Tramping with Tramps Part 12

"To tell the truth, mate," he said, "I was too drunk. You see, I got hold of a fellow in Glasgow who had some boodle, and we chummed it together till the boodle was gone; and the only thing I can tell you about Glasgow or Edinburgh is that they've got a fine pile of stone in Edinburgh, right in the main street, to the memory of that story-writer--you know his name--what is it?"

I suggested "Scott," and he went on:

"Yes; that's it--Scott. Well, since I've been out of Scotland I've had some hard times, and I'd 'a' been in Ameriky long ago if I hadn't p.a.w.ned my rubber boots. I tell you, Jack, I'd ruther be lynched in our country than die a natural death over here; and as for moochin' and lodgin', why, I can beg in five minutes in New York more money than I can here in a day. As it is, I'm a little bit of a wonder to some of these fellows, because I'm so dead struck on havin' the pleasures of life. I look for 'em till I get 'em, you know, and so fur I've had my bob a day, besides chuck. And that's more than some of these blasted gay-cats can say. Did you ever in your life see such badly faked b.u.ms? They make me think of prehistoric gorillas. Half the time only a few parts of their bodies are covered in, and yet they think they can batter more when togged that way. How's that for bein' bughouse [crazy], eh? Oh, well, you can laugh all you want to; but by the time you've seen two per cent. of what I've seen, you'll say, 'Thet Yank warn't fur from bein' right.'" He promised to have another talk with me at the World's Fair.

The fellow was correct about the clothes and the filthiness of the English moocher. Generally he dresses in a way that in America would be thought indecent and in Germany criminal. He is too lazy to clean up, if he had the chance, and harbors vermin as if he liked them. It is not surprising that lodging-houses are so unclean; for if the proprietors of these places should admit only decent tramps, their houses would be left without occupants in a very short time. This is not an attractive theme, but it is one for the practical reformer to treat; for I am convinced that when a man becomes callous in regard to filth, his reformation will be far to seek. And there is nothing that can make a purely temporary vagrant a thoroughgoing one so surely as the inability to keep himself clean in person.

One little incident in the Dog's Home is worth telling, for it ill.u.s.trates a trait that is international among tramps. A kid had in some way offended an older moocher, and the man was on the point of striking him, when the Hartford tramp stepped forward and said: "You wouldn't hit a kid, would you?"

The man started back and answered: "Well, I ortn' to, I know; but he plagued me like a reglar little divil."

That is a trait in trampdom, and even among criminals, that I have noticed wherever I have been. My own case ill.u.s.trates it also. I am somewhat smaller than the average man, and I have no doubt that I have often enough offended some of my cronies; but never in all my experience have I had a real row or been struck by a tramp. I remember once quarreling with a vagabond until I became very hot-headed. I was preparing boldly for action, when the great, burly fellow said: "I say, Cigarette, if ye're a-goin' to fight, I'm a-goin' to run." Such sentiment is fine anywhere, and doubly fine when found, as it is so often, in the life of the vagrant beggar.

From Hull, Ryborg and I walked to York, visiting nearly every kip-house on the way, as this place is the best for studying English moochers. In the kip at Beverley we learned that Mr. Gladstone was always good for a bob--a statement that I very much doubt; for if it had been widely known, the Grand Old Man would have gone to the workhouse, so numerous are English beggars. Another story told there was that of the "hawker tramp." He had a little girl with him, and the two evidently did a very fair business.

"We've just come from Edinbro," said the old man, "and altogether we ain't done bad; but we'd been nowhere 'thout the bible.[8] You see, now'days in England, to beg much of a swag a feller has got to have some sort of a gag, and the hawkin' gag is as good as any. We've had shoe-strings, pencils, b.u.t.tons, and lots of other things in stock; but all the good they've done us, and all the good they do any moocher, is to get him into a house or pub with a good excuse. When he's once in, he can beg good enough; and if Robert comes along, he can claim that he's simply peddlin'. See? Besides, I've got a license, in order to be safe; it only costs five bob, an' is well worth havin'. If you're goin' to beg much in these parts, you'd better git one, too."

This is the "hawkin' gag," and very popular it is, too. In America it has almost exhausted itself, with all the other peddling tricks, excepting always the "mush faker," or umbrella peddler and mender, and the "fawny man," or hawker of spurious jewelry. In England simple and artistic begging is by no means so well done as in America. The English moocher has to resort to his "gag," and his "lurks" are almost innumerable. One day he is a "shallow cove" or "shivering Jimmy "; another he is a "crocus" (sham doctor): but not very often is he a successful mendicant pure and simple. He begs all the time, to be sure, but continually relies on some trick or other for success.

On arriving at York, we went at once to Warmgate, the kip-house district, and picked out the filthiest kip we could find. The inmates were princ.i.p.ally in pairs; each moocher had his Judy (wife), and each little kid had his little Moll (sister). These children are the very offspring of the road, and they reminded me of monkeys. Yet one has to feel sorry for them, since they did not ask for life, and yet are compelled to see its meanest and dirtiest side. Their mothers, when they are not drunk, love them; and when they are, their fathers have to play mothers, if they are not drunk themselves. Never in my life have I seen a more serio-comic situation than in that York kip-house, where two tramps were rocking their babies to sleep. Moochers--Bohemians of the Bohemians--fondling their babies! I should far sooner have looked for a New York hobo in clergyman's robes. But tramping with children and babies is a fad in English vagabondage.

