Morning journal and courier., 1883-12-22
THE TRAMP LAW.

Two Of our esteemed contemporaries have been engaged in an interesting discussion of tha tramp law. The great difficulty about this law, as it has always seemed to us, lies in the attempt to define the word tramp. In- asmuch as being tramp subjects one to years imprisonment in the State prison it is of vital importance to determine what 8 tramp is. Ths present law attempts def milton in the following terms: 'All transient persons who rove from place to placs begging and all vagrants living without labor or visible means Of support who stroll over the country without lawful occasion shall be held to be trsmps within the meaning of this ast." If the first clause of this law means that any person who is travelling from one place to another on foot and who begs is tramp, the law is guilty of such a violation of rights as to makes it's sconstitutionality open to question. If @ man who is penniless and who cannot get york in one town believes he can get work in another, so far it does not seem to be any trespess on the rights of so- ciety that he should attempt to reach the town where he can get work by the only means that is left him. and we do not sup pose that reasonable construction of the law forbids that much. The question then is, does he become worthy of an ignominious punishment because if on the road he gets hungry and asks soms one in common ohari- ty to give him something to eat? Is it or should it be 6 crime for 8 starving man to beg? We hardly think the act goes to this extent, and it is open to some ques- tion' certainly as to whether the legislature can make it a crime for one man to ask another to give him any thing which he needs.
 The succeeding clause, which is perhaps intended to make the meaning clear which the first leaves in doubt, adds the words, ''who shall stroll over the country without lawful occasion" But what is lawful occa- sion? The act says in effect you may stroll if you stroll lawfully. But this is the ''nub" of the whole matter. When is it unlawful? Men may rove about for great variety of purposes-to get work, to reach their fam flies, to find home somewhere, or, as Oh- yer Goldsmith did through France, for the purpose of seeing the country. We are very much afraid if Oliver Goldsmith were alive now, and should try the experiment of trav- cling ia Connecticut, trusting to Yankee as he did to French hospitality for his living, he might be arrested as 8 tramp. Does travelling ss strolling musician, for in- stance, make man tramp? The trouble Is the law does not say what kind of strolling or rowing is unlawful.
 In section 2 ,of the act the author of the law seems to recognize that he has still left his work incomplete, for there he says: ''Any act of beggary or vagrancy by any person not 8 resident of this State shall be primo .facie evidence that the person con- mitting the same is a tramp within the mean ing of the act.'' That is, hungry man may beg if he lives in Connecticut, but if he is unfortunate enough to come from some other State he shall go hungry or go to prison. It seems almost as if it were un- necessary to say that a lava which makes such distinctions is disgrace to the statute books of an intelligent common wealth. But it shows how in struggling with the difficulties of giving to slang phrase viz., tramp-a legal definition the author of the law overlooked the plainest rights. It is clear enough that by the terms of the act beggary does not of itself complete the of fense. It only constitutes pgfneG tacie evil dence of it; that is, it shifts the burden of proof uponsthe accused. But this provision stands in open hostility to the fundamental principles of our jurisprudence. It has been the boast of our jurists that our law pre- sumes every man innocent until he is proved guilty. But this section says that it shall be presumed from an act not criminal in itself that the accused is guilty. If the hungry and penniless traveller begs he does it at the peril of being presumed guilty, not of beg
 gary but of the heinous offeRse of being g tramp, and iR defiance of the l aw as it has stood for centuries