Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/269

Rh as the temperance advocates would have us suppose. One time when we were traveling by freight two of the lads brought on a bottle of whisky, and one of them offered it to several of us successively. Nobody would drink with him and he became abusive. The boys took his bottle away from him and threw it overboard, and compelled him to sit quiet until he fell asleep. But, on the other hand, their private morals are abominable. They seem to have no idea of personal purity whatever. I knew of one instance of a woman tramp who was supported by several male tramps with whom she traveled.

If you ask a tramp where he is going, he will probably answer vaguely, "Oh, down South, I guess," or "Out West," or some other equally indefinite place. If you urge him still further he may mention some State, but that will be as much as he can tell. They are like Wandering Jews, traveling because they can not stop. I saw only one place where any large number of tramps make a point of meeting, and that is the fruit region around St. Joseph. We picked berries there for a while during the season. Tramps swarmed there, together with large numbers of working people from Chicago and a number of ignorant foreign women from nobody knows where. They picked for two and a half cents a quart and boarded themselves—that is, slept on the ground and boiled stolen potatoes in a tomato can. At the little village of Stevensville, the center of the district, dance booths were erected, beer sold at three cents, and each night was made hideous by the squeaking of the fiddles and the drunken songs of the dancers. Finally, a murder occurred, and in desperation the farmers drove the whole gang away with shotguns. I learned from those who had been there that in the hop fields of New York and Wisconsin similar scenes occur. Many go direct from the berries to the hops.

(b) The roadster proper is distinguished from the tramp by having a "graft," or in other terms a visible means of support. The graft consists of any method at all to gain money aside from begging or chance jobs. For instance, our tidy-holders were "an out-of-sight good graft." We found one tramp who sold a kind of soap made by himself, which he guaranteed to take out any spot whatever. It really did so, but the spot was pretty sure to reappear the next day. I knew another who sold soap which looked like Castile. A week after it was bought it dried up into half its original size and became absolutely worthless. Another had made a sore on his arm with acid, and begged by showing this sore and telling some pitiful tale. As for such means of exciting sympathy their name is legion.

I found that there are several firms throughout the country who make it a business to supply grafts to tramps. For example, there are publishing houses where the professional beggar may