TRAVELING WITHOUT MONEY.
Anyone can travel who has time and money at his disposal, but it
requires genius, or its first cousin, improvidence, to travel without
it. One who is not a genius, but who possesses common-sense and
prudent habits may see a great deal of the world for a very little
cash. Bayard Taylor made the tour of Europe in his younger days for
less than five hundred dollars, and devoted more than a year to the
journey; how he did it is told in his volume entitled "Views Afoot."
He has had many imitators, and some of them have traveled for less
than he did; of this class was Ralph Keeler, who claimed to have seen
Europe for less than two hundred dollars, but he went through many
hardships that the majority of men would decline to undergo.
In the fall of 1880 an account was published of a printer who made a
tour around the world in four years, and had only fifty dollars in his
pocket when he started. According to his story, he left San Francisco
in 1876 as steward of a sailing-ship, which he quitted at Honolulu for
work in a newspaper office there. After setting type for a month he
arranged to take care of some horses that were being shipped to
Melbourne, and in this way he reached Australia. He remained in that
country nearly a year, tramping through it, and occasionally working
at his trade. He shipped on a coasting-vessel as a sailor in the fall
of 1877, was wrecked on a reef, and picked up by a ship that carried
him to Suez. Through Egypt and the Holy Land he went as servant to
travelers, and as a vagrant, and in this way managed to get to
Constantinople, and thence up the Danube to Vienna. From Vienna he
walked northward to the shores of the Baltic, where he again became a
sailor during the summer of 1878. In the fall of that year he
re-crossed Europe, most of the way on foot, till he reached Rome, and
from there he proceeded to Spain, and thence to Paris. He was in the
French capital till July, 1879, when he had earned money enough to
carry him to London, where he remained some weeks, and then sailed for
Charleston, S.C. From Charleston he walked through most of the coast
States, and when the account was published he had reached Detroit on
his way to San Francisco. When asked if he had experienced any real
hard times, he answered:--
"I suppose you would call it hard to go twenty-four hours without
food, but I have done that many times and it didn't hurt me, and I
have lived for weeks at a time without knowing what a bed was, and
without clean clothes, except as I would wash my own shirt and wear my
coat buttoned closely while it was drying." He said further that such
little conveniences as stockings, collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs
never entered his thoughts.
Not many would care to travel after the manner of this wandering
printer, but there is a fair number of Americans who set out to see
the world with very little more money than this man had in his pocket
at the commencement of his journey. If the annals of the American
consulates could be published a great many of us would be surprised to
know the number of appeals to the consular pocket for aid. The story
usually told at the consulates is that the traveler's remittances have
failed to reach him, and he desires a loan for a few days till his
letters arrive. They generally do not come, and when the money that
was borrowed is gone another appeal is made and with the same excuse.
When the consul's patience is exhausted (and also his purse), the
adventurer makes a final petition for sufficient money to carry him to
the next city, where the same story is told, and the same process goes
on. In this way a tourist may live comfortably for a couple of weeks
or so in each of the principal cities of Europe, provided he can find
the consuls able and willing to "lend" him what he wants.
The foregoing is intended as a hint to the enterprising American who
has neither conscience nor money and is desirous of traveling abroad.
The best time for him to begin his travels on this plan is just after
a change of the presidential administration has caused a sweeping
removal in the consular offices and the appointment of a new set of
incumbents. A new consul is anxious to be polite and obliging, and
will often prove a rich mine to the adventurer, while the old one has
become case-hardened in the service, and is sceptical about the
stories that the unfortunates tell him, and you should gauge your
appeal according to the time a man has filled a consular office. If he
is newly-arrived you can make three or four loans of ten dollars or so
while waiting for your remittances, and can then borrow more to move
on with. If he has been there a year or two you can hardly expect more
than a couple of preliminaries, or perhaps only one, and if he has
been there three or four years you cannot expect him to do more than
pay your second or third-class passage to the next place.
The adventurer who seeks to travel for nothing sometimes claims to be
the correspondent of a newspaper, and not unfrequently he writes
letters for a daily or weekly journal. If he cannot obtain the loan he
wants he revenges himself by writing an abusive letter about the
consul who has refused him, and sometimes he gets the latter into
trouble. Nine-tenths of the abusive letters about our consuls abroad
come from the fellows who try to borrow money and fail. As a general
thing the American consuls in Europe and Asia are capable men who
render their country good service for inadequate pay; the government
gives them no contingent fund from which to make up their losses from
loans to swindlers, and all these sums must come out of their own
pockets. The evil is so great that there is not a consul who has been
a year in the service who does not tremble when a strange American
presents himself at the consulate and wishes to see the representative
of his country. The chances are three to one that a "loan" is wanted,
and the tale that accompanies the application is so pitiful that it
would melt the heart of a bronze dog. Some of the consuls require
strangers to state their business to the clerk before they can see the
chief, but it needs more courage to demand it than is possessed by the
majority of American officials.
Some of our representatives abroad have painful recollections of
visits from "inspectors of consulates" appointed by the government to
make tours of inspection in various parts of the world. Two at least
of this gentry made it a practice to ask a loan of fifty dollars of
each consul before inspecting his office; if the money was forthcoming
the office was speedily examined and found to be in excellent
condition, but if the consul was not in a lending mood he was reported
to have his books in bad shape, and to be personally unfit for the
position he was filling. It is needless to say that the great majority
of the consuls saw the point, and imitated the example of Captain
Scott's coon by "coming down" before the fire was opened. And no one
of them to this day has been repaid a penny of the borrowed money.
