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Poverty was often the cause of crime and here are some examples.

In January 1855 the people of Moulton were going to church when they passed a rather dishevelled woman with three children. Just as the church bell started to ring, the woman fell down in a fit. One or two charitable souls gave her some money to comfort her in her troubles. A few hours later the good people of neighbouring Weston were coming out of their church, when the same woman had a fit in front of them. This was too much of a coincidence for one of the Weston people, who happened to have witnessed the first performance at Moulton, and he protested. The erstwhile invalid made a hasty exit in the direction of Spalding.

Sometimes towns paid for tramps to go away, although they did not like to advertise this fact in case it brought an influx of those keen to be sent on a journey. Spalding, for example, had trouble with two women and their five children in January 1855. They were given ‘tickets’ to pay for lodgings in the town but behaved so badly that they were put in the town’s ‘lock-up’ instead. On being released the next morning, they were instructed to leave the town and — in the discreet words of the Chronicle — ‘given the means to do so.’