Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

VAGRANCY-DEFINING AND FIXING PUNISHMENT FOR.

S. B. No. 218.]

CHAPTER 59.

An Act to better define and punish vagrancy, prescribing the rules of procedure in the prosecution of vagrancy and fixing a punishment for vagrancy and repealing all laws and parts of laws in conflict herewith and declaring an emergency.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas:

SECTION 1. The following persons are and shall be punished as vagrants, viz:

(a) Persons known as tramps, wandering or strolling about in idleness who are able to work and have no property to support them.

(b) Persons leading an idle, immoral or profligate life, who have no property to support them, and who are able to work and do not work.

(c) All persons able to work, have no property to support them, and who have no visible or known means of a fair, honest and reputable livelihood. The term "visible or known means of a fair, honest and reputable livelihood" as used in this Section, shall be construed to mean reasonably continuous employment at some lawful occupation for reasonable compensation, or a fixed and regular income from property or other investments, which income is sufficient for the support and maintenance of such person.

(d) All able-bodied persons who habitually loaf, loiter, and idle in any city, town or village, or railroad station, or any other public place in this State for the larger portions of their time without any regular employment and without any visible means of support. An offense under paragraph (d) of this Section shall be made out whenever it is shown. that any person has no visible means of support, and only occasionally has employment at odd jobs, being for the most of the time out of employment.

(e) Persons trading or bartering stolen property, or who unlawfully sell any vinous, alcoholic, malt, intoxicating or spirituous liquors.

(f) Every common gambler or person who for the most part maintains himself by gambling.

(g) All companies of Gypsies, who, in whole or in part, maintain themselves by telling fortunes.

(h) Every able bodied person who shall go begging for a livelihood. (i) Every common prostitute.

(j) Every keeper of a house of prostitution.

(k) Every keeper of a house of gambling or gaming.

(1) Every person who shall abandon his wife, or child, or children without just cause, leaving such wife or child or children without support, or in danger of becoming a public charge.

(m) Every able bodied person who lives without employment or labor, and who has no visible means of support.

(n) All persons who are able to work and do not work, but hire out their minor children or allow them to [be] hired out and live upon their wages, being without other means of support.

(0) All persons over sixteen years of age and under twenty-one, able to work and do not work, and have no property to support them, and

have not some known, visible means of a fair, honest and reputable livelihood, and whose parents or those in loco parentis are unable to support them, and who are not in attendance upon some educational institution.

(p) All persons who advertise and maintain themselves in whole or in part as clairvoyants or foretellers of future events, or as having supernatural knowledge with respect to present or future conditions, transactions, happenings or events.

(q) Any person who unlawfully solicits orders for intoxicating. liquors.

(r) All male persons who habitually associate with prostitutes, or habitually loiter in or around houses of prostitution or who, without having visible means of support, receive financial aid or assistance from prostitutes.

SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of every sheriff, deputy sheriff and constable in every county, and of the police, town marshall, deputy marshall and other like officials in every county, city, town or village in the State, to give information under oath to any officer impowered to issue criminal warrants, of all vagrants within their knowledge, or upon information in their respective counties, cities, towns and villages; thereupon the said officer shall issue a warrant for the apprehension of the person alleged to be a vagrant.

SEC. 3. All information charging vagrancy shall be under oath; and while it is made the special duty of the officers named in Section 2 hereof to file the said information whenever they shall have knowledge or good reason to suspect that any person is a vagrant as defined by any clause or Section of this Act, yet any information charging vagrancy may be filed under oath by any resident of the State.

SEC. 4. Whenever any person shall have been arrested on a charge of vagrancy, he shall immediately be carried before any court having jurisdiction of the offense herein named, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not to exceed two hundred dollars.

SEC. 5. If any of the officers named in Section 2 of this Act shall fail, refuse, or neglect to perform the duties therein required, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars, nor more than one hundred dollars.

SEC. 6. And all laws and parts of laws in conflict herewith are hereby repealed; provided the penalties herein named shall be cumulative, and a conviction for any of the offenses herein named shall not be a bar to any other prosecution under any other criminal statute.

SEC. 7. The fact that there is no adequate law in this State to define and punish the offense of vagrancy creates an emergency and imperative public necessity that the Constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days be suspended, and the same is hereby suspended, and that this Act shall take effect from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.

Approved March 17, 1909.

Takes effect ninety days after adjournment.

LIVE STOCK INSPECTION-EXEMPTING CERTAIN

COUNTIES FROM OPERATION OF.

[blocks in formation]

An Act to amend Senate Bill No. 35, an Act of the Thirty-first Legislature, and approved by the Governor on the 20th day of February, A. D., 1909, to read as follows: To exempt the Counties of Val Verde, Medina, Terrell, Jeff Davis, Frio, Jackson, Hidalgo, Bandera, Van Zandt, Mitchell, Ward, Raines, Erath, Crosby, Kaufman and Bexar from the provisions and operations of Articles 5002 to 5042, inclusive, of Chapter 6, Title CII of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1895, amended by the Acts of the 28th and 29th Legislatures, relating to the inspection of hides and animals, and repealing all laws in conflict therewith, and declaring an emergency.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas:

SECTION 1. That the counties of Val Verde, Medina, Terrell, Jeff Davis, Frio, Jackson, Hidalgo, Bandera, Van Zandt, Mitchell, Ward, Raines, Erath, Crosby, Kaufman and Bexar be and the same are hereby exempted from the provisions and operations of Articles 5002 to 5042, inclusive, of Chapter 6, Title CII of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1895, relating to the inspection of hides and animals.

