Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/79

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

commodities without a license; (5) all common gamblers; (6) persons who lead idle or disorderly lives, or keep or frequent disorderly or disreputable houses or places; (7) those who, not having sufficient means of support, are able to work and do not work; (8) those who (whether or not they own lands, or are lessees or mechanics) do not provide a reasonable and proper maintenance for themselves and families; (9) those who are engaged in representing publicly or privately, for fee or reward, without license, any tragedy, interlude, comedy, farce, play, or other similar entertainment, exhibition of the circus, sleight-of-hand, waxworks, or the like; (10) those who, for private gain, without license, give any concert or musical entertainment, of any description; (11) fortune tellers; (12) sturdy beggars; (13) common drunkards; (14) those who hunt game of any description, or fish on the land of others or frequent the premises, contrary to the will of the occupants. That the South Carolina legislature had the Negro primarily in mind is shown by the fact that this section is included in the act "to establish and regulate the domestic relations of persons of color and to amend the law in relation to paupers and vagrancy."

Mississippi[59] had a vagrancy list almost as extensive as that above with the addition that any freedmen, free Negroes, or mulattoes over eighteen years of age, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together in the day or night time, and white persons "so assembling with freedmen, free Negroes, or mulattoes . . . on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freedwoman, free Negro,