Chapter 272

Section 41. Whoever wilfully disturbs persons assembled in a public library, or a reading room connected therewith, by making a noise or in any other manner during the time when such library or reading room is open to the public shall be punished as provided in the preceding sect…

Section 42. Whoever wilfully interrupts or by fast driving or otherwise in any way disturbs a funeral assembly or procession shall be punished as provided in section forty.

Section 42A. Whoever pickets, loiters or otherwise creates a disturbance within five hundred feet of a funeral home, church or temple or other building where funeral services are being held, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for …

Section 42B. Whoever willfully pickets, loiters or otherwise creates a disturbance within 500 feet of a funeral home, church, temple, burial or other building where military funeral services are being held, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $2,000 or by imprisonment fo…

Section 43. Whoever, in or upon a railroad carriage, steamboat or other public conveyance, is disorderly, or disturbs or annoys travelers in or upon the same by profane, obscene or indecent language, or by indecent behavior, shall be punished as provided in section forty.

Section 43A. Whoever, in or upon a railroad carriage, steamboat, or other public conveyance, or in a terminal or other facility of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, smokes or carries an open flame or lighted match, pipe or tobacco product as defined in section 6 of …

Section 4A. Whoever induces a minor to become a prostitute, or who knowingly aids and assists in such inducement, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five, nor less than three years, and by a fine of five thousand dollars. The sentence of impri…

Section 4B. Whoever lives or derives support or maintenance, in whole or in part, from the earnings or proceeds of prostitution committed by a minor, knowing the same to be earnings or proceeds of prostitution, or shares in such earnings, proceeds or monies, shall be punished by …

Section 53. (a) Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy another person, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and per…

Section 53A. (a) Whoever engages, agrees to engage or offers to engage in sexual conduct with another person in return for a fee, shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 1 year or by a fine of not more than $500, or by both such imprisonment…

Section 54. Whoever is found in a public way or other public place, committing any offence or disorder set forth in sections fifty-three and fifty-three A, may be apprehended by a sheriff, deputy sheriff, constable or police officer or by any other person by the order of a magist…

Section 56. If a person convicted under section fifty-three appeals from the sentence, the commission of any like offence by him before judgment on the appeal shall be a breach of the condition of the recognizance, if any was taken upon allowing the appeal.

Section 57. When a person is brought before a magistrate upon a charge of any offence mentioned in sections fifty-three, sixty-six and sixty-eight, such magistrate, or the court before which the case may be carried on appeal, may at any stage of the proceedings direct the defenda…

Section 58. A parent or other person who employs a minor under fifteen in begging or who, having the care or custody of such minor, permits him to engage in such employment shall be punished by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than six m…

Section 59. Whoever remains in a street or elsewhere in a town in wilful violation of an ordinance or by-law of such town or of any rule or regulation for the government or use of any public reservation, parkway or boulevard made under authority of law by any department, officer …

Section 6. Whoever, being the owner of a place or having or assisting in the management or control thereof induces or knowingly suffers a person to resort to or be in or upon such place, for the purpose of unlawfully having sexual intercourse for money or other financial gain, sh…

Section 60. Whoever commits a misdemeanor, as defined by a by-law, regulation or ordinance of a town or authority therein, in the presence of a police officer or an officer authorized to serve criminal process, the substance of which misdemeanor is the placing on or in or throwin…

Section 61. Whoever, having been discharged under section one hundred and forty of chapter one hundred and twenty-seven, is afterward convicted of any offence mentioned in section fifty-three committed after the former conviction, either in the same or a different county, may be …

Section 62. If a complaint charges a person with being a common nightwalker, and it is proved at the trial that such person has been twice before convicted of the same offence, such person may be sentenced to the house of correction for not more than two and one half years or if …

Section 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, lod…

Section 64. A tramp shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than thirty days; and if he enters a dwelling house or other building without the consent of the owner or occupant thereof, or wilfully or maliciously injures or threatens to injure any …

Section 65. A sheriff, deputy sheriff, constable or police officer, upon view or information of an offence described in the two preceding sections, may, without a warrant, arrest the offender, and make complaint against him therefor; and the state police shall make such arrests a…

Section 66. Persons wandering abroad and begging, or who go about from door to door or in public or private ways, areas to which the general public is invited, or in other public places for the purpose of begging or to receive alms, and who are not licensed or who do not come wit…

Section 67. Sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables and police officers, acting on the request of any person or upon their own information or belief, shall without a warrant arrest and carry any vagrant before a district court for the purpose of an examination, and shall make compl…

Section 68. A person known to be a pickpocket, thief or burglar, if acting in a suspicious manner around any steamboat landing, railroad depot, or any electric railway station, or place where electric railway cars stop to allow passengers to enter or leave the cars, banking insti…

Section 69. Sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables and police officers shall take any such vagabond into custody without a warrant and shall, within twenty-four hours after such arrest, Sundays and legal holidays excepted, take him before a district court, and shall make complaint…

Section 7. Whoever, knowing a person to be a prostitute, shall live or derive support or maintenance, in whole or in part, from the earnings or proceeds of his prostitution, from moneys loaned, advanced to or charged against him by any keeper or manager or inmate of a house or ot…

Section 70. A sheriff, deputy sheriff or constable who takes the body of a deceased person on mesne process or execution shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than six months.

