SECT. XXIV.] RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY. 291 



SECTION XXIV. 



WE also propose that the laws with respect to vagrancy 

 be altered. At present, persons convicted of vagrancy 

 may be transported for seven years ; our recommendation 

 is, that penitentiaries shall be established, to which va- 

 grants when taken up shall be sent ; that they be charged 

 with the vagrancy before the next quarter sessions, and, if 

 convicted, shall be removed as free labourers to such co- 

 lony, not penal, as shall be appointed for them by the Co- 

 lonial Department ; but that the wages of all able-bodied 

 adults amongst them shall be attached in the colony 

 until the expenses of their passage be defrayed, and that 

 those who may be unfit for removal to a colony shall re- 

 main for such time in the penitentiary, and be there kept 

 to such work, as the court shall by law be authorized to 

 appoint. 



N.B. By such provisions as are suggested in the two 

 last sections, all poor persons who cannot find the 

 means of support at home, and who are willing to live 

 by their labour abroad, will be furnished with the 

 means of doing so, and with intermediate support, 

 if fit to emigrate, and if not, will be otherwise pro- 

 vided for ; while the idle, who would rather beg than 

 labour, will be taken up, and the evil of vagrancy 

 suppressed. 



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