WHAT TRAMPS READ.
In a superficial way tramps read practically everything they can get
hold of. As a class they are not particularly fond of books when there
is something more exciting to engage their attention, such as a
"hang-out" conference, for instance, but they get pleasure out of both
reading and writing. They have generally learned how to read as boys,
either at home with their parents or in some institution for truants and
"incorrigibles." Dime novels and like literature amuse them most at this
stage in their career, and the same is true of tramp boys who are found
in Hoboland, but they learn to laugh over the fascination that such
books had for them, as do more highly cultivated readers. As a rule,
however, it is not until they have served a term in prison that they
take a definite interest in the books that appeal to educated people. In
all large prisons there are libraries from which the inmates can draw
books at stated intervals, and the majority of the truly professional
tramps generally serve at least one sentence in these institutions. As
youths, it was their ambition to be successful thieves, crack burglars,
pickpockets, and "Peter-men" (safe thieves), and they have usually
experimented with the thief's profession long enough to get a year or
two in a penitentiary. Some take a longer time than others to become
convinced that they lack criminal wit, and are fitted, so far as their
world is concerned, for nothing higher than tramping, but the majority
of tramps in the United States arrive at this conclusion sooner or
later, and degenerate into what may be called discouraged criminals. In
the process of getting discouraged they have access to prison libraries,
and can pick and choose their books as they like. In some prisons the
wardens keep track of the kinds of books their charges call for, and I
have seen interesting reports in which an attempt has been made to read
the characters of the men from their different bookish preferences; but
it is easy to make mistakes in such calculations. I know of prisoners,
for instance, who have called for nothing but religious books in the
hope that the "Galway" (the prison priest) would be so impressed with
their reformation that he would recommend their cases to the Board of
Pardons for reconsideration. Indeed, prisoners in general are such
_poseurs_, in one respect or another, that not much faith can be put in
conclusions as to their literary tendencies deduced from their selection
of books in prison libraries. One must observe them in the open, and see
what they read when they are free of the necessity of making an
impression, to discover their real preferences.
In summer they are almost constantly "in transit," and read very little
except newspapers, but in winter they flock to the large cities and
gather around the stoves and radiators in public libraries, and it is
then that one can learn what kind of reading they like best. The library
in Cooper Union, for example, is one of their favourite gathering-places
in New York City during the cold months, and I have seen the same tramps
reading there day after day. Novels and books of adventure appeal to
them most, and it would surprise a great many people to see the kind of
novels many of them choose. Thackeray and Dickens are the favourite
novelists of the majority of the tramps that I have happened to talk
with about books, but the works of Victor Hugo and Eugene Sue are also
very popular. The general criticism of the books of all of these
writers, however, is that they are "terribly long drawn out." A tramp
who had just finished reading Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" once said to me:
"Why the devil didn't he choke it off in the middle, an' leave out all
the descriptions? It's a good book all right enough, but it's as
long-winded as a greyhound." Robert Louis Stevenson, on the other hand,
is admired by a Western tramp acquaintance of mine on account of his
"big mouthfuls of words."
Detective stories like "Sherlock Holmes" and the books of Gaboriau are
read widely by both tramps and criminals, and the ingenuity of their
authors is often admired; but the tramp cannot understand, and no more
can I, why the writers of such stories prefer to give their own
conception of a detective to the "Hawkshaw" of real life. He believes,
and I agree with him, that much more interesting detective tales could
be written if the truth about police life were told; and there awaits
the writer who is prepared and willing to depict the "fly cop" as he
really is in Anglo-Saxon countries, a remunerative and literary success.
No mistake has been made in portraying him as the King of the Under
World, but some one ought to tell what a corrupt king he has been, and
still is, in a great many communities.
Popular books, such as "Trilby," "David Harum," and "Mr. Dooley," almost
never reach the tramps until long after their immediate success is over.
The tramps have no money to invest in books of the hour, and the
consequence is that while the public is reading the book of some new
favourite author, they are poring over books that were popular several
years back. There are roadsters who are to-day reading for the first
time the earliest books of Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and other well-known
authors, and the next crop of vagabonds will probably read the works of
writers who are now in the foreground. In Chicago I met, one day, a
tramp who had just discovered Bret Harte, and he thought that
"Tennessee's Partner" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" were recent
stories. "I tell ye, Cigarette," he declared, enthusiastically, "those
stories'll make that fella's fortune. Jus' wait till people get to
talkin' about 'em, an' you'll see how they'll sell." He had read the
tales in a sailor's mission to which somebody had donated a mutilated
Tauchnitz edition of Bret Harte's writings.
In a county jail in Ohio I also once heard two tramps discuss for nearly
two hours the question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays when he did
or about two hundred years later. The tramp who favoured the latter
theory based it on the supposition that the balcony scene in "Romeo and
Juliet" could not have been possible so far back as "in Shakespeare's
time."
"Why, gol darn it," he exclaimed, "they didn't have no such porches in
them days. A porch, I tell ye, is a modern invention, just like dynamite
is."
