Vagrancy law

“ The dictum of wise Sir Matthew Hale, uttered just two and a half centuries ago, is as true to-day as ever: "A man that has been bred up in the trade of begging will never, unless compelled, fall to industry."
As for the casual ward itself, it was to a large extent an accident of legislation, and certainly it was not contemplated when the Poor Law was [Pg 11] reformed in 1834. The great constructive measure of that year, introducing the existing type of workhouse, made no reference to vagrants. ”

“ But it would surely be a very simple matter to enact a law which should decree that after an individual had suffered a certain number of convictions for crime, drunkenness, or vagrancy, he should forfeit his freedom to roam abroad and curse his fellows. When I include vagrancy in this list, I do it on the supposition that the opportunity and ability for work are present. Otherwise it seems to me most heartless to punish a hungry man who begs for food because he can in no other way obtain it. ”

“ The Vagrancy Committee, on the evidence placed before them, estimated the proportion of genuine work-seekers at 3 per cent. of all casual paupers.
These figures are in keeping with all we know of the experience of the Poor Law Inspectors who report from year to year to the Local Government Board upon the vagrancy question. To quote one opinion only by way of illustration:—
"The more I see of the vagrant class the more strongly I am impressed with the conviction that the number of those really in search of work is relatively very small. ”

“ In 1837 the Poor Law Commissioners, on being appealed to by the Commissioners of Metropolitan Police with regard to the question, expressed the opinion that it was the intention of the Act that all cases of destitution should be relieved, irrespective of the fact that the applicant might belong to a distant parish. They stated that it was the duty of the relieving officer to relieve casually destitute wayfarers and of the workhouse master to admit such cases to the workhouse. These cases were distinguished from beggars by profession, who were to be dealt with under the Vagrancy Act of 1824. ”

“ The law states that the Beggars' Depots shall be "exclusively devoted to the confinement of [Pg 106] persons whom the Judicial Authority shall place at the disposal of the Government" for that purpose. Such persons are of the following classes: (a) Able-bodied persons who, instead of working for their living, depend upon charity as professional beggars; (b) persons who, owing to idleness, drunkenness, or immorality, live in a state of vagrancy; and (c) souteneurs. These persons may be committed by the magistrates for a period not less than two nor more than seven years. ”

“ Its object is to enable a work-seeker to move through the county to his destination by the most direct route, and without unnecessary delay, and by providing him with lodging, supper, and breakfast at the casual ward, and with a mid-day meal on his going, to remove all necessity for begging from the public. The system was thus described to the Vagrancy Committee by Lieut. Col. J. Curtis Hayward, Chairman of the Gloucestershire Poor Law Vagrancy Committee:—
"A vagrant on entering the county gets a ticket from the assistant relieving officer who, in most cases, in our county is a police officer. ”

“ The regular and systematic enforcement of the Vagrancy Acts by the public authorities is impeded by a variety of causes, each of which makes it difficult to grasp accurately the proportions of the begging population. In the first place no two policemen enforce the law with the same stringency; one is inclined to be lax and lenient, while another will not allow a single case to escape. ”

“ They 'confined the labouring population to stated places of abode, and required them to work at specified rates of wages. Wandering or vagrancy thus became a crime.' [4] History tells the story from the point of view of the Establishment: that wandering bands of people, who had left their masters, committed all sorts of crimes and hence must be punished for wandering. That philosophy obtains in this country, because the English statutes provided the seed of our vagrancy laws. ”

“ They were committed, each for a calendar month, with hard labor; but during the period of their imprisonment their subsistence was charged on the rates of the city of Dublin, and the £480 were returned to them at their discharge. I have been informed that the law of Scotland authorises the support of vagrants, when committed to gaol, to be defrayed from money found in their possession. If such be the case, I would suggest to our Irish Members to have the law of this country, in cases of vagrancy, assimilated to the Scotch system as quickly as possible. ”

“ Vagrancy Laws for generations, and more than anything else is responsible for the present difficulties of the tramp problem in its several phases. Short of compulsion, the tramp will not work, and the hope of inducing him to take to a life of industry, by placing him in an atmosphere of art and poetry, perfumes and texts, is to go counter to all the lessons of experience, and to utterly misunderstand the instincts of the tramp nature. Else how explain the notorious fact that wherever a workhouse adopts a fairly severe labour test there the tramp cannot be persuaded to go ”

“ For the penalties visited on "rogues and vagabonds" are virtually annulled by the care which the Poor Law has taken to allow these offenders to evade apprehension. A vagrant may be as "idle and disorderly" as he likes by day, so long as he pursues his irregular life undetected but at night he has only to present himself at the handiest workhouse, and he is forwith certified to be a deserving citizen, and is lodged and fed at the public expense. ”

“ The law of vagrancy provided that all freedmen having no lawful employment or business, or who are found unlawfully assembling, and all white persons so assembling in company with freedmen, or "usually associating with freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes, on terms of equality," are to be deemed vagrants, and fined, a white man not more than $200, a negro not more than $50, and imprisoned, a white man not more than six months, a negro not more than ten days. ”

“ When the person brought before the police tribunal under Article 8 or Article 9 of the present law is under eighteen years of age, the magistrate, if habitual begging or vagrancy is proved, shall order that he be placed at the disposal of the Government to be confined in a State charity school until he attains his majority. ”

“ That the habitual vagrants should be the means of spreading a pestilence over the country in their wanderings will not be wondered at, when we find it stated in the Poor-law Report on Vagrancy, that “in very few workhouses do means exist of drying the clothes of these paupers when they come in wet, and it often happens that a considerable number are, of necessity, placed together wet, filthy, infested with vermin, and diseased, in a small, unventilated space.” ”

