has lived the life
we have just described is thrown out of employment, by the
introduction of machinery, at a period when he is too old to turn his
hand to something else, he not unfrequently ends by becoming a beggar,
and this continues to be his occupation to the last.

The second cause which leads a certain number of elderly men to adopt
a life of vagrancy is to be attributed to the action of Trades-Unions.
After a workman reaches a certain period of life he is no longer able
to do a full day's work. As soon as this period of life arrives, and
sometimes even before it does arrive, the artisan finds it becoming
increasingly difficult to obtain employment. The rate of wages in his
trade is fixed by Trades-Union rules; every man, no matter what his
qualifications may be, has to receive so much an hour, or the full
Trade-Union wage for the district; no one is allowed to take a job at
a lower figure. No doubt Trades-Unionists find that this regulation
works well an far as it relates to the young and the able-bodied, and
as these always compose the great majority in every trade society, it
is a regulation which is not likely to be rescinded or modified.
Nevertheless, it is a rule which often operates very unjustly in the
case of men who are getting old. These men may have been steady and
industrious workmen all their lives, they may still be able to do a
fair amount of honest work; but, as soon as that amount of work falls
below the daily average of the trade, such men have to go; they are
henceforth practically debarred from earning an honest livelihood at
what has hitherto been the occupation of their working life. Work may
be abundant in the district, but it is useless for grey-haired men to
apply; they cannot do the amount required, and as they are not
permitted to work at a lower rate of wages than their fellows, the
means of getting a living are arbitrarily taken out of their hands. As
a consequence of these Trades-Union enactments, cases are not
infrequent in which workmen who have just passed middle life, or have
sustained injuries, drift insensibly into vagrant habits. These habits
are acquired almost without their knowing it. In the vague hope of
perhaps finding something to do a man will wander from town to town
existing as best he can; after the hope of employment has died away he
still continues to wander, and thus forms an additional unit in the
permanent army of beggars and vagrants. Trade-Unionists would