[HISTORY: Adopted and amended as indicated in text.]
GENERAL REFERENCES
Fortune-telling — See Ch. 151.
STATUTORY REFERENCES
Rogues and vagabonds — See Anno. Code of Md. (1957),
Art. 27, § 491.
[P.L.L. 1930, Art. 23, sec. 400; 1959 Code, sec. 542. 1914, ch. 762,
sec. 1]
Every person within the confines of Wicomico or Somerset Counties, Maryland,
not being insane, who has no visible means of maintenance from property or
personal labor or is not permanently supported by his or her friends or relatives,
who lives idle, without employment, and every person who leads a dissolute
or disorderly course of life and cannot give an account of the means by which
he or she procures a legitimate livelihood, and every nomad, gypsy or other
person practicing that which is commonly called fortune-telling by acts, signs
or omens, for value or otherwise, or any common gambler, shall be deemed a
vagabond; and every person who habitually wanders about and begs in the limits
of Wicomico or Somerset Counties from house to house or sits or stands or
takes a position in any place or begs from passersby, either by words or gestures,
shall be deemed a habitual beggar; and every person who wanders about and
lodges in outhouses, market places, barracks, sheds, barns or in any public
building or in the open air and has no permanent place of abode or visible
means of maintenance shall be deemed a vagrant.
[P.L.L. 1930, Art. 23, sec. 401; 1959 Code, sec. 543. 1914, ch. 762,
see. 2]
Every vagabond, habitual beggar, vagrant or fortune-teller mentioned in § 218-1 of this chapter, upon conviction before the Circuit Court for Wicomico or Somerset Counties, or before any Justice of the Peace having criminal jurisdiction, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be subject to a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $100 or be confined in the Maryland House of Correction for a period of not less than two months nor more than six months, or both fine and imprisonment, within the discretion of the Circuit Court or the Justice of the Peace, provided that any person found to be a vagabond or an habitual beggar who may not be able-bodied, but aged or infirm or seriously crippled, may, in the discretion of the Court or Justice of the Peace, be committed to the almshouse or be paroled, and provided also that any minor committed under this chapter may be sent to any reformatory institution to which minors may be committed under Article 27 of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland or paroled in the discretion of the Court or Justice of the Peace; provided, however, that if any person when brought before any such Justice of the Peace having jurisdiction in the case shall, before trial for the alleged offense, pray a jury trial, or if the state's attorney for the county shall before trial pray a jury trial on the part of the state, it shall be the duty of said Justice to commit such alleged offender for trial, or to hold him to bail to appear for trial in the Circuit Court of Wicomico or Somerset Counties at its then or next session and to return said commitment or recognizance, with the names and residences of the witnesses for the prosecution endorsed thereon, forthwith to the Clerk of said Court; and the Justice of the Peace before whom the accused is brought to trial shall, prior to the beginning of the trial, inform him or her of his or her right to a jury trial.
