Overcoats are worn by the hoboes who go South in winter, but tramps who

spend the cold months in jail do not need them, and if they beg any,

usually sell them. Underclothes in some form or other are worn all the

time, not so much for warmth as for cleanliness. Even the cleanest

hoboes cannot keep entirely free of vermin, and they wear underclothes

to protect their outer garments, changing the former as often as they

can, and throwing away or burning the discarded pieces. The tramp's

shirt is always of flannel, if he can find it, and very often he wears

two, either for the sake of trade or to keep warm. Other garments are

doubled also, and one finds men wearing two coats, two vests, and two

pairs of trousers. It is by no means uncommon to see a tramp who wears

linen and cotton shirts with two or three layers on his back. As one

becomes soiled he throws it away, and so on till the three are

discarded.

There is one more indispensable article of a tramp's toilet, and it is

called the "shaver." This is a razor incased in a little sack, generally

leather, which he hangs around his neck with a string. It is used for

fighting and shaving, and is very good as a "guy" for getting him into

jail. I saw how this was done one day in western Pennsylvania. The time

was late October, and three tramps who came into town decided that the

local jail would be a good place in which to spend the winter. They

wanted a ninety-day sentence, and knew they could not get it for simple

drunkenness; so they decided to pretend drunk and make a row in order to

be sentenced on two charges. They began their brawl in the main street,

and flourished their razors in good style. The officers arrested them

after a little fight made for appearance' sake, and the judge gave them

four months--thirty days more than they expected. Their razors were

confiscated, too, but they got others the minute they were released. It

sometimes happens, however, that the shavers are not discovered, because

the men are not properly searched, and, owing to this lack of careful

inspection by officials, rows in jails have often ended seriously.

VIII

A friend at my elbow, to whom vagabondage is a _terra incognita_,

remarks just at this juncture: "You ought to tell just how the tramp

gets his three set-down meals a day."

I can scarcely believe that in our own country there is any ignorance in

regard to this matter. The house in the settled districts that has not

been visited by the tramp in search of one of his three meals seems to

me not to exist. But if anybody needs enlightenment on this point, the

following incident will be of interest.

One June day, some years ago, I strolled into the hang-out in a little

town in Michigan just as the bells were ringing for dinner. I was a

stranger in the place, and as I wanted to find my dinner as quickly as

possible, in order to make a "freight" that was due about two o'clock, I

asked one of the tramps at the camp whether he knew of any "mark" (a

house where something is always given to beggars) in the town.

"Well, there ain't many," he replied. "Town's too small and the people's

too relijus. The best is that big college building up there on the hill,

but they ain't always willin' even there. They go by fits. If they's in

the mood, they feeds you, 'n' 'f they ain't, they sicks the dog on you;

an' it takes a pretty foxy bloke to know what moods they is in. I struck

'em onc't when I felt dead sure they was in the k'rect one, 'n', by the

hoky-poky, I had to look fer a new coat 'for' I left the town--blasted

mean dog they got there. But there's another place not far from the old

red buildin' where any bloke kin scoff if he gives the right song 'n'

dance. It's No. 13 Grove Street. Great ole squaw lives there--feeds

everybody she kin; sort o' bughouse [crazy] on the subject, you

know--likes to talk 'bout her Sammy, 'n' all that sort o' stuff. Dead

cinch, she is. Better hit her up 'n' take a feed. Yer bound to get a

good ole set-down."

I followed his advice, and was soon at the back door of No. 13 Grove

Street. In answer to my knock there appeared a motherly-looking old lady

who wanted to know what she could do for me. What a tale I told her! And

how kind she looked as I related my sad experiences as a young fellow

trying to work his way to a distant town, where he hoped to find friends

who would help him into college!

"Come right in; we are just at table." Then she called to her daughter

Dorothy, a pretty lass, and told her to lay a plate for a stranger. She

and the girl were the only persons in the house, and I was surprised

that they took me in so willingly. Women, as a rule, are afraid of

tramps, and prefer to feed them on the back steps. But I had evidently

found an exception, for when I had washed my hands and face and combed

my hair on the little porch, I was invited into the cozy dining-room and

offered a place beside the hostess. How odd it seemed! I almost felt at

home, and had to be on my guard to keep up my rôle as a vagabond. For it

was certainly a temptation to relieve myself then and there, and have an

old-time chat on respectable lines. I had been so long on the road that

I was really in need of some such comfort, but I dared not take

advantage of it. So I answered their questions about my home, my

parents, and my plans as professionally as I could, and spun my story,

not entirely of fiction, however, and they smiled or looked solemn as

the occasion fitted. They seemed to take a great interest in my doings,

and always had a word of sympathy or advice for predicaments which I

fabricated. And how they fed me! My plate was not once empty, and I ate

and ate simply out of respect to their politeness. When I had finished

they both asked me to rest awhile before taking up my journey again; so

I sat in their interesting little sitting-room, and listened to their

talk, and answered their questions. Pretty soon, and evidently thinking

that it would help me to know about him, the mother began to tell me of

a lad of hers whom she had not seen for several years, and as she

fancied that he might possibly have traveled my way, she asked if I had

met him. I wanted to tell her that I had, if only to give her a mite of

comfort, but I knew that it would be more cruel than the truth, and I

said "I was afraid we had not met." Then she spoke of certain features

of face that we had in common, and asked the girl if she did not think

so.

"Yes," Dorothy replied, "he reminds me of Sam--just about the same

build, too."

I could not stand this, and told them I must be on my way. As I was

leaving, the old lady asked me not to be offended if she gave me a

little book. "Of course not," I replied, and she fetched me a

conventional little tract about a prodigal son. I thanked her, and then

she advised me to visit a certain lawyer in the town, who, she said, was

in need of a helper, and there I might find a chance for an education

without looking farther. And as if to prove my right to such employment,

while standing on the porch at her side, she laid her motherly hand on

my head, and said to Dorothy, with a smile on her kindly face:

"The lad has an intelligent head--something like Sam's. Don't you think

so?"

Both looked sadly and solemnly in earnest, and I stole away, hoping

never to see them again until I should know where their Sam might be

found. I have looked for him on many a road since that June day, always

with the determination that no other "wandering boy" should hear from me

of this kind mother's hospitality, and I hope they have him now, for

they certainly deserve surcease of sorrow on his account.

There are people like this in every town, and it is the tramp's talent

to find them, and "when found make a note on." He thus becomes a

peripatetic directory for the tramp world, which lives on the working

world at a cost which it is worth while to consider.

IX

That tramps are expensive no one will deny, but how much so it is

difficult to decide. I have tried to show that a large number of them

eat and wear things which certainly cost somebody considerable money,

but a careful census of the vagabond population alone can estimate the

amount. No one can tell exactly what this tramp population numbers, but

I think it safe to say that there are not less than sixty thousand in

this country. Every man of this number, as a rule, eats something twice

a day, and the majority eat three good meals. They all wear some sort of

clothing, and most of them rather respectable clothing. They all drink

liquor, probably each one a glass of whisky a day. They all get into

jail, and eat and drink there just as much at the expense of the

community as elsewhere. They all chew and smoke tobacco, and all of them

spend some of their time in lodging-houses. How much all this represents

in money I cannot tell, but I believe that the expenses I have

enumerated, together with the costs of conviction for vagrancy,

drunkenness, and crime, will easily mount up into the millions. And all

that the country can show for this expenditure is an idle, homeless, and

useless class of individuals called tramps.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] In Germany and England the tramps usually eat their set-downs in

cheap restaurants or at lodging-houses. They beg money to pay for them,

rather than look for them at private houses.

[6] It is most interesting to talk with Eastern tramps in the West who

are homeward bound. If they have been in the West long, and look rather

"seedy," and you ask them where they are going to in the East, they

invariably reply: "Gosh! P. A., o' course. We wants to fatten up, we

does." And there is no better place for this than Pennsylvania.

PART II

TRAVELS

PART II

TRAVELS

PAGE

I. LIFE AMONG GERMAN TRAMPS 169

II. WITH THE RUSSIAN GORIOUNS 200

III. TWO TRAMPS IN ENGLAND 229

IV. THE TRAMP AT HOME 267

V. THE TRAMP AND THE RAILROADS 291

I

LIFE AMONG GERMAN TRAMPS

William II of Germany is the ruler of about fifty millions of people. A

small fraction comprises the nobility, while the great majority are

commoners, and the rest, about one hundred thousand, are roving beggars.

His Imperial Majesty is probably well acquainted with his nobles, and he

thinks that he understands the commoners, but the tramp who passes his

castle now and then is a foreigner at home. Yet he is found in every

city, town, and village, and there is hardly a home in the empire which

he has not visited. He tramps the public highways as freely and

fearlessly as the laborer, and rides on the royal railways as boldly as

a king. His business in life is to prey upon the credulity of the

charitable, and to steal when the eye of the law is not on watch. In

spite, however, of all this publicity, comparatively little is known of

his real life and character. Various books and pamphlets have been

written about him, but they have usually been grounded on second-hand

information, as I have looked in vain for any account of a personal

study of tramp life.

Being desirous of knowing the real facts in the case, I at first

supplemented my reading by various conversations with beggars as they

lounged around near my home in Berlin, and occasionally invited some of

the more intelligent into my study, and plied them as cleverly as

possible with all sorts of questions. But they invariably fooled me, and

told the most romantic of tales, believing, probably, that they were

what I wanted. Time after time I have said to them, "Oh, come now, give

over this story-telling, and let me have something that is really true."

But they seemed unable to comprehend my purposes, and, true to their

national traits, it was not in them to take part in any scheme which

they could not understand. How to get at what I desired was the

question. I called at the Bureau of Statistics, hoping surely to find

here carefully tabulated statistics of vagrancy; but I was disappointed.

Dr. Berthold,[7] who kindly told me all he knew, said that Pastor von

Bodelschwingh was the man who had made the best census of trampdom, and

he had claimed that there were 200,000 arrests in Germany each year for

begging; that 100,000 of them represented irreclaimable vagabonds,

80,000 bona-fide seekers of work, and the remaining 20,000 the maximum

number of reclaimable beggars. Dr. Berthold continued: "The only way to

know the entire truth about the tramp is to live with him. I had the

intention to do this myself, but I delayed it too long, and now I am too

old." He was very kind and gave me some valuable hints, but admitted

that nothing very definite was known about the wandering beggar.

I finally decided to give up these fruitless investigations, and to

become a tramp myself in order to achieve my ends. I felt fairly

equipped for such an undertaking, having had a two years' residence in

Germany, and having also played the tramp in my own country. My plan,

however, was not to study the enforced vagrant, but rather the man who

wanders because he desires to, and prefers begging to working. And in

that which follows I have attempted to describe my experiences with

voluntary beggars only.

[Illustration: THE FOURTH-CLASS CAR.]

