The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-02-22
CONCERNING

DIR. A. H. Mitchell has introduced G. B.
No. 20, a bill for an act concerning vagrancy
and Migrants. Under its provisions vagrancy
is deemed a misdemeanor punishable by i'm
prisonment in the county Jail for a term not
exceeding 80 days. The second section of
the bill more particularly defines that class
of persons who shall be considered Migrants.
1t provides that 'eyery idle and dissolute per-
son without visible or known means of living
who has the physical ability to work and
who does not for the space of ten days make
proper inquiry for and use due diligence to
seek employment, nor labor when employ
ment is offered to him ev ,ry healthy person
who solicits aims as a business every person
who begs from house to house for food,
money or other article; every idle or disso-
Lutte person or associate of thieves who wan
ders about the streets at late and unusual
hours of the night, or prowls about dark al
leys, by-ways and other dark and unfrequent-
ed places at any hour of the night, without
any legitimate business in so doing, or who
lodges in any barn, shed, shop, clubhouse, or
place otter than that kept for lodging pur-
poses, without the permission of the owner;
every check guerilla'-that is one who fire.
quenls gambling rooms and solicits money,
or the checks used therein to represent money,
from the proprietors, bystanders or bettors,
and who has nc other means of living other
than by the money so obtained; every lewd
and disselute male person who lives in and
about houses of ill fame every lewd and dis
solute female person known as a 'street-walk-
err who shall, upon the public street, or in a
public or general place of resort for men, be-
have herself in an immodest manner; every
common drunkard who is in the habit OF ly-
ing around the streets, alleys, sidewalks or
bar-rooms in a state of gross intoxication
every male person under FL years of age who
habitually remains away from home after the
hour of 8 o'clock p. M, without sufficient
reason or cause for suce absence, aud who
passes his time in saloons, gambling or bill
lard rooms or loafs around places of vice, in
fanny or immortality, or who at late hours of
the night prowls about the streets, disturbing
the peace and quiet Of the neighborhood by
loud anc unnecessary noise, or who commits
pranks or tricks upon the person or property
OF other people, or who, by abusive, insulting
or obscene language disturbs or annoys the
passer-by, or any lawful assemblage of peo-
pie or the neighborhood at large, is a vagrant
and guilty of vagrancy, and upon conviction
may be punished accordingly" The provis-
ions of the act do not apply to Indians or
Chinese when such acts OF vagrancy are COM
mltted around or in their own quarters, I'M
less complained of by their own country
men.
Persons convicted under this act are COM
PEELED to perform labor upon public works
under the supervision of the sheriff or under
some person appointed by him to take them
in. charge. For each legal conviction under
the act the district attorney shall be entitled
to receive the sum of ten dollars from the
county. The bill is a good one. While there
may be but few persons in the territory at
the present time who, under the provisions
of The bill could be convicted of vagrancy,
still, there are enough of them to render a
vagrant law an acceptable one, and in view
of the near approach of two lines of railway
towards the heart of the country, which will,
undoubtedly, bring scores of idle, dissolute
persons in our midst, the law becomes, in
fact, a very necessary one. That clause in
the bill relating to boys will serve to check
the tendency to hoodlumism which is being
developed in too many of our youths in the
territory. The passage of this bill may work
much good to the people of the territory. We
hope it may become a law.