Kitabı oku: «Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond Life», sayfa 10

"Well," I said, "we lads on the road seem to have more money than most laborers, but we seldom have a decent place to lay our heads. For instance, what sort of place is this we're in now?"

"Yes, that's true," he returned; "but then we're never sick, always happy, and perhaps we're just as well off as anybody else. You forget that we never work, and that's a great thing in our favor. Those lads who have their homes have to work for them, and don't you forget it. It's my opinion that the home isn't worth the labor."

I think this latter opinion is very general in German vagrancy, and is one of its main causes. Liquor, however, is just as much of a curse in Germany as elsewhere, and brings more men into trampdom than is usually estimated. The Schnappsflasche is in nearly every tramp's pocket, and he usually empties it twice a day. It is a wonder to me how he can do it, for the schnapps is almost pure alcohol, and burns the throat terribly. Yet I found just outside of Brunswick a female tramp, nearly sixty years of age, who could empty Die Finne in a single "go," and seemed healthy too. This woman was the only feminine roadster I met during the journey, and I think she is one of the very few.

About noon of April 14 I arrived in Brunswick with Carl, who was on his way to Bremen, where he intended shipping as a coal-trimmer to New York, if possible. He was disgusted with Germany, he said, and felt that America was the only place for his nervous activity. He was somewhat surprised, however, as I was too, to find in Brunswick three American negroes who seemed to think quite the contrary of their country. One was an "actor," and the other two were ex-waiters, and they were traveling about the community and getting their living by dancing and singing in the streets and saloons. Charley, the actor, said: "We're doin' pretty well; have our three squares a day, and all the booze we want. Can't do better than that at home." I explained this to Carl, as none of the negroes spoke German; but he could not be convinced that gold was not lying loose in the streets of American cities. In the afternoon his hatred of Germany was not quite so intense, as he begged a mark and a half in about two hours. One man that he visited was a member of "The Society against Begging and Vagrancy," and had a sign to that effect on his gate-post; but Carl found him, it seems, a generous Samaritan. This interested me considerably, for I had heard good reports of this society and its members, as well as of its success in fighting vagabondage. I asked several fellows what they thought of the organization. One tramp claimed that he always visited its members, – at least, those having signs on their gates, – for he was quite as apt to be well treated as not. Others were drastic in their criticisms, and said that the society would let a man starve rather than feed him. Carl, I think, was about right when he said that some members of the society fed vagrants, and some did not, and it was all according to chance.

From Brunswick a crowd of tramps, including myself, rode in a fourth-class car to a little station called Peine, in the direction of Hanover. A few of the men remained here in order to take in the Verpflegung-Station until the next day. This station, of which there are about two thousand in Germany, is a place where a man professing to be penniless can have a night's lodging, together with supper and breakfast, for a few hours' work. I moved on toward Hanover with fifteen other men who were bound in the same direction. They all had money, and no love for the Verpflegung-Station. We tramped along at a pace of about five kilometers to the hour – the usual gait of tramps when they are compelled to use the highways. They can beg food enough on the road, and thus the walking is not so disagreeable, for the German roads are superb.

At one little village where we stopped for refreshments the crowd took the place by storm, and the people were actually frightened into giving us bread and meat. It is true that the men were rather violent and used threatening language, yet there was no need to fear them, as they could hardly have attempted to do any great harm. For the German tramp, as a rule, though a great talker and "blower," is a coward, after all, and when answered rather roughly usually subsides. At the village of Lehrte we again boarded a train, and rode into Hanover late in the evening. Some of my companions went to the Heimath, but the majority hunted out the common Herberge, and I followed the crowd. I was treated in the same fashion as at Magdeburg, and was asked no questions about a pass. There was great excitement in the Herberge over several little auctions, which the tramps were conducting for their own benefit. Some had coats, vests, and trousers to sell, while others were crying up the virtue of old buttons, collars, cuffs, neckties, and even pocket-books, the latter being found in almost every tramp's pocket. He finds them companionable, he says, whether he has any money or not. Several coats sold for five and ten cents apiece, while trousers brought higher prices. Knives were also on the market, and fully a dozen changed hands. I was struck in these auctions by the absence of Jews. In fact, I met only three during the trip, and they were extremely well dressed. I fancy that a tramp's life hardly offers inducements to men of their predilections. Yet one would think that no work and a fair reward for begging might satisfy even their trading propensities.

