Vagrancy
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Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, o
John Everett Millais' The Blind Girl, depicting a vagrant musician
Vagabonds being arrested in 19th century France
A woodcut from c. 1536 depicting a vagrant being punished in the streets in Tudor England
The Pass Room at Bridewell, c. 1808. At this time paupers from outside London apprehended by the authorities could be imprisoned for seven days before being sent back to their own parish.
Tramp
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A tramp is a long-term homeless person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking all year round.
Vagrancy
…some other labour. ... Every master may put an iron ring round the neck, arms or legs of his slave, by which to know him more easily." Caricature of a tramp In England, the Vagabonds Act 1572 passed under Elizabeth I, defined a rogue as a person who had no land, no master, and no legitimate trade or source…
A romanticized tramp depicting Tom Lancaster
"A Tramp's Nest in Ludlow Street", How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890), by Jacob Riis