Edinburgh can almost be reckoned as one of the best mooching towns in

Great Britain, and if I were a beggar casting about for a

life-residence, I think I should select this beautiful city, and that

from my own personal experience. There is something deliriously

credulous in the true citizen, and the university makes it a specially

good place for clothes. Our first meal in the town we found at a

"refuge" in High Street. We paid a penny apiece for a quart of good

thick soup and half a loaf of bread. It was the largest quantity of food

I have ever had for so little money; but it should be remembered that it

was a charity. Cheap-restaurant living, in both Scotland and England, is

more of a theory than a reality. For twopence I have had a dinner at a

Herberge in Germany that I could not get in Great Britain for five; and

for ten cents I have had _table d'hôte_ with four courses in Chicago

that I could not get in London for a shilling.

The cheapest restaurants that I know of in the United Kingdom are the

cocoa-rooms; but a tramp can live three times as cheaply in the

kip-house, if he cooks his own food. Tramps fully realize this, and it

is seldom that they go near a cocoa-room. One old moocher said to me,

when I questioned him on the subject, "I've been in them places time and

again, but I never get my stomach's worth in them"--a statement to which

I can add my own similar testimony.

When traveling from Edinburgh to Glasgow, the tramp has two routes--one

by way of Bathgate, the other by way of Linlithgow. Neither of them is a

good begging highway. The people along the road are, as the German tramp

would say, _ausgepumpt_. Nevertheless, it must be traveled afoot, for

railway fares in Great Britain are much too high for the beggar's purse.

Ryborg and I determined this time to separate, he going through

Bathgate, and I by way of Linlithgow. In this way we covered more

ground, and at the same time Ryborg had the desired opportunity to play

the tramp alone. His argument for the experiment ran in this wise: "To

save my life, I don't seem to be able to talk with these beggars more

than two minutes at a time, and I'm really afraid that I am spoiling

your scheme. You see, if they discover that I am not what I pretend to

be, our work is in danger; so I'll try this trip alone, and see if I

can't get a little more into the tramp spirit." We promised to find each

other in front of the general post-office in Glasgow.

On the whole journey I found but one interesting moocher, and that a

moocheress. She traveled my way for about two hours, and as she smoked

my cigarettes she gave me a little of her biography. She had lived just

fifty years, did not know when she entered trampdom, had no recollection

of her parents, and believed mainly in "booze," as she called it. She

prided herself on being a fighting woman, as do a great many of the

English Judies.

"Why, I'm a reg'lar Charley Mitchell," said she, "when I want to be."

"Wouldn't you rather be a John L. Sullivan?" said I, to test her

patriotism.

"Oh, yes, ef I wuz Amerikin; but I'm English--I'm patriotic, I am."

"Then," said I, "you wouldn't want to be Lackie Thompson."

"D' you want t' insult me?" said she. "Naw; I wouldn' be anything

Scot-like."

"How is it, Judy, that you are in Scotland, then?"

"Oh, I'm just lookin' fer me mate. I lost him in Edinburgh, an' 's soon

's I find him, I'm goin' back to England." Just before I left her she

said: "Tell me how you draw thet smoke in. I've heard thet it's real

good; but how d' you do it?"

I told her how to inhale the smoke of a cigarette. She tried it, choked,

and promised herself by all the gods of her poor heaven never to try it

again. English Judies are great smokers, but they use clay pipes, as a

rule.

Glasgow is the best kip town that we found. Its lodging-houses are known

all over Great Britain, and as soon as I was well within the city I

asked for a "Burns Home." There are several of these in Glasgow, all

belonging to Mr. Robert Burns, who was once a working-man, but is now a

wealthy proprietor. He built his homes mainly to make money, but also to

furnish poor workmen a cheap and fairly respectable sleeping-place. I

stayed at the Watson Street Home, and although there were many workmen

in the place, there were also numerous vagabonds. In the "sitting-room"

there must have been about a hundred and fifty people, and some of them

had been loafing around Glasgow for months. I made friends with one of

these old residents, and he did me some good service. He had been in

America, had been well treated there, he said, and so wanted to treat me

well. I asked him about the industrial intentions of the lodgers at the

"home."

"Well," said he, "it's hard to tell about all of them. Some of these

fellows sit in this room from morning till night, and never are seen to

beg a copper; yet they live, too. Others do a little work now and then

as 'sandwich-men,' and other little jobs, while there's a few of us do

nothing but beg."

"Is Glasgow a good town for moochin'?" I asked.

"Well, that depends on the moocher. There's enough charity here, and

some to spare, if you know how to look for it. I never get over half a

crown a day, but I can tell you a dozen places where you can get your

dinner. Scoff's always more plenty than money."

"D' you mind tellin' what's the main gag in Glasgow just now, for

raisin' money?" I queried still further.

"Well, I think gettin' vaccinated 's about the best thing goin' just

now."

"What d' you mean?"

"Well, you see, smallpox 's on the boards; the people are scared; bums

are likeliest to get the sickness; so it's been arranged that any man

who will get himself vaccinated can have a week's kip free. Some

blokes've been jagged [vaccinated] two or three times."

This same vagabond did me another good turn down near the docks. We were

walking along a street when three town tramps came along and guyed my

hat. My companion noticed it, and as I had told him that I had been

considerably martyrized in this way before, he turned round sharply on

the guyers, and thundered out:

"Who're you lookin' at? Ef you're tryin' to guy this Yank, you'd better

stop. Ef you don't, there'll be a fight."

I said: "Let's run, if you really mean that."

"Not much! I'm English, you know; and I can knock out any Scotchman that

comes around, and I'm in the mood for 't right now."

The town bums took him at his word, and left. I said to him: "You

English fellows seem to have things pretty much your own way here."

"Yes," he answered; "we English fellers know how to bluff. We've been

bluffin' the world now for a good many years."

"You forget the United States," I could not help interjecting.

"Beg pardon, Yank; beg pardon!"

Ryborg and I met at the post-office, according to agreement. He had seen

so few tramps along the way that he was still in doubt as to his

abilities. He remained courageous, however, and I proposed a trip to

Dublin. This meant Irish Sea, no appetite, and general ill health. But

off we sailed to see Ireland. We stayed nine hours, and then sailed back

to Liverpool. On the way I saw more of Ireland in a dear old Biddy than

I did in Dublin. She claimed that she saw Ireland in me also--a

discernment truly penetrating, considering that the Irish in me died out

about two hundred years ago.

In Liverpool our tramp work began again in good earnest, and I was

fortunate in meeting there an old friend--Manchester Charley. We went

around the Horn[9] together a few years ago, and got very well

acquainted, as tramps will on such journeys; but we did not expect to

meet next in Liverpool, though I knew Charley had left the States for

London. He seemed glad to see me, and yet a little ashamed of me, too.

My shoes were rather played out, and in other respects, also, I was

somewhat below the American tramp grade. Charley noticed this, and his

first greeting was, "Shall I get you a new pair of shoes?" I explained

the situation as best I could, but Charley could not understand how I

could "lower myself so." I told him that I was certainly better dressed

than most of the tramps I had met along the road, whereat he laughed

most scornfully.

"Why, Cig," he said, "the fellers you've been bummin' with are nothin'

but skugees [a species of gay-cat]. You haven't seen a first-class hobo

yet, I'll bet."

That was true, if one takes the American hobo as the standard, and I

admitted it. Then he introduced three of his companions, saying: "Here

are some of the real article."

They were very clever-appearing vagabonds, and very well dressed, too. I

acknowledged their vast superiority as politely as I was able to do, and

asked Charley how it had come about that I had so missed the genuine

beggars, as I had all the while been on the lookout for them.

Charley said: "The fact is, there are not many of us in England. Up at

London you'll find more than anywhere else, but we ain't anywhere near

as strong as you fellers in the States."

"Why is this? You certainly ought to be," I returned.

"Well," he replied, "this is how it is. The country is full of these

half-and-half bums. They go everywhere, and the people get tired of

them; so when a really sharp moocher comes along, he has to run his

chance of bein' classed with them chaps--that is, if he begs at houses.

If he does as I do,--sends letters of introduction,--his luck will

probably be better. Here in Liverpool, for instance, we do fairly well

at the letter racket; but we could never make a livin' at all if we had

to batter the way most beggars do."

Later in the day Charley explained matters more fully, and it turned

out, as I expected, that he did "crooked work" also, both he and his

comrades. I said to him at parting: "I could succeed in England, too, if

I wanted to do that sort of business; but that isn't legitimate

mooching."

"It all depends," he answered. "A tramp ought to do anything he can,

and there's no feller so able to dodge the Dee as a bum if he plays the

beggar and is a crook besides."

This is a fact; but still it is not true hoboing or mooching, this being

a beggar only in appearance. Some men do it constantly, I know; but the

real tramp, wherever he is found, will rarely go into anything outside

of begging and cheating. Thieving he leaves to more experienced hands.

Liverpool fairly swarms with the lowest class of tramps, and we many

times voted Manchester Charley's testimony correct. They live off any

one they can capture, even "visiting brethren," and are cordially hated

by them.

[Illustration: A REST BY THE WAYSIDE.]

We planned to separate in our journey to London, after the manner of our

last trip in Scotland. Ryborg was to take his way through Crewe,

Birmingham, Warwick, and Oxford; I was to visit Chester, Shrewsbury,

Hereford, Bristol, and Bath. We were to meet at the end of a week in

Reading, and journey on to London together. My own experiences on the

way were very common. I saw only a repetition of what I had become

familiar with in the other parts of England: "prehistoric gorillas," a

few rather clever beggars, about twenty kip-houses, and more than two

hundred vagrants. Nearly half of them, however, were seeking work. Two

nights I slept in straw-stacks, and each time I had fully a dozen

companions. They called themselves "free dossers," and in one way they

were rather amusing--in fact, a new species of tramp: they were

determined not to spend a copper of what they begged.

It seems that these fellows start out from London early in the spring,

and batter all summer. In the autumn they return to London with their

swag and spend the winter in some comfort. On their travels they either

beg what they need or go without. If they cannot beg a lodging, they

sleep in barns, brick-yards, and straw-stacks; and from early in March

till late in September they do not squander a single halfpenny that

comes in their way. I had never before met this variety of vagabond, and

I doubt very much whether they would be allowed to associate with the

real American hoboes; for the true tramp likes more generosity among his

fellows, and when he meets a stingy brother he is likely to give him a

wide berth.

Once in Reading, Ryborg and I met at the appointed corner, and he gave

the following account of himself:

"In the first place, I had a mean road, and saw but few vagabonds. I had

only three experiences. The first was not far from Crewe. I was

practising to become a beggar, and I tried to smoke a pipe. For a while

I made out very well, and accomplished a lot of smoke. I thought I

should get on well now in kip-houses. But the second pipe played me a

mean trick. I felt bad all over, and staggered along the road most

unbecomingly for either a gentleman or a beggar. I gave it up. My second

experience was with a crazy tramp. He traveled with me for nearly an

hour, and I could find nothing interesting in him except his habit of

wetting his middle finger and rubbing it on his cheek-bone. This he did

constantly; but though I questioned him carefully, I could get nothing

out of him. Finally he got angry with me, and leaned up against a fence

till I left him. My last adventure happened when a workman gave me

fivepence. He thought I was an honest and unfortunate laborer, and

after we had talked awhile he handed me the money, saying very politely,

'Perhaps this will help you on your travels.'"

