“If you think it worth while, Mr. Jones.”
“I beg to respectfully request your ruling before the case is proceeded with. My client is not a vagrant, but a respectable member of the community, living in his own house, paying rates and taxes, and on the same footing as every other citizen. He is now prosecuted under the fourth section of the Vagrancy Act of 1824, which is styled, ‘An Act for punishing idle and disorderly persons, and rogues and vagabonds.’ The Act was intended, as the words imply, to restrain lawless gipsies and others, who at that time infested the country. I ask your Worship to rule that my client is clearly not a person within the purview of this Act or liable to its penalties.”
The Magistrate shook his head.
“I fear, Mr. Jones, that there have been too many precedents for the Act to be now interpreted in this limited fashion. I will ask the solicitor prosecuting on behalf of the Commissioner of Police to put forward his evidence.”
A little bull of a man with side-whiskers and a raucous voice sprang to his feet.
“I call Henrietta Dresser.”
The elder policewoman popped up in the box with the alacrity of one who is used to it. She held an open notebook in her hand.
“You are a policewoman, are you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I understand that you watched the prisoner’s home the day before you called on him?”