Section 71. Whoever, not being lawfully authorized by the proper authorities, wilfully digs up, disinters, removes or conveys away a human body, or the remains thereof, or knowingly aids in such disinterment, removal or conveying away, and whoever is accessory thereto either befo…

Section 72. Whoever buys or sells, or has in his possession for the purpose of buying, selling or trafficking in, the dead body of a human being shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not less than three months…

Section 73. Whoever wilfully destroys, mutilates, defaces, injures or removes a tomb, monument, gravestone, American flag, veteran's grave marker, metal plaque, veteran's commemorative flag holder, commemorative flag holder representing service in a police or fire department, vet…

Section 73A. In any city or town which accepts this section, the provisions of section seventy-three shall not prohibit the removal, in accordance with rules and regulations promulgated by the state secretary, of a gravestone or other structure or thing which is placed or designe…

Section 73B. (a) For purposes of this section, ''commemorative grave marker'' shall mean a grave marker, headstone, monument, structure, medallion or other object designed to commemorate the grave of a veteran, police officer or firefighter. (b) Whoever sells or attempts to sell …

Section 74. Whoever wrongfully, and by any act not included in the preceding section, destroys, injures or removes a building, fence, railing or other thing lawfully erected in or around a place of burial or cemetery, or a tree, shrub or plant within its limits, or wrongfully inj…

Section 75. Whoever, without authority, removes flowers, flags or memorial tokens from any grave, tomb, monument or burial lot in any cemetery or other place of burial shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than six month…

Section 76. Whoever lays out, opens, or makes a highway or town way, or constructs a railroad or canal, or any other thing in the nature of a public easement, over, through, in or upon any part of an enclosure, which is the property of a city, town, parish, religious society or o…

Section 77. Whoever overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates or kills an animal, or causes or procures an animal to be overdriven, overloaded, driven when overloaded, overworked, tortu…

Section 77A. Whoever willfully tortures, torments, beats, kicks, strikes, mutilates, injures, disables or otherwise mistreats, a dog or horse owned by a police department or police agency of the commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or whoever, willfully by any action…

Section 77B. No person shall exhibit or sponsor an exhibition of any wild animal for the purpose of attracting trade at or for any place of amusement, recreation or entertainment. This section shall not be deemed to prevent the exhibition of any wild animal in a zoological garden…

Section 77C. (a) For the purposes of this section, the following words shall, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings: ''Animal'', a living nonhuman mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish or invertebrate. ''Sexual contact'', (i) any act between …

Section 78. No person holding an auctioneer's license shall receive or offer for sale or sell at public auction, nor shall any person sell at private sale, or lead, ride or drive on any public way, for any purpose except that of conveying the horse to a proper place for its human…

Section 78A. No person shall sell, offer for sale or otherwise dispose of any foal under five months of age other than for the purpose of immediate slaughter or humane killing unless such foal is accompanied by its dam. Violation of this section shall be punished by a fine of not…

Section 79. A for-profit corporation, nonprofit corporation, business, professional corporation, partnership, limited liability company, limited partnership, limited liability partnership or any other business entity violating section 112 of chapter 266 or section 77, 77A, 77B, 7…

Section 79A. Whoever cuts the bone of the tail of a horse for the purpose of docking the tail, or whoever causes or knowingly permits the same to be done upon premises of which he is the owner, lessee, proprietor or user, or whoever assists in or is present at such cutting, shall…

Section 79B. Whoever shows or exhibits at any horse show or exhibition in the commonwealth a horse with its tail cut in either manner prohibited in section seventy-nine A shall be punished by a fine of not more than two hundred and fifty dollars; provided, that this section shall…

Section 8. Whoever solicits or receives compensation for soliciting for a prostitute shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than 2 and one-half years, or by a fine of not less than $1,000 and not more than $5,000 or by both such imprisonment and f…

Section 80A. Whoever, not being a veterinarian duly registered under chapter one hundred and twelve, crops or cuts off the whole or any part of the ear of a dog shall be punished by a fine of not more than two hundred and fifty dollars. If a dog with an ear cropped or cut off in …

Section 80B. Whoever shows or exhibits or procures to be shown or exhibited at any dog show or exhibition in the commonwealth a dog with an ear or ears cropped or cut off, except when and as certified to be reasonably necessary by a veterinarian duly registered under the laws of …

Section 80C. Whoever, without the consent of the owner, takes a cat, dog or bird, with intent to exhibit or cause it to be exhibited or to subject it or cause it to be subjected to experimentation or mutilation while alive, or with intent to sell it or cause it to be sold for the…