Who knew? "Tramp" is defined by a Massachusetts General Law (specifically, Chap. 272, Sect. 63):
Whoever, not being under seventeen, or a person asking charity within his own town, roves about from place to place begging, or living without labor or visible means of support, shall be deemed a tramp. An act of begging or soliciting alms, whether of money, food, lodging or clothing, by a person having no residence in the town within which the act is committed, or the riding upon a freight train of a railroad, whether within or without any car or part thereof, without a permit from the proper officers or employees of such railroad or train, shall be prima facie evidence that such person is a tramp.
Of course, what good is a law without some punishment to back it up? The very next section sets out the base penalty for being a tramp:
A tramp shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than thirty days.
The section after that instructs mayors and selectmen to hire "special police officers" to round up tramps.
The online version doesn't specify when the legislature codified its definition of "tramp," but one suspects it was during the Depresssion.
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