Early in April I made ready for the journey. My outfit was a close copy

of the fashions in trampdom, my clothes being both old and easy to bear.

I took no pass with me, because, in the first place, I could not get a

German pass, and, secondly, I was anxious to find out just what

experiences an unidentified man must go through. If I were to repeat the

experiment I should do differently. Having decided to begin my

investigations in Magdeburg, there being various reasons why I should

not play the beggar in Berlin, I left my home on the date mentioned, and

hurried through the streets to the railroad-station, where I invested a

few groschen in a fourth-class ticket. My first afternoon was

consequently spent in what very closely resembles the common American

freight-car, except that it is windowed and occasionally has planks

braced against the sides to serve as seats. The floor, however, or a

piece of baggage, is the more customary resting-place. A ride in this

miserable box costs two pfennigs the kilometer, and the passengers are

naturally of the lower order of travelers, including the tramps, who

make almost as much use of fourth-class privileges as our own vagrants

do of the freight-trains.

My companions on the first trip were a queer lot. In one end of the car

was a band playing the vilest music for the few sechser (five-pfennig

pieces) occasionally thrown down to them. Their only rival was a little

tambourine girl, who danced and rattled her noisy instrument as if her

life depended upon her agility, as no doubt it did. The other travelers

were market-women, laborers, and journeymen, and a fellow called Peasant

Carl, who was more of a tramp than anything else, in spite of the fact

that he had a trade. We were soon talking on various subjects, and it

was not difficult to lead the conversation to the subject of tramp life.

Carl was considerably surprised to find that an American should be _auf

der Walze_ (on the road), and needed some proof ere he was convinced

that I was a roadster. My old clothes and general forlorn condition were

not sufficient, and I was compelled to tell him a story. Once satisfied

on this point, he turned out to be a good friend, and among other

valuable facts that he generously gave me were scraps from the German

tramp vocabulary, which he said might "come handy," since I was a

stranger. I found that _Kunde_, or customer, was the general word for

vagrant, but as the term vaguely covers the thousands of traveling

journeymen in the community also, another term has been invented for the

genuine tramp, none other than _Chausséegrabentapezirer_, or upholsterer

of the highway ditches. What could be more genuinely, deliciously

German?

As this dialect is rather unique, and as different from the German

language proper as black from white, I am tempted to give a few more

words, tabulating them, for comparison's sake, alongside their American

equivalents:

_German_ _American_

_Tramp_ _Tramp_

_English._ _German._ _Dialect._ _Dialect._

Bread Das Brod Der Kramp Punk.

Water Das Wasser Der Gänsewein

To beg Betteln Abklappen To Batter.

To walk Laufen Tibbeln To Drill.

Policeman Der Schutzmann Der Putz The Bull.

Gendarmes Gendarmes Der Deckel

Village Das Dorf Der Kaff Jerktown.

Whisky-flask Die Schnappsflasche Die Finne The Growler.

Passport Der Reise-Pass Die Flebbe

Hunger Der Hunger Der Kohldampf

This vocabulary will give a fair idea of the dialect. It is much more

complete than the American, affording, as it does, ample means whereby

entire secrecy can be secured in public places. It is spoken by both

_Handwerksburschen_ and tramps, and it is my opinion that the former

were not the originators, as is sometimes averred, but have rather

acquired a fair knowledge of it by associating year after year, on the

road, with beggars.

On my arrival in Magdeburg, my friend Carl suggested that we go to Die

Herberge zur Heimath, a lodging-house somewhat above the common grade,

where we could at least have our supper, but where I could not lodge,

having no pass. This institution must be distinguished from the ordinary

Herberge, or low-class lodging-house, and has a history worth more than

a passing paragraph. It is a sort of refined edition of the Salvation

Army "shelter," and was founded on religious and humanitarian principles

by Professor Perthes of Bonn, whose first enterprise of the kind at Bonn

has been so widely copied that at least three hundred towns of Germany

now furnish this comfortable and respectable refuge to the traveling

apprentice or journeyman, and, if he will conform to its usages and

requirements, to the tramp also.

Entering the main room of the Heimath, I was surprised to see Carl rap

on a table and the men sitting at the same to follow suit. I found out

later that this meant "Hello," and that the after knock indicated "All

right." Shaking hands is also a customary greeting in German trampdom,

but hardly ever in American vagrancy. Tramps also call one another

"brother," and use the pronoun "thou" invariably in preference to "you."

The inmates of the Heimath, I soon found, were drawn from three classes.

First, the apprentice making his first journey, and usually a very

stupid fellow. The tramp was here also, but only, I think, to prey upon

the Handwerksbursche, for no whisky is sold on the premises, and prayers

are held morning and evening, a custom which all true roadsters despise.

The rest were men fairly well on in life, who work occasionally and beg

the remainder of the time. I counted altogether sixteen recognized

beggars (Chausséegrabentapezirer), but made no attempt to make their

acquaintance, having decided not to study them in foreign quarters, but

to seek them in their real homes. For Die Herberge zur Heimath is not a

tramps' nest, although some Germans think so, and as soon as I had had a

fair supper, for which I paid three cents, I left with Carl for another

domicile. We were not long in finding the Herberge proper, or perhaps

improper, where life is seen in all its dirtiest phases. Entering the

common meeting-room, and saluting as usual, we sat down at a table where

there were other tramps also. I was immediately asked: "Wo kommst Du

her? Wo willst Du him? Was hast Du für Geschäft?" I answered these

questions as cleverly as I could, and was soon deep in various

conversations. Before I had been talking long, I made the acquaintance

of a beggar belonging to the class called _Kommando-Schieber_. These

fellows beg usually within very small districts, and know every house

that is "good" for a meal or a pfennig. My newly made friend was kind

enough to instruct both Carl and me in regard to Magdeburg.

"This town is rather _heiss_ [unfriendly]", said he, "but if you look

out and beg very carefully you can get along. A great trick here now is

to tip the _Portier_ of good houses, and thus get the pull on every

flat in the building. You've got to look out for the _Putz_, though,

for if you're caught, you're sure for twenty-four hours in the _Kasten_

[prison]. Another scheme that works pretty well with us fellows who know

the town is to send around begging letters. You can easily make quite a

_Stoss_ [haul] if you work the plan well. Still, it's risky for

strangers. If you're going to stay here long, you'd better make friends

with the _Herbergsvater_. He's a pretty good _Kerl_ [fellow], and if you

let him know that you've got a little money, he'll look out for you when

the Putz makes his inspection now and then. There's nothing, you know,

like standing in with them that are _klug_ [clever], and you can bet

that fellow is.... What do you say to a schnapps, brother?"

He had earned his drink, for he gave me a great many hints which were

necessary to successful begging. One of them was about getting a pass.

"Now, if you can scrape a little coin together," he said, "I'll tell you

how to get a _Flebbe_ that no Putz can find out whether it's forged or

not. You see that fellow over there near the window--well, he looks like

a fool, but if you can give him five marks, he'll get you a _Wanderbuch_

that'll pass you anywhere. But don't go at him too clumsily, you know;

take the matter easy. Nothing like taking your time, brother, is there?"

I agreed that this was orthodox tramp doctrine, and determined to think

the matter over, which I did, and came to the conclusion that I might

eventually get into more trouble with a false pass than without any. And

later experience approved the decision.

My first night in this tramp-nest was one I shall never forget. I slept

with an old beggar in a bed long since given over to other lodgers, who

fought us that night as if we were Frenchmen. And the stench in the

sleeping-room was similar to that in a pigsty. Any complaint, however,

would have been useless, for the price paid was only three cents, and

for that sum of money one could not expect very much. Then, too, the

host asked for no _Legitimations-Papier_, and this was an advantage

which must be set over against most of the annoyances. Nevertheless, I

was glad enough to turn out early in the morning and look for a

breakfast, which was soon found, but thoroughly European in quantity.

Carl continued begging even after his breakfast, while I remained in the

lodging-house talking with some of the inmates. I was surprised to see

how fairly well dressed the German tramp is. The men in the Herberge

were clad much more respectably than their American _confrère_, and

seemed to have a desire to appear as decent as possible. Their

intelligence was also very fair, every one being able to read and write

as well as cipher. This, however, is not so surprising, for they were by

no means young. It is my opinion that the majority of German tramps are

over thirty years of age. There are some boys on the road, it is true,

but by no means the number found in American trampdom. And I am happy to

say that my experience convinces me that their treatment by the elder

men is much more humane than in my own country. There is not in the

German that viciousness which seems ingrained in the character of the

American vagrant. The latter is a more generous fellow, however, than

the German, as I learned by practical experience. When some of the

tramps returned to the Herberge in the afternoon, I tried their good

fellowship by asking several for a sechser with which to buy a cup of

coffee. I offered my very sore foot as an excuse for not having myself

begged. But they were not touched in the slightest. One fellow said: "If

you can't beg your own money, why, you'd better get off the road, for no

other Chausséegrabentapezirer will hustle for you." An American beggar

would, as a rule, have handed me a penny, if he had it. But these men

sat drinking their beer, schnapps, and coffee, utterly incapable, at

least then, of a bit of brotherly charity. They had plenty of money,

too. During the day nearly every one had begged from ninety pfennigs to

one mark twenty, while Carl returned about five o'clock with three marks

in hand.

I think the usual wage for diligent begging is between one mark fifty

and four marks, in addition to the three meals. Of course there are a

few who are much more successful. One fellow at the Herberge, for

instance, who had been in England and could speak English quite well,

claimed that he begged forty marks in one week during the previous

winter from the Americans in Dresden.

Another vagrant told a story of a man he had met in South Germany on the

road with two hundred marks in his pocket, which he had collected in two

weeks in Munich. It is a great amusement for the tramp off duty to

figure out the possibilities of his calling, and to illustrate the same

with stories. There was one beggar in the room who even kept an account

of his income and expenses. I saw the record for March, and found that

his gains had been ninety-three marks and a few pfennigs, not including

the meals which he had had in various kitchens where the servants were

friendly. I must say right here, however, that such success is found

only in cities. For I sampled the charity of the country time after

time, and it is worth a bare living only, or, as Carl was wont to say,

"One can't get fat on it."

We were convinced of this as soon as we had left Magdeburg and started

afoot for Brunswick. Carl begged in every village that we passed

through, but he could seldom get more than twenty or twenty-five

pfennigs, with numerous slices of bread. I made no attempt to beg money,

but visited several houses and asked for food, so that my companions

might not suspect me. I was fairly well treated, at least quite as

charitably as I would have been in the United States, and I think that,

taking the country as a whole, the rewards of begging in Germany are

much higher than in either England or America. The people seem bound to

give, although they have had beggars among them for centuries.

My second night on the road was quite as interesting as the first. I had

stopped with Carl and two other men in a little village not far from

Brunswick, where there was no Herberge, and only one inn, or _Gasthaus_,

as it was called. We asked the woman in charge if we could lodge there

for the night, but she was by no means friendly, saying we were unclean.