“ Our opinion agrees with that of the majority of witnesses examined before us, that people who are travelling about the country without employment, without any means of their own, and who have to support themselves by mendicancy or recourse to the Poor Law, or by sleeping out, should be brought by the police before a court of justice. ”

“ Sometimes methods of threats and intimidation are resorted to to enforce demands when it is safe to do so. Truculent and insubordinate, as is proved by his frequent appearances before the magistrates for refusing to perform his allotted task, he is a burden to the community, and a nuisance alike to the police and to the Poor Law authorities." [24]
The laxity with which the law against mendicancy is enforced is notorious, and upon this question also the reports of Poor Law Inspectors contain interesting reading. ”

“ For this purpose we propose that a class of habitual vagrants should be defined by statute, and that this class should include any person who has been three or more times convicted during a period of, say, twelve months of certain offences now coming under the Vagrancy Act, namely, sleeping out, begging, refusing to perform task of work in casual wards, or refusing or neglecting to maintain himself so that he becomes chargeable to the poor rate. ”

“ Vagrancy proper was the crime of individuals who dropped out of a settled, mainly agricultural, society into the wandering life. Vagrancy as induced by modern conditions may be no crime. It is not a crime for a man who cannot obtain work to migrate to find it, or for a man to return home on foot from a distance. Yet, if there is no proper provision for migration, a man may, by contact with vagrants proper and degeneration, become incapable of settled existence. To prevent this should be the aim of social legislation. This would be true repression of vagrancy. ”

“ The Vagrancy Committee frankly accept this view.
"The army of vagrants has increased in number of late years," they state, "and there is reason to fear that it will continue to increase if things are left as they are. It is mainly composed of those who deliberately avoid any work, and depend for their existence on almsgiving and the casual wards; and for their benefit the industrious portion of the community is heavily taxed. ”

“ It therefore exerts pressure towards vagrancy and crime instead of acting as a true deterrent.
6. Its existence blinds the public to the fact of the absence of public provision for migrating, and the evils of sleeping out and unsanitary lodging-houses accumulate.
IX. VAGRANCY LEGISLATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES.
We have now to consider the treatment received by vagrants in other countries. Have they been more successful than ourselves? If so, why? Count Kropatkin shows in "Farms, Fields, and Factories," that the Industrial revolution is not confined to England. ”

“ A country court-room smells of unaired dust, of wet umbrellas and muddy rubbers, of onlookers who have handled horses and gasoline, of doctors who have come from operations. Smells of the coarse perfumes of the criminal's lady friends, the bay rum of the shining country lawyer, lemon peel and cloves chewed by such persons as even in the most stringent times of the Volstead Act appear always to have something to conceal. ”

“ Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one English colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been interdicted by law from making any use whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical purposes: for prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended to be, prohibition of their use. ”

“ If the present methods are not deterrent, the evidence is also clear that neither are they reformatory. If the man bona-fide out of work and seeking work be excluded, a very large proportion of those convicted for vagrancy are found to be habituals. ”

“ That the fact of an inter-relationship between vagrancy and the state of trade cannot be pressed unduly, however, is proved by the comparatively narrow limits within which, allowing for increase of population, the figures move. Certainly the figures afford no prima facie justification for supposing that trade depression causes any considerable number of genuine workmen to join the highway population. ”

“ That is the principle which the farmer will have to live by if he would succeed. What can be done with those wasting apples? Let the boys have them to make into pure cider vinegar. Every one knows how vinegar has been adulterated, and now the law-makers have put their veto on the practice and a penalty to match the crime. ”

“ There is a great want of uniformity in the treatment of vagrants as regards accommodation, detention, diet and tasks of work, and guardians are naturally averse to taking any action involving expense pending legislation on the subject. ”

“ He speaks bitterly of the proposal to permit "light wines and beer," and asks whether any one would propose to permit light burglary or light arson. That man evidently regards indulgence in any intoxicating liquor as a crime, and he looks upon the law as a prohibition of that crime. And he is essentially right, if the law is right. For while the law does not in its express terms make drinking a crime, its intention--and its practical effect so far as regards the great mass of the people--is precisely that. ”

“ It prohibited, among other things, the sale of 'malt liquors.' In thus dealing with a class of beverages which, in general, are regarded as intoxicating, it was not bound to resort to a discrimination with respect to ingredients and processes of manufacture which, in the endeavor to eliminate innocuous beverages from the condemnation, would facilitate subterfuges and frauds and fetter the enforcement of the law. A contrary conclusion, logically pressed, would save the nominal power while preventing its effective exercise. The statute establishes its own category. ”

“ It is useless to explain that you have nowhere particular to go to, that you are an idler and a lounger. The confession is a fatal one; and however respectable your appearance, the idea of shoplifting is at once associated with your pursuits. Into what inconsistencies do we fall while multiplying our laws, for while we insist upon progression, we announce a penalty for vagrancy. ”

“ The act of Congress under which this proceeding was taken provides, in its twenty-eighth section, [1] for the establishment of bonded warehouses for the storage of spirits 'to secure the payment of the internal revenue tax thereon,' and, in its forty-fifth section, prohibits 'the removal of distilled spirits [2] from the place where the same are distilled otherwise than into a bonded warehouse, as provided by law,' imposing penalties upon parties making such removal, and declaring that 'the distilled spirits so removed' shall be forfeited to the United States. ”