SEC. 2. That all laws and parts of laws in conflict herewith be and the same are hereby repealed.

SEC. 3. The fact that the operation of said provisions of law in said county of Val Verde entails a great and unnecessary expense upon the people and the stockraisers of said county of Val Verde, and the crowded condition of the calendar, create an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the Constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days in each House be suspended and this Act be in force and take effect from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.

[NOTE. The enrolled bill shows that the foregoing Act passed the House by the following vote, yeas 95, nays 0; was referred to the Senate, amended and passed by the following two-thirds vote, yeas 25, nays 0; and that the House concurred in the Senate amendments by the following vote, yeas 109, nays 0.]

Approved March 18, 1909.

Became a law March 18, 1909.

COURTS-PROVIDING FOR EXTENDING TERMS OF
DISTRICT COURTS.
CHAPTER 61.

S. B. No. 208.]

An Act to amend Chapter 4, Title XXVIII of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1895, by adding an additional Article to said Chapter to be known as Article 1119a, and providing for extending terms of district courts in certain cases, and declaring an emergency.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas:

SECTION 1. That Chapter 4, Title XXVIII of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1895 be amended by adding an additional Article to said Chapter to be known as Article 1119a, and to read as follows:

[Article 1119a.] Whenever any district court shall be in the midst of the trial of any cause when the time for the expiration of the term of said court, as fixed by law, shall arise, the judge presiding shall have the power and may, if he deems it expedient, continue the term of said court until the conclusion of such pending trial. In such case the extension of such term shall be shown in the minutes of the court before they are signed. In case of the extension of the term of court, as herein provided, no term of court shall fail because thereof in any other county, but the term of court therein may be opened and held as now provided by law, when the district judge fails to appear at the opening of a term of court.

SEC. 2. The inconvenience caused by the expiration of terms of the district court in the minutes of trials creates an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the Constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days be suspended, and it is hereby suspended, and that this bill take effect and be in force from and after its passage and it is so enacted.

Approved March 18, 1909.

Takes effect ninety days after adjournment.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES AMONG ANIMALS-TO PROHIBIT DRIVING SHEEP WITH "SCAB" ON PUBLIC HIGHWAYS.

[blocks in formation]

An Act to amend the Penal Code of the State, Title 17, Chapter 4, of Texas by adding thereto Article 812a, prohibiting the owners of sheep, affected with the "scab," or other infectious or contagious disease, from driving or permitting the same to be driven over or along any public road or highway in this State, or on or over the enclosed lands of another without the written consent of such owner, and prescribing a penalty therefor, and declaring an emergency.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas:

SECTION 1. That the Penal Code of said State shall be amended by adding thereto Article 812a to read as follows:

Article 812a. If any person owning or controlling sheep affected with the scab, or other infectious or contagious disease, shall drive or permit to be driven, such sheep over or along any public road or highway in this State, or shall drive such sheep so affected, or direct or permit such sheep so affected to be driven on or over the enclosed lands of another without first obtaining the written consent of the owner or person in charge of such enclosed lands, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in any sum not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars.

SEC. 2. The great loss sustained by the sheep raisers of this State by the spread of scab and infectious and contagious diseases among said animals, creates an emergency, and an imperative public necessity exist ing that the Constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days, in each House of the Legislature, be suspended and that said Act take effect and be in full force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.

[NOTE. The enrolled bill shows that the foregoing Act passed the House by the following vote, yeas 93, nays 1; and passed the Senate by a two-thirds vote, yeas 25, nays 0.]

Approved March 19, 1909.

Became a law March 19, 1909.

H. B. No. 594.]

COURTS

OCHILTREE COUNTY.

CHAPTER 63.

An Act to restore to and confer upon the County Court of Ochiltree county, Texas, the civil and criminal jurisdiction belonging to such courts under the Constitution and general statutes of the State of Texas, to conform the jurisdiction of the district court of said county to such change, and to repeal all laws in conflict with this Act, so far as it relates to Ochiltree county, and declaring an emergency.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas:

SECTION 1. That the County Court of Ochiltree county, shall hereafter have exclusive original jurisdiction in civil cases where the matter shall exceed in value two hundred dollars and shall not exceed five hundred dollars, exclusive of interest, and that it shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the district court of said county when the matter in controversy shall exceed five hundred dollars and not exceed one thousand dollars.

SEC. 2. Said county court shall have appellate jurisdiction in civil cases over which justices courts have original jurisdiction when the judgment of the court appealed from or the amount in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, and said county court shall have power to hear and determine cases brought up from the justices courts by certiorari under the provisions of the Title of the Revised Statutes relating thereto.

SEC. 3. The county judge of said county shall have authority either in term time or in vacation to grant writs or mandamus, injunction, sequestration, garnishment, attachments, certiorari, supersedeas and all other writs necessary to the enforcement of the jurisdiction of said court · and shall have power to issue writs of habeas corpus in all cases in which the Constitution has not exclusively conferred the power on the district courts or the judges thereof.

SEC. 4. Said county court shall have jurisdiction in the forfeiture and judgment of all bonds and recognizance taken in criminal cases of which said court has jurisdiction.

SEC. 5. Said county court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all misdemeanors except misdemeanors involving official misconduct and except in cases in which the highest penalty or fine that may be imposed which does not exceed two hundred dollars, and said court shall have appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases of which justice of the peace and other inferior tribunals of said county have original jurisdiction,

SEC. 6. The District Court of Ochiltree county shall no longer have jurisdiction of cases of which the county court of said county by the

« ForrigeFortsett »