She told us to go to the barn, where we could sleep for a groschen

apiece. As there was nothing better to do, we followed her instructions,

and spent the night, which was cold for April, on some bundles of straw.

I was fairly well repaid for this unpleasant experience by the various

conversations which I overheard. One tramp was philosophizing in a

maundering way over his life on the road, and what first brought him

there. He reasoned that as he was born lazy, the blame should be put on

his parents, but he finally concluded that the _Schnappsflasche_ also

had had a hand in the business. Another companion said: "Why should I

work, when I can beg more than I can possibly earn? Now, if I should

follow my trade I could earn about eighteen marks a week. But as a

beggar I can beat that by ten marks. No, brother; it isn't all the blame

of the Schnappsflasche that we're on the road. I, for one, am here

because I can do better than anywhere else. Isn't that so?" And he

nudged me for an answer.

"Well," I said, "we lads on the road seem to have more money than most

laborers, but we seldom have a decent place to lay our heads. For

instance, what sort of place is this we're in now?"

"Yes, that's true," he returned; "but then we're never sick, always

happy, and perhaps we're just as well off as anybody else. You forget

that we never work, and that's a great thing in our favor. Those lads

who have their homes have to work for them, and don't you forget it.

It's my opinion that the home isn't worth the labor."

I think this latter opinion is very general in German vagrancy, and is

one of its main causes. Liquor, however, is just as much of a curse in

Germany as elsewhere, and brings more men into trampdom than is usually

estimated. The Schnappsflasche is in nearly every tramp's pocket, and he

usually empties it twice a day. It is a wonder to me how he can do it,

for the schnapps is almost pure alcohol, and burns the throat terribly.

Yet I found just outside of Brunswick a female tramp, nearly sixty years

of age, who could empty _Die Finne_ in a single "go," and seemed healthy

too. This woman was the only feminine roadster I met during the journey,

and I think she is one of the very few.

About noon of April 14 I arrived in Brunswick with Carl, who was on his

way to Bremen, where he intended shipping as a coal-trimmer to New York,

if possible. He was disgusted with Germany, he said, and felt that

America was the only place for his nervous activity. He was somewhat

surprised, however, as I was too, to find in Brunswick three American

negroes who seemed to think quite the contrary of their country. One was

an "actor," and the other two were ex-waiters, and they were traveling

about the community and getting their living by dancing and singing in

the streets and saloons. Charley, the actor, said: "We're doin' pretty

well; have our three squares a day, and all the booze we want. Can't do

better than that at home." I explained this to Carl, as none of the

negroes spoke German; but he could not be convinced that gold was not

lying loose in the streets of American cities. In the afternoon his

hatred of Germany was not quite so intense, as he begged a mark and a

half in about two hours. One man that he visited was a member of "The

Society against Begging and Vagrancy," and had a sign to that effect on

his gate-post; but Carl found him, it seems, a generous Samaritan. This

interested me considerably, for I had heard good reports of this society

and its members, as well as of its success in fighting vagabondage. I

asked several fellows what they thought of the organization. One tramp

claimed that he always visited its members,--at least, those having

signs on their gates,--for he was quite as apt to be well treated as

not. Others were drastic in their criticisms, and said that the society

would let a man starve rather than feed him. Carl, I think, was about

right when he said that some members of the society fed vagrants, and

some did not, and it was all according to chance.

[Illustration: AN AUCTION.]

From Brunswick a crowd of tramps, including myself, rode in a

fourth-class car to a little station called Peine, in the direction of

Hanover. A few of the men remained here in order to take in the

_Verpflegung-Station_ until the next day. This station, of which there

are about two thousand in Germany, is a place where a man professing to

be penniless can have a night's lodging, together with supper and

breakfast, for a few hours' work. I moved on toward Hanover with fifteen

other men who were bound in the same direction. They all had money, and

no love for the Verpflegung-Station. We tramped along at a pace of about

five kilometers to the hour--the usual gait of tramps when they are

compelled to use the highways. They can beg food enough on the road, and

thus the walking is not so disagreeable, for the German roads are

superb.

At one little village where we stopped for refreshments the crowd took

the place by storm, and the people were actually frightened into giving

us bread and meat. It is true that the men were rather violent and used

threatening language, yet there was no need to fear them, as they could

hardly have attempted to do any great harm. For the German tramp, as a

rule, though a great talker and "blower," is a coward, after all, and

when answered rather roughly usually subsides. At the village of Lehrte

we again boarded a train, and rode into Hanover late in the evening.

Some of my companions went to the Heimath, but the majority hunted out

the common Herberge, and I followed the crowd. I was treated in the same

fashion as at Magdeburg, and was asked no questions about a pass. There

was great excitement in the Herberge over several little auctions, which

the tramps were conducting for their own benefit. Some had coats, vests,

and trousers to sell, while others were crying up the virtue of old

buttons, collars, cuffs, neckties, and even pocket-books, the latter

being found in almost every tramp's pocket. He finds them companionable,

he says, whether he has any money or not. Several coats sold for five

and ten cents apiece, while trousers brought higher prices. Knives were

also on the market, and fully a dozen changed hands. I was struck in

these auctions by the absence of Jews. In fact, I met only three during

the trip, and they were extremely well dressed. I fancy that a tramp's

life hardly offers inducements to men of their predilections. Yet one

would think that no work and a fair reward for begging might satisfy

even their trading propensities.

[Illustration: DANCING AROUND A BONFIRE.]

The trip from Hanover to Bremen was uninteresting, with only one

incident worth recording. Five of us stopped on Easter night at one of

the large bonfires that the peasants had built, just outside of Hanover,

to commemorate the great holiday. When we arrived they were carousing

most jovially, and seemed only too glad to welcome other companions; so

we all took part, and danced around the fire, sometimes with the peasant

girls, and then again by ourselves or singly. The peasants took no

notice of the fact that we were tramps, and shared their sour milk and

brown bread with us as if we were their best friends. One old fellow

took such a fancy to Carl that he actually gave him a sechser. I was

surprised to see him accept it, for the old man needed it much more than

he did. This illustrates very truthfully the utter lack of friendly

consideration in the character of the German tramp. One of the American

species would have returned the penny with thanks, for he is a generous

fellow, and can appreciate other interests than his own. But the

Chausséegrabentapezirer has the least tender feeling of any beggar of my

acquaintance. Even as a boon companion he falls far below the standard,

and would never be tolerated in American trampdom. I can now understand

why the great majority of German beggars in America are compelled to

"flock" by themselves, and to choose companions from their own ranks.

Their selfishness bars them out of the true brotherhood.

In Bremen poor Carl suffered a keen disappointment. He found that he

could not ship as a coal-trimmer without a pass permitting him to leave

the country. I advised him to seek work, and to earn money enough to pay

his passage to New York. His trade was not overcrowded, and he had had a

chance to labor in nearly every town we had visited, and I knew that he

could succeed in Bremen. He finally decided to follow my advice; but the

resolution weakened him so that I fear for a week at least he was a

sorry-looking fellow. When we separated, he said, "Auf Wiedersehen in

Sheekago in '93." Indeed, nearly every tramp that I met intended to

cross the ocean in '93, and to take part in Germany's exhibit at the

fair. Of course they did not all succeed, but some most certainly did.

[Illustration: HUNTING FOR HIS PASS.]

While I was sitting in the Heimath in Bremen, who should come in but a

policeman and a detective. They passed around among the laborers,

journeymen, and vagrants, asking a few questions, and looking

occasionally at the men's passes. I was in somewhat of a tremor, and

expected to be quizzed also. But, as luck would have it, they passed me

by, and I escaped a searching. They arrested one tramp, but he was the

only unfortunate I met during my travels. I learned afterward that he

was sentenced to two days' imprisonment. An American beggar would have

told the judge that he could stand on his head that long, but the German

took it more seriously. From Bremen I decided to go south, and compare

my experiences in northern Germany with tramp life in the vicinity of

Cologne. I left Bremen with seven men on the train, and traveled the

first day as far as Osnabrück, where I made an unnecessary halt, for I

found nothing new or interesting there. There were plenty of tramps, it

is true, but they had no news to impart, except that Osnabrück was a

poor town. One youngster could hardly say enough against its

hospitality. He claimed that he had even begged of the clergymen, and

all that he received were "a few paltry pfennigs." I must admit that the

boy was not far from correct in his judgment, for I visited several

houses, and all I got was a dry piece of bread, which was given me by an

old woman wiser than she was generous. Learning that I was a foreigner,

she must needs know all about my ancestors, where I had come from, and

where I was going. And then she made me listen to a long account of her

boy in Piper City,--she was not sure whether it was in North or South

America,--and asked me if I had ever met him. I told her that I had not,

and she was nearly dumfounded. She thought that in the United States,

"where there were so few people," everybody should know everybody else.

I left her to her surprise and chagrin.

[Illustration: ON THE ROAD.]

The city of Münster was my next stopping-place, and a greater contrast

to Osnabrück could hardly exist. At the Herberge I learned that the town

was considered one of the best between Hamburg and Cologne. The evidence

was certainly convincing, for the tramps had all the liquor they could

drink, as well as numerous bundles of food. Two fellows were doing a

good business in exchanging their bread and _Wurst_ (sausage) for

groschen which others had begged instead of something to eat. I invested

a few sechser in these wares, and was most bountifully repaid,

receiving half a loaf of bread and two good-sized sausages for two and a

half cents of our currency. This custom is very prevalent in German

trampdom, and will illustrate the machinery of vagrancy. Some men will

beg only for food, while others devote most of their lives to looking

for money, and in almost any Herberge, even in the Heimath, these two

parties can be found trading as if they were in a market. They scold,

"jew," and fight one another while the trade is progressing, but when

the bargain is finished good fellowship is again resumed. The joviality

in the Herberge after the "market" was as boisterous and companionable

as if there had not been the slightest trouble. Even the innkeeper took

part, and danced around the room with his guests as if he were as much

of a tramp as any of them. I think he had been a roadster sometime in

his life, for he entered into the schemes and plans as earnestly as the

law allows. Some of the men were discussing the number of charitable

families in Münster, and more especially those "good" for money. One

man, in order to make his point, enumerated by name the families

friendly to beggars. The innkeeper, not agreeing with him, gave his own

census of the Münster people, and it was most interesting to hear from

his lips just what citizens were worth visiting and what not. Having

conducted a tramp hotel in the city for years, he had found it to his

interests to gather and dispense information useful to his customers. He

could tell exactly what house was "good" for a meal or a hand-out, and

could also map out the districts sure to yield pfennigs, groschen, or

half-mark pieces. It is needless to say that such a man is invaluable to

beggars. They hold him dearer than any other member of the clan, and

pay him most liberally for his wisdom by spending nearly all of their

money in his inn. This they can afford to do, for without his

information and protection they would encounter hardships and

difficulties insurmountable. During my stay at the Herberge, the

proprietor sent out as many as eight fellows to different parts of the

town, well posted and equipped for successful begging. Three of these

men returned while I was still there, having averaged three marks and a

half apiece in about five hours. If they had worked for this length of

time their wage would have been about one mark apiece.