Our first night in London was spent in a German Herberge in the East

End. The second night we slept in a Salvation Army shelter in

Whitechapel Road. At this last place we paid twopence each for our

beds--boxes, I should say. They look like coffins with no bottoms except

the floor. Yet they are comfortable enough, considering the price. The

blankets are of leather, and if a man keeps his clothes on he can sleep

warmly enough. On entering the shelter, we went to the rear of the

building, where some of the lodgers were smoking their pipes and

recounting their day's experiences. Everything was as orderly as

possible, although many of the men were out-and-out vagabonds. I devoted

myself to an old man who had a very bad cough. He spoke kindly of the

Salvation Army, and had only one complaint to make.

"These Salvationers," said he, "forget one thing: they forget that we

men are tired. In the meetings they want us to sing 's loud 's ef we'd

just got out of bed. They say, 'Come on, men; sing away, be happy--sing,

now!' But how 's a man goin' to sing after he's mooched and walked all

day, I should like to know? I ain't no enemy of the Salvationers, but I

wish they'd remember that we get fagged out."

Ryborg and I went into the meeting, and as long as I live I shall never

forget the sincerity of its leaders. They were not especially wise or

delicate, but they were in earnest all over. One of the "soldiers"

handed us hymn-books, and said, "Cheer up, men; better times a-comin'";

and the entire spirit of the meeting was of the same good fellowship. I

felt then what I had felt often before, that the Salvation Army, in

spite of its many mistakes, is, after all, one of the most consistent

agencies for the betterment of the class it seeks to uplift. The leaders

of this meeting believed in their hearts that we should be "lost" unless

something interposed to "save" us, and they were determined to save us

if they could. In other words, the Salvation Army actually believes in

hell, and is "hustling" to keep men out of it.

We went to bed about ten o'clock, but I slept very little. The lodgers

coughed nearly all night, and it was impossible to rest in such a

racket; but as some of the men said, it was better than sleeping out.

The next two nights of our stay as tramps in London were spent in the

Notting Hill casual ward, or "spike," as it is called in tramp parlance.

There are twenty-four of these wards in London, and they are well

scattered over England at large also. Their object is to afford

wanderers a place where they can get food and lodging for a night or two

by earning it. The usual work required is stone-breaking and

oakum-picking. We had delayed visiting these places until we should

arrive in London, as they are all very much alike, and we cared for only

one experience of their hospitality. As I knew that this Notting Hill

ward is considered one of the best in all England, we went there. Two

years before I had visited this ward as a "gentleman." I had a letter

from the president of the Board of Guardians, and I was treated most

kindly. But on this March evening I went in as a tramp, and, as was to

be expected, my treatment was entirely different.

We appeared at the door of the ward about half-past seven. A little

window was raised, and I stepped forward to state our business.

Unconsciously I leaned against the sill of the window, which offended

the inspector in charge considerably.

"What's your name?" he thundered. Still leaning on the sill, I gave him

my name honestly enough. He then remarked to some person inside that we

were not accustomed to such places, evidently, and called out, "Stand

back, will you!" Back I stood. He cried out again, "Take off your hat!"

My hat came off instanter. Still again: "You come in here as if you was

a meeleeonary. You're not; you're a casual." I was as meek as could well

be. Ryborg was itching to grab the inspector with his long arms. The

next question was as to where we had slept the night before.

"Straw-stack," I replied.

"None of your impudence! You slept out--why don't you say so? Have you

got any money?"

"A ha'penny, sir."

"Hand it in!" In it went. Then I had to tell my trade, which was that of

a sailor; and naturally the next question was as to where I was bound.

"To Ameriky, sir, if I can ever get there."

"You're goin' to tramp it, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir; that's my intention"; but for the life of me I could not see

how I was to reach America that way. I was so frightened that I would

have told him anything he wanted.

When he was through with us, a kind-hearted attendant took us in hand,

gave us some gruel and bread, a bath, clean night-shirts, and then a

cell apiece, in which we slept very well.

As there were only four inmates that morning, we were needed for the

cleaning up, and so escaped stone-breaking, which I dreaded exceedingly,

and were put at various light occupations--or rather I was. Ryborg was

the victim of his strength. Our breakfast consisted of the same dish as

our supper of the night before. I was soon busy as general fireman,

scrubber, knife-cleaner, coal-carrier, dish-washer, and helper of my

sister-sufferer, Mrs. Murphy, as she washed her task of towels and

shirts. At noon we had pea-soup and bread. I enjoyed it, but Ryborg did

not. The poor fellow was feeling badly; he had had to scrub nearly

twenty cells, and the bending over incident to such a feat had nearly

broken his back. At dinner he said plaintively, "Flynt, I want to go

home." "So do I," I replied; "but I fancy we're wanted here till

to-morrow morning." This proved to be the case; but he felt better in

the afternoon, and got through comfortably, wheeling nearly a ton of

stone from some of the cells to the general pile. He earned his keep, if

ever any poor prisoner did.

I fear I was more shiftless, for about the middle of the afternoon the

attendant who was with me at the furnace said: "You might as well rest;

just keep your eye on the fires, that's all." It was kind of him; and as

I had at least earned my pea-soup and gruel, I took his advice. He was

kinder to me, I think, because I gave him a corn-cob pipe which he had

had to take away from me the night before. During the day he had asked

me several questions about it, and I said: "It's a very decent sort of

pipe--coolin'-like, you know."

"Doesn't Mark Twain always smoke one o' them pipes?" said he.

"Blest if I know," said I; "but I can well think it."

"I'm a great friend of Mark Twain," he pursued; "an' I'm a-thinkin' o'

gettin' one o' them pipes, jest out of respect for him."

"Well," said I, "permit me, in the name of your respect, to present you

with my pipe; besides, you've got it, anyhow."

He thanked me profusely, and promised to keep it forever. Later in the

day he reported it to be just as I had said, "sort o' coolin'-like." And

he was a good friend to me all the rest of my stay in the Notting Hill

station.

On Wednesday morning we were turned loose with our two ha'pennies. We

were both so happy that we decided to get off the road that very day.

We had been tramps for three weeks, and had walked most of this time

fully fifteen miles a day; so we looked up my friend at the Temple, and

in a few hours were respectable again. That same day I took my tramp

clothes out to the casual ward, and presented them to my friend the

attendant. I had told him the day before that I expected to get new togs

soon, and he had put in a plea for my old ones. Good luck to him and

them!

* * * * *

Something definite ought to be said here, I think, regarding the

character of the English moocher, and as Ryborg is new in trampdom, and

as his impressions are likely to be sharper than mine, I have asked him

to write out, in a few words, his general opinion of the tramps he met

in this three weeks' journey.

Most of the tramps we met during our trip in England impressed me

as being a trifle insane. There is a peculiar dullness and lack of

nervous energy about them that distinguish them very noticeably

from the working-men. Still, they have a marked sagacity in

getting up tricks to secure their food and lodging, and in getting

out of work. Their life, together with ill-nourishing food, would

tend to produce a mild form of insanity. There is surely a

peculiarity about their mental structure that I have observed

nowhere else.

They are fond of philosophizing about themselves, and in a comical

way. One of the worst vagabonds I saw told me that he considered

himself as fine a fellow as any one, and that he had two brothers

who were well-to-do, but he could not stick to one thing long

enough to lay up money. He said that it never did anybody any good

to knock about, unless his mind was so formed that he could learn

by it. He did not see that he was not the equal of anybody in

perseverance, and he was not able to understand why it was not

considered very noble to live by begging and by peddling without a

license.

Some attribute their pauper condition to a roving disposition;

others lay their misfortunes to a cruel fate; but it is very

evident that the passion for drink is at the bottom of ninety per

cent. of the vagrancy in England.

The tramps do not seem at all discontented or unhappy. They

complained sometimes that people were stingy, but almost all of

them looked well fed. There are a few of them who really want

work, but the majority are not very anxious for a job. As one of

the men in the kip-house said one day, after there had been a good

deal of discussion on the subject: "Well, there's more talk about

work in this house than there's doin' of 't."

Most of the tramps we met were well informed, and fully half of

them had been in America, or the "States," as they say. They also

keep up to the times on political issues and pugilistic and police

news. In one of the lodging-houses I heard the keeper of the place

reading the police news of the week to an interested circle of

beggars. I was struck by a remark of one of the fellows, that the

sentence of the court was not so severe as one culprit had

deserved.

They are a very hospitable set to their own kind. I never entered

a kip without a seat being offered to me, and in many cases they

gave me a bowl of tea and a bit of bread. I never saw any

quarreling over the cooking-utensils or the corner of the

fireplace. Though they are without doubt the dirtiest and the

raggedest and the poorest of men, I was everywhere treated by them

with politeness, so far as they understood politeness; in fact,

they were often far more courteous than the steamer and other

officials under whose charge I came during the journey.

These conclusions are identical with my own. Excepting workhouses,

casual wards, one or two "ticket systems," and jails, there seems to be

no great amount of legal machinery for the treatment of vagrancy in

England. The workhouses are places where any one who can prove that he

is penniless may be taken in indefinitely. The casual ward has already

been explained. The ticket system is simply the issuing of tickets, at

police stations, to vagrants in need of food, the tickets calling for so

much bread, and perhaps a lodging. Sometimes the ticket must be worked

for, and sometimes it is gratis. The jails are mean places to get into,

the discipline being severe, and work being exacted of the prisoners.

Sentences for begging range from seven days upward, but most of the

tramps with whom I talked spoke of seven days as the usual punishment

for simple begging, unless the offender could be proved to be an old

stager.

As regards the punishment of the confirmed beggar in England, there

seems to me to be but one thing to say: it is too slight and trivial.

The professional beggar should be shut up indefinitely. There are plenty

to laugh at this suggestion, I am aware. Well and good. Just so long as

they laugh, the beggars will laugh also; and it is my opinion that the

beggars will come out ahead.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The "bible" is tramp slang for the hawker's little parcel of things

which he is supposed to peddle.

[9] The Horn is a bit of railway in Iowa, extending from Red Oak

southward for about twenty miles, then northwest for twenty more. It is

used principally for long trains, as the main line from Red Oak to

Pacific Junction is too hilly.

