The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1897-10-23

appearance and the unemployed
became a permanent class with us
Like causes must produce like effects.
And men denied access to the land
from which, and on which alone they
can live, whether in the sixteenth or in
the nineteenth century, whether in
England or in the United States Of
America, could have, or can have but
one alternative die or to take to the
roads as tramps and Migrants or as
highwaymen. The English parlia-
ments of the sixteenth century at
tempted to suppress and exterminate
the landless tramps and Migrants of
that time, by harsh and cruel laws
which were executed with barbarous
severity. American Legislators, in
the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, have attempted to attain the
same end by the same means. The
experience of the race during the inter
vening centuries has taught us no bet
ter method of dealing with our larG-
less tramps, our submerged and disin-
herited ones. The prevalent altruism
Of our times will not permit our legis-
lators to ordain that the unfortunate
tramp shall have his ears cut off, or
that he shall be executed as a felon
and in most of our States it will
not permit him to be whipped. The
Commonwealth of Kentucky did, how
ever, by an act, approved May 6, 1890,
provide that any male person over 16
years of age should, upon convic.
ton of vagrancy, be punished by a
whipping of not less than five nor more
than fifty lashes, with leathern whip,
we'll laid on his bare back. - (Session
Laws of 1SS9-9O, chapter 3O3, D.
$751; The spirit of our legislation on
this subject is essentially the same as
that of the legislation of Henry VIII. 8
time. And indeed it may we'll be
doubted if our method of dealing with
the victims of landlordism is any i'm
provement on that of the Tudor sover-
eigns of England $50 years ago. The
Tudors mercifully put them out of the
way by hanging them we slowly tor
ture them to death by starvation or
drive them to suicide.
In another respect the parallel be-
tween England in the sixteenth century
and our country at the present time is
striking. In the first year of the reign
of Edward VI, who succeeded Henry
VIII, law was passed authorizing
the sale into slavery of Migrants. On
the 10Th of June, 1898, the Supreme
Court of the State of Missouri, in the
case of in re Thompson, lit Mo. SO,
declared section Ss49 of the Revised
Statutes Of 1889, authorizing vagrant
not accused or convicted of any crime
to be hired for six months to the high
est bidder after the determination of
the fact of such vagrancy by a jury
before justice of the peace, to be VIC
lative of both the State and Federal
Constitutions, which prohibit slavery
or involuntary servitude, except in
punishment of crime, whereof the
party accused shall have been duly
convicted. But in States that farm
out convicts to contractors, the same
end is accomplished in another way.
Vagrancy is made a crime, and the
tramp, upon conviction, is let out to the
contractor. In a considerable number
of towns and cities in this country, the
tramp, upon conviction, is sentenced to
work in the chain gang upon the public
streets. Thus it appears that our mod
ern American law makers have taken
more than one leaf from the statute
books of the time of the Tudors.
have already directed attention to the
parallel between Henry VIII. s time
and our own time in the matter of ap-
peals for charity. In dealing with the
destitute, as in dealing with the va
grants, we are but blind and helpless
imitators of our ancestors OF three and
half centuries ago. We still Eek
hort, move, stir and provoke people to
be liberal in giving slaps. We know
how utterly futile is the attempt to
eliminate destitution in that way, but
we seem to be incapable of studying
out any other way, and so we keep up
our frantic appeals for charity.
The English poor law, inaugurated
by the act of 81 Elizabeth and con-
tinued to the present day, is far from
being monument of human wisdom
in the field of legislation. But AmeriR
can law makers have not improved
upon it very much. Our county poor