Tramping with Tramps Part 6

Around the walls several tiers of bunks are built, sometimes twelve feet high, and in the middle is the "sitting-room," with stove and chairs.

Occasionally the only bedding is straw, there being no blanket of any kind. The cla.s.s of men found in places of this type is hard to describe; the town tramp is there, and so is almost every other kind of vagabond.

It is a sort of cesspool into which are drained all sorts of outcasts, and the only way to distinguish them is to know them personally. Young and old, the intelligent and the ignorant, the criminal and the newsboy, all are found in the ten-center.

The fifteen-center comes next, and is very much like the ten-center, except that its customers are a little more orderly, and that it furnishes lockers into which the lodgers can put their clothes. This latter point is really the _raison d'etre_ of the fifteen-cent lodging-house, according to my experience. At any rate, I have failed to see any other good reason for charging five cents more for the beds, which are usually no better than those in the ten-center.

In the other grades, at twenty and twenty-five cents a night a man can have a little room to himself; by "room" I mean a sort of cell without a roof, in which is a cot, a chair (sometimes), and a locker. I slept in one of these houses in the Bowery one night. The office and sitting-room were comparatively cozy, and the lodgers were respectable so far as dress and general manner were concerned. Up-stairs in the sleeping-apartments things were not so pleasant. There was a bad odor about everything, and the beds were decidedly unclean, as are most beds in most lodging-houses. I left word at the office that I wished to be called at seven o'clock in the morning, and my order was distinctly obeyed, for about half-past six I was wakened by a man poking me in the ribs with a long stick leveled at me from over the part.i.tion-wall. After the man had poked me with the stick, he said, "Eh, bloke, time to get up."

Some tramps consider this style, and it probably is in their cases, for they are accustomed to all sorts of places, and the twenty-five-center is their nearest approach to hotel life. Although I have probably overlooked some exceptional inst.i.tutions in this general description of lodging-houses, I have nevertheless given a fair account of the usual homes of the "lodgin'-house gang." And, as I said before, the town tramp is mixed up in this gang so promiscuously that to pick him out of the general crowd necessitates a personal encounter. All that I can do now is to portray him in his various guises as a beggar. I shall take four types to do this--the street-beggar, the house-beggar, the office-beggar, and the old-clothes beggar. These are all well-known characters in city vagabondage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CITY TRAMP AT WORK.]

The street-beggar is, I believe, the cleverest all-round vagabond in the world. He knows more about human nature than any other tramp of my acquaintance, and can read its weak points with surprising ease. I used to know a New York tramp of this kind who begged almost entirely of women as they walked along the streets, and he claimed that he could tell, the minute he had seen their eyes, whether it would pay to "tackle 'em." How he did this I do not pretend to know, and he himself could not tell, but it was true that he seldom judged a woman wrongly. Fifth Avenue was his beat, and he knew fully fifty women in that district who were sure to give him something. His main tricks, if I can call them that, were those of the voice rather than of the hand. He knew when to whine and when to "talk straight," and, best of all, he knew when to make people laugh. This is the highest accomplishment of the street-beggar, for when a person will laugh with him he is pretty sure to get something; and if he can succeed in picking out a certain number of "clients," as he calls them, who will laugh with him every week the year round, his living is a.s.sured. This is the business of the clever street-beggar; he must sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with enough people in his chosen district to support him. It matters not to him whether he excites their pity or mirth so long as he gets their nickels and dimes. I knew a woman beggar of this sort whose main trick, or "capital," as she called it, was extreme faith in the chivalry of men. She would clutch a man by the coat-sleeve, and tragically exclaim:

"How dare you cast me off? Don't you know that I am a woman? Have you no mother or sisters? Would you treat them as you are treating me?"

Some men are so squeamishly and nervously chivalrous that they will be taken in by such a beggar every time.

Women very often make the keenest street-beggars. They are more original in posing and dressing, and if with their other talents they can also use their voices cleverly, they do very well. Speaking of posing reminds me of a woman who is usually to be found near the Alhambra music-hall in London. She dresses very quietly and neatly, and her entire manner is that of a lady. I believe that she really was one in her day, but liquor has made her a match-vender; and her clever pose and dress are so attractive that people give her three times the value of the matches which she sells them. This match-selling is the main trick of the London street-beggar. It is a trick of defense against the police, and at the same time a blind to the public. People think that men and women selling matches are trying to earn an honest living, and this is true sometimes; but, according to my observation, the majority of match-venders offer one hand to the public for alms, and carry their "lights" (matches) in the other.

The business of the house-beggar is obviously to know a certain number of good houses in his district, just as the street-beggar knows a certain number of people in his street or streets. And if he is a mendicant who can deal with women more successfully than with men, he must know just when to visit houses in order that only the women may be at home. If he is a beggar of this style, he usually carries a "jigger"--an artificially made sore, placed usually on an arm or leg. He calls at the front door and asks for "the lady." When she appears he "sizes her up" as best he can, and decides whether it will pay to use his jigger. If it is necessary, he prefaces this disgusting scene by an account of his hards.h.i.+ps, and claims that he has been very badly burned.