IV

THE TRAMP AT HOME

In an article which appeared in the "Contemporary Review" for August,

1891, I made a first attempt to relate some of my experiences in tramp

life in the United States, and endeavored to describe a true knight of

the road. It was a short paper, and there was a great deal left unsaid

that might have been said, but it was a truthful report as far as it

went. To one intimately acquainted with the hoboes I doubt whether the

article would have seemed inaccurate, but it was so judged by some

critics, and a number of my statements were challenged. Among other

criticisms made, it was said that I had mistaken the character of the

"American tramp" in three particulars: first, his nationality; second,

his numbers; third, his unwillingness to work. It was also assumed that

an Englishman was responsible for the supposed false statements.

I was in New York at the time, and having ten days at my disposal before

leaving for Europe, I decided to retrace some of my old routes and have

another view of the situation. This chapter is a report of my

experiences on the journey, and I have confined myself to the rehearsal

of bare facts without further comment, believing that the reader will

moralize and philosophize whenever necessary.

It was about five o'clock on the afternoon of a cool September day that

I left my friend's home clad as a tramp, and started for the night boat

for Albany. I wore an old suit of clothes, a flannel shirt, a good pair

of shoes, and a respectable hat. I had paid special attention to the

shoes and hat, for it is a piece of tramp philosophy that the two

extremities of a beggar are first looked at by the person of whom he is

begging. While riding from Harlem down to the landing-place of the

steamer, I laughed to myself while thinking how the tramps would envy me

my nice head- and foot-gear. I wondered, too, whether I should be

allowed to return with these coverings.

At the ticket-office I paid one of my three dollars for a ticket on the

boat to Albany. I made this heavy draft upon my slight exchequer because

I was afraid to beat my way on the railroad between the two cities. I

knew of old how roadsters are hated by the residents of both banks of

the Hudson River, and not being at all sure that I should be successful

in making the journey from New York to Albany in one night as a

"dead-beat" on a freight-train, I felt safer in buying a second-class

ticket on the steamboat, and beginning my journey in the morning at

Albany.

I fear that the reader would have laughed at my calamity had he seen me

after landing at Albany. Then I was a tramp indeed, for the other two

dollars had disappeared from my pockets while I was sleeping with a

motley crowd of Italians on some boxes thrown promiscuously about the

hold of the steamboat. There was now no possibility of dilettantism. I

had to go head over heels into the beggar's life. I am glad now that it

was so, but for the moment I was downhearted, for I had leaned on those

two dollars as possible friends if my begging courage should fail me at

the crucial moment. But this was past, my bridges were burned, so I

began my journey in earnest.

I sauntered lazily over to West Albany, for it was still early, and

arrived as the people were lighting their breakfast fires. I waited

until it seemed that the fires should have done their duty, and then

began. I visited several houses. Sometimes the man of the house said

that his wife was sick, or that he was out of work himself; and

sometimes they told me to get out--that they had already fed one tramp.

My fifth call was at the home of a German woman who claimed that she had

fed beggars in the Fatherland. She invited me in, placed a nice warm

breakfast before me, and then we began a conversation in German about

life, labor, and beggars. She was sorry for me, and said that I looked

too young to be a beggar. I told her a tale. It was one of those stories

in which the ghost of a truth still lingers--such as tramps know so well

how to tell. I shall never know exactly how much of it she believed, or

what she thought of me, as I told her that I was the outcast of a

_hochwohlgeboren_ family in Germany. I know, however, that she was

sympathetic, and that she took me in, whether she did the same for my

romance or not.

After breakfast I started for Troy. I knew that I should meet with

plenty of loafers during the walk, and I preferred chatting with them on

or near the highway. For Albany has a penitentiary. There is not a

well-informed tramp in the United States that does not know about that

prison; it has punished many a vagrant, and the Albany policemen are no

friends to beggars. Syracuse Tom will bear me out in this statement, for

he winters in Albany with his kid every year; but he does this simply

because he is so well posted. Of course other tramps visit Albany as

well, for it is a well-known town for "refreshments"; but only a few can

thrive long there by begging only for money.

On my way to Troy I found a camp of thirty-three tramps. They were

living off the charity of Albany. They had all been in for breakfast,

and were now returned to the hang-out to chat and scheme. Some were

discussing Albany prisons, its policemen, saloons, and general

hospitality. Others had built a fire, and were boiling their shirts in a

borrowed kettle to kill the vermin. Still others were planning Southern

tours. Some had decided to winter in St. Augustine, some in

Jacksonville, and a few were talking of the best routes to New Orleans.

One of the fellows recognized me. He must needs know where I had been so

long, and why my hands were so white. "Cigarette," he said, "have you

been a-doin' time? Where did you get yer white colors?" I told Yorkey

that I had been sick, and had been back on the road only a few days. He

would not believe me, and I am afraid that he took me for a "crooked

man," for he said: "Cig, you've not been in the sick-lugger all this

while, and I hain't seen your register for many a day. No, my young

bloke; you can't fool me. You've been up a tree, and you can't deny it."

I could not convince him of my innocence, so we dropped the subject, and

I told him that I was bound for Buffalo, where I had friends who would

help me to brace up and get off the road. I assured him that I knew now

what a foolish business "bumming" was, and that I was going to make a

grand effort to get work. Even this he would not believe, and he

insisted that I was going West to some town where I knew that the tramps

were going to have a "drunk." He tried to persuade me to go South with

him, and claimed that Yonkers Slim was going to meet him in Washington

with some money, and that the bums intended to have a great

"sloppin'-up" (drinking-bout). I made him understand that I was

determined to go West. Then he gave me some advice which was typical.

"Young feller, you're goin' to a pretty poor country. Why, when I left

Buffalo two weeks ago, the bulls [police] were more than pinchin' the

tramps right in the streets, and givin' them ninety days. The only

decent thing about a journey up that way is the New York Central

Railroad. You can ride that to death. That's the only godsend the

country has. Jes let me tell you, though, what towns it cuts through,

and then you'll squeal. Now, there's Schenectady. You can chew all right

there, but divil a cent can you beg. Then comes Fonda, and you must

know what a poor town that is. Then you've got Utica, where you can feed

all right, for any fool can do that, but you can't hit a bloke for a

dime in the streets without a bull seein' you and chuckin' you up for

fifty-nine days in Utica jail. And you must know well enough what that

jail is this time o' year--it's jes filled with a blasted lot o'

gay-cats [men who will work] who've been on a booze. After Utica there's

Rochester, a place that onc't was good, but isn't worth pawnin' now

since that gay-cat shot a woman there some time ago. After Rochester,

what you got? Buffalo--the most God-forsaken town a bum ever heard of."

Here I interrupted my lecturer to say that I had heard of Buffalo as a

good "chewing town." He turned upon me fiercely. "What d' you want? D'

you only want to chew? Don't you want boodle, booze, togs, and a good

livin'? Of course you do, jes like ev'ry genooine hobo. It's only a

blasted gay-cat that'll fool around this country now. Cig, you'd better

come South with us. Why, las' year the blokes more than sloughed in

money around the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Aug'stine. We kin git there

in a week if we ride passenger-trains. You'll hustle for an overcoat if

you stay here much longer, an' I'll bet my Thanksgivin' dinner that

every bloke you meet up the road is bound South. You'd better foller

their coat-tails." I thanked Yorkey, but satisfied him that I was

determined to get to Buffalo. "Well, so long, Cigarette," he said, when

I left the camp for Troy.

Between Troy and Cohoes I found another camp of tramps. Here were

forty-two men and boys who were enjoying what tramps term a

"sloppin'-up." Some of them had just returned from the hop-country, and

had gathered together the fellows in their vicinity, and were now

drinking keg after keg of beer. Thirteen kegs had already been emptied.

These men seemed well satisfied with their treatment around Troy, and

the majority of them had been there for nearly a week. One half-drunken

loafer from Milwaukee was so anxious to praise the town's hospitality

that he was haranguing some of his comrades most zealously. "I've boozed

around this town," he said, "off and on for the last seven years, and

I've not been sloughed up yet. There's only one or two bulls in the town

that's after tramps, and if a bloke is anyway foxy he can slip them all

right. Two years ago I fooled around here for two months, and had my

three square meals every day, and booze too, and I was never touched.

You can't hustle pennies, o' course, as well as you can down in the City

[New York], but you can batter for clothes, chuck, and booze all right

enough. I know as many as ten saloon-keepers in the town that'll give me

a drink and ask no questions. Yes; Troy's all right, and it's only a

rotten gay-cat that 'u'd say it wa'n't. The only mean thing about the

town is that it's slow. Us hoboes must be on the march, and it's not in

us to fool round a jerk town like this 'un too long. It's tiresome,

blokes."

A hunt for supper in Cohoes afforded me a great deal of amusement, for I

was entertained by an alderman's wife. At any rate, she told me, while I

was eating my supper in the large restaurant dining-room, that her

husband, eating his supper in a private room on the floor below, was a

village father and a hater of tramps. "But don't worry," she said; "he

shall not bother you while I'm around. I always feed a hungry man, and I

always shall. I can't understand how some people can turn away from the

door any one who claims to be hungry. If I should do this, I would

expect to be hungry myself before long." A freight-train passed by the

house while I was at the table, and my hostess noticed my anxiety to be

aboard of it. "Never mind," she said; "there'll be plenty of freights

along a little later, and this is a good place to catch them, for there

is a grade here, and you can keep away from the station, where you might

be arrested." I remembered this woman throughout my journey, and every

tramp that I met bound in this direction was advised of her house. I

think it would hardly be so good another year.

From Cohoes to Schenectady is only a short ride, and it seemed as if I

had been asleep in the box-car only a few minutes when Ohio Red, who was

with me, cried out, "Cigarette, we're in the yards; let's get out." We

slept in a box-car overnight. This is an odd way of resting. The coat,

vest, and shoes are taken off, then the shoes are made into a pillow,

the vest is laid over them, and the coat is thrown over the shoulders.

So sleep most of the tramps during the warm months.

After an early breakfast, we went over to the hang-out on the eastern

side of the town. Thirteen rovers were already there, cooking a

conventional meal. They had begged meat, potatoes, bread, and coffee,

and had stolen some other vegetables, besides a kettle, and were now

anxiously watching the fire. Two more vagrants, who had been looking

for cigar-stubs in the town, came in later. Their pockets were well

filled, and they divided equally their findings. This "snipe" chewing

and smoking is the most popular use of tobacco in trampdom, and is even

preferred to "store brands" of the weed, which are easily begged. About

dinner-time a man came out to the camp, and offered every one of us the

job of shoveling sand for a dollar and a half a day, the work to

continue into November. He might better have stayed away. The tramps

told him that they had just left as good a job as that in Buffalo, and

were now looking for three dollars a day!

At nightfall sixteen tramps, including myself, boarded a freight-train

bound west. I was now on the main line of the New York Central, and had

no further need to fear any large amount of walking. During the night

ride I had an interesting talk with the brakeman at my end of the train.

