VII
What the hot-diet tramp wears is another matter, but a not vastly different one. His ambition, although he does not always achieve it, is to have new togs quite as regularly as the man who buys them with hard cash. He also tries to keep up with the fashions and the seasons as closely as possible.
But all this must naturally be regulated by the charity of the community in which he happens to be. If he is near a college, and knows how to beg of the students, he can usually find just what and about all he needs; but if he is in a country district where clothes are worn down to the thread, he is in a hard case. As a rule, however, he dresses nearly as well as the day-laborer, and sometimes far better. There are tramps of this type in New York and Chicago whose dress is almost identical with that of the majority of the men one meets in the streets, and to distinguish them from the crowd requires an eye able to read their faces rather than their coats. Such men never allow their clothes to wear beyond a certain point before begging a fresh supply. And if they are careful, and do not ride in freight-trains often, a suit will last them several months, for they understand remarkably well how to take care of it. Every tramp of this order and grade carries a brush inside of his coat pocket, and uses it on the slightest provocation. On the road I also acquired this habit of brushing my clothes as often as they showed the slightest soil. It is a trick of the trade, and saves not only the clothes, but the self-respect of the brotherhood.
Dark clothes are the most popular, because they keep clean, or at least appear clean, for a longer time. I once wore a suit of this kind for nearly three months, and although I used it rather roughly, it was so good at the end of that time that I traded it to a tramp for a coat and vest almost new. The way to make sure of having a serviceable suit is to gather together several coats, vests, and trousers, and pick out a complement from the best and most suitable of the lot.
A WESTERN ROADSTER.
I shall not forget an experience of this sort I had in a Western town. I had worked all day with my companion looking simply for clothes, and at night we had six coats, eight vests, four pairs of trousers, and two overcoats. Out of this collection we chose two fairly good suits, but the rest were so poor that we had to throw them away. One of the coats was a clergyman's, and when he gave it to me he said: "It may not fit you very well, but you can use it as an overcoat, perhaps." It was even then too large for me, and I gave it to the tramp, who wore it for nearly a month. His pals laughed at him and called him "Parson Jim"; but he made more money with that coat than he could possibly have made in any other. He posed as a theological student among the farmers, and was most royally entertained. But his luck gave out in a short time, for he went to prison in his clerical habit not long after.
Hoboes take most delight in what is called the sack-coat. "Tailed jackets" are inconvenient, especially when one is riding on the trucks of a train; the skirts are liable to catch on something and thus delay matters. It is the inside of a tramp s coat, however, that is most interesting. It is usually furnished with numerous pockets, one of them being called the "poke-out pocket," in which he stows away his lunches. The others are used for brushes, tattooing-tools, combs, white rags, string, and other little notions that may "come handy" to a traveler. But in none of the pockets will there ever be found one bit of paper which might identify the bearer or implicate him in any suspicious work. He is too "foxy" to ever allow his real name to crop out in any telltale evidence on his person, except, perhaps, when he may have been foolish enough to have it tattooed somewhere on his body.
He is proudest of his hat and shoes, and with reason. The former is usually a soft black felt, but stiff hats are also Ă la mode, and I have even seen a "stove-pipe" on the road. It was unique, however, and the owner did a good business with it; his "clients" used to feed him simply on account of his oddity. The foot-gear consists generally of laced shoes, but boots have to be accepted now and then. Socks, although much in vogue, often yield to white-linen rags wound smoothly around the feet. This is particularly true among the tramps of Germany. They take long walks, and contend that socks chafe the feet too much. There is truth in this, and while I lived with them I followed their custom to the extent of wearing the rags next to my feet and then drawing the socks over them. And I was very little troubled with sore feet while I did so; but for the one week when I tried to go without the rags I suffered considerably.
Overcoats are worn by the hoboes who go South in winter, but tramps who spend the cold months in jail do not need them, and if they beg any, usually sell them. Underclothes in some form or other are worn all the time, not so much for warmth as for cleanliness. Even the cleanest hoboes cannot keep entirely free of vermin, and they wear underclothes to protect their outer garments, changing the former as often as they can, and throwing away or burning the discarded pieces. The tramp's shirt is always of flannel, if he can find it, and very often he wears two, either for the sake of trade or to keep warm. Other garments are doubled also, and one finds men wearing two coats, two vests, and two pairs of trousers. It is by no means uncommon to see a tramp who wears linen and cotton shirts with two or three layers on his back. As one becomes soiled he throws it away, and so on till the three are discarded.
There is one more indispensable article of a tramp's toilet, and it is called the "shaver." This is a razor incased in a little sack, generally leather, which he hangs around his neck with a string. It is used for fighting and shaving, and is very good as a "guy" for getting him into jail. I saw how this was done one day in western Pennsylvania. The time was late October, and three tramps who came into town decided that the local jail would be a good place in which to spend the winter. They wanted a ninety-day sentence, and knew they could not get it for simple drunkenness; so they decided to pretend drunk and make a row in order to be sentenced on two charges. They began their brawl in the main street, and flourished their razors in good style. The officers arrested them after a little fight made for appearance' sake, and the judge gave them four months—thirty days more than they expected. Their razors were confiscated, too, but they got others the minute they were released. It sometimes happens, however, that the shavers are not discovered, because the men are not properly searched, and, owing to this lack of careful inspection by officials, rows in jails have often ended seriously.