Then he shows his miserable sore, and few women are callous enough to see it without flinching. If they "squeal," as the tramp says, he is sure to be rewarded.

Another trick is to send around pretty little girls and boys to do the begging. A child will succeed at house-begging when an able-bodied man or woman will fail utterly, and the same is true of a very old man--the more of a centenarian he looks, the better. But better than any of these tricks is what is called the "faintin' gag." I myself had the benefit of an undertaking of this character in Indianapolis some years ago, and I know it works well. I got into the town one night, and was at a loss to know what to do, until I accidentally met an old hobo who was trying to make his living there as a city tramp. He had been in the place only a few days, and had not yet found his particular district. He was simply browsing about in search of it, and he suggested that we try a certain quarter of the town that he had not visited at all. We did try it, and, after visiting twenty houses, got only two pieces of bread and b.u.t.ter.

This, naturally enough, made my partner angry, and he told me to go back to the hang-out while he went on another beat. I waited for him nearly an hour, when he returned with a "poke-out" (food given at the door) and a "sinker" (a dollar). I, of course, was surprised, and asked for details.

"Oh, I got 'em right 'nough," he said. "You see, after leavin' you, I was so dead horstile that I was ready for anything 'n' the first house I struck was a parson's. At first he didn't want to feed me at all, but I got into his settin'-room 'n' gave 'im a great story. I tole 'im that I was nearly a-dyin' with hunger, 'n' ef he didn't feed me, the s'ciety agen' cruelty to animals 'u'd prosecute 'im. Then I begun to reel a bit 'n' look faintin'-like, 'n' purty soon I flops right on the floor as ef I was dead. Then the racket begun. The parson called 'Wifey!' an' the both of 'em peppered 'n' salted me for about ten minutes, when I comes to an' looks better. Then they couldn't feed me fast 'nough. I had pie, cake, 'n' a lot o' other things 'fore I wuz done, 'n' when I left the parson give me the sinker, 'n' 'wifey' the poke-out; hope to die ef they didn't. See? That's the way ye got ter catch them parsons--right in the eye."

As the old-clothes beggar is only a subspecies of the house-begging cla.s.s, he deserves mention under the same head. His business, as his name implies, lies princ.i.p.ally in looking for old wearing-apparel, which he sells to dealers in such wares. Sometimes he even pays for his food in order to devote his entire time and talents to his specialty. In London, for instance, I know a trio of this sort who live in a cellar where they keep their "goods." I visited their place one afternoon, and one of the men was kind enough to let himself be interviewed about his business. My first question was how he begged.

"Well, o' course our first business is to wear bad togs. F'r instance, ef I's beggin' fer shoes I wants to put on a pair thet's all gone, else I can't get any more, 'n' the same when I's beggin' fer coats 'n' 'ats.

It's no use tellin' people that you're beggin' fer somebody else. They won't believe it."

Then I questioned him as to the sort of garments which were most profitable.

"Breeches. We kin sell 'em every time. 'Ats does pretty well too, 'n' ef we get good shoes we kin do a rattlin' business. One o' my pals made seven bob fer a week jes out o' shoes. Wimmenses' togs hain't up ter the men's; an' yet we does fairly well wid 'em too. In 'ats, f'r instance, we does fairly good, 'cause the gals knows where we lives, 'n' they comes right 'ere instid o' goin' ter the dealers. Petticoats is next best when we gets good ones, but we don't very often, 'cause these Whitechapel donners [girls] wants picter-like ones, 'n' we don't always get 'em. I wish we could jes stick ter beggin' fer men's togs, 'cause they 's the best. Jes gimme 'nough breeches, 'n' I won't complain."

In American cities also, men's clothing is the most profitable for beggars of this sort; very few tramps ask for "wimmenses' togs." In Germany, however, all sorts of old clothes are looked for, and the city tramps are great compet.i.tors of the Jews in this business. An old German Jew once said to me:

"I wish these Kunden [tramps] were all dead. They spoil our business right along, because they get their stuff for nothing, and then undersell us. That isn't right, and I know it isn't."

In Frankfort-on-the-Main I once knew a Swiss beggar who collected eighteen pairs of shoes in one week, not counting other things that he asked for also. And he claimed that, after trying various kinds of begging, he had found the most money in the shoe business. Of course, all this depends on a beggar's ability to make people believe that he is really deserving, for clothes-beggars, like a number of other specialists, must have some natural adaptation for their chosen calling.