The journey from Münster to Düsseldorf is so tiresome afoot, and there

is so little of interest lying between the towns, that I made the trip

by rail, with three companions bound for Bavaria. These men had been

tramping around in northern Prussia for nearly two months, and were

thoroughly disgusted with their experiences. This was not surprising,

however, for the Bavarian as well as the Saxon tramps think there is no

prosperity outside of their own provinces, and, wander as much as they

may in foreign parts, usually return to their own fields, feeling that

they made a mistake in leaving. Begging in these provinces is also much

more remunerative than anywhere else in Germany. Even the religion in

Bavaria favors mendicancy, and it is only necessary to stand on a Sunday

morning in front of some church to make a very fair haul. The tramps

loaf around in the neighborhood of the churches and _stossen_ (tackle)

the poor Catholics as they pass in and out, usually getting a pfennig

at least. One old roadster, thankful that he had lost a leg in the war

of 1870, was unusually successful; but I heard afterward that he had

been in the city for years, and probably the people take care of him as

a sort of relic. He was rather clever, too, and had formed some sage

opinions on charity and poverty. "The poor people," he said, "are the

best friends we have. They give ten times where the rich man gives

once." This is an indisputable fact.

In Cologne, where I arrived on April 21, the tramps were planning trips

into southern Germany, Switzerland, and the Tyrol. I had intended to

make at least one of these excursions, but I was tired, nauseated, and

homesick. I made quick work with the towns of Elberfeld, Essen, Barmen,

and Dortmund, and once settled down in Berlin, with almanac and

gazetteer before me, found I had been fifteen days _auf der Walze_, had

traveled over one thousand kilometers, studied more than seventy towns

and villages, and met three hundred and forty-one voluntary vagrants,

all of them, however, less voluntary than I.

The German tramp, if these experiences justify me in judging him, is a

fairly intelligent fellow of not more than average tramp education, more

stupid and less vicious than his American _confrère_, and with the

traits of his nationality well stamped upon him. He is cautious,

suspicious to a degree, ungenerous, but fairly just and square-dealing

in the company of his fellows. He is too much of a Bohemian to be a

Social Democrat, but has not enough patriotism to be easily fired with

enthusiasm for his Kaiser. He loves schnapps and hates what he calls

the _verdammte Heiligkeit_ such as Die Herberge zur Heimath seeks to

cultivate. He has generally served his three years in the army, but will

dodge the recruiting officer by skipping his country whenever possible,

if he has not. Besides this pervasive lack of patriotism, he has other

dangers for the country. In the February riots in Berlin (1891) he was

out in force, not for labor rights as against capital, but lending his

shoulder to the wheel which he fondly hoped might turn in the direction

of a general overthrow of the existing social state and order.

In regard to the public on which the German tramp lives and thrives, it

is only necessary to say that it is even more inanely generous than its

counterpart in the United States. With all its groans under taxes,

military and otherwise, it nevertheless takes upon itself voluntarily

the burden of the voluntary vagrant--the man who will not work. This is

the more surprising when one recollects that the entire theoretical

treatment of beggars in Germany is founded on the supposition that each

one is a bona-fide seeker of labor. The community practically says to

the culprit: You can make use of our Verpflegung-Stationen, where you

can work for your lodging and meals, and have also a half-day to search

for work, if you can identify yourself as a seeker of labor. We not only

offer this, but also attempt to guarantee you, through the efforts of

our philanthropists, a casual refuge in Die Herberge zur Heimath, while

you are out of work. And if, through untoward circumstances or through

your own carelessness and weakness, you have fallen so low that the

Stationen and the Heimath cannot take you in because your

identification-papers are irregular, and you appear more of a vagabond

than an unfortunate laborer, we then invite you into the labor colonies,

founded also by our philanthropists, where you can remain until you have

earned good clothes and proved yourself worthy. But if we catch you

begging, we will punish you as a vagrant; consequently you would do

better to make use of all the privileges we offer, and thus break no

laws. This is the theory, and I consider it a good one. But the man who

will not work passes through these institutions as freely as the man who

will, owing to the lack of determined discrimination on the part of the

officers, and the desperate cleverness of the offenders.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Dr. Berthold is a well-known statistician, writer, and authority on

matters pertaining to German labor colonies.

II

WITH THE RUSSIAN GORIOUNS

I

It was not my intention, in going to Russia, to tramp there. I planned

merely to see St. Petersburg and Moscow, work for a while on Count

Tolstoi's farm at Yasnaya Polyana, and then, after a short trip in the

south, return to Berlin. I did all these things according to

expectation, but I also made a tramp trip. It happened in this way: I

had no more than reached the Russian capital when the tramp was forced

upon me. As I jumped into the cab with my friend, who had come to the

train to meet me, he pointed out about twenty tattered and sorry-looking

peasants, marching by us under police escort.

"There go some Goriouns," he exclaimed--"look quick!"

I had only to follow the men with my eyes to know that they were Russian

tramps.

"What are the police doing with them?" I asked.

"Oh, they probably have no passports and are to be sent back to their

villages."

"Are there many tramps in Russia?"

My friend laughed. "Thousands of them. You can hardly go into a village

without meeting them. They are one of the greatest problems Russia has

to deal with."

I soon saw also that I could not even approach a church without being

accosted by them. They stood on the steps and at the doorway of every

one I visited, and invariably begged of me, saying, "Radi Krista" ("For

Christ's sake"). Even at Yasnaya Polyana, fifteen miles from the nearest

town, and several minutes' walk from a highway, the Goriouns put in an

appearance. I was there ten days, and at least one called every morning.

They all seemed to know about Count Tolstoi's gospel, and came to his

home, sure, at least, of something to eat. On the highway, at some

distance from the house, I saw bands of ten and twenty marching by every

day, and they often camped at a bridge which I crossed on my walks.

This continual meeting the tramp and hearing about him naturally made me

curious, and I wondered whether it would be possible to make a journey

among them. I knew enough Russian at least to make myself understood,

and could understand much that was said to me. The great question,

however, was whether, as a foreigner, I should be allowed to make such

a trip. I talked with Count Tolstoi one day about the matter, telling

him some of my experiences in other countries, and asking his advice.

"Why not?" he said, in his jovial, pleasant way. "Of course you will

have hard work in understanding their dialects, and you can hardly

expect to be taken for one of them, but otherwise you ought to get on

easily enough. From your pass and other papers the police will see that

you are nothing dangerous, and if anything should happen, all you have

to do is to send to St. Petersburg. I should like to make such a trip

myself, if I were younger. I'm too old now. Once I went on a long

pilgrimage and saw a good deal of the life, but of course you will see

much more if you go directly into the tramp class. If you decide to make

the trip, I wish you would find out how they look upon the authorities,

and whether they really believe in what they call their religion. It

ought to be very interesting to talk with them on these topics, and

perhaps you will be able to gather some useful material--only you will

not be permitted to print it here in Russia"; and he smiled.

I finally decided to make a trial trip, and was fortunate in finding a

Moscow student who was willing to accompany me for a few days. He had

tramped perforce in some of the southern provinces, and being much

interested in the tramp class in the Vitebsk government, consented to go

with me if I would begin my investigations there. I was fortunate also

in having brought a tramp outfit with me. It had already seen service in

England, Germany, and Italy, and I had taken it along for work in the

fields at Yasnaya Polyana. It was a little better than the usual

Gorioun dress, but I should really have been ashamed to put on anything

shabbier. My friend the student was clad in a patched university

uniform, which all of his class have to wear in Russia, and he looked

like pictures I have seen of ragged Union soldiers in Libby Prison. We

both had a little money in our pockets, and it was not our intention to

beg for anything more than bread and milk, and not even for these things

unless it was necessary to make good our pose. We reasoned that the

peasants of whom we should have to ask for them needed them much more

than we did, and I am glad to say that neither of us on this trip, nor I

on others, which were sometimes made alone, asked for much that we did

not pay for.

Our credentials for the journey consisted of our passports, some

university papers, and an open letter which I had received in St.

Petersburg from Prince Chilkoff, the Minister of Ways and Communication.

It was addressed to the director of the Siberian Railway, but I kept it

by me for the sake of identification, and it helped me through many a

predicament, although the officials to whom it was presented could never

get it through their heads how I, an Amerikanski tramp, could be in the

possession of such an almighty document. There were times, I fear, when

they were tempted to arrest me as an impostor, but they never did--a

good fortune which I can only explain on account of the singularity of

the situation. The Russian "system" was evidently not prepared for so

weird a creature, and I was allowed to pass as an anomaly.

With the Moscow student I tramped for three days in the Vitebsk

government, between the towns of Polotsk and Dünaburg, as dreary a

stretch of country as is to be found anywhere in our West. It was warm

August weather, and the sun came down on us in all its Russian

fierceness. There were times when I simply had to get under a tree to

keep from sun-stroke. At night we slept out of doors, or in haystacks

and barns. The peasants always offered us the hospitality of their

cabins, as they do to all tramps, but we could not bring ourselves to

put up with the vermin we should have found there. In winter, on the

other hand, the Gorioun is glad enough to curl up over their stoves, and

I suppose that we also should have been, had the weather been cold. As

it was, most of the vagabonds we met slept outside, as we did, and we

always had plenty of company. On this trip we met two hundred, traveling

in bands and families. They invariably wanted to know where I came from,

which is the first question they ask, after the greeting,

"Strassvuitye," and I told them the truth on each occasion.

"America--America," they would say in their simple way. "What government

is that in?" meaning what Russian province. I could not make them

understand that it was not in Russia at all, which to them is the entire

world, but they called me "the far-away brother," and I was probably

considered a new species in their class. I never had the feeling that

they accepted me as one of their own,--it would have been strange if

they had,--but they, at any rate, dubbed me "brother," and this was as

much as I could ask. They always wanted to share their simple fare with

me, and I soon saw that there was but little danger in associating with

them.

II

There are two types of tramps in Russia, and they may be classified as

the authorized and the unauthorized. The first are the so-called

religious mendicants, who are protected by the church and tolerated by

the police; the second are the common vagabonds. It is these last who

constitute, from the Russian point of view, the tramp problem. The

religious beggars are considered an inevitable church class, and are

taken care of almost as conscientiously as the priests. The common

tramps, on the other hand, are looked upon as a very unnecessary burden,

and ever since the conversion of Russia to Christianity, laws have been

passed and institutions founded for their suppression and reform. It is

estimated that in European Russia alone they number over nine hundred

thousand, and in Siberia their class represents an even greater

proportion of the population.

