5->9 



VAGRANT. 



VAGRANT. 



530 



Houses to relieve " the great number of poor people pressing in the 

 streets to beg." (D'Ewes's ' Journals,' pp. 462, 463, 499, 503.) Orders 

 were also made that those who preferred private bills in the House of 

 Commons should pay 101. or 5/., according to the subjects of their 

 bills, to the relief of the poor, to be distributed as the House should 

 appoint. (D'Ewes's 'Journals,' p. 665.) Several statutes were also 

 passed, at one time increasing the punishment for vagrancy, and then 

 repealing it, without any settled principle of legislation. In some of 

 these statutes, however, the notion of a parochial fund for the relief of 

 the poor, and the principle of taxing the parishioners for that purpose, 

 are distinctly recognised. (Stat. 5 Eliz., c. 3; 14 Eliz., c. 5; and 

 18 Eliz., c. 3.) At length, in 1597, after experience had shown that 

 temporary expedients and ill-directed charity only increased the 

 amount of vagrancy, and that severe punishments and penalties were 

 wholly ineffectual in preventing it, the House of Commons appointed 

 a committee to whom most of the existing laws relating to the con- 

 dition of the poor, as well as certain bills for their amendment, were 

 referred. (D'Ewes's 'Journals,' p. 561.) This committee, of which 

 Sir Francis Bacon was member, and which was composed of all the 

 practical men of the House, seems to have perceived and to a certain 

 extent acted upon the principle that, in order to justify severity against 

 vagrancy and mendicity, it was necessary to provide the means of 

 relieving that destitution which was the ready and plausible excuse for 

 both. They therefore prepared the stat. 39 Eliz., c. 3, which for the 

 first time organised that machinery for the legal relief of the poor 

 which was a few years afterwards completed and made perpetual by 

 the stat. 43 Eliz., c. 2. The same committee also recommended 

 measures for encouraging the building of " hospitals, or abiding and 

 working houses," for the poor, and for improving and reforming such 

 as were already in existence, but had been misapplied or abused. And 

 at the same time they introduced a more rational enactment for the 

 correction and suppression of fraudulent vagrancy than had previously 

 existed. (Stat. 39 Eliz., c. 4.) "Many statutes," says Sir Edward 

 Coke (2 ' Inst.' 728), " have been made for the punishment of rogues, 

 vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, but very few to find them work and to 

 enforce them thereunto." The statute 39 Eliz., c. 4, supplied this 

 deficiency by providing houses of correction, with stocks, and materials 

 for the employment ot' the inmates, and by enforcing the use of the 

 means thus placed in the hands of the poor by severe penalties against 

 the idle. The provisions of this statute, with some alterations made by 

 the stat. 1 Jac. I., c. 25, continued in force during the whole of the 

 17th century; and when repealed by the stat. 12 Ann., stat. 2, c. 23, 

 still served as the model and foundation for future acts. It declared 

 that the following persons should be deemed rogues, vagabonds, and 

 sturdy beggars : 1 , persons calling themselves scholars going about 

 begging ; 2, sea-faring men, pretending losses of their ships or goods, 

 going about begging ; 3, idle persons going about the country, either 

 begging or using any subtle craft or unlawful games or plays, or 

 feigning themselves to have knowledge in physiognomy, palmistry, or 

 telling fortunes ; 4, persons that were or uttered themselves to be pro- 

 curers or collectors for jails or hospitals ; 5, fencers, bear-wards, 

 common players of interludes and minstrels wandering abroad, other 

 than players of interludes belonging to any baron of the realm, or any 

 uthi-r honourable personage of greater degree [THEATRE]; 6, jugglers, 

 tinkers, pedlars, and petty chapmen, wandering abroad ; 7, wandering 

 persons and common labourers, able in body, using loitering, and 

 refusing to work for reasonable wages, and having no other means of 

 maintenance; 8, persons delivered out of jail who begged for their 

 fees, or otherwise travelled begging ; 9, persons who wandered abroad 

 begging, pretending losses by fire, or otherwise ; 10, persons, not being 

 felons (i.e., by a late statute, 5 Eliz., c. 20), wandering and pretending 

 themselves to be Egyptians. A person who committed any of the 

 above offences might, by the appointment of any justice, constable, 

 headborough, or tything-man (the headborough or tything-man being 

 assisted therein by the advice of the minister and another of the 

 parish), be openly whipped till he was bloody, and then sent from 

 parish to parish till he came to the parish where he was born : if that 

 was unknown, to the parish where he last lived for a year ; and if that 

 again was unknown, to the parish where he last passed without puui>h- 

 inent. He was provided with a testimonial of his punishment, and of 

 the place whereunto he was to go, stating the time limited for that 

 purpose ; and if he was found loitering by the way, he might again be 

 whipped. If any rogue appeared to be dangerous to the inferior sort 

 of people, or not likely to be reformed (an expression which seems to 

 have led to the phrase " incorrigible rogues "), two justices might com- 

 mit him to jail till the next quarter-sessions, and then he might by the 

 justices there be either banished out of the realm, or adjudged per- 

 petually to the galleys of the realm ; and any banished rogue returning 

 without leave became a felon. 



The several judicious measures which were enacted at this period 

 fur the relief and employment of the deserving poor, and the punish- 

 ment of idle and profligate beggars and vagrants, effectually checked 

 for a time the evil, which had only increased in magnitude under the 

 H inefficient and inconsistent laws. Sir Edward Coke, \\lio.so 

 testimony as a contemporary is valuable, says, that " upon the unking 

 of the statute of 39 Elizabeth, and a good space after, whilst justices of 

 peace and other officers were diligent and industrious there was not a 

 rogue to be seen in any part of England ; but when justices and other 



ATITS A*I> sci. mv. vor,. vnr. 



officers became tepidi or trepidi, rogues, &c. swarmed again." (2 ' Inst.' 

