908 CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS. [ART. 27

oned in jail not more than two years nor less than six months
and be fined not more than one hundred dollars; but if any
person is arrested or indicted a second time or more for such
offense he shall be convicted only on proof that he has con-
tinued to be a common thief or pickpocket for at least one
month since his last conviction or acquittal, and it shall be
necessary to charge in the indictment only that the person is a
common thief or common pickpocket, and any evidence, either
of facts or reputation, proving that such person is habitually
and by practice a thief or pickpocket shall be sufficient for
his conviction if satisfactorily establishing the fact to the court
or jury by whom he is tried, and there shall be no discretion
in any police officer or justice of the peace to discharge or
release any person who is by such proof before them or knowl-
edge on their part shown to be a thief or pickpocket as afore-
said, but such person shall be bailed or committed for trial,
and no conviction or charge of, or for being a common thief or
pickpocket shall prevent any such person from being tried and
convicted for any particular act of larceny he may have com-
mitted.

World v. State, 50 Md. 55.

1888, art. 27, sec. 256. 1864, ch. 38.

393. If any person shall be arrested at any place on the
line of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, or on the line of the
Northern Central railroad, or on the line of the Philadelphia,
Wilmington and Baltimore railroad, or the Baltimore and
Potomac railroad, or the Western Maryland railroad, or any
other railroad running out of Baltimore city, or in any of the
cars or depots, or at any of the stations on said roads, or on
any ferry boat employed to carry passengers over any part of
said roads and within the limits of this State, charged with
being a common thief or pickpocket, such person may be taken
before any justice of the peace of the county in which said
place, or depot or station may be situated; or if such person be
arrested in any car or on any ferry boat, before any justice of
the peace of the nearest convenient county or of the city of
Baltimore ;* and such justice shall on proof as provided in the
preceding section commit or bail such person for trial before
the circuit court for the county, or the criminal court of Balti-
more, as the case may be; and all police officers of Baltimore
city, and all conductors of trains and police employed by any
of said railway companies, and all constables and bailiffs of any

* Station house Justice