Notwithstanding the above laws, vagrancy appears to have greatly increased at the commencement of the reign of Edward VI., of which effect the abolition of monasteries was one main cause. Previously to the Reformation churches were bound by law, both civil (stat. 15 Rich. II., c. 6) and ecclesiastical, to contribute a portion of their income to the living and sustenance of the poor, and the gates of the religious houses were thronged by beggars, who daily received a donation of food, and sometimes of money. This practice contributed no doubt to increase the number of idle beggars, who, upon the with drawal of their accustomed means of support by the dissolution of the monasteries, became vagrants. To remove the pressure of the evil thus occasioned, an enactment of unexampled severity was devised. The stat. 1 & 2 Edw. VI., c. 3, after reciting that " the multitude of people given to vagabondric and idleness had always been within this realm very great, and more in number than in other regions," and that the laws of preceding reigns bad been found ineffectual, repealed all statutes previously made for the punishment of vagabonds and sturdy beggars. It then enacted that all able-bodied persons, without property sufficient for their support, who should, " either like serving men wanting masters, or like beggars, or after any other such sort, be lurking in any house, or loitering or idle•wandering by the highway's side," or who in town, should not apply themselves to any service or art, and should so continue for three days without offering to labour for meat and drink (if no man otherwise will take them); or who, having been taken to service, should leave their work or run away, should be taken to be vagabonds; and that it should be lawful for any person having offered or given work to any such idle person, and for any other person espying the same, to bring such idle person before two justices, who should immediately cause ham to be marked with a hot iron on the breast with the letter v, and adjudge him to such pre senter "to be his dare ; to hone and to hold the said slave unto Aim, his executors, or auks', for the space of two years then next following, and to order the sold slave as followcth (that is to say), to take such slave with him, and only giving him bread and water, or small drink and such refuse of meat as bestial! think meet, cause him to work by beat ing, chaining, or otherwise In such work and labour Chow vile soever it be) as he shall put him unto." The statute also provides that an action of trespass may be maintained for a runaway slave, and that the run away himself shall, upon his apprelierution, be adjudged by two justices to be his master's slave for ever. If lie ran away a second time, the slave became a felon, and might be tried and executed as such. This Angular enactment further declared that a master might "let, set forth, sell, bequeath or give" the service and labour of such slaves, upon such condition and for such term of years as ho might do with any other of his moveable goods or chattels. " Some thought," rays Burnet, " this law against vagabonds was too severe, and contrary to that common liberty of which the English nation has always been very sensible. Yet it could not be denied but extreme diseases required extreme remedies; and perhaps there is no punishment too severe for persons that are in health, and yet prefer a loitering course of life to an honest employment." (' History of the Ileformation, vol. ii., p. 45.) The consequence of the absurd severity of this law was that its pro visions were not carried into execution ; and being found wholly ineffectual, it was repealed by the statute 3 & 4 Edw. VI., e. 10, which also repealed all former laws upon the same subject excepting the 22 Hon. VIII., c. 12. Another statute of the same reign (5 S. Edw. VI., c. 2) slightly modified the preceding laws; but the regula tion of vagrants and mendicants stood in effect upon the footing of tho three last-mentioned statutes until the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth.
