How do you tell a sturdy vagabond from a submissive pauper?

The number of people sleeping on the streets has risen by 55 per cent in the last five years. New statistics show that London had 742 rough sleepers on the streets on an average night last autumn, which is about 200 more than the same period in 2013. Governments have tried various tactics to get people off the streets over the years, but the solutions often sound as bad as the problem. An 1893 article attempted to classify the tramps as a first step to getting rid of aggressive beggars, ‘sodden scoundrels too cowardly to commit real crimes, but willing enough to frighten women into paying them blackmail.’

First come the “mouchers,” the habitual vagrants, who wander about and get their living by begging, and who have no idea, immediate or remote, of ever adopting any other calling. Next come the “travellers” — the name given to those tramps who can best be described as “peripatetic members of the unemployed (? unemployable) class” — men who, as was said in Australia, are perpetually looking for work, “and praying God they won’t find it.”