I was in a "gondola" (open car), and he espied me from the top of a

box-car, and came down. "Hello, young fellow!" he said. "Where are you

travelin' to?" "Just up the road a bit, boss," I answered. "Well, let's

go to the other end of the car, where we won't catch the cinders; I've

got one in my eye now filin' it to pieces. Can you take it out, d' you

think?" he asked. I held his lantern on my arm, and looked for the

cinder, which was soon out. Just then the train whistled for Fonda, and

the brakeman said: "You want to lay low here, for there's a watchman in

the yards. I'll bring you a bit to eat out of my pail after we pull

out." He returned, when we were again started, with a parcel of food,

and began to speak of the towns up the road. "Utica," he said, "if you

intend gettin' your breakfast there in the mornin', is sort of a

snide place, this time of the year. You see, the hop-pickers are around

there, and the police always arrest a lot of 'em, and you fellows are

likely to be jugged too. This town that we've just left, however, is the

meanest one on the road. I was comin' through here about a week ago, and

didn't know there was a bum on the train. The watchman scouted around,

and found three of 'em in a box-car, and yanked 'em all up. If I'd known

they were round, I'd 'a' posted 'em about this town, but I hadn't an

idea they were there. I hate to see a lad get pulled for ridin' a train,

because I've been broke myself, and I know what it is to be on the road.

I'll always carry a man on my train if I can. But of course you know

that sometimes the con [conductor] is a mean devil, and we can't do

anything that'll give him a grudge ag'in' us; if he should see a bum on

the train, he might report us. So you see what risks we run. But I've

given many a lad a ride, and I'm always willing to be square to a square

plug [fellow]." This is a typical kind-hearted Eastern brakeman, and the

tramps like him.

[Illustration: A DIVISION.]

In Utica I made the acquaintance of a roadster called "Utica Biddy."

I met him at the tramp camp just outside of the town, near the

R. W. & O. R. R. tracks, where twenty-six other loafers were waiting for

three of their fellow-travelers to return from the hop-country, in order

to help spend their money. Biddy is one of the best-known tramps on the

New York Central, and he gave me more information about the districts

around Syracuse and Utica than I could possibly have accumulated

single-handed. While riding in a box-car from Utica to Syracuse we had a

long conversation, and the following is the substance of what he told

me:

"I've been a bum on the division of this railroad from Albany to

Syracuse for the last four years. I've had my three squares every day,

and in winter I've had a bed every night. I know you'll hardly believe

this, for some of you beggars come up to this country and curse it

because you don't get on the spot what you want. Now, I'll give you a

few pointers about these towns. We've just left a town [Utica] where I

can go to over a score of houses and get a square meal whenever I want

it. Of course I was born there, and that may make a bit o' difference,

but I can do the same in Rome, Albany, and Syracuse. I've been on this

beat so long and have watched my chances so carefully that I know now

just where to go when hungry. I hear a great many tramps kick about

Utica, its policemen and snide houses. But if a lad will just knuckle

down for a month or so and hunt out the good houses, make himself

acquainted with the tough policemen and keep out of their way, find good

barns for a doss at night, and make a business of bummin' carefully,

there's not a town on the Central that ain't good. The trouble with you

strange blokes is this: you come up here, booze, draw your razors when

you're drunk, do too much crooked work, and o' course the people get

hostile. Why, see how many lads are workin' my racket over in

Pennsylvania. You know yourself that on the Pennsy [Pennsylvania

Railroad] line there are tramps who not only bum within a division, but

inside of subdivisions, and can chew whenever they like. But they do

this 'cause they're foxy and have had their boozin' knocked out of

them. Now, those lads that we left back in Utica will more than likely

get sloughed into jail when they get to boozin'. You can't expect the

people to stand such stuff as that. And these are the kind of fellows,

too, who jigger our ridin' on this railroad. They get drunk, and if they

want to ride and can't find an empty car, they break a seal [a car

seal], and then there's the devil to pay about the tramps tryin' to rob

the cars. If the bums would only keep sober once in a while, there

wouldn't be a tramp pinched once a month. The bulls around here don't

care to yank a tramp unless they have to. But what can they do when they

find a bloke paradin' the streets with a jag on? They pull him in, o'

course, or else the people would kick. I'll gamble that he wouldn't be

touched, though, if he were simply huntin' a meal."

In Syracuse, Biddy, in order to prove his acquaintance with the town,

told me of a house where I was certain of getting something to eat. I

followed his instructions, and got exactly what I went for--a good

dinner. The great excitements in Syracuse, I found, were a big drunk and

the State fair. I have never seen such a number of tramps together at

one time. Between De Witt and Syracuse there was a camp of fifty, and

there were twenty empty beer-kegs lying around in the grass. Some of the

fellows were sick, others had sick clothes, and many of the rest were in

fine shape for a free fight. There were two well-dressed tramps whom I

immediately recognized as "fawny men"--fellows who sell bogus jewelry

for more than it is worth. One of these men was a notorious roadster of

American birth, who, for purposes best known to himself, went by the

name of "Liverpool George." He is the most successful fawny man that I

have ever met. He earned twenty-two dollars in one day at the fair by

selling for two dollars apiece rings which can be bought in Buffalo for

two dollars a dozen. The tramps call this worldly success.

Before I left Syracuse there came to the camp another batch of tramps

numbering sixteen. They had just returned from the hop-country, and

their money was well poised for another "shot at the growler." During my

stay of three days at the camp and vicinity, the men were intoxicated

almost all the time. They would even go into town half drunk to look for

something to eat. Yet I heard of no arrest while I was there. About a

mile from the hang-out, and east of Syracuse, there were two barns in

which the tramps slept. It was most amusing to see the loafers returning

to their nests in the hay-loft night after night. Sometimes I listened

to comical tales until the early hours of the morning. I was also the

spectator of a number of fights. One particular barn where I spent two

nights, near Syracuse, was a regular arena for fisticuffing and

squabbling. The men were so cross and ill-tempered after their recent

galas that they would quarrel on the slightest pretext. One fellow gave

his companion a black eye because he told him that he "ought to hustle

better togs" (clothes). Another poor excuse for a knock-down was that a

fellow had said that "tramps were bughouse" (crazy).

The journey from Syracuse to Buffalo was very prosaic. I rode from

Syracuse to Rochester with a kid and two colored tramps. The boy was in

search of his "jocker," or protector, whom he had lost in Albany. From

various registries at watering-tanks, he expected to find him in Canal

Street, Buffalo. At Port Byron a female tramp, with her companion,

Milwaukee Jim, entered the box-car in which we were riding. I learned

from him that I must be very careful in my conduct at Rochester. I

decided to leave the town as quickly as possible after arrival. On the

eastern outskirts of the place I met a gang of twenty-three tramps

walking to Fairport, ten miles distant, in order to escape any possible

arrest in the Rochester railroad yards while catching a freight-train

bound east. Between Rochester and Churchville I found still another

frightened crowd numbering twenty-seven. They were waiting for nightfall

before entering the city to board a train for Albany.

[Illustration: ASLEEP IN A FREIGHT-CAR.]

The kid continued with me on the journey to Buffalo, and I enjoyed a

talk with him in the car about his life on the road and what inducements

it offered. He was only sixteen years of age, but as bright and well

versed in tramp lore as many an aged roadster. He became interested in

tramp life in the Illinois Reformatory. Some of his companions at the

school, who had been with tramps, told him of their experiences, and he

never rested until he had satisfied himself with his own. "It ain't such

a bad lot," he said; "I chew every day, get a big swag of booze once in

a while, and when I'm travelin' with Slim [his protector] I have a purty

excitin' time." The boy found his man in Canal Street, just as he had

expected.

Buffalo did not interest me. There was nothing new in the tramp line. I

counted sixty-seven roadsters, and found that there was plenty to eat

and drink and a little money also, if looked for very diligently in the

main streets and offices; but there was nothing unique. My journey, when

I arrived in Buffalo, had extended over three hundred miles (from

Albany). I had had three meals every day, excepting the loss of a dinner

while traveling from Rochester to Buffalo, and I had met three hundred

tramps, who had probably had their meals just as frequently as I had had

mine. This number does not include, of course, those who may have been

traveling behind or before me, so that, not counting men who were

certainly on the road, but out of my sight, here was a voluntary vagrant

for every mile of the road between Albany and Buffalo. Further, I did

not see a train going west on the Central Railroad that was not carrying

at least one tramp, and I often saw a car passing by which appeared

simply alive with dead-beats. The reader must remember withal that New

York State is by no means such good tramp territory as certain other

States. Pennsylvania supports three times as many vagrants as New York

will tolerate.

Two extenuating statements ought to be made. In the first place, the

Central Railroad is a very easy one to beat, and probably half of the

tramps that I met were "residents" of other States. Secondly, a great

many tramps loaf around the hop-country in the vicinity of Syracuse and

Utica during the early autumn, in order to drink at the expense of the

too light-hearted hop-pickers. The nationality of these men, so far as I

could judge from pronunciation, some of their own statements, and

their professional names, was almost entirely American. I met one German

loafer called "Dutchy," and he was the only recognized foreigner that I

found. The others may have had parents born in other countries, but they

themselves were certainly Americanized. A good test of a tramp's

nationality is his professional name. For every genuine hobo couples the

name of his birthplace with whatever other name he chooses, and the

reader will find, if he will visit watering-tanks or other available

stationary railway property in his vicinity, like section-houses,

shanties, etc., where tramps "sign," that the names registered there

indicate, in the great majority of cases, a birthplace in the United

States.

My return journey to New York is worthy of comment only because its

quick performance may possibly interest the reader. I was desirous of

learning how quickly a tramp can make a journey if he desires; and it

being to my interest to be in New York at an early date, I decided to

forego any specific study of tramp life on the Erie Railroad and simply

to hurry over its tracks, if haste should prove possible. I left Buffalo

for New York on the night of the 16th, and arrived on the morning of the

19th, although I took a very circuitous route. I traveled from Buffalo

to Corry, Pennsylvania, over the W. N. Y. & P. R. R., and from Corry I

rode to Binghamton over the Erie road. From this place I made a detour

to Voorheesville, and then down the West Shore route to Weehawken, in

order to confirm certain rumors that I had heard of its hostility to

tramps. The entire trip was very tiresome and difficult, because, in

order to travel rapidly, I was compelled to ride on top and on the

bumpers of freight-trains, and on the trucks of passenger-trains. My

companion, Pennsylvania Whitey, and I rode after the latter fashion from

Elmira to Binghamton. It was a terrible ride. We made the mistake of

getting on the trucks of the rear car--a Pullman sleeper--instead of a

baggage-car. In doing this we suffered almost beyond description. The

gravel and dust flew about our faces until the exasperation and pain

were fearful. When I arrived in Binghamton my eyes were filled with

dust, and I suffered with them for days after I arrived in New York.

There are tramps, principally in the West, who are much more skilful

truck-riders than I can claim to be. But then they have to excel in this

mode of traveling, or they could not get over the country. In the far

West the brakemen have no scruples about throwing tramps off

freight-trains. In the East more civilized customs prevail, and the

tramp is politely asked to "jump off after the train has stopped."