Their national name among themselves is "Goriouns"--mourners, or victims

of grief. The word is an invention of their own, but is supposed to come

from the Russian word _gore_, meaning sadness. In Russian proper they

are called _brodiagi_. If you ask them why they do not work,--and the

great majority are perfectly able to do so,--they reply in the

forlornest voice mortal ever heard: "Master, I am a Gorioun--a victim of

sorrow." They seem to have accepted the philosophy that a certain number

of human beings are foreordained to a life of misery and sadness, and

they pose as members of this class. On many of their passports I saw

such expressions as "Burned out," "Has lost all his relatives," "Has no

home," "Will die soon," "Is possessed of the pitiful spirit," and others

of a like nature, which they bribe officials to write, or themselves

forge. I could have had similar explanations put on my own passport.

There are tramps who make a regular business of this kind of imposture,

and it is another evidence of how difficult it is to make even a

passport tell the truth. In Germany the same trick is practised by

tramps, and in both countries the beggar can buy false passes which the

police cannot detect. I saw several in Russia which looked exactly like

the genuine thing, and, had I wished to appear to be a Russian, could

have bought one any day for ten rubles.

In looks and dress the Gorioun acts out to a nicety the story which his

papers are supposed to substantiate. Never have I seen such sad faces as

these men and women have when begging. At heart they are capable of

considerable fun and boisterousness, but they affect a look of

despondency, which many of them retain even when off duty. In other

respects they resemble very closely the ordinary peasant, or _muzhik_.

They all have an immense shock of hair, parted in the middle and chopped

off roughly at the edges. The face is generally covered with a huge

beard, which gives them a backwoodsman look not always indicative of

their character. In America, for instance, they would be taken by tramps

for "Hoosiers," but, in their way, they are just as clever and sharp as

the hobo who would laugh at them. Indeed, I know of no hobo who can

equal them in facial trickery and disguise, and wherever this is the

necessary qualification for successful begging they are past masters.

Their clothes are invariably rough and patched, and if by some chance

they get a good suit it is pawned or sold immediately. The usual peasant

shirt or blouse takes the place of a coat, and the trousers are tucked

into the boots also in peasant fashion. A tea-pot hangs at the belt, and

a bundle, containing all their possessions, is slung over the shoulder.

Thus they tramp about the country from village to village, year in and

year out, and are always distinguishable from the fact that on meeting a

_Gospodinn_ (gentleman), or any one else of whom they can beg, off come

their greasy caps, down go their great shocky heads, and they say, "Radi

Krista."

[Illustration: SLEEPING IN A BARN.]

When tramping on the highway, they average about fifteen miles a day,

but a great many never make over five. One old man on the Kursk road,

between Tula and Orel, told me that he was satisfied if he covered three

versts a day,--a verst is two thirds of a mile,--and he expected that it

would take him the entire autumn and part of the winter to reach Odessa,

whither he was bound. In this respect the Goriouns are like all other

vagabonds; they love rest, and if they find a good place, stick to it as

long as possible. In the country they make their homes with the

peasants, sleeping in summer in sheds and haystacks, and in winter in

the peasants' cabins. Plagues though they are, the peasant always gives

them shelter, and it very seldom happens that they die of cold or

starvation in districts thickly populated. I could have stopped for

days in every village I passed through, and the peasants would even have

protected me from the police if it had been in their power. Their own

life is so hard that it comes natural to take pity on the tramp, and

they all have the feeling that favors thus shown prepare a place for

them in the heaven of their imagination. Indeed, the Gorioun plays on

this feeling in begging of them. I often heard him say, in asking for

alms: "It will help you out above"; and his humble friends seemed

pleased to be thus assured.

Men predominate in the Gorioun class, but in no other country that I

have visited are there so many women and families "on tramp." They are

all mixed up together, men, women, and children, and no great effort is

made to keep even the families intact. I was told by tramps that in the

peasants' cabins there is very little separation even between the

peasants and the vagabonds, and on cold nights they all curl up in a

heap on the tops of the great piles of masonry which serve them as

stoves. In large cities they live in lodging-houses and night-shelters.

In St. Petersburg these places are found mainly in what is called the

"Siennaia," about five blocks behind the Kazan cathedral. There are

entire alleyways and courts in this district given up to the Goriouns,

and in one house alone, Dom Viazemski, over ten thousand lodge every

night. They have the right to return to their planks at any time during

the day, and speak of them as their homes--their _dom_. The cost of a

"spot" on the benches is thirty-five copecks (about twenty cents) a

week, in advance.

The life that goes on here is pretty much the same as in lodging-houses

everywhere, but there are a few peculiar features to be noticed. In the

first place, there is a chief, or _ataman_, of the Goriouns of each

room, and he is given the rights and privileges of a bully. He is the

strongest and most daring of all, and his companions allow him to play

"the almighty act," as the hobo would say, in their confabs and

councils. Any tramp who refuses to knuckle down to him is considered

either a spy or a rival candidate, in which latter case he must fight it

out with fists, and sometimes with knives. If he is successful he takes

the ataman place, and holds it until some one else dislodges him. In

case he is taken for a spy he is shunned by all concerned, and I was

told that every year several men are killed on this suspicion. When an

actual raid by the police is planned, the ataman generally gets wind of

it beforehand, and all lights are put out before the police arrive. They

can then accomplish very little, and while I was in St. Petersburg

several of their attempted raids ended unsuccessfully.

Another queer custom is the way each man takes care of his boots. In

every country the _Schuhwerk_, as the Germans say, is prized, perhaps,

more than any other part of the wardrobe, but the reason in St.

Petersburg is unique. Thanks to his boots, the Gorioun can be enrolled

as a torch-bearer or mourner at funerals, and this is one of his most

lucrative employments. The agencies which manage funerals recruit from

the tramp class so many mourners for each interment; about thirteen

thousand are employed in this way every year. The agencies furnish the

suitable clothes and pocket-handkerchiefs--everything, in fact, but

the shoes, which the tramp must be able to show on his feet, or he will

not be hired. When a funeral is "on," the tramps gather at the Nikolski

market, and are selected by an employee of the agency. Those chosen are

conducted to the house of the deceased, and there, under a porch, in a

shed, or even in the court, ten, twenty, or thirty of them, according to

the elaborateness of the funeral, undress themselves entirely, even in

the dead of winter, and put on the mourner's garb. Their own clothing is

rolled up in a bundle and taken to the cemetery in a basket, where,

after the ceremony, it must be put on again. The promised wage for this

service is forty copecks a man, but with tips and drinks it usually

amounts to a ruble. The St. Petersburg street-gamins have a way of

crying out, "Nachel li?" ("Hast thou found it?") to the Goriouns as they

file along--an allusion to their daylight torches. Some very funny

scenes take place when the boys get too saucy; for the men forget, in

their anger, the solemnity of the situation, and, dropping their

torches, run after the boys, much to the consternation of the agency and

the family concerned.

The funeral over and the money in their pockets, they return to the

lodging-house for an uproarious night spent in drinking _vodka_. When

the last drop is gone, they fall over on their planks senseless, and to

see them in this condition makes one fancy he is looking on in a morgue.

They lie there as if dead, and the stench in the room could not be worse

if they were actually in a state of decay. One would think, under such

circumstances, there must be a heavy percentage of sickness and

mortality among them, but I think this is not true. I saw a number of

crippled and deformed beggars, but otherwise they seemed a fairly

healthy lot, and never anywhere have I seen such herculean bodies. Many

of them looked as if they could lift an ox, and in one of the few

squabbles that I witnessed, they knocked one another about in a way that

would have done honor to professional pugilists. However, these

knock-down fights are not frequent. For a people so degraded they are

phenomenally sweet-tempered; in England and America, tramps with their

strength would be measuring it on all occasions.

In the lodging-houses, as in the peasants' cabins, men and women are

mixed up together, and there seems to be no effort at all to keep them

separated. They say that they are married, or "belong to the family,"

and the _Starosta_ (proprietor) allows them to keep together. Their

children--and each couple has its full share--are used for begging

purposes; indeed, they are the winning card of the Russian tramp. If

they are deformed or crippled, so much the better.

The food of these tramps is probably the simplest bill of fare known

among European vagabonds. On the road they seldom have more than black

bread and milk, and even in towns they are satisfied with the addition

of a dish of potatoes. Meat they know very little about, and it almost

never occurs to them to spend their money for a good steak; they prefer

to buy vodka. Of course there are exceptions to this rule; in every

country there are beggars who keep up with the latest styles and

indulge in a gourmet's dishes, but they are not common in Russia.

There is another trait of the Goriouns to record--their clannishness. In

almost every government of the empire they are organized as compactly as

a trade-union, and even in St. Petersburg, strict as the police are,

they have their peculiar _artel_. It was impossible for me to become a

member of these corporations. I should have had to knuckle down very

submissively to some ataman, or bully, and this I was not willing to do.

It would also have been necessary to learn the different dialects, and I

had all I could do to make use of my small Russian vocabulary. Each

artel has its own peculiar lingo, and it is almost as hard to learn as

Russian itself. Even the native inhabitants know very little about such

dialects, and the students who traveled with me had as much difficulty

as I did in understanding them. Fortunately, however, the tramps can

also speak Russian, and we generally conversed with them in this

language. I give here what I learned about their various artels, but it

is in no sense an exhaustive report. There are many of which I heard

nothing, and it would take a book to describe them all.

In Moscow one of the most notorious clans is the so-called "Gouslitzki,"

or "Old Believers," who came originally from the district of Bogorodsk.

They are mixed up with the regular working population of the town and

have no particular sign by which a stranger could distinguish them, but

their business is entirely criminal. They counterfeit money, forge

passports and baptismal certificates, beg and steal, and the police have

to keep a continual watch over them. Ostensibly their business is

manufacturing trinkets, colored images, and toys, but these are merely

subterfuges to gain them the privilege of standing on the sidewalks as

hawkers. In their lodging-houses--and there are several supported by

them alone--they live under the direction of a head man whom they must

obey, and a certain percentage of their day's earnings has to be

contributed to a common fund. From time to time this fund is divided

equally among all the members of the organization, but it is almost

immediately given back as "renewed stock." The Gouslitzki are unlike

most of their class in being very parsimonious, and they have the

reputation of drinking very little--some not at all. They speak two

languages, Russian and a dialect which is practically their

mother-tongue. They have been settled in Moscow for generations, and the

police find it impossible to drive them out.

The "Chouvaliki," another well-known gang, are mainly peasants, but they

come also from the Moscow government, being settled in the districts of

Veresisk and Mozhaisk. It would be very peculiar in America to see a

band of farmers starting off on begging and marauding trips, but this

happens in Russia, and the Chouvaliki are of this class. In the census

of Russia they are put down as peasants, and they do pretend to work a

part of the year, but they are known from Moscow to the Don as the

begging Chouvaliki. They go on the road twice a year, and exploit by

preference the governments of Tamboff, Voronesh, and so on down to the

Don. The Russians call them brigands, and tell frightful stories about

their robberies, but the Goriouns spoke of them merely as beggars, and

I fancy this is what they are. On returning from their trips, which last

sometimes several weeks, they spend in one orgy all the money they have

taken in.

