Sam and I continue with our chats about our various housemates. He is intrigued by those he calls the Ins and Outs. This is what he says about them.

“They are a remarkably troublesome group. As a rule, its members are completely worthless to themselves and to everybody else. They leave the house at regular intervals, putting the officers to an infinity of trouble in the process; for precisely the same lengthy forms have to be gone through at every fresh exit and entry as at the first.

“Some of these fellows go out to a job, keep at it as long as it lasts, lay in good stores of tobacco at the end, and then spend every farthing left of their earnings in a topping spree, lasting one to three days, according to the amount received. Then they are for the workhouse once again! Here the blackguards recover from their debauch, and drown away the days until they are ripe for another job and another topping spree.

“Such fellows are exceedingly provoking. They are men varying in age from 21 or so to 45 - all abounding in life and vigour, and, without exception, perfectly capable of maintaining themselves by their own labour. They prefer this sort of life, however, and are not to be roused out of it, as things legal go. They are quite shameless, laugh at the heaviest toils of the house as being, what they really are to them, the merest child's play. They stick to the place as if it were their rightful inheritance. So, indeed, they regard it, inside and out.

“The reasons adduced by these Ins and Outs for leading this sort of life are very convincing to themselves. The workhouse is infinitely cheaper and cleaner than the common lodging-house.

“It saves their own clothing, and, when the thing becomes absolutely necessary, provides them with more. It doctors them when their malpractices result in foul diseases. And though the food is poor, it is regular, and greatly superior, besides, to what they can hope for when out of work and depending on themselves.

“Nor are the above advantages all. The Ins and Outs, without exception, are profligates in the extreme. Many of them are just the fellows to insinuate themselves into the good graces of thoughtless girls of the lower classes; and precisely the lads also to take base advantage of the trust. Most of them have illegitimate children, and not a few two or three, for whom the unfortunate mothers have to provide as best they can. It is obviously useless to sue the fathers. When such a fellow finds the agents of the law at his heels, he becomes an indoor pauper incontinently, and so justice is baffled.

“There are twenty-five or thirty men of this kind in the house with us at the present moment, all exceedingly sociable and jolly in their own estimation; and in the estimation of everybody else. They are all full of fun and frolic, and as full of good stories of their own reckless doings.

“Another and about as numerous a class of Ins and Outs, whose members come and go and come again even more frequently than the tiptop-spree fellows, are the moochers or cadgers. These fellows are inveterate beggars, and have been so time out of mind; acquainted, therefore, with all the tricks and devices of the craft to which they belong, and remarkably skilful in practising them.

“They are acquainted with the localities and regulations of every charitable institution in and about the metropolis, and with the address and personal peculiarities of every charitable individual within the same area. The latter - the personal peculiarities - form a matter as essential to them as the address, since by playing judiciously upon them - and nobody is so adroit in such practices as the workhouse cadger - they get at the person and inside of his sympathies, with the effect that they are pretty certain to secure his very largest dole.

“They are constantly laying plans and making excursions for the purpose of levying black-mail on institutions and individuals. If successful, they tell the whole story, with due exultation, on their return to the house. If they fail, they tell all the facts in precisely the same detail - giving the manager of the institution and benevolent person full credit and approval, too, for whatever keenness and dexterity they may have displayed in detecting and baffling this attempted knavery.

“It is not often, however, that such fellows allow themselves to be detected and baffled. Nothing can surpass the ingenuity with which they set about their work, or the dogged perseverance with which they stick to it. A true moocher will never allow himself to be driven from his purpose by a first repulse, or a second, or even a third. He will try, and try again, varying his trickery on each occasion until he hits on the dodge which carries him through.

“He will change his story and his appearance over and over - become a very Proteus, in fact. These artists, as I may be allowed to term them, can alter voice and distort features and limbs in the most extraordinary way, and they have always comrades handy to exchange garments with them for the time.

“Now and again there are circumstances which keep the workhouse moochers very busy in such expeditions as those alluded to. Not long ago a certain great personage, in the centre of a certain great city, became extraordinarily benevolent. Every moocher that made a morning call at a certain place, and told a suitable story there, was presented with five shillings. No searching questions were put; the tale was accepted as genuine, and the money given on the spot. The news spread as such news always spreads, and, in consequence, the place where the crowns were given away was besieged every morning by moochers, chiefly from workhouses.

