LOCAL VAGABONDISTI,
who remain year in and year out in our midst; and it is of these miserables who have made Toronto their field of action, or rather inaction, that I wish particularly to speak. Go down, let us say, to the Market square, any day during the winter, or in the months of navigation to the Esplanade. Hovering around the doors of the omnipresent “saloon” they lounge, a motley crowd. Occasionally, if the weather is not too rainy or cold, they may be seen posing on the lee side of a corner house, smoking clay pipes of unknown age, or chewing black strap in meditative mood. But the grog shop is always their objective point, and they seldom go far from its beery borders. Occasionally they invest the barroom to thaw themselves out in cold weather, and with a faint hope that someone will “set ’em up,” but they seldom stay long, for they know they are not wanted by the proprietor, who hesitates not to make them aware of the fact, and the seeker after spiritual comfort, after taking a long last, lingering look at the array of bottles, secures his overcoat upon him with its solitary button, and goes forth again into the cheerless streets.
These unfortunates eke out a miserable existence in the winter time by transferring dark diamonds from the carts to the household coal bins, shoveling snow and doing odd jobs of all sorts, by which they manage to get hold of a quarter or so, and on receipt of the same betake themselves to a grog shop, taking care to choose one where a layout of pulpy and scoriac liver, yellow ochre-like mustard, and stale bread form the menu of the free lunch. How on earth they manage to exist at all during the long winter would be a deep and perplexing mystery, were it not from the knowledge of the fact that there is such a place as “Castle Green” on the banks of the Don, where a great many of them pass the happy hours away under sentences from “the colonel.” In fact, too many of them. The jail is simply a harbor of refuge, to which they, by getting drunk or disorderly, can easily find their way, for notwithstanding the fact that these poor wretches have little comfort or enjoyment to look forward to in their hard journey of life, they prefer the cell and jail corridor, “skilly” and bread and water, and loss of liberty as well, to being half starved and in danger of freezing to death to the dignity of a few citizen.
Summer is the most propitious season for the bummer. When spring comes in earnest and navigation commences he changes venue from the inhospitable market square and its surroundings, and seeks the busy Esplanade with its outlying wharves where he, although not belonging to any organized stevedores gang, picks up a good many jobs in helping to load and unload vessels of all kinds, when he may be said to revel in comparative wealth, though his outward man is, as to dress, unchanged, for he, like many other philosophers, treats with scorn the vanity of dress.
CHAPTER XVII.
A VAG BY CHOICE.
A good many of these unappointed attaches of the stevedores have once been sailors and still have a hankering for the water side. A few days ago I met a good specimen of this class, who, although dressed in a dilapidated suit of “hodden gray,” had the unmistakeable look of the sailor about him which needed not the “foul anchor” tattooed on the back of his right hand, nor the mermaid and other devices on his arms to confirm. I managed after a time to get into conversation with him, but the man seemed reticent, not to say surly. When I asked him if he had ever been to sea he replied, “Go to blazes and find out.” I then told him that I meant no impertinence or harm by the question. I told him that I had a son now at sea, and consequently I took an interest in everything in the maritime line. To keep up the unities I took a plug of tobacco with which I had supplied myself with a view to just such an emergency, and offered the ancient mariner a chew, which he accepted and began to look a little more pleasant, and showed some signs of loquacity. I then proposed that we should go and have a glass of grog, a proposition which appeared to strike him as being correct. So we went to a water-side tavern sitting room where we each took what seamen call a throat season. I then suggested that we should have a smoke, to which the ex-mariner agreed, and another “throat season,” which proposal also met his views. By this time my quondam friend began to wax merry, and went so far as to volunteer to sing a favorite song of his entitled “The Cumberland’s Crew,” a lyric based on the sinking of the United States war ship Cumberland by the improvised Confederate ironclad Merrimac at Hampton Roads during the Yankee “rebellion.” I told him that, glad as I would be to listen to the heroic verse, yet it being rather early in the day to burst into song, I would much prefer to hear him tell me some of his doubtless many adventures that he had met with at sea. My ancient mariner at this stage of the seance began to get lachrymose, even unto the verge of tears.
“I don’t like to speak or think of my past life,” said he, “but if I tell you anything I may as well tell you all.”
“Do so,” said I. “I know it will be interesting,” so I ordered some more grog and sat down again comfortably to listen to the story of the sailor tramp.
My partner drank his grog, laid down his pipe, took a huge chew of tobacco, and commenced his yarn. “I am neither a sailor or a sojer now. I am