It is in White Russia, and above all in the government of Vitebsk,

farther north, that the tramps form these beggars' organizations. During

my journey through the Vitebsk government I heard of them right and

left, and it is this district that contributes largely to the criminal

population of St. Petersburg. The rich Ukraine is also a notorious

haunt. At Kharkoff, for instance, I got into a regular nest of them,

called "Tchortoff Gniezda" (Nest of Devils). They live there in dirty

little cabins and underground caves, a close community with its ataman

and common funds. They start out in the morning on their begging trips,

and return at night for debauches, those who have been most successful

inviting their _rakli_, or pals, to celebrate with them. There is a

careful division, or _douban_, of all the spoils taken in during the

day, and each one receives his share, minus the contribution to the

common tribe.

In Kazan, the Tatar town on the Volga, there is an artel of beggars

whose origin goes back to the taking of Kazan by Ivan IV, and they are

known all over Russia as the "Kazanskia Sieroty" (the Kazan Orphans).

Although Mussulmans, they beg "in the name of Christ" ("Radi Krista").

They will beg even from other beggars if they do not belong to their

organization, and consider everybody their prey who is not an "Orphan."

They can only be compared to the tramps who exploit the governments of

Samara and Saratoff, and those coming from fifteen villages of the

districts of Saransk and Insarsk, in the government of Penza. These

last, although officially peasants, are all organized into narrow

begging corporations, and call themselves "Kalousni," which comes from

their dialect word _kalit_, meaning "to reap," or, as they would say,

"to beg." In Moscow, on the other hand, the generic dialect term for

beggars is "Zvonary," which comes from _zvonit_, also meaning "to beg."

The Kalousni, or "Reapers," start out on their begging trips in their

wagons immediately after harvest. All of them who can move, excepting

the very oldest and youngest, depart for "the work," as it is called.

Those who have no blind or deformed children of their own rent them in

neighboring villages. The village of Akchenas is the center of this

trade, and peasants send their deformed children there to be marketed

off. In the Galitzin village, in the government of Penza, amounting to

three hundred cabins, five hundred of the inhabitants are peasant

beggars; in Akchenas, one hundred and twenty cabins, there are only four

persons who are not "Reapers"; in Germakoff, another hamlet of the

district, there is not an inhabitant who does not go kalit (begging).

The return of these bands to their homes is celebrated by fêtes and

orgies. The main one is on November 8, St. Michael's day, when they

spend every copeck they have collected. The next trip takes place in

winter, and they return to their villages by Lent. The third return is

just before Pentecost.

Although I did not tramp in Siberia, I traveled there and heard much of

the local tramps. They are not so definitely organized as in European

Russia,--many travel entirely alone,--but I saw and heard of several

categories. On the highway between Ekaterinburg and Tiumen the traveler

is accosted by beggars known as the "Kossoulinski." They live

exclusively by begging, and in summer sleep out of doors along the route

between the towns mentioned. At Ekaterinburg there are also unnamed

gangs of young men and little boys and girls who are continually begging

of the inhabitants. They are generally the children of deported

convicts, or those of peasants who were driven by famine out of

neighboring districts.

If I could have got into the wooded parts of Siberia I might also have

made the acquaintance of that queer product of Siberian prison life, the

runaway convict tramp. Early in the spring he makes a dash for liberty,

sometimes being shot down in the attempt, and then again succeeding. He

runs to the woods and lives there until autumn, when, if there is no

hope of getting back to European Russia, he gives himself up and returns

to prison again. In the spring, "when the birds call him," as one of his

songs pathetically relates, he makes another dash for the trees. Only at

night does he venture into the villages, and then merely for a moment to

snatch the food left for him on the window-sills by the generous-hearted

peasants. He grabs the bread, or whatever it is that they have set out,

and then scampers back to the woods like a wolf.

III

Religious beggars in Russia are a class by themselves. In giving alms to

them the average Russian thinks that he is making so much more likely

his welcome in heaven, and they, of course, stand by him in the conceit.

If you give them a ruble they will swear that you are going to heaven,

and even twenty copecks make one's chance pretty good.

The most easily distinguished type is what is called the religious lay

mendicant. He is always standing around the churches in St. Petersburg

and Moscow, and everybody who has visited these cities will recall him.

He is generally an old peasant, begging for some village church, and the

police or church authorities give him the necessary passes and stamped

documents. He stands at a church door or near some shrine, bareheaded

and with a little plate in his hand, covered with cloth on which is

embroidered the cross. This is a _passe-partout_ wherever he goes, and

serves as an excuse for entering restaurants, railway-stations, and

other public places. As a Russian gentleman said to me: "You can't drive

a man out with the cross in his hand," and he is consequently allowed to

go pretty much where he pleases. Unfortunately, however, it is not very

difficult to imitate him, and there are a number of Goriouns in Russia,

posing as religious lay mendicants. They counterfeit the necessary

papers, buy the plate and cross, and then beg with all their might.

Occasionally they are discovered and severely punished, but the winnings

from this kind of begging are so tempting--sometimes as much as ten

rubles, or five dollars a day--that they are willing to run the risk.

There are also monk beggars who proceed in the same way as those of the

lay order, except that they wear monk costumes. It is consequently not

easy for the common tramp to imitate them, but it has been done.

Authorized and permitted though these monks are, there is but little

need for them to beg, for their convents are almost without exception

rich. The more they have, however, the more they want, and so the monks

are sent out to beg of poor and rich alike. An amusing story is told of

how one of these convents was relieved of some of its superfluous

wealth. During the Crimean War Nicholas I borrowed ten million rubles

from the Laura monastery at Kieff, and gave in exchange his note like

any other mortal. Alexander II, after coming to the throne, made a tour

of the provinces and visited Kieff, where, according to custom, the

first thing he did was to call at the Laura. He was received by the

metropolitan and clergy in great array, and during the ceremony the note

of Nicholas was presented to him, of course for payment, on a beautiful

plate. He took the bit of paper, read it carefully, and then, holding it

high in the air, said in a very solemn voice: "Behold the most touching

proof of the patriotism of Russia's clergy when she has need of them! I

cannot better thank you than by giving you, as a glorious memento, this

autograph of my august father." And that ended the matter for all time.

The pilgrims are another type of religious beggar. They also are mainly

old peasants, who have made a vow to go afoot to some distant shrine,

often a thousand miles away. They take with them only money enough to

buy candles to place at the altars where they worship en route, and

trust to the mercy of the people they meet for food and shelter. No

peasant would refuse them hospitality, and they are taken in whenever

they appear. Money is never offered them, because it is known that they

will not accept it. All they want is food enough to keep body and soul

together, and this they feel free to ask for.

These pilgrimages are very frequent in Russia, and are always the result

of a vow, made sometimes many years before. Each famous monastery, like

the Soloviecki, near the White Sea, the Troitzke, near Moscow, the

Laura, at Kieff, and many others, has its days of "grand pardon," which

attract pilgrims from the farthest points of the empire. They travel

invariably on foot, and occasionally in bands, but the typical pilgrim

goes alone. His destination is sometimes even Jerusalem. This is often

the case among devoted monks, who make this the last act of a life

consecrated to the church. The peasants feed and shelter the pilgrim,

and he is one of their main objects of veneration.

There is one more class of authorized beggars in Russia--the nuns. These

women, with long robes and pointed bonnets, generally travel in couples.

They beg on what is called the "contract system." An arrangement is made

with a convent by which they are allowed to exploit certain districts,

and they agree in return to give the convent a certain percentage of

their winnings; all over this amount belongs to them personally. They

are taxed according to their ability, the percentage varying from one to

three rubles a day. When they are young and pretty, which they

sometimes are, they do very well. As a Russian who has often given to

them said to me: "You can't give copper to a pretty woman," and they

know wonderfully well how to make their attractions tell. They are

acquainted with all the "good places," and learn quickly to discern the

generous giver. There is no doubt, however, that much is given them

without any thought of the church or religion, and it is an open secret

in Russia that there is a great deal of corruption among them. I myself

saw them in a state of intoxication several times, and their conduct was

not at all in keeping with their religious calling.

IV

Something remains to be said about the causes of vagabondage in Russia

and what is being done to suppress it. The religious mendicants must be

left out of the discussion, for they are not supposed to be a part of

the problem. It is the Gorioun class that the Russians are particularly

anxious to be rid of, and it is they who correspond to the tramp class

in more Western countries.

The love of liquor is the main cause of their degradation. Two thirds

could be made respectable men and women if they were free of their

passion for drink, and until they are, I see no hope of bettering them.

They will even steal from the churches, religious as they are, if

impelled by thirst for vodka, and it is simply impossible for an

employer to have anything to do with them. In St. Petersburg a large

number of them are discharged mechanics and day-laborers, who know

perfectly well how to earn their living, but have lost position after

position on account of their loose habits. The minute they get a week's

wage, they go off and spend it for drink, and then there is no place for

them.

Besides this strictly individual cause, there are certain economic facts

which help to explain the situation. The lowering of railroad fares has

started a regular hegira of peasants toward the towns, where they

imagine that they are to make their fortunes. We think in America that a

great deal might be done to change the lot of outcasts if they could be

led back to the country and settled on farms, but Russia teaches us

plainly enough that this alone will not suffice. There must be something

besides country air and surroundings to offset the attractions and

temptations of city life. In Russia it has been found that after the

peasant has once experienced these attractions he is never happy on the

farm.

Over seven thousand peasant tramps are sent away from St. Petersburg

every year, but a still larger number find their way back. There is a

case on record where a man was sent away one hundred and seven times and

returned after each expulsion. When one takes into consideration that

the majority of all those thus sent away receive new clothes before

leaving, it is easy to see what an expense they are to the town, and the

most of them sell their new clothes at the first opportunity. This is

one of the weakest points in all the Russian methods with tramps. The

police return vagabonds to their villages, expecting them thus to be

kept away from city temptations, but the trouble is that they cannot

hold them there. They run back to the towns the first chance they get,

and then there has to be another expensive expulsion. Lately some of the

governors of inland districts have petitioned the police to stop doing

this, explaining that tramps thus returned corrupt their village

companions.

