Sec. 285. Vagrants—who are vagrants—how dealt with
—punishment.
(a) Who Are Vagrants. — The following persons shall be
deemed vagrants:
First. All persons who shall unlawfully return to this City
after having been legally removed.
Second. All persons who not having wherewith to maintain,
themselves and their families, live idly and without employment,
and refuse to work for the usual and common wages given to
other laborers in the like work in the City.
Third. Persons wandering or strolling about in idleness, who
are able to work and have no property to support them.
Fourth. Persons leading an idle, immoral, or profligate life,
who have no property to support them, and who are able to work
and do not.
Fifth. All able-bodied persons found begging for a living, or
who quit their homes and leave their wives or children without
the means of subsistence.
Sixth. All persons who shall come from any place without
this City and shall be found loitering and residing herein, and
shall follow no labor, trade, occupation, or business, and have no
visible means of subsistence, and can give no reasonable account
of themselves or their business.
Seventh. All persons having a fixed abode who have no visible
property to support them, and who live by stealing or by
trading or bartering stolen property.
Eighth. All persons who are able to work and who do not
work, but hire out their minor children and live upon their wages.
(b) Vagrants—How Dealt with.—It shall be the duty of the
police, the City Sergeant and other City officials to give information
under oath to any officer empowered by law to issue criminal
warrants of all vagrants within their knowledge, or persons
whom they have good reason to suspect of being vagrants in the
City; and thereupon, or upon the complaint of any person upon
oath the said officer shall issue a warrant for the arrest of the
person alleged to be a vagrant and he shall be brought before the
Civil and Police Justice and upon conviction shall be punished
by confinement in jail for not more than ninety days and upon
conviction of a second offense shall be confined in jail not more
than six months; but the Civil and Police Justice or the Court
before which the case may be tried may permit such persons so
convicted to give bond with sufficient security, in an amount not
exceeding $500.00 nor less than $100.00 conditioned upon his
future industry and good conduct for one year; and upon giving
such bond such person shall be set at liberty without undergoing
the punishment imposed by his conviction. It shall be sufficient
defense to the charge of vagrancy under this section that the defendant
has made reasonable bona fide efforts to obtain employment
at reasonable prices for his labor and has failed to obtain
the same.
(c) Any railroad company, or the owner of any conveyance
bringing to or leaving in the City any vagrant may be compelled
to take any such person back to the place whence he was brought
and, upon failure to do so after two days' notice, such railroad
company or such owner of conveyance referred to above shall
be fined not less than $5.00 nor more than $10.00 for each day
the failure to remove continues.