Year: 1875

led to adopt some unlfor'u system OF
correcting the evil and possibly turn
ing it to good. The State Board an
nounces the ultimate object OF pro-
curing fresh legislation, more effectual
than the present laws for dealing with
tramps. The statictics to be collated
will serve as basis for new laws on
the subject. Wequestlon the assumed
necessity of passing any more laws to
catch and punish the tramp. The
statutes against vagrancy are strict and
operative wherever there is a jail, or
any other place to detain or discipline
a sturdy beggar. These laws are rusty
and forgotten, to be sure, but they are
still good for use if the local powers
would only resort tn them. The in
Quiry set on foot by the State Board
will do its work of good IL it leads to
the enforcement of statutes now in
existence, and this will suffice to max e
the tramp rare phenomenon in regions
which he has infested this year.


The banishment of these lazLarons
from their country haunts would only
have the effect to drive them back up.
on the great cities. Enough is known
of the tramp, without official investi-
cation, to establish the citi.s as the
winter homes of his kind. 1t is only
in the sunny months that he exchanges
his life of idleness and crime in towns
for the delightful vagabondage of the
fields. That which the country loses
by his presence in summer, we gain !;
so that the interests of the cities and
the rural parts are not exactly identi-
cal. If the villages throughout the
State should make themselves too hot
for the tramping fraternity, this city
would be obliged to support its popu-
lation of beggars all the year round.
Against this contingency the city
should be prepared. At a meeting of
the Senate Committee on Crime last
Thursday, Mr.. Laimbcer, ex-Commis-
sioner of Charities and Correction, as
serted that the labor on Blackwell s
Island-the proper home of this very
class of rogues- could be made to
yield an annual revenue of $75, 900 to
the city on the single condition of
spending $50, 900 for a new workhouse.
This witness, who ought TO know what
he is talking about, says that the work
now claimed to be done on the island
is call bosh"; that the 500 or 400 n en-
employed do not perform the labor of
25 good men. The system adopted on
the island makes no pretense of utiliz-
ing the bone and sinew of the petty
thieves and beggsrs sent there. They
are we'll lodg ID and fed, with little or
nothing to do; and it is only to be ex-
pected that many of them should be SO
Rn1 In Te1a NJ
that they commit offenses the moment
they are re leased in order to re-enter
its pleasant precincts. Some of these
creatures pass the best part of their
lives thorc, in monthly installments.


The Commissioners demand, for
1876, the sum OF 81 1866, 78e-a good
part of which could be saved to the
city if the lazy able-bodied men who
are now comfortably supported at the
city's expense were forced to work for
their bread like honest people. Were
this the rule at Blackwell's island, the
citizens of the metropolis would have
less reason to fear the incuIsion of
strolling rogues at any season of the
year especially if we had police in
any respect fit to do its duty. A strin-
gent execution of the laws against
vagrancy would either make the work
house source of revenue, or it would
frighten the vagabonds to other sec
tions Of the country. Ia either case
they would cease to vex and alarm the
city. The general adoption of such a
system in all parts Of the land would
greatly diminish the yearly total of
pauperism and crime.