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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.

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.

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.

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 manœuvered 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.