Next to the exciting novel or tale of adventure, the tramp likes to read
books which deal with historical and economic subjects. It is a rather
exceptional tramp who can read intelligently such a book as Henry
George's "Progress and Poverty," but a number of roadsters have gone
through this work time and again, and can quote from it quite freely.
Indeed, it has been the cause of long discussions at "hang-outs" all
over the United States. Any book, by the way, which "shows up" what the
tramps consider the unreasonable inequalities in our social conditions,
appeals to them, and thoughts in regard to such matters filter through
the various social strata and reach the tramp class more rapidly than
the reader would think. I have heard tramps discuss socialism, for
instance, with quite as clear an insight into its weak points, and with
as thorough an appreciation of its alluring promises, as will be found
in any general gathering of people. They are much more entertaining when
discussing a book dealing with some serious question than when trying to
state their opinion of a novel. If a character in a novel has taken hold
of them, they can criticise it intelligently and amusingly, and they
have their favourite characters in fiction just as other people have,
but only a few tramps read novels with the intention of remembering
their contents for any length of time; such books are taken up mainly
for momentary entertainment, and are then forgotten. Books of historical
or political import, on the contrary, are frequently read over and over
again, and are made to do service as authorities on grave questions
discussed at "hang-out" conferences. Bryan's "First Battle" has been
quoted by tramps in nearly every State in the Union, and some roadsters
can repeat verbatim long passages from it.
A striking example of the tramp's fondness for what he would call heavy
books was a man whom I met, some years ago, at a tramp camp in central
New York. We had been sitting around the camp-fire for some time,
discussing matters of the road, when the man called my attention to his
weak eyes. I had noticed that the lids of his eyes were very red, and he
told me that it was only with difficulty that he could read even large
print. "Used them up in the stir" (penitentiary), he explained. "We had
no work to do, and were shut up in our cells practically all of the
time, and I simply read myself blind." I asked him what kind of reading
he had enjoyed most, and he gave me a string of authors' names, whose
books he had drawn from the library, which but few college graduates
could beat. I have forgotten many of the books he mentioned, but Kant's
"Pure Reason" and Burton's "Melancholy" were among the number. We
talked together for over three hours about writers and writing, and I
have seldom enjoyed a conversation more. The man was still a tramp in
essential matters, and had no intention of becoming anything better, but
his reading had widened the boundaries of his world to such an extent
that in other clothes and with a few changes in his diction he might
have passed muster in very respectable companionship. If he is alive, he
is probably still looking for "set-downs" and "hand-outs," and
discussing between meals with the hoboes the wonderful things that were
revealed to him during the ten years he spent in his prison university.
Endowed with this interest in books of a serious nature, it would seem
that the tramp ought eventually to take to heart some of the wisdom such
books contain, and try to live up to it in his every-day life, but I am
compelled to say that, in the majority of cases, he considers himself a
being apart from the rest of the world, so far as moral responsibility
is concerned. He likes to ponder over the moral obligations of others,
and to suggest schemes for a general social regeneration, but he finds
it irksome and unpleasant to apply his advice and recommendations to his
own existence. Theoretically, he has what he would call a religion, but
he no more expects to live up to his religion than he intends to work
when he can get out of it. He has two worlds in which he lives,--one
consisting of theories and fanciful conceits which he has got from books
and his own imagination, and the other of hard facts, prejudices, and
habits. He is most natural in the latter environment, but moods come
over him when he feels impelled to project himself into the world of
theories, and then nothing pleases him more than imaginatively to
reconstruct the world in general as he believes it ought to be.
I have been asked whether he ever voluntarily reads the Bible. It is an
easy book to get hold of, and in prison it is forced upon the tramp's
attention, but it has no marked fascination for him. I have known a
roadster to beg a New Testament from a Bible House agency in order to
settle a dispute about religious doctrine, but this is a very
exceptional case. The average tramp knows no difference between the Old
and New Testaments, and bases any religious convictions that he may have
on personal revelations of truth rather than on inspired Scripture. In
one respect, however, he conforms to conventional customs,--he likes to
sing hymns. In jail or out, if he happens to be in a singing mood, it is
only necessary to start such hymns as "Pull for the shore," "There were
ninety and nine," "Where is my wandering boy to-night?" and this
tattered and uncouth creature breaks forth into song. There is a grin on
his lips while he sings, for he appreciates the ludicrousness of the
situation, but he sings on at the top of his voice. At night, on a
Western prairie, where he and his pals have built a "hang-out" near a
railroad track, there is no more picturesque scene in all Hoboland than
when he stands up, starts a tune, and the others rise and join him.
Equally amusing, if not so harmless, are the tramp's improvised schools.