Because railroad civilization is so backward in the West, the tramps

have invented a seat which greatly aids their truck-riding. They call it

a "ticket," but it is simply a small piece of board, with two cleats

nailed on one side, which fit over a rod and keep the seat firm. Some of

these tickets are quite elaborate, and are made to fold into a coat

pocket.

The journey from Voorheesville to Weehawken proved interesting. My

friend Whitey and I left Voorheesville for Coeyman's Junction on a

local freight-train. We were on a flat-car, and entirely open to view,

but were not once molested. During the ride I got a cinder in my eye,

which my companion could not find. The pain was intense, and when we

stopped next at a small station we jumped off in order that Whitey might

inspect it more conveniently. He was still unsuccessful, and the

station-master, standing by, beckoned me toward him and offered to take

the cinder out, which he did very skilfully. The train was just ready to

start when he called out, "Boys, don't miss your train." We followed his

advice.

[Illustration: RIDING ON THE BUMPERS.]

From the Junction down to Weehawken we underwent many trials. We left

Coeyman's with fifteen other tramps on a through freight-train. All of

us were huddled together on a flat-car, and of course the brakeman saw

us. After finding out that none of us had any money to give him in aid

of his collection for a "pint" (of whisky), he said: "You lads want to

look out at Kingston. It's all right until Catskill, but you'll get

collared at Kingston unless you're careful." The minute the train

slackened its speed at the hostile town, the roadsters jumped off _en

masse_. Whitey suggested that we separate from the crowd, run around to

the other end of the railroad yards, and catch the train again when it

came out. We arrived there just in the nick of time, and rode away again

triumphant. The next stop was Newburg, and just before we arrived the

brakeman again warned us. "Look out here," he said, from the top of a

car; "if you get pinched here, you're sure for the Albany pen." We left

the train again, and manoeuvered in the same way as at Kingston. Again

we traveled on without fear until nearing Haverstraw, and then came that

same warning from the top of a car: "Look out, you lads down there on

the bumpers; Haverstraw is a hostile town." This was sickening. I had

not complained before, but now I told Whitey that if ever I arrived in

Weehawken safely I should forever forbid myself to tramp near the Hudson

River. We were eventually successful in passing Haverstraw, and then the

brakeman assured us that there was a safe route into Weehawken. His

words proved true, and we arrived there at three o'clock in the morning.

The puzzling question that I put to Whitey now was how to get over to

New York without a cent of money. He told me not to worry, and that he

would "work it all right." He spoke the truth, for we slipped into the

ferry-house from the West Shore Railroad yards, and so eluded the sleepy

gate-keeper. When we were on the ferry-boat I noticed four more tramps

that I had met in Syracuse, and of course there was a general laugh.

On landing at Jay Street, Whitey asked me where I was going. I told him

that I was afraid we must part company, and that I should have to walk

up to Harlem. "I hate to see you do that," he said, "for it's ag'in' the

tramp natur' to like to hear of drilling [walking]. If you'll wait for

me up here on Broadway, I'll go over to the post-office and hustle your

car-fare." I thanked him, and waited on a corner for about five minutes,

when, true enough, he returned with sufficient money for car-fare and

slight refreshments over in the Bowery together. "Whitey, so long," I

said; "be good to yourself." "So long, Cigarette; hope I'll see you

again." I left him standing in front of the Old Tree House, our ways

henceforth forever separate, but as kindly sentiments inhabiting our

bosoms as ever fell to the lot of knights of the road.

* * * * *

For every voluntary vagrant there is a voluntary taxpayer, and in the

persons of these three hundred tramps I met three hundred voluntarily

taxed citizens of the State of New York.

V

THE TRAMP AND THE RAILROADS

Five years had elapsed since my last journey with the hoboes--indeed,

since I had so much as seen them. Study and recreation took me to Europe

in the autumn of 1893, and I did not return to this country till the

spring of 1898. Newspaper clippings containing accounts of the movements

of the hoboes, and stories about their life, occasionally reached me,

and once there came an invitation to be present at an Anti-Tramp

Congress, but beyond this I heard very little about my old companions of

the road. I always thought of them, however, when I saw the European

vagabond trudging along on the public turnpikes, and wondered whether

they were still permitted to travel on the railroads in their "side-door

Pullmans" (box-cars) as they had done, and as they taught me to do when

I was among them. In eastern Prussia I once stopped to talk with a

foot-sore old wanderer on the _Chaussée_, and told him of the way the

American tramp travels. "Ach, how beautiful that must be!" he exclaimed.

"And to think that they would probably hang us poor fellows here in the

Fatherland if we should try to ride in that fashion! In truth, son, a

republic is the only place for the poor and outcast."

There had been rumors, while I was still on the road, that a day of

reckoning was coming between the railroad companies and the tramps, and

that when it arrived, the hobo, like the _Chausséegrabentapezirer_,

would take to the turnpikes. Life in Hoboland is so precarious that it

comes natural to the inhabitants to be on the watch for impending

catastrophes, and I remember that I also believed that the railroad

companies would eventually stop free riding as the tramp practised it.

It did not seem natural that a class of people with so little influence

as the tramps should be allowed to enjoy such a privilege long; and

although I learned to ride in freight-cars with as much peace of mind

and often more comfort than in passenger-coaches, there was always

something strange to me in the fact that I never bought a ticket. During

my first trip in Hoboland, which lasted eight continuous months, I must

easily have traveled over twenty thousand miles, and there were not more

than ten occasions during the entire experience when any payment was

demanded of me, and on those occasions the "medium of exchange"

consisted of such things as pipes, neckties, tobacco, and knives. Once I

had to trade shoes with a brakeman merely to get across the Missouri

River, a trip which ordinarily would have cost me but ten cents; but as

that was the very sum of which I was short, and the brakeman wanted my

shoes, the only thing to do was to trade.

Had any one told me, as I was leaving Europe, that a week after my

arrival in this country I should be "hitting the road" again, I should

not have believed him. Civilization had become very dear to me in the

interval that had elapsed since my last tramp trip, and it seemed to me

that my vagabond days were over.

Once a vagabond, however, like the reserve Prussian soldier, a man can

always be called on for duty; and it was my fate, a few days after

setting foot in my native land again, to be asked by the general manager

of one of our railroads to make a report to him on the tramp situation

on the lines under his control. For three years he had been hard at work

organizing a railroad police force which was to rid the lines under his

control of the tramp nuisance, and he believed that he was gradually

succeeding in his task; but he wanted me to go over his property and

give an independent opinion of what had been done. He had read some of

my papers in the "Century" on tramp life, and while reading them it had

occurred to him that I might be able to gather information for him which

he could turn to good account, and he sent for me.

"On assuming management of these lines," he said to me in the

conversation we had in his office, "I found that our trains were

carrying thousands of trespassers, and that our freight-cars were

frequently being robbed. I considered it a part of my business as a

general manager to do my utmost to relieve the company of this expense,

and I felt that the company owed it to the public to refuse to harbor

this criminal class of people. In a way a railroad may be called the

chief citizen of a State, and in this tramp matter it seemed to me that

it had a duty as a citizen to discharge to the State.

"There are three conspicuous reasons that have deterred railroad people

from attacking the tramp problem. First, it has been thought that it

would entail a very great expense. Our experience on these lines has

shown that this fear was not warranted. Second, it has been thought that

no support would be given the movement by the local magistrates and

police authorities. Our experience shows that in a great majority of

cases we have the active support of the local police authorities and

that the magistrates have done their full duty. Third, it was feared

that there might be some retaliation by the tramps. Up to date we have

but very little to complain of on that score. From the reports that I

get from my men, I am led to believe that we are gradually ridding not

only the railroad property, but much of the territory in which it is

situated, of the tramp nuisance; but I should like a statement from you

in regard to the situation, and I want to know whether you are willing

to make a tramp trip and find out for us all that you can."

It was a cold, bleak day in March when we had this conversation, and

there was every inducement to postpone a journey such as the general

manager suggested; but I was so impressed with his seriousness in the

matter, and so thoroughly interested in what he had done, that I agreed

to begin the investigation at once. It seemed to me that a man who had

written so much about the tramp problem ought to be willing to do what

he could to help the community solve it, especially when he was to be

reimbursed for his work as liberally as I was to be; and although I

suffered more on this particular journey than on any other that I have

made, I shall never regret having undertaken it.

Before starting out on my travels a contract was drawn up between the

general manager and myself. It secured to me a most satisfactory daily

wage, and to the general manager weekly reports as long as I was out on

the road, with a final statement when the investigation should be

finished.

On no previous journey in Hoboland have I been such an object of

curiosity to the tramps as on this one when writing my weekly reports. I

was dressed so badly that I could write them only in lodging-houses

where vagabonds sojourn, and it usually took me a full half-hour to

finish one. It availed nothing to pick out a quiet corner, for the men

gathered about me the minute they thought I had written enough, and they

thought this before I was half through. If they had been able to

decipher my handwriting I should probably have received pretty harsh

treatment, but as they were not, they amused themselves with funny

remarks. "Give 'er my love," they said. "Writin' yer will, are ye,

Cigarette?" "Break the news gently." And they made other similar remarks

which, if I had not been forced to write, would have smothered any

literary aspirations that a lodging-house is capable of arousing. As it

was, I managed to send in my reports more or less regularly, and faulty

though they must have been, they served their purpose.

They told the story of the tramp situation on about two thousand miles

of railroad property, situated in five different States. The reports of

the first month of the investigation pertained to tramps on lines in the

neighborhood of the property I was investigating. I had not been an hour

on my travels when it was made very plain to me that my employer's

police force was so vigilant that it behooved me not to be caught riding

trains unauthorized on his lines. Every tramp I met warned me against

this particular road, and although a clause in my contract secured me

the payment by the company of all fines that might be imposed upon me as

a trespasser, as well as my salary during imprisonment, in case I should

find it useful for my purposes to go to jail, I found it more convenient

for the first month to wander about on railroads which I knew tramps

could get over. I reasoned that the experience was going to be hard

enough anyhow, without having to dodge a railroad police officer every

time I boarded a train, and I knew that the trespassers on neighboring

lines would be able to tell me what was the general opinion in regard to

my employer's road as a tramp thoroughfare. All whom I interviewed spoke

of it as the hardest railroad in the United States for a tramp to beat,

and I could not have learned more of the tramps' opinion of it had I

remained exclusively on the property. The roads that I went over crossed

and recrossed my employer's road at a number of places, and I was

frequently able to see for myself that it is a closed line for

trespassers.

