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VI.
The laws against vagabonds have always been very rigorous in England.
England, in her Gothic legislation, seemed to be inspired with this
principle, Homo errans fera errante pejor. One of the special statutes
classifies the man without a home as "more dangerous than the asp,
dragon, lynx, or basilisk" (atrocior aspide, dracone, lynce, et
basilico). For a long time England troubled herself as much concerning
the gipsies, of whom she wished to be rid as about the wolves of which
she had been cleared. In that the Englishman differed from the Irishman,
who prayed to the saints for the health of the wolf, and called him "my
godfather."
English law, nevertheless, in the same way as (we have just seen) it
tolerated the wolf, tamed, domesticated, and become in some sort a dog,
tolerated the regular vagabond, become in some sort a subject. It did
not trouble itself about either the mountebank or the travelling barber,
or the quack doctor, or the peddler, or the open-air scholar, as long as
they had a trade to live by. Further than this, and with these
exceptions, the description of freedom which exists in the wanderer
terrified the law. A tramp was a possible public enemy. That modern
thing, the lounger, was then unknown; that ancient thing, the vagrant,
was alone understood. A suspicious appearance, that indescribable
something which all understand and none can define, was sufficient
reason that society should take a man by the collar. "Where do you live?
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