The daily gazette., 1877-07-21
LAWS FOR TRAMPS.
From the N. Y. World.

nalisI can iall 10 see Jnat one or the
largest problems with which the Eas-
tern States will speedily have to deal,
unless there is extraordinary i'm
provement in the condition of their
industrial interests of all kinds, IL
l''yeaning at the birth" in the alarming x
increase and growing insoleuce OF
"tramps." Whether this class is main
ly made up OF vagabonds physically
able to work, or of paupers unable To
labor even if they could obtain employ
ment, does not affect the urgency OF
the pr0blom. If the tramps were all
to-day honest and well-meaning pau
pers the inevitable relation betwee
pauperism and crime would yet com
pei the State of.Society to take strong
measures with them before long.
Whether they are vagabonds or pau
pers, or both, they are fast establishing
concert OF action, a real system OF
! organized medicancy in the rural dis
tricts, by force of which they compel
the people OF those districts to cor
tribute TO their support. 1t is a sys-
tenn of involuntary alms-giving, of gen
uine blackmail as that word Was under
stood in the days when it originated.
Tramps are the latest "gentlemen of
the road" In the large cities, where
the police system is reasonably good,
the tramp cannot very well carry Oh
his aggressive solicitations either
against defencless women or equally
defenceless men who go in fear Of
harm to their wives or children or
cattle or houses, if they anger the
hn nj
unlike drunkenness, increase when the
times are hard and when labor cannot
find employment. English statistics
show that prosperity leads the English
laborer to the gin-shop and adversely
to the workhouse. The London police
reports are full of very curious facts
in regard to this subject; for example,
that arrests for drunkness are least
numerous on Friday, the day before
the new weeks wages are paid. On
Saturday, which is payday; there is
regular lncrease,,of arrests for drunken
ness and disoIderly conduct of about
A per cent. over the previous day
Sunday and Monday exceed Friday by
10 per cent, and the ebb-tide is reac b.
ed again on Thursday night.
The tramp problem is not to be solved
by temperance lectures or by legislation
against the sale of spirits, or even by
teaching children to read and write. 1t
Is problem of pauperism and vaga-
bondage, from which all consideration
OF the influence OF rum may be safely
excluded by the practical legislator. Ii
the tramp be an intirm pauper, unable
to labor, how shall his tramping be put
stop to, by whom shall it be put a stop
to, and by whom, after it has been put
a stop to, shall he be supportedp II the
tramp be an able-bodied vagabond, pre-
ferring idleness and begging to labor,
how shall he be made to work, and by
whom? Our peculiar political organi-
cation make the answer to these ques-
tions difficult. Ii one town, or county,
or State is especially active in the arrest
and detention of sturdy beggars, its tax
payers may be overborne by taxes to
support the tramps, to the great advan-
tage of other towns, counties and States.
But by what process is any political
body to separate the infrm from the
able bodied? How shall public officers
distinguish the honest pauper from the
dishonest idler? What test shall there |
be of the responsibility of a particular |
town, or county, or State for the su b !
port OF particular tramps? To what pau |
per-houses or workhouses shall the |
tramps be sent? When we come to look |
these questions squarely in the face we /
shall find ourselves confronted with hs
many difficulties, under our suffrage
system, as are now found in dealing
with "habitual Criminals with 'aho N
New York does not deal at all in any ra-
tional method. We cannot well go back
to the brutal methods which the Eng
land Of Edward l., or even the England
of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, employed
in dealing with the prototypes of the
present tramp. Under the Sdxons mon
eyless and landless laborers were, in
fact, white slaves, and under this sys-
TEN tramps We're easily handled. Under
the Normans they were villeins, which
came to much the same thing in the
matter OF dealing with vagrancy. Then
came tenure by copyhold, and finally
that complete enfranchisement which
now enjoys, with it's accompa-
nying blessings of the sturdy beggar
and the tramp. Before emancipation
in England vagabond was yisibly u
man who ought TO be serving master
in some locality, but preferred to wan
der about in search OF adventure. Thus
down to very late day were gypsies re-
garded and punished.
Under the Normans q man who had
no lord was accounted thief, and he
who had a lord was slave; in Eliza
beth's reign the man who had no master
was a vagabond. This feudal idea of a
lord and a tenure of service, as fixing the
for support, has descended
to our own time in England AS to town
and parish responsibility. In the time
of Henry VII. the failure of this relation
of lord and master increased the number
of beggars, and then began stern legisla-
ton against tramps, by which paupers
were sent back to the place of their birth,
and vagabonds were set in the stocks for
three days and nights, with nothing but
bread and water, and then sent away. In
the reign of Henry Viii, after the aboll-
ton of the monaSteries, the justices. were
required to license deserving paupers to
beg within certain limits, and all who
begged without license were whipped
and put in the stocks. By a later statute
n the same reign the parishes were TO
ind and support all impotent poor born
)r dwelling for three years III the parish,
and to put sturdy vagabonds to contiLu-
II labor or send them back to their ,
homes, If they returned after transpDr-
alton the upper part of the right ear was
cut off, and on a second otfense they
we're put to death as felons. The famous
Statute of Vagabonds" in the days of
Ed ward VI. branded runaway servant
With the letter V and made him a slave