Page 230 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

If they intend to smuggle at all a large sum into the spike
they generally sew it into their clothes, which may mean
prison if they are caught, of course. Paddy and Bozo used
to tell a good story about this. An Irishman (Bozo said it
was an Irishman; Paddy said an Englishman), not a tramp,
and in possession of thirty pounds, was stranded in a small
village where he could not get a bed. He consulted a tramp,
who advised him to go to the workhouse. It is quite a reg-
ular proceeding, if one cannot get a bed elsewhere, to get
one at the workhouse, paying a reasonable sum for it. The
Irishman, however, thought he would be clever and get a
bed for nothing, so he presented himself at the workhouse
as an ordinary casual. He had sewn the thirty pounds into
his clothes. Meanwhile the tramp who had advised him
had seen his chance, and that night he privately asked the
Tramp Major for permission to leave the spike early in the
morning, as he had to see about a job. At six in the morn-
ing he was released and went out—in the Irishman’s clothes.
The Irishman complained of the theft, and was given thirty
days for going into a casual ward under false pretences.