ROGUE AND VAGABOND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 244, 15 October 1932, Page 8

ROGUE AND VAGABOND

AN OLD ENGLISH PHRASE. CENTERY OLD CHARGE. “I plead guilty to entering the brewery but not guilty to being a rogue and a vagabond,” said one of the prisoners, who entered the promises of the Wanganui Brewery recently. when asked how he pleaded to the charge preferred against him in the Magistrate’s Court at Wanganui yesterday morning. “I can hardly be a rogue and a vagabond when I have been working every day for the past two years,’ 5 he added. The prisoner was charged under the section of the Police Offences Act of 1927 which states that any person shall be deemed to be a rogue and a vagabond who is found without lawful excuse on any building, or enclosed yard, garden or area, or any ship, launch, dredge, yacht or boat and that if he has been previously convicted he shall be liable to imprisonment for a year. “The phrase is part of an old English Act some centuries old and makes no difference to the charge.” said Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M., when sentencing the prisoner. There are several sections of the Act under which a person may be charged as being a rogue and a vagabond and they include such offences as violently resisting a constablee. soliciting or gathering alms, subscriptions or contributions under false pretences or play ing or betting in a public place at. or with any table or instrument of gaming, or at any game or pretended game of chance. A rogue or a vagabond is also one who has in his possession without lawful excuse a picklock, key, crow, jack, bit or other implement of housebreaking. while anyone who is armed with a gun, pistol, sword, bludgeon or other offensive instrument with felonous intent is also included in tho category. The term also extends to anyone found by night having his face blackened, wearing felt nr other slippers or dressed or disguised with felonious intent.