Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/658

 644 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas. 1 In two states, Alabama and Oregon, 2 no legislation whatever upon the subject has been found.

Turning now to the punishment of tramps, we find that in the two states of West Virginia and Kentucky they are not con- sidered as misdemeanants, and are, therefore, not punishable at all. In the former state "every overseer [of the poor] shall exert himself to prevent any person from going about begging or straying in any street or other place to beg. Every such person, if properly a county charge, shall immediately be taken up and conveyed to the place of the general reception for the poor of the county in which he may be, if there be one." If not properly a county charge (if he have no settlement in that county), he is to be removed to his place of settlement. 3 In Kentucky the county judge is to send all persons found beg- ging to the poorhouse along with other indigents. 4 This provi- sion is supplemented in this state, however, by the vagrancy law. Vagrancy is a high misdemeanor, and the vagrant may be bound out or sold into servitude for not longer than twelve months. 5 In most states, however, "tramping" is considered a misdemeanor, and as such is punishable.

'The provision found in Texas (399), Minnesota (10853', 12893'), North Dakota (2 1485*), and South Dakota is that city councils have power " to restrain and punish vagrants, street beggars, and prostitutes." The law in Oklahoma (592) pro- vides that a city council "may arrest and imprison, fine, or set at work all vagrants and persons found in said city without visible means of support, or some legitimate business." The Kansas law (571, 819, 987) is similarly worded.

2 Oregon's vagrancy law was repealed in 1889, and nothing seems to have been substituted for it. It read in part : " All idle or dissolute persons who have no visible means of living, or lawful occupation or employment by which to earn a living; all persons who shall be found within the state of Oregon begging the means of support in public places or from house to house, or who shall procure a child or children so to do ; all persons who live in or about houses of ill-fame or of ill-repute, shall be deemed vagrants." Such were to be fined from $20 to $250, or committed to jail for from ten to twenty-five days, and employed upon the streets by the sheriff eight hours per day.

3 13, ch. 46. 43929.

5 "If any able-bodied person be found loitering or rambling about, not having the means to maintain himself, or who does not betake himself to labor .... he shall be taken and adjudged a vagrant, and guilty of a high misdemeanor" (4758).