"Many of them applied for and received the dole several times over. But a change soon took place. The great person received an addition to his name, or rather two additions - a prefix and an affix; and immediately that this happened the five-shilling doles to moochers were discontinued, and these worthies presented, instead, when they crowded the place as usual, with orders for admission to a neighbouring casual ward. They were disappointed, of course, but in no wise discontented or angered. They treated the refusal rather as a very good joke on the part of the great personage, and thought no more of it."

I must stop telling Sam's story for a moment to interject my thoughts. Surely Sam must have been either the great personage himself, or at least, present, himself, in some capacity - perhaps as an aid to the great personage. But the question as to why he left his great life and opted for this one, will continue to vex me and the rest of those here.

“The more usual occupation of the workhouse moocher out of doors is to haunt the taverns on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evenings. There they act as follows: - One of them will introduce himself to a group of carousers either as the ancient mate or as the comrade of an absent mate, or by his facetious capabilities, of which he is certain to have a good many, fully developed and thoroughly well practised. And once attached to a knot of men, the moocher sticks to it pertinaciously for the rest of the evening. Here he plays the parasite to the full extent of his abilities, giving coarsely amusing songs and recitations as often as called upon, and indulging in all sorts of monkey-tricks and ridiculous antics.

"His chief use, however, is to act as the butt of the company; and he submits to all sorts of practical jokes with unfailing patience and even good humour. Flour and red ochre sprinkled upon him, no matter how plentifully, never offend, provided they be followed by a few additional cups and coppers. Come what may in the shape of sharp practical joke, he grins and bears it until his turn comes. This is when the party breaks up.

"Then our moocher attaches himself to the member thereof who is most unsteady on his legs, and carries him out of the way of his companions. In all probability he hands him over to a female harpy who has been waiting about. In any case he either clears the poor man's pockets himself, or assists in the operation; and when he is done with him he leaves him stretched at full length on the sideway; or even goes so far as to hand him over to the police for safety.

“Mooching, as an alternative to indoor-pauper life, is not exclusively confined to individuals. Whole families practise it, taking their discharge with clock-like regularity once a week, spending the day in begging here and there in the most likely places, enjoying themselves the while on the proceeds, and returning at night to the shelter of the house. The proceeding, as followed by one particular person and his family, furnished a theme to one of the house-poets - for even the workhouse contains its versifiers - and the following stanzas were the result.

Hunky sings:

Workhouse life is dreary -
Gloomy as the grave:
Something much more cheery
Once a week I'll have.

Workhouse fare is scanty;
Workhouse fare is poor:
Something much more dainty
Hunky must secure.

Oh, the joys of cadging,
Wife and kids at heels,
No one can imagine
Save the bloke that feels.

Once a week we cut it
From the workhouse gate;
Then we gaily foot it
In our robes of state.

Kids in garments tattered,
Hunky with a tile,
Like himself, much battered,
And his constant smile.

Oh, the joys, etc.
Round and round we trudge it,
Careless of what haps;
Filling up our budget

With all sorts of scraps.
Coppers, too, we gather
In our worn-out hats;
Coppers all for father,

Scraps for wife and brats.
Oh, the joys, etc.
Not when sunshine glows, sirs,
Do I like my task;

Hail, or rain, or snow, sirs -
That is what I ask.
Charity is ever
Warmer when the brats

And their parents shiver,
Like half-drowned rats.
Oh, the joys of cadging,
Wife and kids at heels,
No one can imagine
Save the bloke that feels.

“Another section of the Ins and Outs is composed of professional thieves. These are fellows at the bottom of their profession, as a rule - low footpads who waylay children, and rob them of their school-pence - who snatch articles from passing carts, or who raid on street-stalls or on the displays in front of shops. Such fellows take to the house from various motives.

“Now and again they come in to get out of the way of the police, and remain until a hint is conveyed to them that the coast is clear, and search after them discontinued. Still more frequently, however, they enter because work has become very bad with them.