It may interest the reader to know how I lived during the time I

traveled as a tramp. Except on one occasion, when my funds gave out, I

paid my way regularly so far as food was concerned. A friend sent me a

postal order for a few dollars nearly every week, and I managed to live

rather comfortably at lodging-house restaurants. Occasionally I would

meet a pal of former years, and if he had money, or found that I had,

nothing would do but we should celebrate meeting each other again, and

at such times my friend in the East got word that my remittance must be

hurried up somewhat; but, as a general thing, I dined fairly well on two

dollars a week. For sleeping-quarters I had bunks in lodging-houses,

benches in police stations, and "newspaper beds" in railroad

sand-houses. I chose one of these places as circumstances suggested. If

there was nothing to be gained in the way of information by going to a

sand-house or a police station, I took in a lodging-house, if one was

handy. Once I slept in the tramp ward of a poorhouse, and never had I

spent a more disagreeable night. A crowd of tramps to which I had

attached myself had used up their welcome in a town where there were

three police stations, and it had been arranged that on the night in

question we should all meet at the tramp ward of the poorhouse. A negro

was the first one to get there, and a more frightened human being than

he was when the rest of us put in an appearance it would be hard to

imagine. We found him in a cold cellar, absolutely without light and

furnished with nothing but an immense bench, about four feet wide, four

feet high, and ten feet long. In Siberia itself I have never seen a

gloomier hole for men to pass a night in.

"I turned up here 'bout five o'clock," the negro said, "'n' they sent me

to the smokin'-room, where them luny blokes was smokin' their pipes. I

never knew before that they sent luny people to poorhouses, 'n' I

couldn't understan' it. I told one of 'em what I was there for, 'n' he

told me that this cellar down here has ghosts in it. Well, o' course, I

ain't 'feard o' ghosts in most places, but, by jiminy, when the keeper

came 'n' put me down here 'n' left me in the cold 'n' dark, somehow or

other I got to thinkin' o' that luny bloke's stories, 'n' I jus' had to

holler. W'y, I never felt so queer before in my life. Suppose I'd gone

crazy; w'y, I could 'a' sued the county for damages, couldn't I? Don't

you ever soogest any more poorhouses to me; I don't wonder people goes

crazy in 'em." When the crowd first saw the negro he was shouting at the

top of his voice: "Spirits! spirits! There's spooks down here!"

We all spent a most miserable night in the cellar, and I doubt whether

any one of us would willingly seek shelter there again.

Indeed, when the first month of my investigation was over, and war had

been declared with Spain, it seemed to me that I had gone through so

much and was so hardened that I could go to Cuba and worry through all

kinds of trouble. I have since regretted that I did not go, but, at the

time, I had become so interested in the work that, when I returned to my

employer for further orders, and he said to me, "Well, now that you have

satisfied me in regard to the attitude of the tramp toward the company's

property, suppose you satisfy yourself concerning the attitude of the

company toward the tramp," I readily fell in with the suggestion. To

make my final report complete it was obvious that I ought to get an

insight into the workings of my employer's police force, and for the

second month he gave me permission to travel on freight-trains, engines,

and passenger-trains, and a letter introducing me to the different

employees of the company with whom I was likely to come in contact. With

these credentials I was able to circulate freely over the property, to

inquire minutely into the work of the police department, to meet the

local magistrates, and particularly the jail- and workhouse-keepers. It

was also possible for me to make an actual count of the trespassers who

were daring enough to attempt to travel on this closed road.

This work was not so tedious and dangerous as that of the first month,

and there were more comforts to be enjoyed; but I had to be up at all

hours of the night, and the bulk of my time was spent in train-riding.

After thirty days of almost constant travel I was convinced, first, that

the tramps had told the truth about the road, and that it is exceedingly

difficult to trespass on it with impunity; second, that although the

police force is not perfect (none is), it was doing exceptionally good

work in freeing the community of tramps and beggars. It differs from

ordinary railroad police forces in that it is systematically organized

and governed. In dealing with tramps and trespassers the plan is to keep

up a continuous surveillance of them, and they are taken off trains one

by one, day after day, rather than in squads of fifty and sixty, with no

more effort in this direction for weeks and sometimes months, as is the

prevailing custom on most railroads. There is consequently very little

crowding of magistrates' courts and jails, and the taxpayers are not

forced to board and lodge a great collection of vagabonds. I was also

impressed with the fact that the force is on friendly relations with

municipal and village police organizations along the road, and has the

respect of communities formerly at the mercy of a constantly increasing

army of hoboes.

So much for my personal experience and finding in this latest

investigation in "trampology"; it was as interesting a tramp trip as I

have ever made, and I learned more about the best methods to employ in

attacking the tramp problem in this country than on any previous

journey. It is now my firm belief that, if the tramps can be kept off

the railroads, their organization will become so unattractive that it

will never again appeal to men as it has done in the past. No other

country in the world transports its beggars from place to place free of

charge, and there is no reason why this country should do so.

The custom has grown up in the United States during the last thirty

years. Before the Civil War there were comparatively few tramps in

America, and practically no railroad tramps. After the war there

suddenly appeared on the scene a large class of men who had become so

enamoured of camp life that they found it impossible to return to quiet

living, and they took to wandering about the country. Occasionally they

worked a little to keep themselves in "pin-money," but by 1870 hundreds

of them had given up all intention of working, and had founded the

organization known to-day as the "Hobo-Push." By that year, also, they

had discovered that our turnpikes, particularly in the West, were very

poor roads to travel on, and they began to walk on the railroad-track.

If, at this time, the railroad companies had had laws passed, such as

are in force to-day in Great Britain and on the Continent, forbidding

everybody but an employee to walk on railroad property, except at public

crossings, we should have learned, ere this, to obey them, and the

railroad tramp would not have been developed. These laws not being

enacted, however, it was not long before it became very clear to the

tramp that it would be much more comfortable to sit in a box-car and

ride, than to "drill" (walk) over the ties. An appreciation of this

character is acted upon very soon in Hoboland, and by 1875 the majority

of the professional vagrants were taking lessons in jumping on and off

moving freight-trains. The trainmen, partly because they thought that

many of these trespassers were deserving but penniless out-of-works, and

partly on account of the inborn willingness of every American to help a

man in unfortunate circumstances, made practically no serious effort to

keep the tramp off their trains, and by 1880 the latter was accepted by

railroad companies as an unavoidable nuisance on railroad property.

[Illustration: A BRAKEMAN ON A FREIGHT-TRAIN COLLECTING FARES.]

To-day it is the boast of the hoboes that they can travel in every State

of the Union for a mill per mile, while in a number of States they pay

nothing at all. On lines where brakemen demand money of them, ten cents

is usually sufficient to settle for a journey of a hundred miles, and

twenty cents often secures a night's ride. They have different methods

of riding, among which the favorite is to steal into an empty box-car on

a freight-train. At night this is comparatively easy to do; on many

roads it is possible to travel this way, undisturbed, till morning. If

the train has no "empties," they must ride on top of the car, between

the "bumpers," on one of the car ladders, or on the rods. On

passenger-trains they ride on top, on the "blind baggage," and on the

trucks.

Taking this country by and large, it is no exaggeration to say that

every night in the year ten thousand free passengers of the tramp genus

travel on the different railroads in the ways mentioned, and that ten

thousand more are waiting at watering-tanks and in railroad yards for

opportunities to get on the trains. I estimate the professional tramp

population at about sixty thousand, a third of whom are generally on the

move.

In summer the entire tramp fraternity may be said to be "in transit."

The average number of miles traveled daily by each man at this season of

the year is about fifty, which, if paid for at regular rates, would

cost, say, a dollar. Of course one should not ordinarily pay so much to

ride in a box-car as in a passenger-coach, but the ordinary tramp is

about as comfortable in one as in the other, and, on the dollar-a-trip

basis, he and his 59,999 companions succeed in getting out of the

railroad companies sixty thousand dollars' worth of free transportation

every day that they all travel. Multiply this figure by a hundred, which

is about the number of days in a year when all trampdom "flits," and

you have an approximate idea of how much they gain.

Another serious loss to the railroads is that involved in the

disappearance of goods undergoing transportation, and in claims for

personal injuries. Some tramps steal, and some do not, but every year

considerable thefts are made from freight-cars, and tramps, or men

posing as such, are generally the guilty parties. Professional thieves

frequently become tramps for a time, both to minimize their guilt and to

elude capture, and the probability is that the majority of the greater

thefts are committed by them. Tramps proper are discouraged thieves, and

I have seldom known them to steal anything more valuable than fruit from

freight-cars and metal from idle engines. In a year's time, however,

including all the thefts committed by both tramps and professional

thieves, a very appreciable loss results to the railroads, and I can

recall, out of my observation, robberies which have amounted to several

thousand dollars.

That railroad companies should have to reimburse trespassers for the

loss of a hand or foot while riding unauthorized on trains will strike

every one as a very unjust tax on their resources, but such claims are

constantly made. Let us say, for example, that a young boy who has been

stealing his way on a freight-train loses a leg. There is a type of

lawyer who at once takes up a case of this sort, going to the boy's

parents or relatives and suggesting to them the advisability of claiming

damages, asserting his readiness to serve them in the matter. "All

right," says the father; "get what you can." In court the lawyer

draws a horrible picture of these engines of death, the railroads,

showing how they are constantly killing people. If the boy's father is

poor, this fact is also brought graphically to the attention of the

jury, and the wealth of the corporation is described as something

enormous. If the lawyer manages his case cleverly, making out that the

boy was enticed on to the freight-train by the trainmen, or that he fell

under the wheels through their carelessness, there are but few juries

that will refuse to give the father at least enough damages to pay the

lawyer's fee and the doctor's bill, and then there is a celebration over

having "squeezed" another railroad company. For a private person to be

compelled by a court to pay damages to the father of a boy who fell from

an apple-tree in the private person's orchard, where the lad was an

obvious trespasser and thief, would be considered an outrage.

I bring out these facts about the losses to the railroads in some detail

because the public is really the railroad company, and consequently the

sufferer.

To tell all that the country at large suffers from the free railroad

transportation of tramps would take me beyond the limits of this

chapter, but there are a few points which must be noted. In the first

place, the railroads spread the tramp nuisance over a much greater

stretch of territory than would be the case if the tramps were limited

to the turnpikes. There are districts in the United States which are so

difficult to reach by the highroad, on account of unprofitable

intermediate territory, that the hobo would never attempt to go near

them if it were not easy for him to get over the disagreeable parts of

the journey in a box-car. Take the trip from Denver to San Francisco,

for instance. There is not a vagabond in the country who would undertake

to walk across the American Desert merely to reach "'Frisco," and if

walking were the only way to get to that city it would be left largely

to "coast beggars." As matters now stand, however, you may see a beggar

one day in Fifth Avenue in New York city, and a fortnight later he will

accost you in Market Street in San Francisco. Many tramps can travel as

rapidly as the man who pays his way, and I have known those who could

even "hold down" the Chicago Limited from Jersey City to Chicago without

a break.

All this contributes to the difficulty of locating and capturing the

dangerous characters of tramp life; and, as I have said, many

professional criminals, who have nothing to do with beggars in other

quarters, mix with them in freight-cars.

