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They had fallen back on the hazardous command of such a vessel as this not from choice, but necessity, precisely as other types of unemployed and hopeless men fall back on vagrancy and crime. Her crew was picked from the dregs of scattered ports.
"Thirty days," said his Honor, and called another hobo's name. Said hobo got up. "Vagrancy, your Honor," said the bailiff, and his Honor said, "Thirty days." And so it went, fifteen seconds and thirty days to each hobo. The machine of justice was grinding smoothly. Most likely, considering how early it was in the morning, his Honor had not yet had his breakfast and was in a hurry.
The hobo sat down, and the judge was calling another name and another hobo was rising to his feet. The trial of that hobo had taken just about fifteen seconds. The trial of the next hobo came off with equal celerity. The bailiff said, "Vagrancy, your Honor," and his Honor said, "Thirty days." Thus it went like clockwork, fifteen seconds to a hobo and thirty days.
In England, on the contrary, the stage was an outlet for irregular talent, impatient of steady labor or severe restrictions, and captivated by the freedom and diversity of a career which, beginning in vagrancy, might lead at a single bound to a brilliant and enviable position.
It is difficult to say if our laws relating to vagrancy and vagrants are more cruel or more absurd. If not so atrocious they would evoke laughter; if less ridiculous we should read them with indignation. Here is an imaginary conversation: The Law: It is forbidden to you to rob. It is forbidden to you to steal. It is forbidden to you to beg.
He leaned over the balustrade and called down: "Any luck, Storg?" "No, he got away," was the reply. "He's a good runner. I couldn't keep up to him." "Never mind," consoled Higgins. "Maybe it's just as well. We'd have trouble proving anything illegal against him, though I could have had him held on a charge of vagrancy until I investigated a bit."
A life of vagrancy or indolence may easily be made more attractive than one of honest industry, and well-meant efforts to anticipate all the wants and misfortunes of the poor may often have the effect of making them careless of the future and of destroying all elements of independence and providence in their character.
On each of these occasions the court officials and the military men had to pawn their estates and sell their heirlooms in order to supply themselves with sufficiently gorgeous robes, and the sequel was the imposition of house taxes and land taxes so heavy that the provincial farmers often found vagrancy more lucrative than agricultural industry. Pawnshops were mercilessly mulcted.
Now, as the negro was originally imported as a labourer, but now refuses to labour, it is self-evident that he is a lamentable failure. Either he must be compelled to work, by some stringent law against vagrancy, or those beautiful countries that prospered under the conditions of negro forced industry must yield to ruin, under negro freedom and idle independence.
Septimus, however, had always dwelt in her heart like a stray dog whom she had rescued from vagrancy. He did not count as a man. Sypher did. Thus during the long, tedious hours of the journey home the two were curiously mingled in her anxious conjectures, and she had no doubt that Sypher and herself, the strong and masterful, would come to the deliverance of the weak.
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