PART I--STUDIES_Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond Life

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Tramping

With Tramps

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Tramping

With Tramps

STUDIES AND SKETCHES

OF VAGABOND LIFE

Josiah Flynt

With Prefatory Note by

Hon. Andrew D. White

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New York

The Century Co.

1907

by THE CENTURY CO.

* * * * *

MY MOTHER

EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

BERLIN, April 19, 1899.

DEAR MR. FLYNT:

Your letter of March 27 and accompanying articles have greatly

interested me.

As you know, I consider the problems furnished by crime in the

United States as of the most pressing importance. We are allowing

a great and powerful criminal class to be developed, and while

crime is held carefully in check in most European countries, and

in them is steadily decreasing, with us it is more and more

flourishing, increases from year to year, and in various ways

asserts its power in society.

So well is this coming to be known by the criminal classes of

Europe that it is perfectly well understood here that they look

upon the United States as a "happy hunting-ground," and more and

more seek it, to the detriment of our country and of all that we

hold most dear in it.

It seems to me that the publication of these articles in book form

will be of great value, as well as of fascinating interest to very

many people.

Yours faithfully,

ANDREW D. WHITE.

MR. JOSIAH FLYNT.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

During my university studies in Berlin I saw my fellow-students working

in scientific laboratories to discover the minutest parasitic forms of

life, and later publishing their discoveries in book form as valuable

contributions to knowledge. In writing on what I have learned concerning

human parasites by an experience that may be called scientific in so far

as it deals with the subject on its own ground and in its peculiar

conditions and environment, I seem to myself to be doing similar work

with a like purpose. This is my apology, if apology be necessary, for a

book which attempts to give a picture of the tramp world, with

incidental reference to causes and occasional suggestion of remedies.

A majority of the papers in this volume have appeared in the "Century

Magazine." Thanks are due to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for permission to

reprint "The Children of the Road" and "Old Boston Mary," published in

the "Atlantic Monthly"; to Harper & Brothers for similar permission in

regard to the papers entitled "Jamie the Kid" and "Club Life among

Outcasts," published in "Harper's Monthly Magazine," and "What the Tramp

Eats and Wears" and "One Night on the 'Q'," which appeared in "Harper's

Weekly." To the Forum Publishing Company I am indebted for permission to

reprint from the "Forum" the paper called "The Criminal in the Open."

JOSIAH FLYNT.

CONTENTS

PART I--STUDIES

PAGE

I. THE CRIMINAL IN THE OPEN 1

II. THE CHILDREN OF THE ROAD 28

III. CLUB LIFE AMONG OUTCASTS 67

IV. THE AMERICAN TRAMP CONSIDERED GEOGRAPHICALLY 91

V. THE CITY TRAMP 113

VI. WHAT THE TRAMP EATS AND WEARS 137