At one point especially in the post-Civil War South there were vagrancy laws, for example the one in Virginia passed in 1866. I thought that at least some of these laws specified a dollar amount of cash one could be in possession of that served as a defense against such a vagrancy charge. But when I went to research this I couldn’t find a cite and some sites suggested this was an urban myth. Other sites said that local city or county authorities set their own informal guidelines about such an amount. So just how large a denomination note could a tramp keep tucked in his shoe as insurance against doing a 90-day stint on a chain gang?
I’m not sure cash was ever the criteria, but rather the lack of a job and homelessness with no visible means of support. The cost of a night in a boarding house was essentially the minimum. The VA law of 1866 was simply a crass legal attempt to return freed slaves to servitude. If they wanted to arrest one, they simply refused to see any means of support whether they existed or not.
'Zactly. I was going to answer that the amount you need to have is whatever amount it takes for you ro give to the sheriff or constable or whoever to look the other way. Law enforcement was not exactly scrupulous in those days. Nor so much anymore in ours.