The trip from Hanover to Bremen was uninteresting, with only one incident worth recording. Five of us stopped on Easter night at one of the large bonfires that the peasants had built, just outside of Hanover, to commemorate the great holiday. When we arrived they were carousing most jovially, and seemed only too glad to welcome other companions; so we all took part, and danced around the fire, sometimes with the peasant girls, and then again by ourselves or singly. The peasants took no notice of the fact that we were tramps, and shared their sour milk and brown bread with us as if we were their best friends. One old fellow took such a fancy to Carl that he actually gave him a sechser. I was surprised to see him accept it, for the old man needed it much more than he did. This illustrates very truthfully the utter lack of friendly consideration in the character of the German tramp. One of the American species would have returned the penny with thanks, for he is a generous fellow, and can appreciate other interests than his own. But the Chausséegrabentapezirer has the least tender feeling of any beggar of my acquaintance. Even as a boon companion he falls far below the standard, and would never be tolerated in American trampdom. I can now understand why the great majority of German beggars in America are compelled to "flock" by themselves, and to choose companions from their own ranks. Their selfishness bars them out of the true brotherhood.

In Bremen poor Carl suffered a keen disappointment. He found that he could not ship as a coal-trimmer without a pass permitting him to leave the country. I advised him to seek work, and to earn money enough to pay his passage to New York. His trade was not overcrowded, and he had had a chance to labor in nearly every town we had visited, and I knew that he could succeed in Bremen. He finally decided to follow my advice; but the resolution weakened him so that I fear for a week at least he was a sorry-looking fellow. When we separated, he said, "Auf Wiedersehen in Sheekago in '93." Indeed, nearly every tramp that I met intended to cross the ocean in '93, and to take part in Germany's exhibit at the fair. Of course they did not all succeed, but some most certainly did.

While I was sitting in the Heimath in Bremen, who should come in but a policeman and a detective. They passed around among the laborers, journeymen, and vagrants, asking a few questions, and looking occasionally at the men's passes. I was in somewhat of a tremor, and expected to be quizzed also. But, as luck would have it, they passed me by, and I escaped a searching. They arrested one tramp, but he was the only unfortunate I met during my travels. I learned afterward that he was sentenced to two days' imprisonment. An American beggar would have told the judge that he could stand on his head that long, but the German took it more seriously. From Bremen I decided to go south, and compare my experiences in northern Germany with tramp life in the vicinity of Cologne. I left Bremen with seven men on the train, and traveled the first day as far as Osnabrück, where I made an unnecessary halt, for I found nothing new or interesting there. There were plenty of tramps, it is true, but they had no news to impart, except that Osnabrück was a poor town. One youngster could hardly say enough against its hospitality. He claimed that he had even begged of the clergymen, and all that he received were "a few paltry pfennigs." I must admit that the boy was not far from correct in his judgment, for I visited several houses, and all I got was a dry piece of bread, which was given me by an old woman wiser than she was generous. Learning that I was a foreigner, she must needs know all about my ancestors, where I had come from, and where I was going. And then she made me listen to a long account of her boy in Piper City, – she was not sure whether it was in North or South America, – and asked me if I had ever met him. I told her that I had not, and she was nearly dumfounded. She thought that in the United States, "where there were so few people," everybody should know everybody else. I left her to her surprise and chagrin.

The city of Münster was my next stopping-place, and a greater contrast to Osnabrück could hardly exist. At the Herberge I learned that the town was considered one of the best between Hamburg and Cologne. The evidence was certainly convincing, for the tramps had all the liquor they could drink, as well as numerous bundles of food. Two fellows were doing a good business in exchanging their bread and Wurst (sausage) for groschen which others had begged instead of something to eat. I invested a few sechser in these wares, and was most bountifully repaid, receiving half a loaf of bread and two good-sized sausages for two and a half cents of our currency. This custom is very prevalent in German trampdom, and will illustrate the machinery of vagrancy. Some men will beg only for food, while others devote most of their lives to looking for money, and in almost any Herberge, even in the Heimath, these two parties can be found trading as if they were in a market. They scold, "jew," and fight one another while the trade is progressing, but when the bargain is finished good fellowship is again resumed. The joviality in the Herberge after the "market" was as boisterous and companionable as if there had not been the slightest trouble. Even the innkeeper took part, and danced around the room with his guests as if he were as much of a tramp as any of them. I think he had been a roadster sometime in his life, for he entered into the schemes and plans as earnestly as the law allows. Some of the men were discussing the number of charitable families in Münster, and more especially those "good" for money. One man, in order to make his point, enumerated by name the families friendly to beggars. The innkeeper, not agreeing with him, gave his own census of the Münster people, and it was most interesting to hear from his lips just what citizens were worth visiting and what not. Having conducted a tramp hotel in the city for years, he had found it to his interests to gather and dispense information useful to his customers. He could tell exactly what house was "good" for a meal or a hand-out, and could also map out the districts sure to yield pfennigs, groschen, or half-mark pieces. It is needless to say that such a man is invaluable to beggars. They hold him dearer than any other member of the clan, and pay him most liberally for his wisdom by spending nearly all of their money in his inn. This they can afford to do, for without his information and protection they would encounter hardships and difficulties insurmountable. During my stay at the Herberge, the proprietor sent out as many as eight fellows to different parts of the town, well posted and equipped for successful begging. Three of these men returned while I was still there, having averaged three marks and a half apiece in about five hours. If they had worked for this length of time their wage would have been about one mark apiece.

