arithmetic, and retained the right to transmit the apprentice anywhere in the county. Upon a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the Federal court held that the Maryland law resulted in practical slavery and, hence, violated the Thirteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Bill of 1866.
The other Southern States had apprentice laws, possibly as detailed as the ones here considered, but they cannot be treated of here because they applied to white and colored children alike.
VAGRANCY LAWS
The present vagrancy laws of the South have been much criticised for the reason, as it is alleged, that they are used to get recruits for chain gangs and convict camps, and that Negro vagrants are taken up while white vagrants go scotfree. Be that as it may, the fault lies with the officers, not with the law, for the law, on its face, applies to both races equally. But the first years after the War did witness the enactment of vagrancy laws which had special application to Negroes. Some States passed vagrancy laws which made no race distinction, but, as in the case of apprentices, it is beyond dispute that they were aimed especially at the Negro.
The following persons South Carolina[58] classed as vagrants: (1) all persons who have not some fixed and known place of abode, and some lawful and reputable employment; (2) those who have not some visible and known means of a fair, honest, and reputable livelihood; (3) all common prostitutes; (4) those who are found wandering from place to place, vending, bartering, or peddling any articles or
