WOMEN TRAMPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21940, 29 April 1933, Page 4

WOMEN TRAMPS

PROBLEM IN ENGLAND COMPARATIVELY YOUNG GIRLS. More than 1000 young women tramps, it is estimated, are wandering about England, spending the nights under haystacks, in barns, and in the casual wards of the workhouses. They are causing the British Ministry of Health a good deal of worry. At some workhouses the woman’s wards are crowded every night. Some of these women have babies—though these as a rule avoid the workhouses and manage to get a penny or two by begging each night in order to secure a night’s lodgings in a “ doss house.” Others are women who are married to men tramps, and they wander about the country In couples, parting for the night at the workhouse door, the man to go into one ward and the woman into another. Next morning, after their tasks have been completed, they meet again at the gate and set out for the next workhouse, perhaps 20 miles away. Many arc comparatively young girls. Some have left homo to seek employment and have failed. Others arc wayward young women who have thrown up good jobs because they did not like hard work. These are the counterpart of the Weary Willies who are to be found in the male casual wards.

But .these women tramps do not belong:: to the criminal class. Any breaches of the law they commit rarely extend further than knocking at the wayside cottage and begging for a crust of bread and a cup of tea.