A remark, in this connection, of Mr. Allen Pinkerton is popular in

Hoboland. He is reported by the hoboes to have once said, in a

conversation about the capture of criminals, that he thought he could

catch, in time, almost any kind of criminal except the tramp, and him he

could not catch because it was so difficult to locate him. "One day he

is in a barn, the next in a haystack, and the next Heaven only knows

where he is, for he has probably got on to the railroad, and there you

might as well look for a lost pin."

The railroads also help to keep the tramp element in our large cities.

It very seldom settles in the country, and not for any length of time in

provincial towns. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San

Francisco, Buffalo, Baltimore, New Orleans, and other like places are

its main strongholds. The more the criminal element of a country fastens

itself upon its cities, the harder it is to break up, and in the United

States this is what is taking place. Chicago, for instance, is as much a

center in the criminal as in the business world, and almost every

freight-train entering it brings a contribution to its criminal

population. Even without railroads the tendency of crime to predominate

in towns would exist; evil-doers feel more at home in city streets and

haunts than in the country; but their present strength in our cities is

largely due to the free transportation they get from the railroads.

Another striking fact is that out-of-works who beat their way on

freight-trains very easily degenerate into professional vagabonds. I

have traveled with men who, in six months' time, had become voluntary

vagrants merely because their first stolen rides, while in search of

work, had demonstrated to them how easy it is to manage without working

and paying their way. The average unemployed man in the United States

goes from one large city to another, rather than, as is the custom in

Europe, taking in the intermediate towns and villages, where there is no

such likelihood of the labor-market becoming congested. In a few weeks,

unless he is a man of very strong character, he learns to travel merely

for travel's sake, and develops into a "stake-man," who only works long

enough to get a "stake" and then go off on a trip again. Among the

so-called unemployed in this country there are thousands of this type,

and they are the result of this love of side-door Pullman excursions.

[Illustration: A TRAMPS' DEPOT.]

There is one more fact which cannot be overlooked--the temptation which

the railroads have for a romantic and adventuresome boy. A child

possessed of _Wanderlust_ generally wanders for a while, anyhow, but the

chance he now has to jump on a freight-train and "get into the world

quick," as I have heard lads of this temperament remark, has a great

deal to do in tempting him to run away from home. Hoboland is overrun

with youngsters who have got there on the railroads, and very few of

them ever wander back to their parents. Once started "railroading," they

go on and on, and its attractions seem to increase as the years go by.

Walking has no such charms for them, and if it were their only method of

seeing the world, the majority of those who now keep on seeing it, until

death ends their roaming, would grow tired. The railroad, however, makes

it possible for them to keep shifting the scenes they enjoy, and, in

time, change and variety become so essential that they are unable to

settle down anywhere. They are victims of what tramps call the "railroad

fever," a malady for which a remedy has yet to be prescribed.

* * * * *

Can the tramps be driven off the railroads? It was to satisfy my own

curiosity in regard to this question, and to find out how successful my

employer, the general manager, had been in his attempt to answer it in

the affirmative, that I undertook the investigation which I have

described. Previous to his efforts to keep tramps off railroads, it

had been thought, as he has stated, that it was cheaper to put up with

them than to pay the bills which a crusade against them would occasion.

It has at last been demonstrated, however, that they can be refused free

transportation, with a saving of expense to the company, and with great

benefit to the community; and the time has come when the public should

demand that all railroads take a similar stand in regard to this evil.

If all the companies would take concerted action, in a few years very

few tramps, if any, would try to beat their way on trains; an

appreciable number would give up tramping entirely, because their

railroad privileges are to many the main attraction of the life; a few

would try to become professional criminals again, partly out of revenge

and partly because tramping on the turnpikes would be too disagreeable;

and a large number would take to the highways, where some at least might

be made to do farm-work. The reader may take exception to the third

possibility, and think that great harm would come of an increase in the

professional criminal class; but, as I have said, tramps are really

discouraged criminals, and a return to the old life, of which they had

made a failure, would only land them in the penitentiary.

It is probably impossible ever entirely to eliminate the vagrant element

in a nation's life, and no such hope is held out in connection with the

reform advocated in this article; but this much is certain: had all the

railroads been as closed to tramps, during my first excursions into

Hoboland, as one of them has recently become, one man, at least, would

not have attempted any free riding, and would not have found so many

tramps to study.

PART III

SKETCHES

PART III

SKETCHES

PAGE

I. OLD BOSTON MARY 317

II. JAMIE THE KID 336

III. ONE NIGHT ON THE "Q." 355

IV. A PULQUE DREAM 366

V. A HOBO PRECEDENT 372

I

OLD BOSTON MARY

On the southern outskirts of the city of Boston, hidden away in a field,

and reached by streets that gradually degenerated into straggling lanes,

stood until a few years ago an old shanty, noted for nothing but

loneliness and spooks. No one in the neighborhood knew to whom it

belonged or what was its history. It was almost too forlorn to be

interesting, and few went near it. The children in the district claimed

that queer noises were heard in the shanty at night, and their mothers

threatened them with its sheltered ghosts when they were especially

naughty. But this was the extent of the shanty's reputation in its own

parish.

Its history, or at any rate so much of it as is known, is anything but

romantic. When first built, it belonged to a "Paddy" on the railroad;

and after various generations of this proprietary family had passed on

to the better quarters that Boston provides for its ambitious Irish

citizens, it became so dilapidated and forlorn that it was turned over

to some cows pastured near by, as shelter for stormy days. It was still

used for this purpose, I am told, when Old Mary rented it. How she

discovered it, and why it attracted her, are questions which even her

best friends found difficult to solve. But there was something about it

which appealed to her, and for several months she lived her queer life

in this uninteresting old building. Her neighbors knew almost nothing

about her, except that she was an eccentric old woman, and that she

harbored a strange class of friends who might with greater propriety

have lodged in the city almshouse. But otherwise she was a foreigner in

her own province, and no one could tell what she did or how she lived.

Strange, too; for in some respects this old creature was a most

notorious character, and had perhaps as many acquaintances and friends

as any citizen of Boston. Almost every evening, after dark, had there

been curious eyes on watch, stragglers of many sizes and conditions

might have been seen wending their way, stealthily and cat-like, to her

shanty, and ears alert might have heard a queer password tapped on the

wooden door, which, as of its own free will, swung back on noiseless

leather hinges, and, closing, hid the strangers from view. This went on

night after night, and no resident of the neighborhood knew or cared

much about it. Whatever was done in the shanty passed off so quietly and

unobtrusively that public curiosity was not awakened.

My first knowledge of the place was on this wise: One afternoon, while

studying tramp life in New York, I dropped in for a moment at a popular

resort of vagabonds in the Bowery. I had already had several months'

experience in their company, and was casting about for some new feature

or phase of the life; naturally enough, I turned to the saloon to hear

of something which would put me on a fresh track. As luck would have it,

I chanced to overhear two Eastern beggars discussing the customs and

institutions of Boston. Their conversation interested me, and I drew

nearer. During their talk, reference was made to Old Mary's place, which

I had never heard of elsewhere, and I determined to see it.

It was not long before I had found a companion and persuaded him to

accompany me to Boston. He also had heard of the place, and was fairly

well acquainted with its mistress, who, he declared, had been a

well-known hobo out West some years before. Her history, as he

recollected it, and which I know now to be quite true, was something

like this:

About forty years ago, a Gipsy girl in England, who had wandered about

with her tribe through France as well as Britain, came to America,

hoping to find her Rom friends here strong enough to afford her society

and protection. But for some reason she failed to meet with the welcome

she had expected, and as there was nothing else in the New World more

akin to her old life than the tramp's peripatetic existence, she joined

the brotherhood, and for over thirty years was recognized as a

full-fledged member. Her specialty, the hobo said, was "ridin' the

trucks"; and in this dangerous business she became an expert, and was

probably the only woman in the world who ever made a practice of it. It

may surprise some that a woman reared in Gipsy society, and accustomed

to the rigorous social divisions which obtain there, should ever have

entered trampdom, composed almost entirely of men. It must be

remembered, however, that there are women in all classes of society who

are men's women, not women's women, and at the same time none the worse

for their peculiarity. There is a certain comradeship in their relations

with men which even a stunted sense of honor will not abuse, and which

adds piquancy to their friendship.

The Gipsy girl was one of these, and had her friends as well as her

lovers. The lovers failed as she grew older, but this strong-souled

companionship stood her in good stead, and held the friends she made.

She who had been so poorly cared for all her life long had developed

somehow a genius for taking care of others, and so, after thirty years

of hard riding and hard faring of all sorts, her head not quite clear

about a good many things that human justice calls crime, she set up a

poor, miserable home for the brotherhood of tramps. It was a crazy idea,

perhaps, but the woman herself was pretty well "crippled under the hat,"

my friend declared, and was known from Maine to California, in true

tramp dialect, as "Bughouse Mary," or, as politer folk would say, "Crazy

Mary."

She settled herself at first in a tumble-down old tenement-house in the

very heart of Boston, and her place soon became known--too well known,

in fact--to certain officious and official personages who had on more

than one occasion found dangerous characters sheltered there. After some

weeks she thought it necessary to move on, and pitched her tent on the

spot already described. It was here that my companion and I first tested

her sisterly welcome. A town tramp put us on the right road, and gave us

explicit directions. He advised us not to go by daylight, and asked,

"Does you blokes know the rules out at Mary's? I guess she'd take you in

anyhow, but mos' the blokes, when they goes out there, takes along a

handful o' terbakker an' a chunk o' beef or somethin' else ter chew. She

allus 'xpects her half, too. It's a sort o' law out there, 'n' p'r'aps

you lads 'u'd better do as I tells ye."

We followed his advice, and I looked for some beefsteak, while my

companion found the tobacco and bread. About nine o'clock we started,

and spent fully an hour in finding the place. At the door, as we knew of

no especial knock, I whispered through one of the cracks the word

"Hobo," knowing that this was the usual tramp call. We soon heard a

queer voice asking our names.

"Cigarette," I replied.

"What Cigarette?" asked the voice.

I assured her that it was the Chicago brand.

This was sufficient, and the door opened far enough to allow us to

squeeze through, and we were in the famous Boston hang-out.

The first attraction, of course, was Mary herself, and she was well

worth a longer pilgrimage. I shall never forget the picture she made, as

she stood in the middle of the floor surrounded by her pals, and

welcomed us to her shanty. Her figure, although naturally strong and

straight, looked cramped and bent, and had certainly suffered from long

exposure and the hardships of truck-riding. Her dress, although

picturesque in some particulars, looked just as tattered and worn out as

did her poor old body. The original cloth and color of the skirt, if

indeed it had ever had any, were disguised by fully a dozen different

patches sewed on with coarse, straggling, Gipsy-like stitches. In place

of a waist she wore an old coat and vest, given to her, as I afterward

learned, by a clergyman. The coat was soldier's blue, and the vest as

red as a robin's breast. A strange costume, it is true; but as I looked

at her, it seemed, after all, a fitting one for such a unique being. The

head that topped the costume was most interesting of all: a certain pose

in moments of enthusiasm, and a certain toss at the climax of some story

relating her early triumphs, gave it an air of wild nobility such as one

sees in high-bred animals; and when, in the consciousness of her

weakened powers, it dropped sadly on her breast, with the ragged gray

locks streaming out in all directions, one could not escape the sense of

fallen greatness in the gaunt bowed figure and the tortured face.

