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"felf of its refources 2," the Scottish artizan or labourer may, at his own difcretion, change his abode without challenge or controul, if only he avoid those idle and vicious habits, which expofe him, as a rogue or vagabond, to the cognizance of the criminal magiftracy.

2 Mr. Pitt's Speech, ibid. cccx.

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SION.

CHAP. III.

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I.

THE

Of Vagrants.

HE truly neceffitous being legally provided in a maintenance, it becomes then equally just and neceffary to punish those who, though able to work, yet chuse rather to live idly at the expence of others; wandering about the country, without any fixed refidence: fuch perfons, under various descriptions, are punishable in this as in every well regulated state.

THE act 1617, as already noticed, gives the juftices of peace jurisdiction in this matter Þ.

Of those persons, one class, once very formidable, but now scarcely known to us, except by tradition and the books of adjournal, were forners, described by lord Bankton as

a Appendix I, No. 5.

b The previous acts, 1592, c. 147, and 1597, c. 268, at the date of which juftices were not introduced into the country, fpeak only of magiftrates of boroughs and sheriffs, who are enjoined to inquire; and left the magi

ftrates and fheriffs fhould be remifs, the kirk-feffion of every parish is appointed to name commiffioners to hold courts within their bounds, and try the offenders. These powers are confirmed by act 1698, c. 21.

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SCOTTISH

-SORNERS

" masterful, sturdy beggars," that went in companies, op-
preffing the people, by confuming victuals, and taking away ACTS,
goods, without confent of the owners. The fuppreffion
of thofe pefts to fociety was the object of many fevere en-
actments, from the ftatute of Robert II, c. 12, downward;
and indeed the ftatutes 1445, c. 45b; and 1477, c. 77,.
made the punishment capital; which, however, never ap-
pears to have been actually inflicted; unless where the gen-
eral offence of forning was aggravated by particular acts of
violence.

SORNERS being a species of vagrants, are to be understood as fubjected to the jurisdiction of the juftices of peace, as well as to that of the other magiftrates mentioned in the ftatutes.

THE most notorious clafs of vagrants are the Egyptians, or gypfies, first noticed in Europe about the year 1417, and not like the other ftrollers an accidental affociation of vagabonds, but a diftinct race of foreigners, who travelled into Europe from the Eaft. They firft appeared in Hungary and Bohemia, pretending they were pilgrims, and as fuch they at first received paffes from the princes through whose territories they travelled; but their morals not being found to correlpond to the fanctity of that character, and their numbets alarmingly increafing, as well from the idle and profli gate of the different countries joining them, as from fresh fwrms fucceffively coming from the Eaft, they were banished out of every European kingdom; out of Spain in the year 1492; out of Germany in the year 1500; out of France in the 1561 and 1612; and out of England in the reign of Henry VIII.

THE laws of Scotland likewife, in their numerous provi

GYPSIES.

a Vol. I, book i, tit. 10.

Appendix I, No. 36.

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fions for the restraint of rogues and vagabonds, never fail to enumerate Egyptians, as among the foremost and most incorrigible, they are described as a counterfeit kind of rogues, who disguise themselves in strange habits, who smear their faces and bodies, who frame to themselves a canting kind of language, and who, under the pretence of telling fortunes, curing diseases, and such like things, delude the common people, and steal and pilfer whatever they conveniently can. Under this description, they have been proscribed by several statutes both in this and our fifter kingdom. They were, by parl. 1609, c. 13, expelled from Scotland, under the defignation of " the vagabonds, forners, and common thieves, common"ly called Egyptians ;" with this penalty annexed, that if any of them were found within the kingdom, they might be imprisoned, and put to death. This act, Mr. Erskine says, is still in force, with this only exception, that persons so apprehended may bring witneffes to their character, in order that the jury may judge whether they fall under the defignation of the ftatute. Indeed, fo far back as the year 1698, the rigour of the ftatute began to be departed from.The general charge of being habite and repute a gypsie, was not per fe fuftained as relevant, but only along with one or other of the facts of " picking or little thieving" libelled. This lenient conftruction was carried still farther in a subsequent cafe, 1699, June 26, Baillie, where the interlocutor of relevancy expressly required feveral acts of violence; and confidering the long disuse of the antient severity which the prefent state of the country renders now no longer necessary, there seems reason to doubt whether this description of men, confidered as a péculiar race, ftand in any other predicament than that they are ftill punishable as vagrants, when guilty of any thing falling under the laws against that particular offence 2.

a Hume, vol. ii, c. 22.

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SCOTTIS

-VAGA

SCHOLARS.

LERS, &c.

VAGABOND fcholars may also be mentioned, i. e. thofe who are authorized to beg by a licence from their teachers; ACTS, and in general, under this defcription of vagabonds, or va- BOND grants, the ftatute 1579, c. 74, the leading regulation upon the fubject, claffes fortune-tellers, jugglers, players at un--JUGGlawful and cunning games, people pretending to be prophets, all minstrels who have no fixed fervice, all who use forged licences to beg, or perfons who, without fufficient teftimoHials, pretend to have fuffered fhipwreck, to have been burnt out of their houses, and fuch like; and, finally, all perfons whatsoever, who can give no good account of themselves, or how they can lawfully earn their livelihood, or who, though able-bodied men, avoid every kind of work by which they might be fupported.

IN Scotland the legiflature began early to enact laws for -PUNISRreftraining idleness, and punishing thofe claffes of offend- MENT. ers; whereof the principal is the said act 1579, c. 74, by which all vagabonds, and strong and idle beggars, betwixt the age of 14 and 70, as has been already remarked, are to be apprehended, and carried before the magistrates within borough, and in landward parishes, before any person whom the king fhall conftitute juftice by his commiffion, or whom the lords of regality fhall appoint within their jurifdiction, and to be by them committed to prison, in stocks, or irons, until they be put to the knowledge of an affize, to which they must be put, within fix days after their imprisonment; and, upon conviction, they are to be fcourged, and burnt through the ear with a hot iron, unless some perfon of credit and refponfibility undertake, before the judge, under the penalty of twenty pound, to take and keep the offender in his fervice for a year, and to bring him to the head court of the jurisdiction at the year's end. If the offender defert his fervice, he is in that cafe to fuffer the punishment already mentioned; and if, afParl. 1579, c. 74. Appendix I, No. 49.

a Parliament 1424, c. 42.

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