VAGRANT ACT. In English Law. The statute 5 Geo. IV, c. 83, which is an act for the punishment of idle and disorderly per sons. 2 Chit. Stat. 145.
The act of 17 Geo. II divided vagrants into idle and disorderly persons (those who threatened to run away and leave their wives and children on the parish, or refuse to work for the usual wages, or begged from door to door in the streets). They were committed to the house of correction at hard labor for not to exceed a month. Rogues and vaga bonds (including those who gathered alms on pretense of fire, etc., or as collectors for pris ons, etc., common players, minstrels, jug glers, pretended gypsies, those who practice palmistry, or tell fortunes, or bet on any un lawful games, or who desert their wives and children, peddlers not duly licensed, persons wandering about and not giving a good ac count of themselves, or pretending to be sol diers, etc.). These were publicly whipped or
sent to the house of correction at hard labor for not exceeding six months. Incorrigible rogues (including all persons apprehended as rogues and vagabonds and escaping, etc., or 'giving a false account of themselves, and those who had been punished before as rogues and vagabonds). They were punished . by not to exceed two years at hard labor in the House of Correction and to be whipped during confinement. If a male and above 12 years, he might be put into the army or navy, and if he escaped from the house of correction, he might be transported.
Other statutes were passed as late as 32 Geo. III bearing on this subject. A full ac count of this will be found in Jacob's Law Diet. s. v. Vagrant.