Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/270

256 obtain printed cards which will be of great assistance to him. The one-legged man will find a selection of most heart-rending poetry under titles such as The Woodman's Lament or The Railroad Boy's Appeal. The lame, the halt, and the blind are all provided with cards at so much per hundred. Another firm will make a specialty of so-called high-class novelties, and will issue a Mammoth Catalogue, probably advertised with a picture of a cat. Here you will find listed pewter spoons at twenty-five cents per dozen, tied with pink ribbon in half-dozen lots, and each spoon labeled sterling silver and done up separately in white tissue paper. Spectacles may be bought for two dollars and a quarter per dozen for the man who "just found a pair of gold-bowed spectacles down the road, and if they fit you, you may have them for two dollars, as I have no use for them." Not all grafts, however, are dishonest. The sale of pencils, paper, and in fact any article sold by tramps, would come under this definition.

There is also a large number of persons in this class whose employment is not at first sight apparent. Professional gamblers and book-makers are obliged by the nature of their employment to be on the move constantly. When in luck they spend their money lavishly, yet in case of pinch they take to the freight without a grumble. We traveled quite a distance with two such characters. They were dressed in immaculate linen, tailor-made suits, and derbies, and looked entirely out of place. In this class there belong a number of people who are not tramps in any sense of the word. The chronic book agent is an example. They follow the occupation because they have something in their character which will not allow them to remain quiet. Most women on the road might be classed among these—indeed, permanent canvassers are more often women than men.

The women on the road seem to be much more irreclaimable than the men. They have less true politeness, less sense of honor, and if dishonest are much more subtle. In a religious community they are invariably religious, and have uniformly been abandoned by their husbands and have six children dependent on their efforts. Male agents, as a rule, will be fair with each other and have a strong esprit de corps, but for the female agent everything is fish that comes into her net.

There are several trades whose members seem condemned to be perpetually on the road. Printers and hotel cooks are a case to the point. We traveled with a hotel cook for a couple of weeks who is a good example of his class. He had at different times been a brakeman, a school teacher, an expert accountant, a bookkeeper, a sailor, an agent, a basket-maker, and a cook. If necessity demanded, he could be anything else on short notice, as we soon found out. It seemed impossible for him to settle down. When