In the autumn, when the weather gets too cold for sleeping out, the
country schoolhouse becomes one of the tramp's night shelters. He gets
in through one of the windows. A wood-pile is near by, and what with a
good fire and benches to lie on, he makes a very cosy nest. Let a crowd
of ten or twenty appropriate such a place, and there is always a frolic
before bedtime. One of the tramps is elected teacher, the scholars'
books and slates are taken from their desks, and school begins. "Moike,
oppen yer mug 'n' see if ye kin read," the teacher commands, and the
burly pupil begins to paw over the leaves. Later comes a turn at
spelling, writing, and "figgerin'," and a wild hobo song ends the
session. A keg of beer sometimes helps to enliven things, and then
ink-bottles, readers, and spelling-books are scattered about the room in
great confusion. The wood-pile also disappears, and sometimes the
building itself goes up in flames. I have often wondered whether the
real pupils were not glad to find things so topsy-turvy in the morning.
It must take time to put the schoolhouse in order again, and the boys
and girls have a vacation meanwhile. The taxpayers grumble, of course,
but, as the tramp says, "they ought to fasten things tighter," and until
they do he will continue, I fear, to entertain himself at their expense.
An experience that I had not long ago illustrates the tramp's
unwillingness to have his reading matter regulated by outsiders. I was
making an investigation of the tramp situation on certain railroads in
the middle West at the time, and one night, in company of some fellow
roadsters, I went for shelter to the tramp ward of a poor-house. The
room we were sent to was in the cellar, and we all passed a very
miserable night. In the morning we were given our breakfast in the
common dining-room of the institution, and while we were sitting at the
table the wife of the keeper gave each one of us a "tract," which we
carefully tucked under our plates and left there. When we had finished,
one of the tramps asked our hostess whether there was a place in the
building where we could wash; the hole we had had to stay in over night
was so dirty that our clothes and hands were covered with dust, and the
tramp knew that any stream we might find outside would be frozen over.
The woman looked at him severely, and said: "There's a brook at the foot
of the hill." The tramp's anger was aroused. "Madam," he said, "I have
always been taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. You have given
us all tracts, but you won't give us a place to wash. Your religion and
mine don't jibe. You'll find the tracts under the plates." We all got
another severe look, and the next batch of tramps probably got the
tracts.
Of the newspapers that the tramp reads there is but little that is novel
to report beyond the fact that he begs for them in the same systematic
fashion characteristic of him when looking for his meals. Not all tramps
are anxious to keep up to date as regards the world's doings, but a fair
proportion of them look for their morning newspaper immediately after
breakfast. They go to stores and barber-shops, and do not hesitate to
ask even newsdealers. In summer the newspapers which they get also serve
them as beds in railroad box-cars; they spread them out on the floor of
the car and lie down on them, their shoes and vests doing duty as
pillows, and their coats as covering. Their favourite papers are of the
yellow kind, but I doubt whether they take them any more seriously than
other people do who buy them merely for particular items of news and
then throw them away. They like spicy articles and glaring pictures, and
scramble with one another for first chance at the _Police Gazette_, but
this taste is not unnatural; their life is rough, vulgar, and
sensational, and the wonder is that they can appreciate and care for the
high-class literature which many of them read.
I have said that they get enjoyment out of writing as well as reading.
There are a few well-educated men in tramp life, and they have been
surprised attempting to make literature as well as to read it. In
Germany it is quite a custom among the _Chausseegrabentapezirer_ to
keep diaries in which they jot down notes and comments on their life,
and in this country, also, journals and essays by tramps have been
discovered. One of the most intelligent criticisms of my tramp papers in
_The Century_ came from a Boston tramp, hailing for the time being from
Texas. Excepting a few mistakes in grammar which many persons who are
not tramps are guilty of, it was a very creditable production.
Once upon a time, not to be too particular, two tramps were shut up all
alone in a jail in Michigan, and their sentences wore so heavily upon
them that they found it very difficult to be patient. Their stories gave
out, the jail fare became tiresome, there was very little to read, and
they were by nature very restless. At last things looked so gloomy that
they decided to spin a coin for a choice of two suggested
pastimes,--writing a story, or planning and carrying out an escape. It
was "heads" for the story, and "tails" for the escape. Heads won. True
to their contract, these two men, one fairly well educated, and the
other with a big imagination, sat themselves down to the task, pencil
and paper being furnished by the sheriff. For ten days they wrote and
wrote, then rewrote, until, as the man with the imagination said, their
"poor brains seemed squeezed to death." Indeed, they had worked so hard
that the man with a little education thought it would be worth while to
try to sell the story; so, after it had been read to the sheriff and his
wife, both of whom it pleased, sufficient postage was collected to send
it to a periodical thought to be looking for such contributions; and off
it went, and with it the solemn prayers of the authors. Three weeks
later, lo and behold! a letter arrived in care of the sheriff. The two
men opened it tenderly and fearfully, each tearing a little of the end
off and then passing it to the other, saying, like silly girls: "I don't
dare." But what was their surprise, the terrifying little thing once
laid bare, to find in it a check for ninety dollars, payable to them
jointly or severally, as if the editor had fancied that they might be
turned loose at different times. Unfortunately, they were freed
together, and two hours afterward the man with the imagination had so
inflated it with whiskey that he wanted to storm the jail and free the
sheriff. His story, however, was not disgraced. It is still quite
readable. He, poor fellow, would probably like to toss up again for
pastimes; when last heard of he was "doing" solitary confinement.