About the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, a description of per sons called rogues first appeared in the general class of vagrants. The derivation of this word is variously given by etymologists. Home Tooke derives it from a Saxon word signifying " cloaked," or covered. (` Diversions of Purley,' vol. ii) Webster takes it from another Saxon word, and Dr. Johnson.admits its derivation to be uncertain. Lain bard says "the word is but a late guest in our law ; for the ancient statutes call such a one a valiant, strong, or sturdy beggar, or vaga bond, and it seemeth to be fetched from tho Latin rogator,' an esker or beggar." (' Eirenarcha; book iv., chap. 4.) Dalton also says "a rogue may be so called quia ostiatirn rogat." (` Country Justice,' chap. 83.) It is believed that the word does not occur in the English language before the middle of the 16th century ; and if so, it is pro bably one of those numerous cant words by which, at that period, vagrants, in counterfeiting Egyptians or gipsies, began to designate different classes of their own "ungracious rabble," and of which Harrison enumerates twenty-three degrees. (Harrison's Description of England,' prefixed to Holinshed's ' Chronicles?) In the course of the reign of Elizabeth the evils of vagrancy increased to an alarming extent ; and although the accounts given by historians of the multitude of vagabonds in England are founded upon rude esti mates, and are probably somewhat exaggerated, there is undoubted evidence that the numbers and attitude of these persons at that period constituted an evil of dangerous magnitude. Strype relates that in 1569 circular letters were issued by the privy council to the sheriffs of the different counties, directing them to search for and apprehend "all vagabonds and sturdy beggars, commonly called rogues or Egyptians ;" and he says that on the search through the nation 13,000 " masterless men" were taken up. (Strype'i Annals,' vol. i., part 2, pp. 295, 290, 554.) Harrison, who wrote towards the cud of Elizabeth's reign, states that the number of vagrants in England in his time amounted to above 10,000 (' Description of England ') ; and Strype publishes a paper, written, in 1596, by a justice of the peace of Somersetshire, which affirms that there were 300 or 400 wandering idle people in every county, who met at fairs and markets for purposes of theft and rapine, and who sometimes assembled in troops to the number of 60, and com pletely overawed the magistrates and constables by their audacious threats. (Strype's Annals,' vol. iv., p. 405.) The recorder of London, in a letter to Lord Btuleigh, written in 1581 (Ellis's Letters; voL p. 283), gives a remarkable account of the prevalence of vagrants in the metropolis at that period. He says, that being informed that the queen, "in taking of the air in her coach at Islington, had been environed with rogues," he went abroad himself and took seventy-four rogues," whereof some were blind, and yet great usurers and very rich." A day or two afterwards he says that, in consequence of war rants issued by him, he received " a shoal of forty rogues, men and women, fiern Southwark, Lambeth, and Newington," and after bestow ing them in Bridewell, he " perused " St. Paul's, and took about twenty
" cloaked rogues that there used to keep standing." Notwithstanding this zeal and activity, vagrants still increased in the metropolis, both in numbers and audacity ; and the efforts of the ordinary magistrates having failed to prevent the frequent and dangerous disorders and tumults occasioned by offenders of this description, they were, in 1595, placed under martial law. The instrument appointing a provost marshal for this purpose authorises that officer " to repair with a con venient company to all common highways near to the city of London, where he should understand that any vagrant persons did haunt ; and calling to his assistance some convenient number of justices and con stables, to apprehend all such vagrant and suspected persons, and deliver them to the said justices, to be by them committed and examined of the causes of their wandering." It then directs him that "if such persons should be found notoriously culpable in the unlawful manner of life, as incorrigible, and should be so certified to him by the justices, ho should by law-martial cause some of them to be executed upon the gallows or gibbet." (Itymer's Fcedera; vol. xvi., p. 279.) The means of suppressing or diminishing vagrancy and mendicancy were constant subjects of discussion in the parliaments of Elizabeth. With this view, extraordinary means of relief were devised. Voluntary. subscriptions of sums of money, varying in amount according to the rank and supposed ability of tho contributors, were made iu both Houses to relieve "the great number of poor people pressing in the streets to beg." (D'Ewes's Journals,' pp. 462, 463, 499, 503.) Orders were also made that those who preferred private bills in the House of Commons should pay 101. or Si., according to the subjects of their bills, to the relief of the