Vagrancy Act 1824

III Persons committing certain Offences how to be punished.

And be it further enacted, That every Person being able wholly or in part to maintain himself or herself, or his or her Family, by Work or by other Means, and wilfully refusing or neglecting so to do, by which Refusal or Neglect he or she, or any of his or her Family whom he or she may be legally bound to maintain, shall have become chargeable to any Parish, Township, or Place; every Person returning to and becoming chargeable in any Parish, Township, or Place from whence he or she shall have been legally removed by Order of Two Justices of the Peace, unless he or she shall produce a Certificate of the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor of some other Parish, Township, or Place, thereby acknowledging him or her to be settled in such other Parish, Township, or Place; every Petty Chapman or Pedlar wandering abroad, and trading without being duly licensed, or otherwise authorized by Law; every Common Prostitute wandering in the public Streets or public Highways, or in any Place of public Resort, and behaving in a riotous or indecent Manner; and every Person wandering abroad, or placing himself or herself in any public Place, Street, Highway, Court, or Passage, to beg or gather Alms, or causing or procuring or encouraging any Child or Children so to do, shall be deemed an idle and disorderly Person within the true Intent and Meaning of this Act; and it shall be lawful for any Justice of the Peace to commit such Offender (being thereof convicted before him by his own View, or by the Confession of such Offender, or by the Evidence on Oath of One or more credible Witness or Witnesses) to the House of Correction, there to be kept to hard Labour for any Time not exceeding One Calendar Month.