Naturally she looked crazy, but I wished at the time that if crazy

people must really exist, they might look like her. Her eyes were her

most intelligent feature, and even they at times would become glazed and

almost uncanny. They were the most motherly, and also the wickedest, I

have ever seen on the road. This sounds paradoxical, I know, but as I

have heard other men describe them in the same way, I think I must be

right. And when she looked at me I felt that she was piercing my

character and history in every possible corner. I have no doubt that she

intended to impress me in this way. It is a Gipsy trick, and she

evidently had not forgotten it.

[Illustration: OLD BOSTON MARY'S SHANTY.]

But queer and crazy as Old Mary appeared, she was nevertheless quite in

harmony with her environment; for of all the odd hang-outs I have

visited, hers was certainly the oddest. The shanty itself was in many

respects just as the cows had left it, and the only furniture it

contained was a stove, a few old benches, a greasy lamp, a supply of

blankets, and a cupboard containing one or two frying-pans and some

polished and renovated tomato-cans. These were all that the old Gipsy

had been able to gather together, and it had cost her many days of

fortune-telling to collect even these. But, fortunately, it was not for

such things that the beggars visited her. What they wanted was simply a

place where they could be away from the police, and in the company of

Old Mary, whom they looked upon as a sort of guardian angel. On the

night in question she had as guests men who represented nearly every

kind of vagabondage. The "blanket-stiff," the "gay-cat," the "shiny,"

the "Frenchy," and the "ex-prushun" were all there. Some were lying on

the floor wrapped in their blankets; some were mending their coats and

darning their socks; while others were sitting around the stove playing

a quiet game of poker, using as an "ante" pieces of bread which they had

begged. In a corner there were still others who were taking off their

"jiggers," reminding one of that famous _cour des miracles_ which Victor

Hugo has described in "Notre Dame"; for the jiggers were nothing but

bandages wound around the legs and arms to excite the sympathy of

credulous and charitable people.

Mary was exceedingly kind in her welcome to both my comrade and myself;

but on learning that I was really the Chicago Cigarette she was a little

partial to me, I think, and made me sit down on a bench, where we talked

of various things and people, but especially of a St. Louis beggar

called "Bud," who had spoken to her of a Cigarette with whom he once

traveled. Learning that I was the very same, and that we had at one

time made a long journey in the West, she wanted to know just when I had

seen him last, how he looked, and what he was doing. I could easily see,

from the passionate way she spoke of him and her eagerness for late news

concerning his whereabouts, that he had once been a pal of hers, and I

had to tell her as gently as I could that the poor fellow had been

starved to death in a box-car in Texas. Some one had locked him in, and

when the car was shunted on to an unused side-track, far away from any

house or station, his fate was settled. Try as one will to get out of

such a predicament, there is no hope unless one has a large knife and

strength enough to cut through the walls. Poor Bud was without both, and

he died alone and forsaken. I had heard of the accident from a man who

was in the neighborhood where it happened; and thinking that the best

thing I could tell Old Mary would be the truth, I stammered it out in a

most awkward fashion.

I knew well enough that she would cry, but I hardly expected to see the

sorrow that my story occasioned. It was almost indescribable. She wept

and moaned, and swayed her old body back and forth in an agony of grief,

but not once did she speak. I tried my best to comfort her, but it was

of no use. She had to suffer, and no one could help her. I felt so bad

that I almost started to leave, but one of the men told me that she

would be all right pretty soon, and I waited. True, she did become

calmer, and in about an hour was enough herself to talk about other

matters; but there was a grief still in her eyes that was most pitiful

to see. And I shall always remember her strange and inarticulate agony.

It showed, not a comrade's bereavement, nor yet the heart-wound of a

motherly nature merely, but a phase of emotion belonging to younger

hearts as well. I think also that there was a Gipsy strain in her

suffering which I could not comprehend at all.

When fairly aroused from her sadness, she asked for our bundles of food,

and made the men playing cards on the stove move away, that she might

light a fire and cook our meal. While she attended to these things, I

passed around among the tramps. The place hardly coincided with my

expectations. I had looked forward to a rough hang-out, where there

would be more fighting and cursing than anything else, but I found

nothing of the kind. The men conducted themselves very respectably, at

least while Mary was looking on. There were a few harsh words heard, of

course, but there was none of that vulgarity that one would naturally

expect, for the hostess forbade it. Not that she was a woman who had

never heard bad words or seen vulgar sights, but there was something

about her which certainly quieted and softened the reckless people she

gathered together. What this was I cannot say, but I think it was her

kindness. For if there is anything which a tramp respects, although he

may forget it when it is out of his sight, it is gentleness, and it was

this trait in Old Mary's character which won for her the distinction and

privileges usually accorded the mistress of the house. She did

everything she could to make her shanty comfortable and her guests

happy. For example, one man had a sore foot, and while the meat was

frying she bandaged it most tenderly, making her patient lie down on a

blanket which she took from a cupboard. Others wanted string or tobacco,

and she invariably supplied them. She gave each one the impression that

she was really interested in him; and to know this is exactly as

pleasant to a tramp as it is to any other human being.

When our supper was ready, Mary handed me a little pail, and said: "Cig,

you'd better run out 'n' hustle some beer. You kin find it 'bout half a

mile up the road, ef you give the bloke a good story. But don't let the

bulls catch ye. I don't wan' cher ter git sloughed up."

I took the pail and went in search of the beer, which I found at the

place she spoke of. On my return she had the meat and bread placed on a

shingle, and my companion and I, together with the hostess, sat down on

a bench and had a most satisfying meal. During the repast Mary talked a

good deal on numerous subjects, and commented on tramp life in various

communities. She gave but little evidence of being crazy, but her mind

would wander once in a while, and she would say in a dreamy sort of way,

"Oh, Cig, this sort o' bummin' hain't like the old times. Them was the

days fer beggars."

Those old days, I suppose, were when she first came to this country; and

I have been told that a beggar's life in that period was, if not more

profitable, at any rate more comfortable. I also heard her mumbling and

calling herself "bughouse," and with the word her old head would fall

humbly on her breast. But her kindness was so sound and steadfast that

this occasional lapse into her inane mumbling did not much impress me.

She kept asking if I were having enough to eat, and offered to cook more

meat if I were not. When we had finished, she handed me a new clay pipe,

gave me some tobacco which was of a better brand than that which my

companion had begged, and then told me to smoke my "vittals stiddy." We

sat there for nearly an hour, not saying much, and yet knowing fairly

well what each one was thinking. There is something in tramp nature

which makes these silent conversations easy and natural.

At twelve o'clock we prepared for sleep. Mary was now at her best, and

the way she assigned each man his place was worthy of a general. As we

had to turn out about half-past four in the morning, so that all would

be quiet before people were astir, I was glad enough to have a rest. The

most of the men took off their coats and shoes, making of the former a

blanket and of the latter a pillow, said, "Pound yer ear well," to their

nearest neighbors, and then the candle was put out. Mary had a corner

entirely to herself.

I had been asleep for about three hours, I think, when I was awakened by

a light shining in my face, and a hand passing over a tattoo mark on my

right arm. I started up, and saw Mary kneeling beside me and inspecting

the "piece" very closely. Noticing that I was awake, she whispered:

"Come out o' the shanty with me fer a minnit. I wants ter ask ye

somethin'."

I rose and followed her quietly out of the building to a small hollow

not far away.

"Now, Cig," she said, "tell me the truth. Did Bud croak down in Texas,

dead sartain?"

I assured her that I had told her the truth.

"Well," she replied, "then the whole game is up. Ye see, Bud was a Rom,

too, 'n' we use' ter be great pals. Fer nigh onter a tenner we bummed

this kentry together 'n' never had a fight. But one day Bud got jagged,

'n' swore I had n' be'n square to 'im. So we had a reglar out-'n'-outer,

'n' I hain't seen 'im sence. I's sorry that 'e's croaked, fer 'e was a

good bloke; yes, 'e was--yes, 'e was--" Here the poor creature seemed to

forget herself, and I could hear her saying, "Bughouse--bughouse." I

recalled her to consciousness, and said that I must leave, as it was

nearly time for her to close up shop. She wanted me to promise to meet

her on the Common in the afternoon, where she did most of her begging,

and handed me a quarter to "keep me a-goin'" till then. I returned it,

and told her that I had to leave Boston that morning, but would gladly

visit her again some day. And I certainly intended to do so. But the

natural course of events took me out of vagabondage soon, and it was not

until quite recently that I heard any more of Bughouse Mary.

A short time ago, while seeking some special and late information

regarding tramp life in the large cities, I chanced upon an old friend

of Mary's, whom I plied with questions concerning her whereabouts and

fate. It was a long time before he would give me anything I could call a

straight story, but at last, finding I had been, years before, one of

the brotherhood, with hesitation and real sorrow he told me what

follows:

"I wuz drillin' one day, 'bout two months 'go, on the Boston 'n' Albany

road, 'n' hed jes got into a jerk town [a village], where I battered

[begged] fer some dinner. It begun to rain arter I'd chewed, so I

mooched down to the track 'n' found a box-car where I stopped fer a

while. I wuz waitin' fer the 'xpress, too, so the wettin' wa'n't much uv

a bother. Waal, I'd be'n in the car a few minnits, when I got all-fired

sleepy, 'n' ter save me gizzard I c'u'dn't keep me eyes open. So I jes

lay down 'n' pounded me ear [slept]. I'd be'n a-poundin' it, I guess,

fer 'bout two hours--fer 't wuz 'bout five 'clock when I begun, 'n' 't

wuz dead dark when I got me peepers open--when I heerd somebody pushin'

away at the car door to beat the divil, 'n' o' course looked out; an'

there on the groun' wuz one o' the funniest bums y' ever see--long,

flyin' hair, big gray eyes, coat 'n' vest, 'n', ez sure 's I'm a

moocher, a skirt too, but no hat. Course I was int'rested, 'n' I jumps

down 'n' gives the critter a big stare plump in the face, fer I had the

feelin' I'd seen it afore somewheres. See? An' it sort o' answered, fer

it seed I wuz koorios. 'I say, blokey, kin yer tell me when the flyin'

mail passes through these yere parts? I wants ter make it, ef it do.'

Then I knew who 't wuz, fer ye kin tell Old Mary ev'ry time when she

begins to chew the rag. I tole her that the mail come through 'bout

twelve 'clock, 'n' then asked her where her hat wuz.