 729.) This disposition on the part of magistrates to neglect or relax 

 the laws relating to vagrants is noticed in a proclamation made soon 

 after the accession of James I., in September, 1603, which, after re- 

 citing the stat. 39 Eliz. c. 4, and that great benefit had at first ensued 

 from its due execution, but that, by the remissness, negligence, and 

 connivancy of justices, vagrants again swarmed and abounded every- 

 where more frequently than in times past, calls upon all justices of 

 peace, mayors, and other officers whatsoever, to see that the said 

 " profitable and necessary law " should be caref ully, duly, and exactly 

 executed (Rymer's ' Food.,' vol. xvi., p. 554). The continued unwil- 

 lingness of magistrates to enforce the statute of Elizabeth, notwith- 

 standing the above proclamation, occasioned the passing of the stat. 

 7 Jac. I .c. 5, which compelled the justices of every county under 

 heavy penalties to erect proper houses of correction for setting rogues, 

 vagabonds, and other idle and wandering persons to work, and also 

 required them to meet twice a year or oftener, if occasion required, for 

 the better execution of the law. The justices were also directed to 

 cause a general privy search to be made before each of their meetings 

 for finding out and apprehending vagrants, who were then to be 

 brought before them for punishment ; and all constables and tything- 

 men were required to make a return on oath to the justices of the 

 number of vagrants apprehended by them. By this statute it was also 

 enacted that persons running away and leaving their families upon the 

 parish should " be deemed and taken to be incorrigible rogues, and 

 endure the pain of incorrigible rogues." This phrase was, therefore, at 

 that time become familiar, though it does not occur in any earlier 

 statute. In all probability, however, it denoted the class of persons 

 mentioned in the stat. 39 Eliz. c. 4, who are there called " dangerous 

 rogues, or rogues not likely to be reformed," and who were liable to be 

 committed to jail until the sessions, and then banished. 



The laws relating to vagrants continued substantially upon the foot- 

 ing of the statutes of 39 Eliz. and 7 Jac. I. for more than a century, 

 until, in 1744, they were reconsidered and remodelled by the stat. 17 

 Geo. II., c. 5. This was the first legislative measure which distributed 

 vagrants into the'three classes of idle and disorderly persons, rogues 

 and vagabonds, and incorrigible rogues. Although this statute is now 

 wholly repealed, it continued in force nearly a century ; and as its 

 provisions, as well as those of two supplemental statutes on the same 

 subject, are material with respect to the general history of the laws 

 respecting vagrants, it may be desirable briefly to state them. It may 

 be remarked that the several offences comprised in these classes still 

 bore the character of wandering, in conformity with the object of all 

 previous enactments upon this subject. 



By the stat. 17 Geo. II., c. 5, and the supplemental statutes passed 

 previously to the new Vagrant Act, 5 Oeo. IV., c. 83, idle and dis- 

 orderly persons were defined to be 1. Those who threatened to run 

 away and leave their families upon the parish. 2. Those who returned 

 to a parish from which they had been removed as paupers. 3. Those 

 who refused to work for usual wages. 4. Those who neglected work or 

 spent their earnings improperly, so that their families became charge- 

 able to the parish (stat. 32 Geo. III., c. 45, a. 8). And all such persons 

 ini^-ht be summarily convicted by a magistrate, and committed to hard 

 labour in the house of correction for a month. 



Rogua and vagabonds were defined to be 1. Those who went about 

 as gatherers of alms under pretence of loss by fire or other casualty, or 

 as collectors for prisons or hospitals. 2. Fencers and bear-wards. 3. 

 Common players of interludes, and all actors for hire not authorised 

 by law [TiiEATHF.]. 4. Minstrels and jugglers. 5. Those who pre- 

 tended to be gipsies, or to have skill in physiognomy, palmistry, or 

 like crafty science, or to tell fortunes, or who used any subtle craft to 

 deceive people, or played at unlawful games. 6. Those who ran away 

 and left their families chargeable to the parish. 7. Petty chapmen 

 and pedlars wandering abroad without licence. 8. Those who wan- 

 dered abroad and lodged in alehouses, barns, outhouses, or in the 

 open air, not giving a good account of themselves. 9. Those who 

 wandered abroad and begged, pretending to be soldiers or sailors, or 

 pretending to go to work in harvest. 10. All wandering beggars. 11. 

 Those who should be apprehended having upon them any picklock key, 

 crow, jack, bit, or other implement with intent to break into houses, 

 4c. ; or any pistol, hanger, cutlass, bludgeon, or other offensive weapon, 

 with intent feloniously to assault any person. 12. Those who should 

 be found in any dwelling-house, warehouse, coach-house, stable, or out- 

 house, or any inclosed yard or garden, or area belonging to any house 

 with intent to steal. The two classes last enumerated were added 

 by the stat. 23 Geo. III., c. 88. 



Incorrigible royucs were defined by the stat. 17 Geo. II., c. 5, to be 

 1. End-gatherers offending against the stat. 13 Geo. I., c. 23, for tho 

 regulation of the woollen manufacture. 2. Those who being appre- 

 hended as rogues and vagabonds escape from those who apprehend 

 them, or refuse to go before a magistrate, or to be examined on oath, 

 or to be conveyed by a pass, and those who knowingly give a false 

 account of themselves. 3. Those who escape from the house of cor- 

 rection before the expiration of their term of imprisonment as rogues 

 and vagabonds. . 4. Those who after punishment as rogues and 

 vagabonds again commit offences in the same class. 



Hogues and vagabonds and incorrigible rogues were, by the stat. 

 17 Geo. II., c. 6, to be committed by magistrates to the house of 



M si 



