ABSTRACT
Some magistrates were giving the 'visible means of subsistence' rule the most indulgent interpretation to let vagrants with a few coppers in their pockets off the hook, but there was nothing new in this. The Magistrates Association urged in 1923 that casual ward conditions be brought up to the standards of jails, to reduce the temptation to petty crime. This prejudice indirectly led in 1933, in the case of a vagrant, one John Thomas Parker, to a tragedy which highlighted the predicament of those forced to sleep out and led to a reform of the Vagrancy Act in 1935. The Vagrancy Act also excused defendants who could give a good account of themselves, and the plea of job-hunting might be good enough for many JPs, when unemployment was measured by the million. In March 1935 Spears introduced a private member's bill to modify the Vagrancy Act.
