The herd of human beings, haggard, unshaven, filthy and tattered, grows from minute to minute. Three weary hours to kill in the company of other the other tramps who are already waiting. But the spike does not open until six in the evening. It is, as we have said, around three o’clock in the afternoon when he turns up at the spike. That is why our man will not tarry on the way. He will not rest much on the way, because the police, who look on tramps with a suspicious eye, will make quick work of sending him packing from any town or village where he might try to stop. He will probably take five hours to walk that distance, and will arrive at his destination at about three in the afternoon. He is about twenty kilometres from the next workhouse. Let us take one of them as he comes out of the spike at about ten in the morning. It will be sufficient to look at just one day, for the days are all the same for these unfortunate inhabitants of one of the richest countries in the world. Now let us see what sort of life they lead. That is the explanation for the existence of tramps. Hence the endless pilgrimages of tramps who, if they want to eat and sleep with a roof over their heads, must seek a new resting-place every night. These places are about twenty kilometres apart, and no-one can stay in any one spike more than once a month. To assist him, the authorities have created asiles (workhouses) where the destitute can find food and shelter. So, to exist, he must have recourse to public or private charity. It is not difficult to see why the tramp is unemployed as a result of the state of the English economy. The tramp does not wander for his own amusement, or because he has inherited the nomadic instincts of his ancestors he is trying first and foremost to avoid starving to death. Thirty thousand? Fifty thousand? Perhaps a hundred thousand in England and Wales when unemployment is particularly bad. No one knows how many individuals make up the tramp population. He has no job, home or family, no possessions in the world apart from the rags covering his poor body he lives at the expense of the community. In short, he is a wanderer, living on charity, roaming around on foot day after day for years, crossing England from end to end many times in his wanderings. These are his distinguishing characteristics: he has no money, he is dressed in rags, he walks about twenty kilometres a day and never sleeps two nights together in the same place. This material remains under copyright and is reproduced by kind permission of the Orwell Estate and Penguin Books.Ī tramp is a native English species. George Orwell: Beggars in London ( Le Progrès Civique, 1929).George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London.Home / Orwell / Essays and other works / A Day in the Life of a Tramp A Day in the Life of a Tramp
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