poor, to be distributed as the House should appoint. (D'Ewes's 'Journals,' p. 665.) Several statutes were also passed, at one time increasing the punishment for vagrancy, and then repealing it, without any settled principle of legislation. In some of these statutes, however, the notion of a parochial fund for the relief of the poor, and the principle of taxing the parishioners for that purpose, are distinctly recognised. (Stat. 5 Eliz., c. 3; 14 Eliz., c. 5; and 18 Eliz., c. 3.) At length, in 1597, after experience had shown that temporary expedients and ill-directed charity only increased the amount of vagrancy, and that severe punishments and penalties were wholly ineffectual in preventing it, the House of Commons appointed a committee to whom most of the existing laws relating to the con dition of the poor, as well as certain bills for their amendment, were referred. (D'Ewea's Journals,' p. 561.) This committee, of which Sir Francis Bacon was member, and which was composed of all the practical men of the House, seems to have perceived and to a certain extent acted upon the principle that, in order to justify severity against vagrancy and mendicity, it was necessary to provide the means of relieving that destitution which was the ready and plausible excuse for both. They therefore prepared the stat. 39 Eliz., c. 3, which for the first time organised that machinery for the legal relief of the poor which was a few years afterwards completed and made perpetual by the stat. 43 Eliz., c. 2. The same committee also recommended measures for encouraging the building of "hospitals, or abiding and working houses," for the poor, and for improving and reforming such as were already in existence, but had been misapplied or abused. And at the same time they introduced a more rational enactment for the correction and suppression of fraudulent vagrancy than had previously existed. (Stat. 39 c. 4.) "Many statutes," says Sir Edward Coke (2 Inst.' 728), " have been made for the punishment of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, but very few to find them work and to enforce them thereunto." The statute 39 Eliz., c. 4, supplied this deficiency by providing houses of correction, with stocks, and materials for the employment of the inmates, and by enforcing the use of the means thus placed in the hands of the poor by severe penalties against the idle. The provisions of this statute, with some alterations made by the stat. 1 Jac. I. c. 25, continued in force during the whole of the 17th century; and when repealed by the stat. 12 Ann., stat. 2, c. 23, still served as the model and foundation for future acts. It declared that the following persons should be deemed rogues, vagabonds. and sturdy beggars :-1, persons calling themselves scholars going about begging; 2, sea-faring men, pretending losses of their ships or goods, going about begging; 3, idle persons going about the country, either begging or using any subtle craft or unlawful games or plays, or feigning themselves to have knowledge in physiognomy, palmistry, or telling fortunes; 4, persons that were or uttered themselves to be pro curers or collectors for jails or hospitals ; 5, fencers, bear-wards, common players of interludes and minstrels wandering abroad, other than players of interludes belonging to any baron of the realm, or any other honourable personage of greater degree [THEATRE]; 6, jugglers, tinkers, pedlars, and petty chapmen, wandering abroad ; 7, wandering persons and common labourers, able in body, using loitering, and refusing to work for reasonable wages, and having no other means of maintenance; 8, persons delivered out of jail who begged for their fees, or otherwise travelled begging ; 9, persons who wandered abroad begging, pretending losses by fire, or otherwise ; 10, persons, not being felons (i.e., by a late statute, 5 Eliz., c. 20), wandering and pretending themselves to be Egyptians. A person who committed any of the above offences might, by the appointment of any justice, constable, hmlberough, or tything-man (the headborough or tything-man being assisted therein by the advice of the minister and another of the parish), be openly whipped till he was bloody, and then sent from parish to parish till he came to the parish where he was born : if that was unknown, to the parish where he last lived for a year ; and if that again was unknown, to the parish where he Last passed without punish ment. He was provided with a testimonial of his punishment, and of the place whereunto ho was to go, stating the time limited for that purpose ; and if be was found loitering by the way, he might again be whipped. If any rogue appeared to be dangerous to the inferior sort of people, or not likely to be reformed (an expression which seems to have led to the phrase " incorrigible rogues "), two justices might com mit him to jail till the next qoarter-seeeions, and then he might by the justices there be either banished out of the realm, or adjudged per petually to the galleys of the realm ; and any banished rogue returning without leave became a felon.