An Anti-Tramp Law That Works.
THE anti-tramp bill introduced in the New York Assembly is very severe on vagabonds and beggars. It will be criticised as an iron-handed, almost cruel, measure. But no one can say it will not work. For this identical plan has made tramps as scarce in New Hampshire as snakes in Ireland. All other laws for the suppression of tramping have failed. They were only handfuls of grass. This one is a stone. It defines a tramp in general terms to be a person going about from place to place, begging beyond the limits of the town in which he is an actual resident—specially excepting women and blind people. These mendicants are made liable to fifteen months' imprisonment. If the tramp, after the fashion of his kind, enters a house unbidden, or builds a fire on the highway or on private property without permission, or threatens to injure any one, or willfully and maliciously does happen to harm any person or to the real and personal estate of another, he may be imprisoned for terms varying up to five years. So stringent a law is open to abuse. So is every human statute. Possibly some innocent man, footing it merrily over the country—or some honest mechanic hunting for work—might unknowingly get into the meshes of such a law. But this would be one case out of a million. In New Hampshire, the birthplace of this system, no instance of such injustice has been made public if it has occurred. The law is rarely forced on anybody now for lack of material. The tramps fled from the State in dismay as soon as the act was passed last August. All respectable persons of all parties approve of a law which makes it safe for women to traverse lonely roads, for children to go to school, and stops the burning of houses and barns, the theft of poultry and injury to crops. Every tax-payer feels a personal relief since this law was substituted for one which undertook to provide tramps with work, food and lodging at county expense. The old law, the offspring of spurious philanthropy, actually invited tramps to flock to New Hampshire, and partake of her bounty. The requirements of work did not frighten them, because they always managed to shirk it in the House of Correction, and waxed fat and kicked while the county authorities were obliged to levy taxes or borrow money to support the hateful guests. Six months of experience having proved the practical wisdom of the New Hampshire law, in freeing a State from these strolling pests, we do not hesitate to recommend its adoption in New York.—N. Y. Journal of Commerce.