Memorandum: If you can add the title of "Inspector of Consulates" to
your other accomplishments you will vastly improve your chances of
swindling your way around the world. The most of these officials are
men of excellent character, and if you try the rôle you must assume
the manners of a gentleman, however much you may be devoid of his
instincts.
There is a fair number of American adventurers in the European cities
who live by searching out their country-men as fast as they arrive and
making loans more or less small. These fellows watch the hotel
registers and the lists of strangers in the newspapers, and their
methods of conducting their operations are numerous and varied. London
and Paris contain more of them than any other cities, and perhaps
London has a greater number than its French rival. One of the most
ingenious devices for fleecing the stranger was adopted by an American
who lived some years in Paris; he had no patent upon it, and as he is
dead now anyone who chooses may take it up. It was as follows:--
He operated around the Grand Hotel, and other resorts of Americans,
and managed to make himself acquainted with as many new-comers as
possible. He was particular in cultivating anyone to give his card and
ask that of the stranger, and to ascertain at what hotel the latter
was stopping. Immediately they separated he called at the hotel in
question and left his card, so that the stranger would be impressed
with his new-found friend. Then the next morning about eight o'clock a
messenger would come in great haste with a note from the swindler,
which ran about like this:--
"DEAR SIR:--I regret to inform you that I have been run over by an
omnibus, and while I was insensible my pocket was picked of all
the money I had about me. You may not be aware that in this
country a man who gets run over is fined for being in the way; I
am at the police-station of the 12th arrondisement, and they
refuse to let me go till I pay fifty francs. As I cannot draw
money at my banker's at this hour of the morning, I venture to ask
a favor of you. I beg that you will oblige me by sending fifty
francs by the bearer, and as soon as the banks open I will go to
my banker's and get the money to return to you immediately. You
can expect me a few minutes past ten o'clock, and I shall hope to
find you in. In case you are gone out I will leave the money with
the concierge."
The appeal was so reasonable that many a stranger was taken in. The
swindler endeavored to keep out of the way of his victim, but if met
and interrogated he always declared that he left the money with the
concierge, and the latter had doubtless pocketed it. He thrived for a
while, but at length the gentle but firm hand of the police was laid
upon him, and he was forced to emigrate. The Continental police are
apt to interfere with schemes of this sort, and an enterprising man
has little chance among them.
The only successful traveler without money is of the class usually
designated as the "tramp." He has increased in numbers in the last few
years till there is altogether too many of him; so much is this the
case that several of the state legislatures have been compelled to
pass laws for his suppression, and thus his operations have been
greatly curtailed. But in the states where no laws have been made
against him he flourishes in all his glory; he generally lives well by
begging at kitchen doors, or at houses along the country roads, and he
is satisfied with lodgings in a barn or under a haystack. In summer he
traverses the country, and in winter the cold drives him to the city,
where he stays till the trees bud and blossom again, and the robin
sings in the orchards. Then he returns again to the country, and so he
goes on from year to year, unwilling to accept honest employment, and
giving no equivalent for his support. It is his evident impression
that the world owes him a living, and the only duty devolving upon him
is to collect the debt.
During the World's fair at Paris in 1867, one of the London papers
published a scheme whereby a man could spend three days at the
Exposition for 50 francs. It was something like the following:--
fr. c.
Lodging three nights at 3 francs per night, 9 00
Breakfast three days at a Duval restaurant, at 1 fr.
50 c., 4 50
Omnibus to Exposition, at 50 c., 1 50
Admission to Exposition, 1 fr. daily, 3 00
Lunch and glass of beer, 2 fr. 50 c. daily, 7 50
Return from Exposition, same as going there, 1 50
Dinner, with wine, at Duval restaurant or Table d'
Hote, 4 fr. daily, 12 00
Theatre in the evening (gallery), 3 fr., 9 00
Extras, 2 00
Total, 50 00
A Paris paper, a few days later, made an improvement on the above,
and showed how a man could spend three days at the Exposition for
nothing. This is the way it was done:--
Lodging three nights at police stations, 00 per night, 00
Breakfast at hydrant, three times, 00 each time, 00
Ride to Exposition by hanging on steps of omnibus, 00
Admission, make a bundle of your coat and enter as
an exhibitor, 00
Lunch, similar to breakfast with addition of samples,
obtained in the alimentary section of the Exposition, 00
Return same way as going, 00
Dinner at hydrant with remains of lunch, 00
Theatre in evening, beg a check from somebody
leaving, 00
Total, 00
It would be difficult to find a cheaper system than this, though it
is on record that once during a period of steamship opposition
between San Francisco and Oregon, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company
advertised a free passage and a chromo to anybody who wished to make
the voyage. A hundred or more of the impecunious ones of San Francisco
thought it would be a good opportunity to go to Oregon and back for
nothing, and have a week's board, and so they took passage. Nothing
was said about the return; the opposition company made terms with the
Pacific Mail just as the steamer reached Portland, and the old rates
of fare were at once established. The majority of the tourists had
great difficulty in getting home again, and some of them became
permanent residents of the region to which they had unintentionally
emigrated.