This is also true of the office-beggar, or "sticker," as he calls himself. His specialty brings him almost entirely in contact with men, and he must be exceedingly clever to deal successfully with them. A man will argue with a beggar, if he has time, just twice as long as a woman will, and he will also give just twice as much money if he gives anything. So the office-beggar has good material to work on if he understands it. One of his theories is that, when begging of men, the "story" must be "true to nature"; that is, so simple and direct that there is no possibility of doubling on his track. For instance, he will visit a lawyer, tell his story, and then simply hang around as long as he dares. It is this waiting so patiently that gives him his name of "sticker." There are fully a hundred tramps of this sort in New York city alone. They have their separate beats, and seldom leave them unless they are worked out. I know one beggar who never leaves Newspaper Row and Wall Street except for amus.e.m.e.nt, and he makes, on an average, seventy-five cents a day. And I know another tramp whose business keeps him confined to Broadway between Barclay Street and the Battery, while his home is in the Bowery near Houston Street. Men of this stamp have evidently been lucky in the selection of offices where a certain sum of money will be given every week. Such good fortune is the ambition of every energetic city tramp. He wants something definite every day, week, and month, and as he gets it or fails to get it, rates himself successful or unsuccessful.

The aristocrat of city vagabondage is represented by what I call the room-beggar. He cannot be cla.s.sified with the lodging-house men, because he has little to do with them, except socially, as at the saloon or music-hall, for instance. His home is entirely separated from theirs, it being a room, and sometimes even an apartment, which he rents for himself and family. If he is successful at his trade, and is careful to dress with some nicety, he can scarcely be distinguished from the usual citizen, except by the trained observer; the only mark about him being that peculiar glance of the eye common to all criminals and beggars.

The room-beggar has no unique line of trade that I have been able to discover; he goes into anything that pays, and the main difference between him and the majority of the men in the "lodging-house gang" is his greater ingenuity in making things pay. He is the brainy man of the city tramps, and the other beggars know it, and all look up to him, with the exception of the clever street-beggar, who considers himself his equal, as I think he really is.

No tramp, for instance, is so clever at the begging-letter "racket," and this means a good deal. To be able to write a letter to a perfect stranger and make money out of it requires a skilled hand, and a man educated in many lines. The public has become somewhat used to this trick, and will not be deceived every time; only men of an original turn of mind can do much with it. It is this originality that is the main talent of the room-beggar. He concocts stories which would do credit to a literary man, and sometimes makes nearly as much money as the daring thief.

Women are also found in this cla.s.s, and do very well at times. In the city of Berlin, Germany, there lived a "lady" of this sort. She had two homes. One was a cellar in a poor quarter of the town, and the other was an aristocratic _etage_ in the West End. She sent letters to well-to-do people of all sorts, in which she claimed to be _eine hochwohlgeborene Dame_ in distress. She invited likely philanthropists to visit her in her cellar in order that they might see how unfortunate her position really was. People went, were shocked, and, as a result, she had her apartment in the West End. For about ten months this woman and her two daughters lived in real luxury, and one of the "young ladies" was to marry in "high society" about the time that the ruse was made public.

This is by no means a new trick, and yet people are being continually swindled. Why? Simply because the beggars who undertake it are cleverer than the people fooled by it. That is the only reason. If charitable people would only commit charity to skilled hands it would be much easier to handle beggars. The tramp is a specialist; so why not leave specialists to deal with him? The whole trouble comes of our willingness to be more unpractical in our philanthropy than in our business.

There is one more city tramp that I must catalogue. It is the "sponger."

His duty in life consists, he thinks, in simply living off the visiting knights of the road. He is a parasite fed by parasites, and hated by all self-respecting beggars. He is found wherever the traveling hoboes congregate, and there is no town in any country that I have visited where he does not flourish. In the Bowery his name is legion, and a hobo can scarcely visit a saloon there without meeting him. The wandering vagabond considers him the "bunco-man" of the beggars' world, and that is a good name. He will do anything to get money from a hobo, but I doubt very much whether he ever begs on his own hook. Exactly how he comes to exist no one knows, but I fancy that he is a discouraged tramp; he has found that he is not a born beggar, and has concluded that the next best thing is to live off men who are. If there were no beggars in the world, he would probably have to work for his living, for he could not steal successfully.

As for stealing, few town beggars ever go into that as a business. Of course, they will take things that do not belong to them if they are sure of not being caught, but this safety is so vain a hope that it is seldom "banked on." It is strange that the city tramp is not more of a thief, for probably no one knows more about the town's chances than he.

Criminals are always anxious to have some acquaintance in his ranks, knowing only too well that the "town vag" can post them as no one else can.

