OTHER TYPES OF HOMELESS MEN
Many of the terms which are epithets picturesquely describe special types of homeless men. The popular names for the various types of tramps and hobos are current terms that have been picked up on the street as they pass from mouth to mouth. Some of them are new, others are old, while all of them are in flux. Names of types are coined by the men themselves. They serve a while and then pass out, giving place to new and more catchy terms. Change is characteristic of tramp terminology and tramp jargon. Words assume a different meaning as they are extensively used, or they become too general in their use and newer terms are invented. Many of the names by which types are designated were at first terms of derision, but terms seem to lose their stigma by continued use.[29]
Among tramps who seldom if ever work are those who peddle some kind of wares or sell some kind of service.
The Mushfaker is a man who sells his services. He may be a tinker, a glazier, an umbrella mender, or he may repair sewing machines or typewriters. Some mushfakers even pose as piano tuners. The mushfaker usually follows some occupation which permits him to sit in the shade while he works. Often the trade or art he plies is one that he has learned in a penal institution.
The Scissor Bill is a man who carries with him tools to sharpen saws, knives, razors, etc. Often he pushes a grindstone along the street.
Beggars among tramps are usually named with reference to the methods they employ.
The following classification is taken from a narrative work by “A No. 1, The Famous Tramp,” who claims to have traveled 500,000 miles for $7.61. His books are more or less sensational and are not popular among many tramps, because they say the incidents he relates are overdrawn.[30]
The Rating of the Tramps by “A No. 1”
The beggar is one who stands in one place. He supplicates help by appealing to the pity of the passers-by. The moocher is an individual who is somewhat more mobile than the beggar. He moves about, going to the houses and asking for food, clothing, and even money, if he can get it. The panhandler is a beggar of a more courageous type. He hails men on the street and asks for money. He does not fawn nor whine nor strive to arouse pity. Dr. Reitman says: “The only difference between a moocher and a panhandler is that the moocher goes to the back door while the panhandler goes to the front door.”
The beggar types may also be divided into the able-bodied and the non-able-bodied. The non-able-bodied beggars are more numerous in the cities. They are forced, because of their handicaps, to remain where the greatest number of people are. Some handicapped beggars, however, are able to travel with marvelous speed over the country. These non-able-bodied types go by different names according to their afflictions.
Peggy is a one-legged man. Stumpy is a legless man. Wingy is a man with one or both arms off. Blinky is a man with one or both eyes defected. A Dummy is a man who is dumb or deaf and dumb. Some of these types do not beg. They make a livelihood by peddling or working at odd jobs. A Nut is a man who is apparently mentally deranged.
The Hop Head is an interesting type. He is usually in a pitiful condition, for he has small chance, living as he does, in the tramp class, to get money to buy “dope.” Frequently he resorts to clever and even desperate means to secure it. One type of dope fiend is the Junkie. He uses a “gun” or needle to inject morphine or heroin. A Sniffer is one who sniffs cocaine. More frequent than the drug habit is the drink habit.
The tramp class has different types of predatory individuals and petty or even major offenders:
The Gun is a man who might be termed a first-class crook. He is usually a man who is living in the tramp class to avoid apprehension. He may be a robber or a burglar.
The Jack Roller is a tramp who robs a fellow-tramp while he is drunk or asleep. There is a type of “Jack” who operates among the men going to and from the harvests. He may hold them up in a box car with a gun or in some dark alley. He is usually called a Hi-Jack.
Among other types of tramps are:
The Mission Stiff who preys upon the missions. He will often submit to being converted for his bed and board.
The Grafter is frequently a man who is able to exploit the private and public charity organizations, or the fraternal organizations.
The Bad Actor is a man who has become a nuisance to his people and they pay him money provided he does not show himself in his home town.
The Jungle Buzzard is a tramp who lives in the jungles from what he can beg. He will wash the pots and kettles for the privilege of eating what is left in them.
From the point of view of abnormal sex relations there are several types of tramps:
A Punk is a boy who travels about the country with a man known as a jocker.
A jocker is a man who exploits boys; that is, he either exploits their sex or he has them steal or beg for him or both. The term “wolf” is often used synonymously with jocker.
Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit.
From the economic standpoint, migratory workers are employables and unemployables. Between the extremes there are individuals of every shade of employability. The ability of a man to support himself is presumed to be related to his ability and to his opportunity to work. The tramp problem has been interpreted first of all as an unemployment problem, but this does not take account of the unemployables.
First of all, there are the physically handicapped, the crippled, the blind, the deaf, and the aged, and many who are too fat or too puny or too sickly to do heavy manual work. Perhaps a half of the whole group in a city like Chicago are physically handicapped to a greater or less extent.
Second, the psychopathic types include many irresponsible and undependable persons found in the population of Hobohemia. These either cannot hold a job, or do not care to; they have other ideals. They could, no doubt, do some sort of work but most of them would have to be supervised.
To what degree homeless men are employable, to what degree some of them are partially employable, and to what extent the whole group is unemployable is a question that cannot be finally answered.[31]
The problem of the homeless men is variously interpreted. The courts and the police are interested in them as offenders. As offenders, they are generally recidivists; to the social worker and the missionary they represent a body of men who have no purpose or direction.
One mission worker says:
A few of them can hold their own. They manage to work most of the time and pay their way, but most of them are “broke” some of the time and some of them are without money all the time. They are always making resolutions and never keeping them. They don’t seem to have any stiffening in their backbone.
However we may classify this group, the fact remains that we have here a great body of persons, probably more than a million in the United States,[32] and that they furnish a problem that seems to be ever present. It is, as we shall see later, a great heterogeneous group, unorganized and incapable of being organized. They have been gathered from every walk of life and for a thousand different reasons find themselves in this class. There are restless and normal boys and young men who are out in the world for adventure and whose stay in the class is more or less temporary; there are able-bodied men of more mature age who are either wholly self-supporting or are self-supporting most of the time; and there are old men who are too aged and infirm to work and too proud to surrender themselves to an institution. There are the physically incapacitated and the mentally inadequate who are more or less dependent and are likely to continue so, and there are many types of persons who are the victims of lingering diseases or who are addicted to drink or drugs and are not able to hold their own. All these are making the best struggle that their wits, their strength, and their opportunities permit to get a living. Some of them are in the group by choice and have their minds clearly made up to climb out, others hope to get out and strive to but never will, and yet others never have any such visions.