seen. We trudged
merrily away; Dick the while giving rne lots
of anecdotes of his life. He had originally been
a bricklayer's labourer; but having robbed a
man of his watch, he got nine months for it, and
had been ever since alternately thieving, cadging,
and in prison. He was, even with this
degrading character, a kind sort of fellow, full
of joke, but couldn't help stealing anything that
came in his way.

In the afternoon we got to a place named
Orsett, at which place was a workhouse. It
was about two o'clock when we got there, and
a policeman who had been enjoying a noonday
nap in a stable came to us with a very sleepy
air, and refused to allow us to stay, giving as a
reason that we had plenty of time to get on to
Billericay, which was nine miles further. We
represented ourselves as footsore, and told many
other lies of the same kind, but the policeman
knew better, and bade us go on. Did you ever
see three real tramps going along a road? If
you have, you will have observed that peculiar
walk they have, head hung down, and treading
as if the road were paved with needles. All
tramps walk so. I never saw one who had been
anv time in the tramping line, walk otherwise.
This very afternoon I was painfully conscious of
my three companions' vagabond gait and air.
People stood and watched us until we were
out of sight, and children ran away frightened.
Very little talk went on until we had been
walking some time, when we all sat down
on the trunk of a tree by the roadside,
and Scottie then blamed Dick for being in a
hurry to get into Orsett, and thus making us
do this journey. Scottie grew quite sarcastic,