From this I turned to listen to a very domestic confab between a Judy and her mate. She had just washed her face, and made herself really pretty. Then she sat down on a bench close to her man, and began to pet him. This bit of discourse followed:

"Just go and get a shave now, Jim. I'll give you a wing [penny], if you will, for the doin' o' 't."

"Bah! What's the matter uv my phiz, anyhow?"

"Naw; you doan't look purty. I can't love you thet way."

"Blast yer love, anyhow! Doan't keep a-naggin' all the time."

"Please, now, git a sc.r.a.pe. I'm all washed up. You mought look as decent as I do."

"Lemme alone; I'm on the brain [I'm thinking]."

"Well, you mought have me on the brain a little more than you do. Didn't I git you out o' bein' pinched the other day?"

He looked at her, relented, patted her head, and went for a shave.

The surprise to me in all this was the genuine wifeliness of that Judy.

She was probably as degraded as womankind ever gets to be, and yet she had enough humanity in her to be really in love.

Just a word here as to tramp companionship in England. Among the men, although one now and then sees "mates," he more often meets the male vagabonds alone, so far as other men are concerned. Women, too, do not often ally themselves with other women. But between the s.e.xes partnership is common; though seldom long-lived, it is very friendly while it lasts. The woman is practically the slave of the man; he is the supposed breadwinner, but the Judy does more than her share of the begging all the while.

We went by rail from York to Durham, for there was little of interest to be found between the two points. Everywhere it was the cities far more than the country that furnished the most amusing and instructive sights.

On the train a rather pleasant-looking man, overhearing our conversation, asked Ryborg who we were.

"You'll excuse me," said he, "but your intelligence does seem a little more valuable than your clothes; and would you mind telling me what you are doing in England?"

As he seemed a candid sort of fellow, Ryborg began very frankly to tell him our mission, and I took up the story when he was tired. It was difficult for the stranger to express his astonishment.

"What!" said he. "Do you mean to say that you've left good homes behind you, and are over here simply to study tramps? What good will it ever do you?"

"Well," said Ryborg, "it's one way of seeking the truth."

"I declare, you're the rummest pair of fellows I've ever seen," he returned; and he looked after us curiously as we got off the train at Durham.

Here we gave the vagabonds a wide berth, on account of smallpox; three tramps had been taken out of a kip-house that very day; so after a night's rest we moved on to Newcastle, stopping for a few hours on the way at the dirtiest kip that we found in England. One of the inmates, a powerful poser as a bully, was terrorizing an old man.

"I say, granddad, get me a light, will you? Be sharp, now!"

OLD MAN. I'm too rheumatizin'-like. Caan't you get it yerself?

BULLY. Naw, I caan't. I waant you to get it. Hustle, now!

OLD MAN. I sha'an't do it. I ain't yer Hi t.i.ttle Ti-Ti, an' I waant you to rec'lect it, too.

BULLY. See here, pop; what date is to-day?

OLD MAN. Fifth of March.

BULLY. Well, pop, just twelve months ago to-day I killed a man. So look out!

The old man brought the light.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MOOCHER.]

Newcastle, from the vagabond's point of view, exists princ.i.p.ally in Pilgrim Street. I visited three kips there, saw eighty-four new faces, and learned something about the wages of beggars in England. Four moochers gave me the information. They were quarreling at the time.

Number One was saying: "It's a lie. I'd git off the road in a minute ef I could only beg what you say I can. Ef I hustle I can git four bob a day, and I'm willin' to fight that I can, too."

Number Two said: "You never mooched four bob in your life; you knaw you're happy when you git ten wing a day. I'm the only moocher in this 'ouse, an' I want you to know it. I beg 'xac'ly five bob in eight hours; an' ef I begged twenty-four hours, 'ow much'd that be?"

Number Three here put in: "Tired legs an' 'n empty stomach."

Number Four: "Keep still, ye bloomin' idjits!"

None of them could beg over two bob a day, and they knew it. There are beggars in England who can average nearly half a sovereign a day, but they are by no means numerous. Most of them are able to get about eighteen pence or two shillings; that is all.

Our Newcastle friends told us that the road between there and Edinburgh was not a profitable one. They claimed that the people were too "clanny-like," meaning too stingy. The Durham district they called the "bread and cheese caounty," while Yorkshire was the "pie and cake neighborhood." Accordingly, we took ship for Leith.

A fellow-pa.s.senger, half hoosier and half criminal, made up his mind that I was a crooked man. "Don't come near me," he said; "you're a pickpocket, an' I can feel it."

I said: "How can you tell?"

"By your hand-shake and the cut of your phiz."

And throughout the trip he continued to regard me as a species of bogy-man, while Ryborg he considered a most reputable traveler. So he was and is; but he made some of his most criminal faces on that same voyage, nevertheless. One of them, I particularly remember, seemed to say, "I can't eat, can't sleep, can't do anything"; and his under lip would fall in a most genuine manner. He was often eloquent in his representations of my ability to pose as a tramp; but I am sure that nothing I can do would so quickly throw even the vigilant off the track as that face of my companion.

We went into Scotland without any prejudice; but we had scarcely been in Edinburgh three hours when an English roadster tried to make me believe terrible things of the "Scotties," as he called the Scotch tramps. "The Scotties are good enough to mooch with," said he, "an'