Another thing rather more unpopular among town tramps than is usually supposed is joining a clique. In New York city, for example, there are various gangs of toughs who prowl about the town committing all sorts of depredations and making themselves generally feared. Even the policemen are now and then held at bay by them, and woe to the drunken sailor with his wages in his pockets who falls into their hands. I have seldom found the city tramp in such company. He knows too well the dangers of such crowds, prefers what he calls the "cut-throat principle," or each man for himself. There is too much slavery for him among toughs of the gang order, and he cannot move around as freely as he likes. Then, too, gangs are every now and then fighting one another, and that is usually harder work than the beggar cares for.

One of the most interesting things in the study of tramps is to get at their own opinions of themselves. To a certain degree they may be called rational beings. There is opinion and method and reason in trampdom,--no doubt of it,--and there are shades of opinion that correspond to varieties of method. The tramp of the prairies, the "fawny man" in New England, the city tramp in the Bowery, each has his point of view. If one catechizes or interviews the last named of these, he says:

"I'm a beggar, and I know it. I know, too, that most people look upon me as a bad sort of fellow. They want to catch and punish me, and I don't want them to do it. They are warring against me, and I'm warring against them. They think that I don't know how I should use my life, and I think that I do. Somebody must be mistaken; I think that they are, and I'm doing my best to beat them. If they beat me, well and good; and if I beat them, well and good."

This is the talk of the real artist in low life; he is in the vagabond world because it pleases him better than any other. A little different is the point of view of the drunkard beggar:

"I'm a fool, and I know it. No man with any sense and honor would live as I do. But the worst of it all is, I can't live otherwise. Liquor won't leave me alone, and as I've got to live somehow, why, I might as well live where I can take care of myself. If people are fools enough to let me swindle them, so much the worse for them and so much the better for me."

To change such opinions as these is a hard task. The first can be corrected only when the man who owns it is discouraged. When his spirit is broken he can be helped, but not until then. The second is the result of long suffering through pa.s.sion. Until that pa.s.sion is conquered nothing can be done.

VI

WHAT THE TRAMP EATS AND WEARS

I

The tramp is the hungriest fellow in the world. No matter who he is,--_Chausseegrabentapezirer_, moocher, or hobo,--his appet.i.te is invariably ravenous. How he comes by that quality of his defects is an open question even in his own mind. Sometimes he accounts for it on the ground that he is continually changing climate, and then again attributes it to his incessant loafing. A tramp once said to me: "Cigarette, it ain't work that makes blokes hungry; it's b.u.mmin'!" I think there is some truth in this, for I know from personal experience that no work has ever made me so hungry as simple idling; and while on the road I also had a larger capacity for food than I have usually. Even riding on a freight-train for a morning used to make me hungry enough to eat two dinners, and yet there was almost no work about it. And I feel safe in saying that the tramp can usually eat nearly twice as much as the laboring-man of ordinary appet.i.te.

Now, what does he find to satisfy this rapacious craving? There are two famous diets in vagabondage, called the "hot" and the "cold." Each one has its advocates and propagandists. The hot is befriended mainly by the persevering and energetic; the cold belongs exclusively to the lazy and unsuccessful. The first is remarkable for what its champions call "set-downs," that is to say, good solid meals three times a day--or oftener. The second consists almost entirely of "hand-outs" or "poke-outs," which are nothing but bundles of cold food handed out at the back door.

Every man on the road takes sides, one way or the other, in regard to these two systems of feeding, and his standing in the brotherhood is regulated by his choice. If he joins the set-downers he is considered at least a true hobo, and although he may have enemies, they will not dare to speak ill of his gift for begging. If, on the other hand, he contents himself with hand-outs, he not only loses all prestige among the genuine hoboes, but is continually in danger of tumbling down into the very lowest grades of tramp life. There is no middle course for him to follow.

II

Success in vagabondage depends largely on distinct and indispensable traits of character--diligence, patience, nerve, and politeness. If a tramp lacks any one of these qualities he is handicapped, and his chosen life will go hard with him. He needs diligence in order to keep his winnings up to a certain standard; he needs patience to help him through districts where charity is below par; he needs nerve to give him reputation among his cronies, and he needs politeness to win his way with strangers and to draw their sympathy and help. If he possesses these characteristics, no matter what his nationality may be, he will succeed. If not, he would better work than tramp--he will find it much easier and twice as profitable. The poke-out beggar is deficient in every one of these qualities, and his winnings demonstrate it.

I made his acquaintance first about ten years ago. I had just begun my life on the road, and as I knew but very little about tramping and nothing about begging, it was only natural that I should fall in with him, for he is the first person one meets in the vagabond world. The successful beggars do not show themselves immediately, and the newcomer must first give some valid evidence of his right to live among them before they take him in--a custom, by the way, which shows that tramping is much like other professions. But the poke-out tramp is not so fastidious; he chums with any one he can, successful or not; and as I had to a.s.sociate with somebody, I began with him. After a while I was graduated out of his rank, and received into the set-down cla.s.s, but only after a hard and severe training, which I would not go through again--even for the sake of Sociology.

III