The journey from Münster to Düsseldorf is so tiresome afoot, and there is so little of interest lying between the towns, that I made the trip by rail, with three companions bound for Bavaria. These men had been tramping around in northern Prussia for nearly two months, and were thoroughly disgusted with their experiences. This was not surprising, however, for the Bavarian as well as the Saxon tramps think there is no prosperity outside of their own provinces, and, wander as much as they may in foreign parts, usually return to their own fields, feeling that they made a mistake in leaving. Begging in these provinces is also much more remunerative than anywhere else in Germany. Even the religion in Bavaria favors mendicancy, and it is only necessary to stand on a Sunday morning in front of some church to make a very fair haul. The tramps loaf around in the neighborhood of the churches and stossen (tackle) the poor Catholics as they pass in and out, usually getting a pfennig at least. One old roadster, thankful that he had lost a leg in the war of 1870, was unusually successful; but I heard afterward that he had been in the city for years, and probably the people take care of him as a sort of relic. He was rather clever, too, and had formed some sage opinions on charity and poverty. "The poor people," he said, "are the best friends we have. They give ten times where the rich man gives once." This is an indisputable fact.

In Cologne, where I arrived on April 21, the tramps were planning trips into southern Germany, Switzerland, and the Tyrol. I had intended to make at least one of these excursions, but I was tired, nauseated, and homesick. I made quick work with the towns of Elberfeld, Essen, Barmen, and Dortmund, and once settled down in Berlin, with almanac and gazetteer before me, found I had been fifteen days auf der Walze, had traveled over one thousand kilometers, studied more than seventy towns and villages, and met three hundred and forty-one voluntary vagrants, all of them, however, less voluntary than I.

The German tramp, if these experiences justify me in judging him, is a fairly intelligent fellow of not more than average tramp education, more stupid and less vicious than his American confrère, and with the traits of his nationality well stamped upon him. He is cautious, suspicious to a degree, ungenerous, but fairly just and square-dealing in the company of his fellows. He is too much of a Bohemian to be a Social Democrat, but has not enough patriotism to be easily fired with enthusiasm for his Kaiser. He loves schnapps and hates what he calls the verdammte Heiligkeit such as Die Herberge zur Heimath seeks to cultivate. He has generally served his three years in the army, but will dodge the recruiting officer by skipping his country whenever possible, if he has not. Besides this pervasive lack of patriotism, he has other dangers for the country. In the February riots in Berlin (1891) he was out in force, not for labor rights as against capital, but lending his shoulder to the wheel which he fondly hoped might turn in the direction of a general overthrow of the existing social state and order.

In regard to the public on which the German tramp lives and thrives, it is only necessary to say that it is even more inanely generous than its counterpart in the United States. With all its groans under taxes, military and otherwise, it nevertheless takes upon itself voluntarily the burden of the voluntary vagrant – the man who will not work. This is the more surprising when one recollects that the entire theoretical treatment of beggars in Germany is founded on the supposition that each one is a bona-fide seeker of labor. The community practically says to the culprit: You can make use of our Verpflegung-Stationen, where you can work for your lodging and meals, and have also a half-day to search for work, if you can identify yourself as a seeker of labor. We not only offer this, but also attempt to guarantee you, through the efforts of our philanthropists, a casual refuge in Die Herberge zur Heimath, while you are out of work. And if, through untoward circumstances or through your own carelessness and weakness, you have fallen so low that the Stationen and the Heimath cannot take you in because your identification-papers are irregular, and you appear more of a vagabond than an unfortunate laborer, we then invite you into the labor colonies, founded also by our philanthropists, where you can remain until you have earned good clothes and proved yourself worthy. But if we catch you begging, we will punish you as a vagrant; consequently you would do better to make use of all the privileges we offer, and thus break no laws. This is the theory, and I consider it a good one. But the man who will not work passes through these institutions as freely as the man who will, owing to the lack of determined discrimination on the part of the officers, and the desperate cleverness of the offenders.

II
WITH THE RUSSIAN GORIOUNS

I

It was not my intention, in going to Russia, to tramp there. I planned merely to see St. Petersburg and Moscow, work for a while on Count Tolstoi's farm at Yasnaya Polyana, and then, after a short trip in the south, return to Berlin. I did all these things according to expectation, but I also made a tramp trip. It happened in this way: I had no more than reached the Russian capital when the tramp was forced upon me. As I jumped into the cab with my friend, who had come to the train to meet me, he pointed out about twenty tattered and sorry-looking peasants, marching by us under police escort.