Besides returning a beggar to his village, there are also light

punishments. If he is arrested for the first time in St. Petersburg, he

is brought before a commission, by which he is questioned and then

handed over to a more special committee, before which he must submit to

another cross-questioning. If he can prove that he has been driven to

beg by poverty alone, he is recommended to the care of the poor

authorities of his district. If he has been arrested several times

before, he is taken immediately to a justice, by whom he is condemned to

a punishment, varying, according to circumstances, from a month's to

three months' hard labor in prison. These are only such beggars as have

been caught in the act, so to speak, and have papers certifying to their

identity. Those who are found without passports are taken in hand by the

police alone. If nothing very bad is found against them, they are

allowed to go free, if some one will stand sponsor for them; in this

case they must send to their home authorities for a passport, and if it

is received they can remain in the town for a period of three months. It

is possible with good conduct to have this term of probation prolonged

to nine months, but after that, unless very good reasons are given, the

man must return to his village.

There are also reformatory and charitable institutions which seek a

regeneration of the tramp on philanthropic grounds. Recently a number of

workhouses have been put up in the largest towns, and great hopes are

placed in these very praiseworthy undertakings. The present empress has

taken them all under her personal protection, and there is every

likelihood that they will be well supported. The effort is thus made to

offer every tramp a chance to work; they are to serve as a test-house

where the Gorioun can show what he really is. He is not compelled to

make use of them, but if it should be discovered that he knew about them

and still begged, he would be punished very severely.

Both men and women are received, and they can earn their daily bread by

working for it. Lodging must be found elsewhere, but children can be

left during the day in a crèche belonging to the institution. Father

John of Kronstadt is credited with having founded the first of these

workhouses, but it is only lately that they have become popular. If well

managed they ought to do good, for the great question in Russia, as well

as everywhere else, is to find out who the really deserving are, and the

workhouses can be of great assistance in developing the facts. How much

they will aid in lessening the professional vagabondage of the country

remains to be seen. If the police--and everybody knows what powers the

Russian police have--are unable to accomplish this, it is hardly likely

that the workhouses can do much more. Indeed, I fear that nothing can

root out entirely this class in Russia. It is too old and settled to

give up the struggle without a long resistance, and there are

traditions dear to all Russians which will forever aid the Gorioun in

his business. A Russian prince with whom I talked about the possibility

of getting rid of the tramp class said to me: "It is simply out of the

question. We are all beggars, every mother's son of us. The aristocrat

begs a smile of the czar, and others ask for honors, positions,

decorations, subsidies, and pensions, and it is these beggars who are

the most persistent of all. Russia is the land of _na tchai_ ["for tea,"

like _pour boire_ in French, and _Trinkgeld_ in German], and no laws or

imperial ukase will ever make it any different."

III

TWO TRAMPS IN ENGLAND

The British tramp had long been an object of curiosity with me. I felt

that I knew his American cousin as well as it is possible to know him by

living with him, and I had learned the ways of the German

_Chausséegrabentapezirer_. Among my friends in the university at Berlin

was a student of philosophy who also regarded the English tramp with

interest so great that he was willing to make a tramp journey with me to

discover and study him. He doubted somewhat his ability to pass for an

undeveloped vagrant, but decided to try it. We suffered, I am proud to

say, no diminution of our friendship in this curious comradeship in a

new field.

One February day we drew up our agreement, and on the same day left for

Hamburg. There we took ship for Grimsby, on a boat carrying mainly

steerage passengers. Our fellow-travelers were twenty-two

homeward-bound sailors, an old woman, and a young girl on her way to

London to marry a man with whom she had fallen in love by telegram--at

any rate, so she said.

We were all cooped up together in a nasty little hole absolutely without

ventilation. I felt sorry for the women, and they, in their kind-hearted

way, said that they were sorry for me, "because I looked so sick-like."

But I anticipate a little.

While we were still lying at the dock we had an amusing experience. Just

as the gang-plank was nearly ready to be hauled in, two detectives came

on board. I was surprised that they had not appeared before; for it is

one of Kaiser Wilhelm's strong points to see that none of his young men,

or "dear servants," as he calls them, get out of his domain before they

have done their duty in his army. The sailors laughed at them, and told

them to go home; meanwhile Ryborg and I were supposedly asleep. That

there was method in this drowsiness I cannot deny, for Ryborg had no

really current pass, and we were both fearful of being detained. We were

finally discovered, and when one of the officers asked me if we were

sailors, I rather naturally said, "Yes," being half asleep, and having

seen that they had not disturbed the true seamen.

The man was determined to see my passport, however, and the long sheet

of paper amused him considerably. He called it _ein mächtiges Ding_, and

I patriotically told him he was right, and that it was about the

"greatest thing" he had ever handled. He failed to see the point, and

poked Ryborg. Then I quaked a little, but laughed inwardly too, when

Ryborg handed him his student's card; for it did seem odd to find a

student of philosophy in that miserable den. The detective thought so

too, and claimed that he did not exactly understand the situation.

"Are you a sailor, a workman, an American, or what?" said the officer.

"Ich bin--ein Studierter" ("I am--a learned one"), gasped Ryborg.

That settled the matter. The detectives walked off, and we were left for

the following thirty-two hours to our North Sea misery, which was of

such a character that, when we landed, we vowed never to go to sea

again.

Grimsby was uninteresting, so we went straight on to Hull. As this was

the point where our vagabondage was properly to begin, I soon had my eye

on watch for what American tramps call a "town bum." I found one in a

main street, and introduced myself thus:

"I say, Jack, can you tell us where the moochers hang out in these

parts?"

"You're a Yank, ain't you?" said he.

This I acknowledged, at the same time asking, "Why?"

"Because I know a lot of blokes over in your country, an' I'm thinkin'

o' goin' over myself. How d' you think I'd like it?"

"Tiptop," I answered; "but you know they're givin' the likes of us

ninety days in Chicago now."

"O-oh, well, p'r'aps I'll go over later," was his rejoinder; and then he

told me where the moochers were to be found.

"You see thet corner! Well, just turn thet, an' keep hoofin' along till

you come to an alley. Go up to the top, then down on your right to the

bottom, an' ask roun' there somewhere for Blanket Row. You'll find all

the moochers you want there; but look out for the Robert and the Dee

[the policeman and the detective]. They'll give you seven days if they

catch you moochin'."

[Illustration: A LODGING-HOUSE.]

We found Blanket Row all right, and, luckily enough, at No. 21, a

kip-house (lodging-house), or doss-house, as some call it, nicknamed

"The Dog's Home." It looked rather uninviting, and we gazed at it

carefully before entering. After a little consultation we made up our

minds to go in, so we walked through a long and dirty passage, pushed

open a creaky, rickety door, and found ourselves in a smoky, dirty hole

containing about fifty moochers. I was greeted with: "Hello, Yank!

Where'd you come from?"

The voice came from the fire, and I walked over from the door, and found

as miserable a specimen of vagrancy as one often sees. I sat down, and

told him a long "ghost-story" (yarn), and he returned the favor in the

same coin. When he was convinced that I was one of the fraternity, he

pointed out various things of interest.

"Them fires," said he, "is where you cook your scoff [food]. You can

make tea, too, any time you like, provided, of course, you've got the

tea. You'll find all the pots, cans, pans, and boilers in that corner;

they b'long to the missus, but we use them. Them cupboards over there is

where you put your grub, ef you're stayin' here any time; they cost a

tanner [six-pence] apiece, but they ain't worth hawkin'. My stomach's

the only cupboard I need. That piece o' paper on the wall's the only

sort of picter they've got in the place."

I looked over at the wall, and saw upon it a notice to the effect that

smallpox was in the district, and that persons would be vaccinated free

of charge at a place specified.

All this while Ryborg was doing his best to play tramp, and the stories

he told, the tough way in which he tried to tell them, the half-and-half

effects they achieved, and his general out-of-place condition, were

almost as interesting to me as the real moochers. I overheard him

telling one of the men that he was "a sailor by inclination, but a tough

by temperament."

One of the tramps had taken a fancy to him, and was determined to be

hospitable, so he boiled a large can of tea, and made poor Ryborg drink,

drink, drink, till he had actually taken two quarts of the beverage at

one sitting. He told me afterward that he had made up his mind, if any

more were offered him, to pour it into his pocket, and trust to luck not

to get caught.

The Dog's Home in the second story consisted principally of beds. The

price of each is threepence a night, and this is the common price all

over Great Britain, except in the so-called "Models," where a penny more

is charged simply for the very deceitful name. I am sorry to say that

the house was not much cleaner in the second story than in the first, if

the tramps told us the truth. They all agreed in saying that the place

was "crummy" (infested with vermin); consequently we decided to sleep

elsewhere; for we wanted a good night's rest, and there was nothing

especially to be gained by staying there.

We lived in the "home" in the daytime, however, and were on the watch

for everything of interest. As for the "sweet charity" of Hull, I

learned that most of the moochers were satisfied when they could beg a

"bob" (shilling) a day besides "scoff," and some seemed happy on

fourpence a day. The old men and the young boys were most successful in

begging. There were vagrants of middle age, and some much younger, who

did fairly well; but they lacked the determined spirit of the

grandfathers and the kids. I had noticed this before in America, and

suppose it is because the very old and the very young tramps realize

that they must rely on their begging for subsistence, while the vagrants

of twenty-five and thirty know that they have an alternative in work

when luck goes against them, and are consequently less in earnest.

My companion and I, being somewhat better dressed than most of the

lodgers, were objects of considerable interest. Our hats, peculiarly

American in style, were the main curiosities. They proclaimed our

nationality wherever we went. Never in my life have I been so bothered

with stares. One day I took off my hat in a small crowd of people, and

asked a bystander if he saw anything peculiar about it. He admitted that

he did not; but still the citizens of Hull guyed me unmercifully, and,

for that matter, so did their countrymen elsewhere.

[Illustration: AN ENGLISH TYPE.]

I had been accustomed in America to dress fairly well when tramping, and

the very clothes I was wearing in England had seen service at home and

in Germany also; therefore I was quite unprepared for their comical

reception by the British. There was only one man in the Dog's Home who

appreciated our style, and he was a countryman not so very long out of

America. He was a most interesting fellow; had been both workman and

tramp at home; but one day bade good-by to Hartford, Connecticut, and

decided to go abroad. He came to Glasgow on a cattle-ship, expecting to

get a return pass on his arrival, but was deceived, and put ashore with

only four shillings in his pocket. Naturally he was angry, and made up

his mind to see Scotland, England, and Wales at the expense of

Scotchmen, Englishmen, and Welshmen. It was a courageous thing to do, if

not a moral one; and, perhaps, it was not so very wicked, for his one

ambition seemed to be to see the Tower of London. He had been "on tramp"

about two months, had had some interesting experiences, and had become

somewhat opinionated. Hearing that he had been in Scotland, I was

interested to know whether he liked the country and had learned any of

the tramp dialect that one might need there.

"To tell the truth, mate," he said, "I was too drunk. You see, I got

hold of a fellow in Glasgow who had some boodle, and we chummed it

together till the boodle was gone; and the only thing I can tell you

about Glasgow or Edinburgh is that they've got a fine pile of stone in

Edinburgh, right in the main street, to the memory of that

story-writer--you know his name--what is it?"

