Vagrant
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
One belonging to either of the classes of persons who, by reason of their having no fixed home and subsistence, and pursuing courses ute, be confined and disciplined. Who are vagrants must be determined by the statute of the jurisdiction. These statutes do not usually set forth any principle by which vagrancy may be defined, but give extended lists of various descriptions of persons who may be deemed and treated as vagrants.
The English statutes, 17 Geo. II. ch. 5, and 5 Geo. IV. ch.
83, — which latter was, when passed, in the nature of a code of previous laws, and has been made the basis of several like acts in this country, — divided vagrants into three classes: idle and disorderly persons, rogues and vagabonds, and incorrigible rogues; and gave an enumeration of the persons allotted to each class. Vagrant generally means a person who lives idly, without a settled home; sometimes it includes beggars.
Holthouse.
Valeat quantum valere potest. It shall operate as far as it can be operative. A maxim of the construction of writings. The general rule is that an instrument is to be construed so as will give it effect; not so as will render it nugatory.