Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/645

 THE LAW RELATING TO THE RELIEF AND CARE OF DEPENDENTS. III.

IMMIGRANTS AND TRAMPS. 1

LEGISLATION concerning those without a legal residence in a community has been necessary partly to definitely locate the responsibility for the care of the destitute, partly to repress vagrancy and to punish the tramp. In the preceding papers we have considered the legal provision for the care of the resident poor. In this paper we shall consider the provisions concerning the immigrant and non-resident poor on the one hand, and tramps and vagrants on the other.

I. LEGISLATION CONCERNING NON-RESIDENT PAUPERS.

In the law concerning the immigrant and non-resident poor, we meet with three points to be noticed, viz. : the conditions of a legal settlement or residence, the restrictions on immigration, and the provision for the relief and removal of those applying for relief in a community in which they have no legal residence.

Prefacing these remarks with the facts that a married woman takes the residence of her husband, children that of their par- ents, bastard children usually that of the mother, apprentices that of the master, and that an unmarried woman gains a settle- ment like a man, we shall notice the conditions of a legal res- idence or settlement. 3

1 While it is not our purpose to enter upon 'a discussion of the administration of the poor laws, perhaps it may be well to state that the laws discussed in this paper are rarely strictly enforced. Our only reason for giving them so much space is that it is often as well to state what exists in name only as well as that which is actually carried out.

While the statement made holds true generally, some explanations should be made and a number of exceptions stated. In the first place, if her husband have no legal residence, a woman takes that which she had at the time of her marriage. In the second place, bastards do not always take the settlement of the mother. Under the

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