The following severe provisions of the law of the 19th June, 1833, seem directed against them. By that law any person who is without property and cannot obtain employment, or neglects to provide himself with any, and cannot obtain sureties for the payment of his taxes, rates, and penalties, is denominated unprotected (förswarlös). An unprotected person is placed almost at the disposal of the police, who are to allow him a fixed period to obtain employment, and to require him to proceed in search of it to such places as they think fit.
Should any person, (the law goes on to say,) who has led an irreproachable life, and has become unprotected, not through an unsteady or reprehensible conduct, but from causes which cannot be reasonably laid to his charge, and who has obtained an extension of time for procuring protection, still remains without yearly employment or other lawful means of support, and not be willing to try in other places to gain the means of support, or shall have transgressed the orders that may have been given him, and (being a male person) should not prefer to enlist in any regiment, or in the royal navy, or should not possess the requisite qualifications for that purpose, the person shall be sent to be employed on such public works as may be going on in the neighbourhood, or to a work institution within the county, until such time as another opportunity may offer for his maintenance; he shall however be at liberty, when the usual notice-day arrives, and until next moving-time, to try to obtain legal protection with any person within the county who may require his services, under the obligation to return to the public work institution in the event of his not succeeding. Should there be no public work to be had in the neighbourhood, or the person cannot, for want of necessary room, be admitted, he shall be sent to a public house of correction, and remain there, without however being mixed with evil-disposed persons or such as may have been punished for crimes, until some means may be found for him or her to obtain a lawful maintenance.--(p. 362.)
Servants or other unprotected persons who have of their own accord relinquished their service or constant employ, and by means of such or other reprehensible conduct have been legally turned out of their employ, or who do not perform service with the master or mistress who has allowed such person to be rated and registered with them, or who, in consequence of circumstances which ought to be ascribed to the unprotected person himself, shall become deprived of their lawful means of support, but who may not be considered as evil-disposed persons, shall be bound to provide themselves with lawful occupations within 14 days, if it be in a town, and within double that number of days if it be in the country. Should the unprotected person not be able to accomplish this, it shall depend on Our lord-lieutenant how far he may deem it expedient to grant a further extended time, for a limited period, to a person thus circumstanced, in order to procure himself means for his subsistence.--(p. 363).