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

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

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

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

"Are there many tramps in Russia?"

My friend laughed. "Thousands of them. You can hardly go into a village without meeting them. They are one of the greatest problems Russia has to deal with."

I soon saw also that I could not even approach a church without being accosted by them. They stood on the steps and at the doorway of every one I visited, and invariably begged of me, saying, "Radi Krista" ("For Christ's sake"). Even at Yasnaya Polyana, fifteen miles from the nearest town, and several minutes' walk from a highway, the Goriouns put in an appearance. I was there ten days, and at least one called every morning. They all seemed to know about Count Tolstoi's gospel, and came to his home, sure, at least, of something to eat. On the highway, at some distance from the house, I saw bands of ten and twenty marching by every day, and they often camped at a bridge which I crossed on my walks.

This continual meeting the tramp and hearing about him naturally made me curious, and I wondered whether it would be possible to make a journey among them. I knew enough Russian at least to make myself understood, and could understand much that was said to me. The great question, however, was whether, as a foreigner, I should be allowed to make such a trip. I talked with Count Tolstoi one day about the matter, telling him some of my experiences in other countries, and asking his advice.

"Why not?" he said, in his jovial, pleasant way. "Of course you will have hard work in understanding their dialects, and you can hardly expect to be taken for one of them, but otherwise you ought to get on easily enough. From your pass and other papers the police will see that you are nothing dangerous, and if anything should happen, all you have to do is to send to St. Petersburg. I should like to make such a trip myself, if I were younger. I'm too old now. Once I went on a long pilgrimage and saw a good deal of the life, but of course you will see much more if you go directly into the tramp class. If you decide to make the trip, I wish you would find out how they look upon the authorities, and whether they really believe in what they call their religion. It ought to be very interesting to talk with them on these topics, and perhaps you will be able to gather some useful material – only you will not be permitted to print it here in Russia"; and he smiled.

I finally decided to make a trial trip, and was fortunate in finding a Moscow student who was willing to accompany me for a few days. He had tramped perforce in some of the southern provinces, and being much interested in the tramp class in the Vitebsk government, consented to go with me if I would begin my investigations there. I was fortunate also in having brought a tramp outfit with me. It had already seen service in England, Germany, and Italy, and I had taken it along for work in the fields at Yasnaya Polyana. It was a little better than the usual Gorioun dress, but I should really have been ashamed to put on anything shabbier. My friend the student was clad in a patched university uniform, which all of his class have to wear in Russia, and he looked like pictures I have seen of ragged Union soldiers in Libby Prison. We both had a little money in our pockets, and it was not our intention to beg for anything more than bread and milk, and not even for these things unless it was necessary to make good our pose. We reasoned that the peasants of whom we should have to ask for them needed them much more than we did, and I am glad to say that neither of us on this trip, nor I on others, which were sometimes made alone, asked for much that we did not pay for.

Our credentials for the journey consisted of our passports, some university papers, and an open letter which I had received in St. Petersburg from Prince Chilkoff, the Minister of Ways and Communication. It was addressed to the director of the Siberian Railway, but I kept it by me for the sake of identification, and it helped me through many a predicament, although the officials to whom it was presented could never get it through their heads how I, an Amerikanski tramp, could be in the possession of such an almighty document. There were times, I fear, when they were tempted to arrest me as an impostor, but they never did – a good fortune which I can only explain on account of the singularity of the situation. The Russian "system" was evidently not prepared for so weird a creature, and I was allowed to pass as an anomaly.

With the Moscow student I tramped for three days in the Vitebsk government, between the towns of Polotsk and Dünaburg, as dreary a stretch of country as is to be found anywhere in our West. It was warm August weather, and the sun came down on us in all its Russian fierceness. There were times when I simply had to get under a tree to keep from sun-stroke. At night we slept out of doors, or in haystacks and barns. The peasants always offered us the hospitality of their cabins, as they do to all tramps, but we could not bring ourselves to put up with the vermin we should have found there. In winter, on the other hand, the Gorioun is glad enough to curl up over their stoves, and I suppose that we also should have been, had the weather been cold. As it was, most of the vagabonds we met slept outside, as we did, and we always had plenty of company. On this trip we met two hundred, traveling in bands and families. They invariably wanted to know where I came from, which is the first question they ask, after the greeting, "Strassvuitye," and I told them the truth on each occasion. "America – America," they would say in their simple way. "What government is that in?" meaning what Russian province. I could not make them understand that it was not in Russia at all, which to them is the entire world, but they called me "the far-away brother," and I was probably considered a new species in their class. I never had the feeling that they accepted me as one of their own, – it would have been strange if they had, – but they, at any rate, dubbed me "brother," and this was as much as I could ask. They always wanted to share their simple fare with me, and I soon saw that there was but little danger in associating with them.