Tramping with Tramps Part 14

"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 f.a.gged 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 cla.s.s 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 h.e.l.l, 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 oak.u.m-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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sion 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 a.s.sumed 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-cla.s.s 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.