To this house the tribunals often send vagabonds, in virtue of the 274th article of the Penal Code, although the directors of the establishment have contested, and still contest, the right assumed by the judges to do so; and they never receive any person so sent as a criminal to be detained a certain number of days at labour as if in a prison, but merely give him a refuge as an act of charity, and liberty to leave the place, if he likes to go before the time expires.
— from Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law Report by Nassau William Senior