“The last sentence requires a little explanation. Thieves of the kind I mention haunt the same localities, from the beginning of their career to the end. Their women and chums all tenant the quarter. It contains their favourite taps; and it is the beat of officers with whom they are familiar, and whom they know how to 'square' or avoid in cases of emergency. Moreover, they are hand and glove with all its fences, and are perfectly acquainted, as it were by instinct, with all its usages.

“They have grown up in the locality, in short, and have been accustomed to it from their cradle; otherwise they would be but the tamest of bunglers even here. The intellect of these fellows is inconceivably mean. Tested in matters beyond those to which they have been habituated, they will be found utterly incapable of grasping them.

“Such miserable practitioners must not migrate, and they know it. They would be completely at sea, as the phrase goes, anywhere save at home. In other places they would be under the necessity of acquiring new companions, securing new haunts, discovering new agents, and learning new usages. All these are difficulties which your intelligent depredator will master in a few days at most; but it would take the low-lived half a century to do so. He is perfectly aware of this, and therefore never migrates, save under the pressure of circumstances; and when he does so, it is invariably to be locked up in a very few hours. 

“Cessation of business from time to time is as essential to this personage as to his victims, who are chiefly the tradesmen of the quarter. The latter very soon learn, to their cost, when one of these fellows is at large and at work, and naturally take measures for frustrating his efforts, or, better still, for trapping himself. It is then that times become hard with him; and if not caught and committed to prison at once, he betakes him to the workhouse for a period.

“Of all the Ins and Outs, decidedly the most degraded are the men who subsist by fastening upon street-harlots and sharing their wretched earnings. They are all sturdy fellows, with a good deal of the pugilist, but much more of the sneak, in them - just the ones to bully a weakling or batter a drunken victim out of all recognition. When their mistresses come to grief and are placed under lock and key, which happens frequently, the 'fancy man' generally manages to skulk out of the mischief and escape scot-free. But as such a fellow never did an honest day's work in his life, and never means to, and as besides he has no friends, but is contemned and shunned by even the thief who has any self-respect, he has nothing for it but to take shelter in the house while the woman remains a prisoner. He takes good care, however, to discharge himself so as to meet her at the prison-door on the morning of her release.

“Ins arid Outs of all sorts are agents of demoralisation, and nothing else, in a workhouse. Their chatter - and they are always chattering - is loose at all times, and infamous - often hideously infamous. It is never so wicked, however, as after they go to bed, and, the dormitory-doors being locked, the paupers are left to themselves for the night. Then hours upon hours are whiled away by themselves and their companions, the former in recounting vile stories, and the latter in marking, learning, and inwardly digesting what they hear.
“Tiptop-spree men, moochers, thieves, and bullies make many recruits, especially among the juniors. Nor can even the best disposed escape the contagion which these rascals carry with them. Their moral tone is lowered, in spite of themselves, by constant contact. There is no reproving these men without bringing a quarrel about one's ears, in which the reprover is pretty sure to stand alone against a score or more. There is sufficient provision, indeed, made for this kind of thing by Act of Parliament; but the clauses are never enforced. No officer will venture to enforce them spontaneously, and no pauper dare call upon him to enforce them. The blackguards thus have things all their own way; and even the most delicate ears must become callous at length, and the firmest principles damaged, through constant contact with unmitigated ribaldry.

“In some respects the origin of the Ins and Outs may be readily explained. There are men here who fought against indoor pauperism at the outset, as though they were contending against death itself, and did not enter until they were at the last gasp. However, the plunge once made over the workhouse threshold, it effaced much of the fine feelings which stimulated them to abstain from taking shelter therein; and a stay of a few weeks within goes far towards effacing all the rest.

“Suppose the man to go out soon afterwards and obtain employment, he may resume his place in society, but he is no longer the same individual. The next time difficulties arise, his thoughts naturally suggest the workhouse as the best refuge. He has little shame to deter him from entering it this time, and manifests small reluctance in doing so. It is easier, he finds, to become an indoor pauper than to undergo privations and hardships. So it goes on with him. On each fresh occasion he goes to the relieving officer with smaller cause than before, until, ere long, he becomes a confirmed and hopeless In and Out.”