Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/656

 642 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

II. LEGISLATION CONCERNING TRAMPS.

Under the topic of legislation concerning tramps and vagrants, we have to do not so much with a question of public relief as of the repression of "frauds" and the punishment of those who would live upon private charity. A "tramp," in the popular sense, is one who goes from place to place begging. The statutes of the several states, however, apply the term "tramp" to able-bodied persons roaming from place to place, asking or subsisting upon charity. The term "vagrant" is used to include tramps, able-bodied beggars, petty gamblers, and others living without work. Here, however, we shall consider the vagrancy laws only in so far as they apply to tramps and "common beggars."

Recurring for a moment to the statutory use of the term "tramp," let us notice the classes excluded from it. These are minors, females, and such males as from defect or incapacity are unable to perform manual labor. The age limit for minors varies in the different states, ranging from fourteen to seventeen years. 1 Persons not yet arrived at this age, if found wandering about, are usually cared for as dependent children or sent to the reform school as incorrigibles. In Kentucky and Missouri young vagrants are to be bound out. 2 Neither does the law usually apply to females. Throughout the South and West tramps are punished

This is the case in Michigan and New York, where cases of dispute between towns are decided by the superintendents of the poor. The court in which the protest is filed and heard is usually that of the county asking the removal of or removing the pauper. To avoid needless friction, protests are in many instances, when made, to be filed within a few days of notification, and if protest is not made within such period, it is barred. This time is two months in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine; forty days in Rhode Island ; thirty days in South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Iowa ; twenty days in Oklahoma, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas ; and ten days in Michigan and New York.

1 In Massachusetts (38, ch. 207) and New Hampshire (7, ch. 286) the law applies to males over seventeen ; in Vermont (3967), Connecticut (1551), Rhode Island (36, ch. 28), Delaware (Act of March 27, 1879), Wisconsin (1547), and Iowa (Act of May 3, 1890), to those over sixteen; and in Maine (21, ch. 128), North Carolina (3833), Indiana (2135), and Ohio (6995) to those over fourteen years of age.

4762; 8850.