I suggested "Scott," and he went on:

"Yes; that's it--Scott. Well, since I've been out of Scotland I've had

some hard times, and I'd 'a' been in Ameriky long ago if I hadn't pawned

my rubber boots. I tell you, Jack, I'd ruther be lynched in our country

than die a natural death over here; and as for moochin' and lodgin',

why, I can beg in five minutes in New York more money than I can here in

a day. As it is, I'm a little bit of a wonder to some of these fellows,

because I'm so dead struck on havin' the pleasures of life. I look for

'em till I get 'em, you know, and so fur I've had my bob a day, besides

chuck. And that's more than some of these blasted gay-cats can say. Did

you ever in your life see such badly faked bums? They make me think of

prehistoric gorillas. Half the time only a few parts of their bodies are

covered in, and yet they think they can batter more when togged that

way. How's that for bein' bughouse [crazy], eh? Oh, well, you can laugh

all you want to; but by the time you've seen two per cent. of what I've

seen, you'll say, 'Thet Yank warn't fur from bein' right.'" He promised

to have another talk with me at the World's Fair.

The fellow was correct about the clothes and the filthiness of the

English moocher. Generally he dresses in a way that in America would be

thought indecent and in Germany criminal. He is too lazy to clean up, if

he had the chance, and harbors vermin as if he liked them. It is not

surprising that lodging-houses are so unclean; for if the proprietors of

these places should admit only decent tramps, their houses would be left

without occupants in a very short time. This is not an attractive

theme, but it is one for the practical reformer to treat; for I am

convinced that when a man becomes callous in regard to filth, his

reformation will be far to seek. And there is nothing that can make a

purely temporary vagrant a thoroughgoing one so surely as the inability

to keep himself clean in person.

One little incident in the Dog's Home is worth telling, for it

illustrates a trait that is international among tramps. A kid had in

some way offended an older moocher, and the man was on the point of

striking him, when the Hartford tramp stepped forward and said: "You

wouldn't hit a kid, would you?"

The man started back and answered: "Well, I ortn' to, I know; but he

plagued me like a reglar little divil."

That is a trait in trampdom, and even among criminals, that I have

noticed wherever I have been. My own case illustrates it also. I am

somewhat smaller than the average man, and I have no doubt that I have

often enough offended some of my cronies; but never in all my experience

have I had a real row or been struck by a tramp. I remember once

quarreling with a vagabond until I became very hot-headed. I was

preparing boldly for action, when the great, burly fellow said: "I say,

Cigarette, if ye're a-goin' to fight, I'm a-goin' to run." Such

sentiment is fine anywhere, and doubly fine when found, as it is so

often, in the life of the vagrant beggar.

From Hull, Ryborg and I walked to York, visiting nearly every kip-house

on the way, as this place is the best for studying English moochers. In

the kip at Beverley we learned that Mr. Gladstone was always good for a

bob--a statement that I very much doubt; for if it had been widely

known, the Grand Old Man would have gone to the workhouse, so numerous

are English beggars. Another story told there was that of the "hawker

tramp." He had a little girl with him, and the two evidently did a very

fair business.

"We've just come from Edinbro," said the old man, "and altogether we

ain't done bad; but we'd been nowhere 'thout the bible.[8] You see,

now'days in England, to beg much of a swag a feller has got to have some

sort of a gag, and the hawkin' gag is as good as any. We've had

shoe-strings, pencils, buttons, and lots of other things in stock; but

all the good they've done us, and all the good they do any moocher, is

to get him into a house or pub with a good excuse. When he's once in, he

can beg good enough; and if Robert comes along, he can claim that he's

simply peddlin'. See? Besides, I've got a license, in order to be safe;

it only costs five bob, an' is well worth havin'. If you're goin' to beg

much in these parts, you'd better git one, too."

This is the "hawkin' gag," and very popular it is, too. In America it

has almost exhausted itself, with all the other peddling tricks,

excepting always the "mush faker," or umbrella peddler and mender, and

the "fawny man," or hawker of spurious jewelry. In England simple and

artistic begging is by no means so well done as in America. The English

moocher has to resort to his "gag," and his "lurks" are almost

innumerable. One day he is a "shallow cove" or "shivering Jimmy ";

another he is a "crocus" (sham doctor): but not very often is he a

successful mendicant pure and simple. He begs all the time, to be sure,

but continually relies on some trick or other for success.

On arriving at York, we went at once to Warmgate, the kip-house

district, and picked out the filthiest kip we could find. The inmates

were principally in pairs; each moocher had his Judy (wife), and each

little kid had his little Moll (sister). These children are the very

offspring of the road, and they reminded me of monkeys. Yet one has to

feel sorry for them, since they did not ask for life, and yet are

compelled to see its meanest and dirtiest side. Their mothers, when they

are not drunk, love them; and when they are, their fathers have to play

mothers, if they are not drunk themselves. Never in my life have I seen

a more serio-comic situation than in that York kip-house, where two

tramps were rocking their babies to sleep. Moochers--Bohemians of the

Bohemians--fondling their babies! I should far sooner have looked for a

New York hobo in clergyman's robes. But tramping with children and

babies is a fad in English vagabondage.

From this I turned to listen to a very domestic confab between a Judy

and her mate. She had just washed her face, and made herself really

pretty. Then she sat down on a bench close to her man, and began to pet

him. This bit of discourse followed:

"Just go and get a shave now, Jim. I'll give you a wing [penny], if you

will, for the doin' o' 't."

"Bah! What's the matter uv my phiz, anyhow?"

"Naw; you doan't look purty. I can't love you thet way."

"Blast yer love, anyhow! Doan't keep a-naggin' all the time."

"Please, now, git a scrape. I'm all washed up. You mought look as decent

as I do."

"Lemme alone; I'm on the brain [I'm thinking]."

"Well, you mought have me on the brain a little more than you do. Didn't

I git you out o' bein' pinched the other day?"

He looked at her, relented, patted her head, and went for a shave.

The surprise to me in all this was the genuine wifeliness of that Judy.

She was probably as degraded as womankind ever gets to be, and yet she

had enough humanity in her to be really in love.

Just a word here as to tramp companionship in England. Among the men,

although one now and then sees "mates," he more often meets the male

vagabonds alone, so far as other men are concerned. Women, too, do not

often ally themselves with other women. But between the sexes

partnership is common; though seldom long-lived, it is very friendly

while it lasts. The woman is practically the slave of the man; he is the

supposed breadwinner, but the Judy does more than her share of the

begging all the while.

We went by rail from York to Durham, for there was little of interest to

be found between the two points. Everywhere it was the cities far more

than the country that furnished the most amusing and instructive sights.

On the train a rather pleasant-looking man, overhearing our

conversation, asked Ryborg who we were.

"You'll excuse me," said he, "but your intelligence does seem a little

more valuable than your clothes; and would you mind telling me what you

are doing in England?"

As he seemed a candid sort of fellow, Ryborg began very frankly to tell

him our mission, and I took up the story when he was tired. It was

difficult for the stranger to express his astonishment.

"What!" said he. "Do you mean to say that you've left good homes behind

you, and are over here simply to study tramps? What good will it ever do

you?"

"Well," said Ryborg, "it's one way of seeking the truth."

"I declare, you're the rummest pair of fellows I've ever seen," he

returned; and he looked after us curiously as we got off the train at

Durham.

Here we gave the vagabonds a wide berth, on account of smallpox; three

tramps had been taken out of a kip-house that very day; so after a

night's rest we moved on to Newcastle, stopping for a few hours on the

way at the dirtiest kip that we found in England. One of the inmates, a

powerful poser as a bully, was terrorizing an old man.

"I say, granddad, get me a light, will you? Be sharp, now!"

OLD MAN. I'm too rheumatizin'-like. Caan't you get it yerself?

BULLY. Naw, I caan't. I waant you to get it. Hustle, now!

OLD MAN. I sha'an't do it. I ain't yer Hi Tittle Ti-Ti, an' I waant you

to rec'lect it, too.

BULLY. See here, pop; what date is to-day?

OLD MAN. Fifth of March.

BULLY. Well, pop, just twelve months ago to-day I killed a man. So look

out!

The old man brought the light.

[Illustration: A MOOCHER.]

Newcastle, from the vagabond's point of view, exists principally in

Pilgrim Street. I visited three kips there, saw eighty-four new faces,

and learned something about the wages of beggars in England. Four

moochers gave me the information. They were quarreling at the time.

Number One was saying: "It's a lie. I'd git off the road in a minute ef

I could only beg what you say I can. Ef I hustle I can git four bob a

day, and I'm willin' to fight that I can, too."

Number Two said: "You never mooched four bob in your life; you knaw

you're happy when you git ten wing a day. I'm the only moocher in this

'ouse, an' I want you to know it. I beg 'xac'ly five bob in eight hours;

an' ef I begged twenty-four hours, 'ow much'd that be?"

Number Three here put in: "Tired legs an' 'n empty stomach."

Number Four: "Keep still, ye bloomin' idjits!"

None of them could beg over two bob a day, and they knew it. There are

beggars in England who can average nearly half a sovereign a day, but

they are by no means numerous. Most of them are able to get about

eighteen pence or two shillings; that is all.

Our Newcastle friends told us that the road between there and Edinburgh

was not a profitable one. They claimed that the people were too

"clanny-like," meaning too stingy. The Durham district they called the

"bread and cheese caounty," while Yorkshire was the "pie and cake

neighborhood." Accordingly, we took ship for Leith.

A fellow-passenger, half hoosier and half criminal, made up his mind

that I was a crooked man. "Don't come near me," he said; "you're a

pickpocket, an' I can feel it."

I said: "How can you tell?"

"By your hand-shake and the cut of your phiz."

And throughout the trip he continued to regard me as a species of

bogy-man, while Ryborg he considered a most reputable traveler. So he

was and is; but he made some of his most criminal faces on that same

voyage, nevertheless. One of them, I particularly remember, seemed to

say, "I can't eat, can't sleep, can't do anything"; and his under lip

would fall in a most genuine manner. He was often eloquent in his

representations of my ability to pose as a tramp; but I am sure that

nothing I can do would so quickly throw even the vigilant off the track

as that face of my companion.

We went into Scotland without any prejudice; but we had scarcely been in

Edinburgh three hours when an English roadster tried to make me

believe terrible things of the "Scotties," as he called the Scotch

tramps. "The Scotties are good enough to mooch with," said he, "an'

ain't bad people in some ways till they're drunk; an' then they're

enough to make a cat sick. Why, Yank, they can't talk about anything

then but Bobbie Burns. It's Bobbie did this, an' Bobbie did that, till

you'd think the sun didn't rise an' set on anybody else. I wish the

feller hadn't ever lived." The poor man had evidently never read

Bobbie's "Jolly Beggars"; for if he had he would have long since made a

pilgrimage to Ayr.