Iowa is usually liked very much by roadsters, but its temperance principles used to be thoroughly hated, as were also those of Kansas. It is needless to say, however, that in the river towns a tramp could usually have all the liquor he could stand. I was in Burlington once when there was a Grand Army celebration, which the tramps were attending (!) in full force; and the amount of "booze" that flowed was something astounding for a "dry" State. Nearly every vagrant that I met had a bottle, and when I asked where it came from, I was directed to an open saloon! A great fad in Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas is to beg from the hotels. I have received hospitality in these places when I could get absolutely nothing at the private houses. This is especially true when the cook is a negro. He will almost always give a beggar a "set-down" (square meal), and sometimes he will include a bundle of food "for the journey." Still another fad when I knew the country was to call at the penitentiaries for clothes. I saw a man go into the Fort Madison "pen" (Iowa) one day with clothes not only tattered and torn, but infested with vermin. When he returned, I hardly knew him, he was so well dressed. Stillwater Penitentiary in Minnesota also had a notoriety for benevolence of this sort, but I cannot affirm this by personal observation.
Wisconsin, although not exactly unfriendly to tramps, is nevertheless a "poor" State, because it has no very large city and is peopled largely by New-Englanders. Milwaukee is perhaps the best place for a beggar. The Germans will give him all the beer he wants, and feed him well besides, for they are the most unwisely generous people in this country. Where they have a settlement, a tramp can thrive almost beyond description. For instance, in Milwaukee, as in other Wisconsin towns, he can batter for breakfast successfully from six o'clock until eleven o'clock in the morning, and is everywhere sure of a cup of coffee. I once attempted in Milwaukee to see just how many dinners I could get inside the ordinary dinner-time, and after an hour and a half I returned to the hang-out with three bundles of food, besides three dinners which had already been disposed of. I could have continued my dining indefinitely, had my capacity continued.
San Francisco and Denver are the main dependence of tramps in the West. If one meets a westward-bound beggar beyond the Mississippi, he may usually infer that the man is on his way to Denver; and if he is found on the other side of that city, and still westward bound, his destination is almost sure to be "'Frisco," or at least Salt Lake City, which is also a popular hang-out. Denver has a rather difficult task to perform, for the city is really a junction from which tramps start on their travels in various directions, and consequently the people have more than their share of beggars to feed. I have met in the city, at one time, as many as one hundred and fifty bona-fide tramps, and every one had been in the town for over a week. The people, however, do not seem to feel the burden of this riffraff addition to the population; at any rate, they befriend it most kindly. They seem especially willing to give money. I once knew a kid who averaged in Denver nearly three dollars a day for almost a week, by standing in front of shops and "battering" the ladies as they passed in and out. He was a handsome child, and this, of course, must be taken into consideration, for his success was phenomenal.
"'Frisco" is even better than Denver, furnishing districts in which tramps can thrive and remain for a longer time unmolested. There are more low lodging-houses, saloons, and dives; and there is also here a large native class whose character is not much higher than that of the tramp himself, so that he is lost among them—often to his own advantage. This difficulty of identification is a help to roadsters, for there is nothing that pleases and helps them so much as to be considered "town bums," the latter being allowed privileges which are denied to strangers.
In the estimation of the tramp the West does not rank with the East. The railroads are not so "good"; there are fewer cities; even the towns are too far apart; in some districts the people are too poor; and taking the country as a whole, the inhabitants are by no means so generous. I doubt whether the average gains of Western beggars amount to more than twenty-five cents a day. In "'Frisco" and Denver, as well as in a few other large towns, begging is of course much more remunerative, but in the rural parts the average wage of a beggar is even below twenty cents a day, besides food; at least, this is the result of my observation. In general the Western tramp is rough, often kind-hearted, wild and reckless; he always has his razor with him, and will "cut" whenever there is provocation. The blanket-stiff is perhaps the least violent of all; his long walking-tours seem to quiet his passion somewhat, and overcome his naturally wild tendencies. The ex-prushun is exactly the opposite, and I know of no roadster so cruel and mean to the weak as this young fellow, who is, after all, only a graduated kid. This is not so surprising, however, when one recollects that for years he has been subject to the whims and passions of various "jockers," or protectors, and naturally enough, when released from his bondage, he is only too likely to wreak his pent-up feelings on the nearest victim. After a year or two of Western life he either subsides and returns to the East, or becomes more intimately connected with the true criminal class, and attempts to do "crooked work." Several of the most notorious and successful thieves have been ex-prushuns.
Just how many tramps there are in the West it is even more difficult to decide than in the East, because they are scattered over such wide territory. Experience makes me believe, however, that there are fully half as many voluntary idlers in this part of the country as in the East. And the great majority of them, I fear, are even more irreclaimable than their comrades in other communities. They laugh at law, sneer at morality, and give free rein to appetite. Because of this many of them never reach middle age.
THE SOUTH
Tramp life here has its own peculiarities. There are white loafers known as "hoboes," which is the general technical term among white tramps everywhere, and there are the "shinies," who are negroes. The odd part of it all is that these two classes hardly know each other; not that they hate each other or have any color-line, but simply that they apparently cannot associate together with profit. The hobo seems to do better when traveling only with hoboes, and the shiny lives much more comfortably in his own clan. My explanation of this fact is this: both parties have learned by experience that alms are much more generously given to a white man when alone than when in company with a negro. This, of course, does not apply anywhere but in the South, for a colored tramp is just as well treated in the East and West as a white one.
My knowledge of the shinies is very meager, for I was compelled to travel as a hobo when studying vagrancy in the South, and I have never met a member of that class who knew very much about his negro confrères. From all that I can gather, however, I think that they resemble very closely the gay-cats, for they do work now and then, although their being on the road is usually quite voluntary, unless their natural laziness can be considered as a force impelling them into trampdom. Their dialect is as different from the usual tramp lingo as black from white, and I have never been able to master its orthography.
As the South in the main is only skimmed over by most white tramps, and as a few cities represent the true strongholds of vagrancy, it is unnecessary to give any detailed account of this region. Besides, it is only in winter that many tramps, excepting, of course, the shinies, are found here, and consequently there is not very much to describe, for they go into this part of the country principally to "rest up" and shun the cold weather prevalent in other districts. The chief destinations of wandering beggars in the South are New Orleans, St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and Atlanta. Several towns in Texas are also popular "resting-places," but usually the tramps in Texas have begged their money in other States, and are there principally for "a great slopping-up," for which dissipation Texas furnishes much more suitable accommodations than any other State in the Union. The usual time for Eastern and Western tramps to start South is in October. During this month large squads of vagabonds will be found traveling toward "Orleans." I once was on an Illinois Central freight-train when seventy-three tramps were fellow-passengers, and nearly every one was bound for either Florida or Louisiana. These two States may almost be called the South so far as hoboes are concerned. New Orleans is especially a tramp-nest, and ranks second to New York in hospitality, according to my experience. In the older part of the town one can find beggars of almost every nationality, and its low dives are often supported by the visiting knights of the road. Begging, as they do, very fair sums of money, and being only too willing to spend it quickly, they afford these innkeepers of the baser sort very fair rewards for keeping up their miserable "hotels." A well-trained beggar can very often average a dollar a day in New Orleans if he begs diligently. But he must be careful not to be arrested, for the jails in the South are man-killing holes in many and many an instance. Even in the East and West several of the county prisons are bad enough, but they cannot compare in filth to some of the miserable cells of the South.